“Bad news,” Sprite said to John as he approached the nearly filled grave, snapping John from his happy place.
“She didn’t make it?” John asked.
“She’s actually hanging tough for now,” Sprite said. “The problem is… complicated.”
“I’m all ears,” John said, leaning on his makeshift shovel.
“Well, as you probably saw, we offered to bring her along with us once she kind of stabilized.”
“Not ideal, but I can’t imagine leaving her behind, either,” John nodded.
“Well, so then she started listing off some of the things that we should transfer from her car to the truck,” Sprite hesitated. “Most of it’s in the trunk.”
“I don’t follow,” John said. “Where’s the problem?”
“Well, we’ll need the key to get in.”
“And you’re telling me the key is at the bottom of this hole…” John said looking down at his nearly completed project.
“Don’t most cars like that have a back seat that folds down and exposes the trunk?” Brooke asked.
“Yeah, we checked that,” Sprite nodded. “No dice.”
It took a lot more work to empty the hole than it’d taken to fill, but with Sprite’s help the job was done in a reasonable amount of time. As they neared the man’s body though, the dirt began to shift and rise as if on its own. It quickly became clear that the man had reanimated after being buried.
“Don’t let her see this,” John whispered to Sprite.
After Brooke had escorted Hillary from the immediate area and Sprite assisted in distracting the man’s wife, John disposed of the thing with his shovel. After several nervous moments, he emerged from the hole with keys in hand.
“I hate to ask you this, miss, but had your husband been bitten?” John asked.
“No, I’m sure that he wasn’t,” she responded after Sprite had given her a sip of water. “Why do you ask?”
A gun’s report echoed out through the forest. The desperate man who had earlier shot the old couple was now blindly firing shots in their direction as he re-emerged from the woods and sprinted toward their now unoccupied truck.
The men instinctively did their best to shield Brooke and Hillary as they all took cover behind the front of the old couple’s car. Re-emerging from cover, John stepped out and gently dragged the blanket that the wife still lay on and brought her into safety next to them. Moto began returning fire as the young man climbed up into the truck and brought the engine to life. The crazed man accelerated the massive truck straight toward the car as Moto continued to unload round after round into the windshield. Everyone but Moto fled from behind the car and in a panic, sprinted toward the cover of the nearby brush. The truck’s driver reacted by swerving toward them in an apparent attempt to run them down as he fled.
Moto surprised himself with a lucky shot into the truck’s front left tire at just the perfect instant when the man had cut the steering wheel hard to the right. The truck’s bare wheel shrieked as it dug into the soft asphalt, causing the truck to careen down the highway, tumbling violently and slinging plastic, glass, and sparks across a large area between the incapacitated old woman and those who’d fled. The truck’s momentum carried it forward for a considerable distance as it flipped. Its back end narrowly missed Sprite who had slowed to pick up Hillary after she’d escaped Brooke’s grasp. Seeing that everyone was unharmed but for the old woman who now lay motionless in a pool of blood beside the car, Moto calmly walked over to the wild-eyed man as he crawled out from the mangled wreckage. The man was bleeding badly but appeared to have miraculously avoided mortal injury. He groaned as he dug his forearms into the shattered glass in an attempt to crawl out through the truck’s now narrow window. As Moto reached him and aimed the pistol at the man’s head, the young man tugged at the loose seatbelt that restrained him by the armpit and pleaded between gasps for air.
“Wait, wait, wait,” the man said, holding up his free arm.
Without theatrics, Moto coldly squeezed the trigger.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Conjecture and speculation followed between the men after the excitement had passed, mostly with guesses as to why the old man had reanimated. The discussion grew even more heated after a more thorough examination from John revealed no visible bites or similar injuries of any kind.
“Maybe he got some infected blood in his mouth or eye or something,” Sprite said.
“That’s possible, I guess.” John nodded as he continued to examine the body. “But Moto and I have seen this before. I’m starting to think it’s more the rule than the exception. Not saying I can explain it any further than that, but we’re going to have to be cautious of the recently or soon-to-be deceased.”
John realized that the girls were back within earshot and Hillary’s face indicated that she’d heard some of what was being said. He quickly steered the conversation to a tamer subject.
“Well, I guess we’d better go ahead and transfer what we can of our stuff from the truck over to their car,” John said as he surveyed the wreckage.
“I don’t know if that’s gonna do much good, unfortunately,” Sprite sighed.
John thought to himself that surely there would still be plenty of canned goods and clean water that would’ve survived the violent crash. He understood Sprite’s meaning, though, when he turned and saw the fluids leaking from the car’s engine. Several bullet holes littered the car’s radiator and the front quarter panel where the group had taken cover. Two of the car’s tires had also been destroyed.
John let out a long exhale, but did his best to hide his frustration. “Well, I guess we just grab what we can carry. But we have to be quick. We need to get off this road.”
“Agreed,” Sprite said while walking toward the mangled truck. “All that gunfire isn’t going to attract anyone here that’s worth waiting around to meet.”
As they approached the truck, though, the old woman’s discolored body let out a rattling groan and began to squirm and reach for Sprite as he passed.
“Ho, shit!” Sprite exclaimed as he jumped back. Though visibly relieved, it was obvious that he felt awful upon realizing that the woman was not a zombie but was somehow still clinging to life.
“Don’t let me end up like one of them,” she groaned. “Just shoot me. Please!”
Moto surfaced quickly with pistol in hand, and murmured softly to the woman before standing, and pulling the trigger. Instead of an echoing, merciful blast, though, there was only an agonizing click. The woman clenched her eyes shut and tears trickled down her cheeks. Moto turned the pistol to view it from the side, and saw that the slide was held back indicating that the ammunition had been depleted.
“Someone bring me another mag!” Moto yelled.
The group exchanged glances to see who might be running to his aid, but after a significant pause, still no one had moved. Finally, Sprite spotted a few spare rounds lying near the truck’s wreckage, and brought them to Moto. As Moto fumbled to load a round into his magazine, the woman was finally granted mercy and breathed her last rasping breath. After several disgruntled whispers under his breath as he worked, Moto finally realized that the woman was already gone.
“Do I waste the bullet?” he asked.
“I don’t see the need to attract any more attention than we already have,” Sprite said.
“I wonder if she’ll reanimate too,” John whispered to Sprite. “She wasn’t bit was she?”
“Would you effing do it already!” Brooke screamed with tears in her eyes. “Don’t let that sweet woman become one of those things. What if it was your mother?” She stormed off to the truck and began dragging what she could from the inverted back seat.
They all flinched at the sound of the shot.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Everyone carried as much as they could handle of the items that were determined to be intact and most necessary for survival. The amount of things that were still going to be left behind was sickening to
see. Even though they didn’t intend to make a return trip, they decided it would be worth the time to disguise many of the goods which they were forced to abandon off among the trees near the highway. Sprite, being the strongest, was tasked with carrying much of the drinking water for the group. The others carried an assortment of items that they felt were important, including Hillary who filled her arms with a pair of dog food bags and the journal she refused to part with.
As they navigated down the narrow path deeper into the woods, Moto, John, and Sprite resumed their discussion about the occurrences of people reanimating despite not having been bitten. Brooke and Hillary lagged a short distance behind so that they could remain unseen, should the men walk up on some dangerous situation. They had started off with Sprite taking up the rear of the line in order to more securely protect the girls, but he’d eventually volunteered to take the over the machete duty. Moto and John’s effectiveness at clearing a path had deteriorated as the forest grew denser and the blade duller. Brooke didn’t mind being entrusted with holding down the rear of their formation or keeping a close eye on the ever tiring Hillary. She’d only wished that Sprite was still nearby after Hillary had grown too weary to carry both small bags of dog food any further; and as she was unwilling to call out for help, Brooke was forced to add the weight to her own already significant burden.
They were seeking out a safe place to bunk down for the night. Whether that would come in the form of a cabin, or a naturally defendable formation in the landscape had yet to be seen. As the sun’s descent seemed to visibly accelerate, the group hoped that any option other than sleeping under the stars would present itself soon.
“I need to potty,” Hillary said while tugging at Brooke’s weakening arm.
“No problem sweetie. Just step off the trail a little, and I’ll be right here by you.”
Hillary took a few steps away, and squatted behind a bush near the trail as the men continued on ahead.
“Everything ok?” Brooke asked after the men’s footsteps were no longer audible.
“I can’t go like this,” Hillary answered.
“You’re gonna have to learn to use the bathroom outside, sweetie. We don’t have any other option right now; I’m sorry.”
“It’s not just that,” Hillary started, eventually returning to the trail. “I’ve never been able to unless everything is just right.”
“How can I help make things better, sweetheart?” Brooke asked patiently. “We really need to catch up to the boys.”
“I don’t know,” Hillary started, “make it safe?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Moto whispered after the girls had jogged to catch up. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Brooke was appreciative that the men had been paying enough attention to stop and wait for the girls to return to a close proximity before continuing on down the path. Once they had caught back up, though, their lack of empathy toward a little girl who had just lost her entire family was triggering her.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Brooke shrugged. “She says that she’ll try her best if we do that for her. What else can we do? And Sprite, what on Earth happened to your face?”
“Ah, I had a couple thorn bushes get the better of me. I didn’t realize what they were in time,” Sprite said while tenderly touching at the gashes across his face.
“Remember how Pop Pop used to ask if we’d been sorting bobcats when we’d come home looking like that?” John asked Moto with a nudge.
“Oh, man, Pop Pop. I miss him,” Moto sighed. “Wait, that gives me an idea, let’s try scaring her!”
“That’s for hiccups, jackass,” John mumbled.
“Pop Pop had more success with the one I meant…” Moto murmured.
“It really does seem like a lot of trouble for nothing. Is it gonna have to be like this from now on?” John asked to no person in particular.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, guys,” Brooke said, glancing over her shoulder at Hillary scribbling in her journal a short distance away. “She said she’s never been able to pee unless her Dad was right there with her. She has to feel completely safe before she can go.”
“Okay, but we have to line up in a circle around her?” Sprite asked. “That’s just about the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Moto, Moto!” Hillary appeared tugging at his sleeve. “Look at this awesome tree I found!”
“Not now, kiddo; we’ll talk later,” he said without making eye contact.
“Look at her jumping around,” Moto continued to the adults. “She doesn’t even have to go that bad.”
“Yeah, I think she’ll find a way to go once her bladder’s full enough,” John said. “We just don’t have time for this. We don’t want to set that kind of precedent--that we’ll drop everything and give her what she wants if she just whines enough. She might not be used to tough love, but she’s gonna have to get used to it if we’re gonna survive out here.”
“She hasn’t gone in forever, guys,” Brooke said sternly, stomping her right foot for emphasis. “I don’t think it’s for attention. She just wants to know that she’s not going to get surrounded by zombies, or left behind. We could’ve already been back on our way if we would just stop talking about it and do it. Who cares if it doesn’t make any sense to you? It isn’t about you. This girl has been through enough without some tough guys trying to push tough love on her right now.”
Brooke walked over to Hillary, and by the time the two girls returned, the men were already forming a large circle with their backs turned, standing guard.
“What are the chances you guys could do this for me when I have to drop a deuce?” Moto asked. “I’d hate to get caught with my pants down.”
“Brother, you’re just gonna have to climb a tree or somethin’.” Sprite answered.
A short distance down the trail, all three men slowed their pace at the sight of a grassy clearing to the right and a small spring with clear, flowing water to their left. With dusk rapidly approaching, there was little discussion before they were all in agreement that this was going to have to be their campsite for the night. After an evaluation of the resources available to them and a brief brainstorming period, a plan was formulated. The tasks were divided fairly in order for each person to be placed into the field that they were most well-equipped for. The small clearing was quickly transformed into a construction zone that buzzed with activity well into dusk until something resembling a safe zone had taken shape.
John, with his experience in splitting firewood was tasked with cutting down tree after tree for lumber. Sprite helped assemble the logs and move other heavy objects to the places where they were needed--along with every other situation that arose calling for muscle. Moto set to work carving edges of the wood into shapes that would pigeon-tail tightly together. This allowed for making a sturdy, raised sleeping area without having to pound nails, and potentially attract zombies. Since they already had a decent amount of drinking water, all agreed that making a shelter that would allow them a restful night’s sleep comfortably out of reach of the insects and other critters, was priority over fire. When waiting on more logs, Moto also took to fashioning as many spears out of the smaller trees as he could for a makeshift barricade along the outer perimeter of their encampment. Brooke’s experiences braiding her sister’s hair during their late night talks paid dividends for interweaving vines and leaves into an almost impermeable roof for the shelter. Hillary was less than thrilled for her task of bringing water around to everyone as they worked. After it became apparent that Hillary’s relentless clamoring for a more respectable job wouldn’t end, Brooke finally dreamed up something to keep the girl occupied. Presented as the most important job of all, Brooke instructed Hillary to call out timber every time a tree was about to fall in order to warn every one of the danger. After one round of Hillary squealing at the top of her lungs, John had to intervene so that they weren’t alerting every zomb
ie in the county. Hillary attentively watched every swing of John’s axe, anxiously anticipating the moment the wood would start to shift. Several times, the dog would leap up from the bed it had made in a pile of leaves and sprint to Hillary after she’d yelled.
“I think his name’s Timber!” Hillary said after it had happened a few times.
“You might be right!” John said. “I think that’s a great name for a dog!”
Spirits remained high as productivity continued, and no unwelcomed interruptions wandered up from the forest despite all of their noise.
The only danger that came was when Moto lost focus while cutting away at a log, and sliced a deep gash into his finger. He didn’t expect the wound to be significant as it was only a finger, but the blood continued to pour out no matter what he tried. Once he’d bled through more than a few Band-Aids, he tore off some fabric for dressing, kept the wound elevated, and slowed his heart rate, but nothing worked.
“We should’ve brought super glue,” Moto sighed.
“I remember an old trick my Dad used to do for us,” Brooke said. “Did we bring the spices?”
“Um. I think maybe a couple are in that food box,” John said curiously.
“Oh awesome, here it is,” Brooke sat next to Moto. “Just hold still a sec.”
“Tony Chachere’s? Are you crazy?” Moto pulled away. “That’s gonna burn like hell!”
“No, it really doesn’t,” Brooke assured him. “Well, I don’t think it will. Dad always used Cayenne pepper, but I’m pretty sure this has Cayenne.”
“What is it supposed to do?” Moto asked.
“It’s gonna coagulate your blood, and fix you up better than stitches would,” Brooke answered.
And the Blood Ran Black Page 18