Chase comes up to me then. I look over, flashing him a forced smile. I’m trying to provide a safe distance. I’m aware of Paul’s ocean blue eyes following my every movement, as well as Chase’s brown. I put a first-aid kit in the box, before closing it. Nothing else will fit in my box. I contemplate filling another to keep myself busy. That’s when Chase speaks.
“Will you help me load the boxes up in the car before we head out?” he asks. I nod, lifting my box immediately. It’s not that big, so I scoop Lily’s as well. Chase grabs the last two. We leave the others alone, making our way out of the broken door. The cool night air fills my lungs.
“Ben, can we talk?” he asks, as we come to the empty car in the parking lot. He opens the back door and slides his boxes into the backseat. I follow suit, sliding both in as well. I look to him questioningly, as he produces the keys from the ignition.
“Why this car?” I ask him, looking over to his car in the corner of the parking lot.
“I’m gonna leave my car here, so Emily will recognize it and stop here. I’m leaving a note in the restaurant and the car” he tells me, as we walk over to his car now. He places the folded paper in the driver’s seat.
Chase turns me gently then. The darkness settles around us, pulling us into its grasp. I feel like tendrils of night are twisting us into obscurity, into invisibility.
“Now, can we talk please?” he asks again, and I look down at my feet.
“I’m not sure… Chase I…” I begin, but he stops me. He presses a single finger to my lips. I feel his smooth skin against my lips. I see his eyes stirring with emotion. I follow direction, dropping my argument for the time being. Chase smiles softly, as my lips close.
“I really like you. I really enjoyed our… our time together, and I would like to explore the idea of us more” he says. The words settle between us, gusts of wind in the cold night; whipping, tearing at my skin. His idea, his hopes are like icy blades. They cut at me, bringing tears to my eyes as I stare at him.
I want nothing more than to say yes. I can see my life with him. Moonlit kisses, midnight coffee dates, and a world of happiness. I can see how conventional it would be. I can feel how healthy, how wise it would be to let him love me. I should explore things with him. I should, but I don’t think that I can. Hell, I know that it won’t work. Paul is it for me.
“Chase… I like you. I like you a lot. More than I should for the short time we’ve known each other. You are so good, but I… I love him. No amount of trying has helped me stop, so exploring things with you would just hurt you in the end. I am broken. I am not good” I tell him my lips shaking with emotion. He looks down. I wish I could say what he wants me to say. I wish I could make him happy, but I think I’m toxic for him.
“Can’t I make that choice though? Won’t you give me the chance to try to help you move on?” he asks me. The hope, the pleading in his voice is obvious. I’m just about to say yes. I’m about to tell him I’ll try, that I’ll give it a shot, that I’ll give us a try, when movement catches my gaze. Movement in the darkness.
“Are you guys ready to go?” Paul asks, coming out of the darkness. His face is tight. Did he hear us? I jump in shock at his sudden appearance. Chase closes his car door, a little too hard. He nods, before heading inside to get the girls. When he comes back, his face is composed. His eyes bright again.
“I’m going to leave my car here, so Emily can recognize it. I left a note in the car and the restaurant. She’ll know where to go” he says, explaining his plan to everyone else. My brother, my sister, and my best friend. They’re all missing, along with Paul’s sister, and Thomas.
“What are we going to drive daddy?” Peyton asks, looking around the parking lot. Chase heads over to the new vehicle he loaded. Peyton follows him over.
I walk to the edge of the parking lot then. I stand just on the edge of the highway. Looking down the desolate road, where nothing lives, I wonder where my loved ones are. Are they safe? What will I find when I finally get home? Will my dad still be there? My Aunt? My Grandmother? My hands shake then.
“Okay, well that’s everything. We don’t have a reason to stay here anymore” Chase says suddenly, turning away from me. I’m beginning to think he’s mad at me, when he flashes me a wink. He’s acting weird. His sister died hours ago, and he’s spiraling. I can see it building. I can see the waves rolling in.
I’m familiar with the concept. You break, beyond repair; you keep going, but the burnout always comes. He will break down, and it will be ugly. He needs to grieve because if he holds it in, then it will explode so much worse when the time comes.
Chase and Paul coordinate then. Chase gives him the direction to his house, so we can go separate ways. We don’t ever want to be chased together again. I stand there, watching as they talk to each other.
Peyton runs over then, her small arms wrapping around my waist. She looks up at me, as we pull apart; her smile sending so much love between us. She runs back to her grandma then, as Paul joins me by his car. Chase walks over to us then. He reaches out, shaking Paul’s hand, before pulling me into a warm hug.
“Be safe. See you at my house in a few” he tells us, before turning to walk away. I watch as they pull from the parking lot. Paul and I are left alone. The silent night around us like a blanket. He doesn’t speak to me, as he gets in the car. We silently pull away from the restaurant. Part of me would rather spend the night with the dead, than with this silence.
We drive down the road, the silence surrounding me, igniting the same feelings of abandonment, of insecurity from before. He is pushing me away again. He’s leaving me all over again right before my eyes and there is nothing; I can do about it. All I can do is sit here and watch as it happens, second by second.
“Paul can we talk?” I ask him, but he just reaches up and turns the music on. I feel anger stir within me. I am not going through this again, not without a fight. I won’t close up again. I have to be different, or nothing will ever change for me. I have to be the change I want.
I unplug his phone and take it into my hand. He looks at me curiously, before reaching for it. I shake my head. He’s not getting off that easily. I will have a conversation because he was fine earlier and now, now he’s silent, stormy.
“Not until we talk about why you won’t speak to me” I tell him, waving the phone out of reach. He scowls, before facing the street again. I almost want to give it back because the silence is so loud between us. The music would be nice.
“Fine. What would you like to talk about then?” he asks, taking a breath before continuing angrily. He’s really mad.
“How you are ignoring the fact that Chase is practically slobbering all over you like a damn puppy? Or how you aren’t bothering to shut him down, as if you’d ever do anything with him” he says, his voice wavering with bitter laughter.
I want to shoot back at him. I want to admit to having already done things with Chase, but I know that would be cruel. I bite my lip, as he continues to drive. I bite my smart words down. I bite down the bomb I want to drop. I don’t want to be like that. I care too much. I’m not sure if it would bother him at all, but I won’t risk it. I would never be that cold.
“Paul… I…” I’m not sure of what to say next, how to move forward with the conversation that I asked for. The conversation I demanded, but then Paul swerves suddenly, throwing me into the door. I look around frantically, but the darkness is all I can see. I hit my head on the window. A throbbing erupts suddenly.
I look up, Paul is still driving. At least we didn’t crash. Looking around, I see that there are several of the infected in the street. They are chasing each other, or at least that’s what it looks like from here. I drop Paul’s phone at that moment. They aren’t chasing each other.
“Paul they aren’t all dead. We have to save them” I shout suddenly. He looks at me, following my line of vision. He lays eyes on the girls before us. They are running from the infected. There are three of them. They are running from around t
welve of the monsters. I watch as they lose ground. They’re going to die.
He whips the car around, nearly flipping at the same time. Paul speeds back to them, before slamming on the breaks. I’m already out of my seatbelt, as we jump from the car. Paul grabs a pair of long knives he found in the restaurant and takes off running.
I follow behind, my weapon a broom, my other hand clenched on the gun in my pocket. We run down the street, where the three girls are still running from the infected. They are screaming, their faces contorted in fear, as they attempt to escape the clutches of the dead before them. They are losing.
I come to the first infected, lifting the broom high above my head. I try to bring it down, but Drew’s face fills my mind. As I bring the handle down, my nerve gives out and I drop the broom helplessly, tears streaming down my face.
Paul takes down the infected, both blades piercing its eyes, before it drops. The girls notice us then. The tallest of the three, a blonde dives out of the grips of one of the beasts, before pulling her friend to safety. I exhale with relief, before I realize what’s about to happen to the third girl.
Just as the second girl is pulled from the very tips of death’s fingers, the third girl is grabbed from the hair. Her curly brown hair is the cause of her capture. I try to move into the fray, but before I take one step, the beast has taken a large chunk from her cheek. She howls with pain, yanking herself free.
She pulls herself free, but the battle is already lost. The bite has slowed her down, so the remaining dead fall on her. She is dragged into their dwindling ranks. I see that Paul has taken down four of them, but the remaining eight have moved forward.
Three of them are moving toward me, but the other five are feasting upon the fallen girl. Her brown hair is greased with her own blood now, her voice is shrill as she screams uselessly into the night. Then her voice falters. She is choking on her own blood. I reach for my broom, just as her voice dies completely. I close my eyes sadly.
I can hear the other two girls crying, as they register the fact that their friend has died before their eyes. Paul has started on the five feasting zombies. They are easy picking. He kills them easier now, his front splattered with gore. I’m thankful then for all those afternoons we didn’t get to spend together, while he was training in gymnastics, football, and martial arts. That has to be why he’s so good at this.
I’m about to move on the last three unattended beasts, when Paul shakes his head slightly. He moves fast, sinking his knives into two of them, before pulling them out in the blink of an eye and stabbing the last infected with both of them. I watch up close for the first time as one of them dies. It’s disturbing.
It’s a woman, her once blonde hair matted with blood and dirt. Her skin a sickly grey color. There is skin missing from her cheek, exposing teeth and bone. I watch as the blades enter her bright red eyes, her growl freezes, her face going slack, as she crumples into a heap on the ground.
“Are you guys hurt?” I ask, running over to the girls. They are sobbing uncontrollably. I kneel down beside them, as they scamper into my waiting arms. I stroke their hair comfortingly, my own eyes filling with tears.
“My sister, my baby sister… oh my God… no” the blonde nearly screams into my shoulder. Paul joins me then. He stands over us, his knives still in hand. The second girl looks up at us then. I take in her appearance, her face.
She has dark skin, a beautiful dark brown, her lips are a pale pink, her eyes a dazzling green. Her short black hair is braided beautifully. She is a pretty girl. I frown back at her sadly.
“You guys can come with us, and we can keep you safe” I offer then, as the blonde girl continues to cry into my shoulder. She pulls away at my words, her eyes streaming with tears. She shakes her head, scrunching her nose. My heart breaks for her in that moment.
“No, we have to get home. We just need to find a car or something” she says, her tears never stopping. I look around, trying to find a car on the road. They will die if they leave on foot. Maybe we can convince them to come along with us. I turn to try again, when Paul speaks finally. His voice soft.
“Here, take my car. We’ll find another one” he says, catching me off guard. He just gave up his car to a set of strangers. The girls look shocked too. Paul tosses them the keys. I’m still shocked into silence. He would give up our only transportation to save someone else, wouldn’t he?
“Thank you so much mister. Are you sure this is okay?” the blonde girl asks. Paul just smiles, before turning to me.
“We can find another car on the way to his house, okay?” he asks. I nod, dumbfounded by his generosity. Paul seems to find that amusing because he laughs, before turning back to the girls before us.
“I’m Amber, this is Sasha” the blonde says, giving us both a hug in the darkness. We stand there, all of us shaken by the death of the third girl. I stand there detached, as Paul gives them directions. They live on the other side of where we live. After several minutes of tearful conversation, and a broken goodbye to the fallen woman, they are off. They leave us behind, our car pulling out of sight within seconds. Paul stares after it long after it’s gone. I move to stand beside him, avoiding the bloody knives in his hands. We stare down the empty road, not speaking yet. Not moving.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” Paul asks suddenly, looking around at the carnage before us. The blood looks black in the darkness, pools of tar spreading across the pavement. I shudder then, not from the cold.
“Yeah, let’s find a car” I say, walking past the infected he killed, walking past the dead girl, and walking away from the last place I’ll ever see his car, that hoodie that’s too big for me, the last time I’ll see the backseat and feel pain.
“Let’s go this way” he says simply, before walking down the road. I follow behind him, silent in my sadness. Is this my new normal? I’ve seen too many people die today. I think of Bill, it’s only been hours since we left his house, but it feels like years, a lifetime ago. I continue to follow Paul then, my mind heavy on all the death. The tears come again, as I deal with the trauma of killing Drew. It feels like I’ll never recover from that, but even though I feel dirty, evil for killing a living human, I continue following Paul instead of shrinking into the darkness with the monsters where I belong. I stay with Paul, my one tether to humanity, my one way back to sanity.
TWENTY-THREE
I walk a few paces behind Paul, as we make our way through the dark neighborhood. The sound of the car has gone, leaving us alone in the silence. My mind is on it, the dented hood, the backseat, the hoodie, all the memories we shared there. I’m glad he helped the girls out, but I’m emotional at the same time. In some ways the car held sentimental value because it was such a huge setting for the love we shared. We touched for the last time in that car, he utterly broke me, shredding me to my core in that car. He held my hand in that car earlier today. He held me.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, speeding up to walk next to him. He doesn’t look at me, as I fall into step with him. I see his lips pull up at the corners. At least he’s smiling. That has to be a good sign, right? I try to convince myself then.
“Paul, please talk to me. We were actually making such good progress, but now…” I let my words trail off, raising my hands to signify the darkness. He looks at me then. His eyes shining. Shining for me.
“I’m sorry Ben, I’m just upset. I know you don’t want him; I know that. I just hate that he wants you. I know I have no right” he admits.
Again, I feel the guilt. He assumes that I haven’t reciprocated the chemistry with Chase. He thinks it’s one-sided. I know he’s right, and he has no right to be upset with anything I do, but part of me keeps me from telling him. He doesn’t need to know that.
We hadn’t been together for months, when I slept with Chase, Paul and I hadn’t really spoken civilly in ages. It’s not my fault that I tried to move on. I don’t have any reason to hide it, but I know it would be senseless. I don’t want to hurt him. Part of me als
o knows that he is just being jealous.
“Do you think the others will be there, when we make it? I’m really worried about them” I say, my voice breaking through the midnight world of silence around us.
“I’m really hoping so because I’m starting to get worried too” he admits.
“I mean… I’m sure they’re fine” I tell him, trying to comfort him, even though I don’t believe my own optimism.
“I hope you’re right Ben” he says quietly, before our conversation dies again.
The seconds tick by, as we walk through the darkness. Paul looks down at his phone, at the GPS directions to Chase’s house. He shakes his head, biting his lip with irritation. I have to look away then, my heart thudding rapidly in my chest. I look forward, taking in the details of the trees, shrouded in shadows.
“Paul, are you mad at me?” I demand suddenly. I know he’s jealous, but his demeanor has changed. I think back. What did I miss?
“No, I just… I… hold on” he says suddenly, coming to a stop in front of me. I look around, before I see the problem. Yet again, we have company. This time it’s only three of the dead. Paul prepares his knives, but I touch his arm gently. He turns to look at me, and I shake my head subtly. We should just keep going.
“I’m gonna kill them, before they stumble upon someone else. If we kill every damn one of them that we see, maybe one day they’ll be gone forever” he explains, before moving forward. It’s not lost on me that I have never killed one of them. It makes me queasy to even think about.
We Are The Hunted (Book 1): We Are The Hunted Page 15