“She’s gone asshole. This was our gunshot. She’s not gonna rise, she killed herself before he got to her. And don’t kick her again, have some respect!”
I turned to look him square in his ugly beady little eyes.
“What the hell was that downstairs? What fuckin’ part of slow and quietly don’t you understand? That thing wouldn’t have charged at me if you didn’t make all that noise! I was almost killed! United States Marines” (I said mocking him) “We’re not fucking Marines. In fact, you’re not even a Marine anymore. It’s every man for his self, now. You can’t see that? We need to be a team if we’re going to get through this alive and you are not a team player. You’re creepy and sneaky and don’t you EVER let me catch you standing over me while I’m sleeping again. In fact, tomorrow, we’re splitting off from you.”
“Let me just shoot her one more time to make sure.” he whined.
Really?
But we should have been used to that by then.
I shook my head in disbelief. “You don’t even care, do you? Did you hear even one word I said?”
This dude was nuts, one minute he was acting like he was a bad ass, the next, a whiney little bitch, and that’s what he was doing.
He just wanted to kill everything breathing or not, as long as he got to kill something. He needed Prozac or something. I think he was Bipolar or schizophrenic or some other type of social psychotic condition that I can’t pronounce.
He must’ve felt robbed when he didn’t get to shoot any of the Infected downstairs. On the other hand, now that I think about it, why didn’t he come up to help when he heard us firing our weapons? He was probably hoping they would take us out.
“Okay, Preston.” Dave said, “You’ll be better off staying away from me from this point on. You’re a rude, disrespectful bastard, and your loud mouth is going to attract unwanted attention. Now, remember that I said that, because when those things are on us again and it’s your fault, because of your lack of use of common sense, I will have no mercy. This means I will shoot you right in the fucking balls before I let you put the two of us in danger. I will NOT blow your fucking brains out to put you out of your misery while you’re begging for your life. I will let those things eat you alive.” Dave said in an eerily calm voice.
Yep, he was pretty fed up with Preston, who just stood there with his creepy little eyes narrowed, biting his lip and breathing hard through his nose, like it’s supposed to scare someone. INTIMIDATION FAIL.
.
“I don’t know how the fuck they even let you join the Marines.” I said with disgust.
“Kate. I’m taking this pack downstairs and see if we can use anything.” Dave picked up the back pack that was lying a few feet from the couple. “The other one is under their heads, we won’t be able use anything from that.”
“Did you run into any infected downstairs? What were you doing and why didn’t you come to see what was going on when you heard our fire?” I asked Preston.
“I was locking up! The back door was open. That’s must be how they got in. I locked all the doors and blocked the main entry with the sofa. I covered the windows with blankets I found in a small laundry room under the stairs. The only other rooms are a kitchen, large living room, a half bath. There’s a full bathroom just outside the door to the room below us and another bedroom beside it that’s about the same size and it’s clear.” I laughed to myself.
“As if I have to explain anything to you.” he said sarcastically with knitted brows.
“Thanks for locking up. So please, just go away now.” I told him.
He started to stomp away but then so suddenly and loudly, startling me and about causing me to jump out of my skin; he said, “Hey! Would you look at that?”
He was smiling as big and goofy as a kid in a candy store. “It’s my lucky day.”
He picked up a marijuana cigarette that was lying amidst the contents of an emptied purse that had been scattered in the floor. He put it in his mouth and got a lighter out of his pocket, I slapped it out of his mouth just before the flame hit it.
“What is your fucking problem, Roland!?” He said clenching his teeth and balled his fists; he bent to pick it up and feigned dusting it off.
“YOU! You’re my fucking problem asshole! Flex your jaws all you want, Preston. Take that shit somewhere else and smoke it, I don’t want to smell it. And by the way, getting high right now is the worst mistake you can make. You’re not sitting at home playing fucking Resident Evil, Asshole! I shouldn’t have to tell you that. I don’t know where your head is at, you don’t make any sense.”
I put my hand over my eyes and rubbed my temples, he was giving me a migraine.
“I can’t wait to get away from you.” I said with much less anger than I felt.
“Fuck you.” he said and stormed off taking the marijuana cigarette with him.
I picked up the I.D’s I saw lying with the rest of the things on the floor and looked at them.
Jillian Drake, October 15, 1976. She had auburn hair and blue eyes; five feet and seven inches tall, and one- hundred and eighty- two pounds, Organ Donor, lots of good that did. Good pic, hardly anyone takes a good picture when it comes to identification photos.
Cute shoes, too. They were white K Swiss with their little emblem outlined with a pretty sea green thread, and told myself I would have to get me a pair. I then realized that I would probably never get to shop for shoes again.
They looked a little too small for my size ten and a half feet. I stand five feet eleven inches so; a big foot is to be expected. I looked at my scruffy boots and thought to switch them but decided not to.
Besides, I didn’t want to put my feet in possibly infected shoes, and it would be stealing.
Yes, even though I would be taking them from a dead person, it would still be stealing no matter what the excuse. I pushed the thought away and set my goal to staying alive as long as I possibly could.
Next ID, Evan Drake. May 16, 1976. He had brown hair, green eyes, five feet nine inches tall, and weighing in at two- hundred and five pounds.
They were alive a little over an hour ago. Well, she was anyway. I dropped the Identifications on the floor and turned to leave.
I saw a pen and pad of paper about ten feet to the right of the bodies. The pen didn’t seem to have anything on it, but I rolled it off of the paper with my boot anyway and picked up the pad of paper with a handkerchief that I found in my back pocket.
I moved closer to the little window that faced the street, the daylight illuminating the page so I could make out the words.
I’m not really sure how I should start this out; I’ve never been much of a writer. But I’m stuck here and have only two bullets left which are reserved for use in the very near future, I might as well start with the beginning of the events that led us here.
It says 12:34 A.M. It was 10:54 A.M. by my watch. She started writing it not even twenty-four hours ago. I flipped through the pad and saw that she had written many, many pages. I sighed, folded it over in my hand and bent down to pick up two of the several lighters that were also scattered across the floor and wondered why she had needed so many. But then again they could be useful. Wasn’t that why I picked them up?
There was a comforter lying on the floor under Jillian’s feet.
The missing blanket. I picked it up and draped it over their bodies and proceeded to go back downstairs. My boot got caught on a nail sticking up that had the majority of the hatch cord wrapped around it.
So that’s how she kept them out of there so long. I was wondering where she got all that time to write.
JILLIAN’S RISING
Downstairs, Preston was kicked back in a recliner smoking that damn joint.
The room was smoky and it reeked of pot.
He deliberately smoked it to piss me off. I was too tired to give in to my anger at that point. I mumbled just loud enough for him to hear me. “You’re an idiot.”
He gave me the finger. I stepped over
the body of the Infected that tried to attack me and went into the kitchen with Dave, who was already eating a ration of pork and drinking bottled water. He threw me one and I caught it as I was sitting my pack and the papers I found upstairs onto the table. I drank it in two big swallows. Apparently I was thirsty.
“What’s that?” he asked motioning to the paper with his head. I slid it across the table to him and began rifling through my bag to see what I had to eat.
Several granola bars, an apple, an orange and a couple rations of pork and beef. Hmm. What to eat? I settled on a granola bar.
Dave quickly flipped through the pages and slid it back to me. “Let me know how it ends.”
But little did we know the end was yet to be seen.
************************************
Oh, my head...what is that smell? It’s so dark…
Jillian sat up and the blanket that Kate had thrown over them fell away.
Wait a minute….where…I’m still in the attic. I’m not dead…
She looked down at her hands and could see they were bluish and swollen; globs of bloody flesh fell off of her face and chest to land in her lap.
Eww…
Her first reaction was to fling the carnage off of her, but her hand had reached for it with eerie speed and she was unsure at that moment if she had popped it in her mouth or chucked it somewhere behind her, she really didn't want to know.
She tried to lift her arms with her own will and her body would not respond. She tried to talk aloud and could only hear a low growl emit from her lips.
Oh… I’m dead all right… just not as dead as I should be. FUCK! Am I really still thinking?! Oh, this is so much worse than I thought it was going to be…
I can’t feel my face, I can’t feel anything! I can’t speak. I can’t move my arms at will... But I can think, and I can taste. Whatever is in my mouth is bitter and oddly sweet at the same time, but it feels nasty… Eww... it's probably that thing I...eeeww! Don’t think about it, don’t think about it! I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know!
What the fuck it that SMELL?
************************************
“So!” Preston barges into the kitchen in his usual loud and obnoxious manner.
“I’m going to take the second bedroom, and you two can fight over who’s gonna have first watch; unless you want to follow me up, Roland. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a tall, curvy True Red in my bed.” he said while winking at me and grinding his hips.
I shivered and goose bumps covered my entire body, as he confirmed my suspicions of why he had been standing over me the other night.
I am sure he would have raped me had Dave not been there.
I remained calm, even though I wanted to slap the grin off of his face; instead I rolled my eyes and asked “What makes you think that I would follow you to bed?”
“I see the way you look at me, you want me.” he replied.
What the hell?
“Keep dreaming, Chuckie. I wouldn’t sleep with you if my life depended on it.” Dave giggled at the Child’s Play reference.
“Get over yourself; your tits aren’t big enough. I only wanted a foot rub while I try to sleep.”
Dave was not laughing now.
“Why don’t you just take your ass upstairs already, be on your way before I do something I won’t feel bad about, nor will I regret.”
“Oooh, I see.” Preston put his hands on his hips and nodded his head.
“You want some True Red too. I have no problem with sharing, if that’s the case. I don’t mind a sword fight every now and then.”
Dave’s face turned purple and he stood up kicking his chair out from behind him across the kitchen floor.
“I don’t think of her that way! I have known her for years, and if I did think of her that way, I guarantee you; I have a much better chance than you do. And as far as a sword fight, you’re barking up the wrong tree, all you will get is disarmed. So, get the fuck out of here.”
Well, what Dave said was true; he did have a better chance, but not because I was attracted to him physically, because I wasn’t. I had never thought of him that way either, but if I had to, at least it would have been with someone I knew and cared for, and the personal contact would have been nice.
It had been a long time. The last time I had sex it was with my boyfriend of five years, Gregg.
I loved him deeply, but he was an alcoholic and an angry one at that. When he was sober he was the greatest guy with an awesome sense of humor and he was amazing in bed, but it got to the point where he was never sober.
If an object was green he would say it was blue. If you told him, “No, it’s green” he would call it a challenge and the fight would be on. He thought that every ones actions were a direct jab at him. His drunken rages and lack of memory of them pushed me away. I had endured it for long enough. I hated to go, but I had to.
I remember thinking that he probably died a happy man, sitting in a bar so drunk he couldn’t stand, a mob of infected hotties tearing at his flesh. I quickly wiped that vision away. I hoped it hadn’t ended like that for him. I was still deeply in love with the man he once was.
“Okay,” Preston threw his hands out to the side. “Have it your way, it’s your loss. Try not to need me.” And with that, he headed upstairs.
I don’t care that he didn’t like my tits. Yes, I am small chested but I have nice nipples and a great ass. But being so tall for a female, I ended up intimidating most men.
I was not going to let Preston’s criticism of the girls get me down. I like them just fine and so has everybody else that has seen them.
I’m sure my face reddened as I thought of my bad habit of flashing them when I drank a little too much.
I didn’t drink often but when I did it was tits out, usually because someone would make a comment about them being small. I guess I felt I needed to show them how nice they really were.
I had the tits of a twenty year old. Big chested women could never claim that, and if they could it had cost them a lot of money. I snapped out of my self-reflection and asked Dave “So, how do you want to do this?”
“We can start by getting this body out of the middle of the floor. We’ll put it in the laundry room. I found gloves in the pantry. Here, put these on.” He tossed me a packet of latex gloves “Then you can read that thing you found or sleep awhile. I’ll take the first watch.”
“No, I can’t sleep when it’s daylight, no matter how tired I am. You go first. Besides I would prefer that you be awake while I’m sleeping. I don’t trust his creepy ass not to try to rape me. I worry more about what he’s capable of than I do the damn zombies.”
“Yea, leave me alone with him, that’s a great idea. He might be gone when you wake up.”
I scowled, even though I didn’t like Preston, I really didn’t want him murdered either, I just wanted him away from us. I wasn’t sure if Dave was joking or not.
“Don’t give me the evil eye.” he laughed at me “I wouldn’t kill him; I’d just scare him a little.”
************************************
Jillian saw Evan’s bound feet and her gaze swept up his body to his shattered face.
Oh, Evan…I’m so sorry.
She was sobbing inside, she bent to kiss his arm, but her body reacted differently. She bit him instead.
Oh, God, I bit him! Please…I don’t want to! I DON’T WANT TO BE THIS! I do NOT want to be this! I know now that Evan had the intention to kiss me but could only do what his body commanded. He bit me. I knew he would, I had planned on it. But I didn’t plan on waking up dead. God… I have believed in you all my life and tried hard to do better! Please don’t let me be this, take my soul and throw it in the fiery pits of Hell! ANYTHING BUT THIS! Why can’t I shut it out?!!... This is so bad…
She could hear herself moaning now, but in her mind screaming and crying harder than she had ever done before.
Can I go down stairs? Can I get
up, to do that?
She stood up and slowly walked toward the hatch.
YES! Yes, I can! I hope I can find something sharp to try to slam my head into, maybe the corner of the table… HA! Fat chance, getting that lucky. Now I know why Sue came back, she knew she was home. How she must’ve worried about her husband and kids… I’m so glad she didn’t know. How sad… This is one hell of a curse, to leave the conscience in the decaying body. You really meant it when you said that we would seek death and wouldn’t find it. REALLY!!?? DID WE REALLY FUCKING DESERVE THIS?! HOW ABOUT THAT LITTLE GIRL, WHO ATE A FUCKIN BABY!? DID SHE DESERVE THIS?!! THANK YOU! JUST WHAT WE ASKED FOR, HUH?
Jillian screamed in her mind.
They can think, taste and smell. Walk and see… And no one knows… And guess what? What? It’s not they anymore, it’s us… it’s fucking ME!!
She tried to scream aloud and still nothing but gurgling moans escaped her lips.
And FUCK that smell is so strong…!
***********************************
Jillian slowly made her way down the ladder and stumbled on the last few stairs and landed on the floor beside the bed, the only sound, a muffled thump.
Preston was in the bathroom and heard the noise, but when he looked in to see what it was, he did not see her. He resumed washing his face in the sink.
Preston thought that he heard something and looked out into the hall to see what it was.
He saw no one and there seemed to be no movement coming from the bedroom where the infected lay slaughtered.
He continued to wash his face. He smiled and checked his teeth. Turned his face from side to side, he needed to look his best.
Tonight would be a big night for him. He was going to fulfill the fantasy he’d had about these two since he met them.
The Last Days (Books 1-3) Page 9