by Briana Rain
He put one of his fingers to his lips, and gave me the well known signal to shut up. Drops of water rolled off his tan nose and dirt-caked fingertips. His hair was falling into his eyes, and with the hand that had been on my shoulder, he pushed it back. Clyde nodded his head to the side, and then crept forward, knowing I would follow. I did, of course.
I don't know how he saw it through the trees, but we’d found ourselves on the outskirts of a small clearing, about double the size of our Jeep, with a small camp inside. If I would’ve led the way in the direction I was going in, we would have completely missed it.
Thank God for Clyde Salmons.
There was a small, dark blue tent, no doubt with someone or their things inside. A fire pit, with pasty ash because of the rain. Some things scattered here and there, like wrappers. And strings tied to the trees along the perimeter with cans handing from them, to alert the camper of any intruders.
Intruders like Luck, who was sitting on a log by the fire pit, inspecting some sort of army toy. A green little guy with a plastic gun melted in his hands, like the ones from Toy Story.
I could've killed him. I would’ve, if I wasn't so happy to see the little monster.
“Lucky!” I yelled, louder than I thought I would, and jumped the tin can fence. I could feel Clyde's disapproval. I could hear him think how I was too loud and how it might not be safe.
Well, you can suck it Clyde, because Luck’s family. And I’d so anything for them. Even the unnecessarily stupid stuff, like what I just did.
“Hey!” Lucky said. “Look wha—“
I cut off whatever he was saying by crushing his body with my arms, or, a hug. Besides, the rain washed away any noise below a shout.
“Don't you ever go running off again, Lucky! It's too dangerous. You could die.”
I shouted all of this so that he could hear me. He nodded while shivering. The poor kid had nothing on but a thin tee shirt. Thinking about it, Clyde only had his shirt on too, having left his jacket and hat either in the car or in his bag, but Puck was eleven. Clyde was... huh. I didn't know how old he was. I should ask him after we get out of this damn rain.
“Look at all of this stuff!” Lucky gestured at the camp with the army man. From this position, I saw that under the tent overhang, there was a five gallon bucket. Now, it’s not like I had a PhD in camping, but from personal experience, I do know that those kind of buckets weren’t easily scratched into and are (mostly) waterproof, when used correctly. I could almost imagine what was in there. Food, bullets, maybe a picture or two, and a map like ours. That's what I would put in there, if it fit.
Part of me had the urge to take what we could find and run, but that was not the smart part. I could tell that Lucky wanted to do the same.
“No.” I told Lucky, then looked up to Clyde, who had silently snuck up behind me, navigating the fence much more gracefully than I had, probably.
“It's still early in all of this,” I was getting tired of thinking/saying the word apocalypse, “so whoever set this up is probably not very far behind. We should leave it, and get away before we start something.” Something we couldn't finish. Something that involved gunpowder and blood.
The southerner nodded, either agreeing with me, or not being able to hear me over the wind and rain, but coming to the same conclusion, so I grabbed my little brother's hand, and we left the camp that held untold bounties and dangers. Out of habit, Clyde checked the strap of his rifle, making sure that it was still there, and led the way.
I remembered, for a second, this morning, when he took down the three Crazies that would have certainly taken us down if it weren't for that gun. I remembered him standing sideways with the sun behind him, barely a wisp of smoke emitting from the barrel of the rifle he held dearly and professionally. If he was that good with a rifle, why the hell didn't he have the brains to adjust the stupid strap before I had to do it?
He halted, so the two of us behind him did too. We knew why he would stop a steady jog back to the safety of the Jeep and it wasn't because of the local ice cream truck rolling by.
I pushed Lucky against a tree, trying to give him as much protection as possible and hoping that he would be out of the way when things started happening.
The grip on my bat wasn't steady. The rain pounded on my hands, the drops fighting their way through the cracks between my fingers, making everything slick. I couldn't see more than ten or fifteen feet in front of me, the rain coming down too hard.
Why did it have to be raining? Why now?
I heard it before I saw it. And, boy, was it a nasty one. Its drool string mixed in with the rain. Its whole face looked like something between Swiss cheese and a tree that a flock woodpeckers had attacked. Wet blood covered its mouth that would still be there, even if the rain wasn't. Its thin hair falling out, taking chunks of scale with it, and its guts and intestines were grossly poking out of a slash through its shirt. At about six-foot-something inches tall, he just stood over Clyde as he headed straight for him, arms glued to its side, not doing anything to fix that little intestinal problem of his.
It was gross. Scary, yes, but the mindlessness of it... The dull but crazed look behind every Crazy’s eyes, the way that none of them used their hands while running, like they couldn't do two things at the same time. Who knows, maybe they couldn't.
Clyde brought down the monstrous monster down in three swings. The first to its face, to stop its charge, the second to its knees, to bring him down to the ground, and the third to its skull, to end it. His t-shirt stuck to him, and I could see all of the muscles in his back clearly as he did this.
It didn't last long, the looking, I mean. Not that I was. Because as Clyde was delivering the third and final blow, another Crazy ran out of the trees. A short one. A child.
A small, black child, with short hair and a small, blue t-shirt with a fire truck on it.
Puck had a shirt like that, once.
I swung my bat before I decided to swing my bat. There was the distinctive crack sound that came with busting someone's head open, and the body went limp. He must not have been a Crazy for very long, because a seasoned Crazy’s skull didn’t make that sharp of a sound when you hit it. He reminded me of Jamie and Puck at the same time.
I found that I got distracted quite easily and frequently nowadays, as an incoming Crazy caught me off guard and slammed its body into mine. If it wasn't for my bat already in the air, it's teeth would've had a clear path to my neck. We both flopped into a mud pit. Well, at this point, the whole forest was a mud pit.
My instincts proved valuable once again, as I shoved the bat into the Crazy’s mouth. It was, or used to be, a girl about my age, with a receding hairline where chunks of hair had been ripped out, and both ears missing, the blood there long since dried. It reached out to me while smacking its teeth on the bat. There was wind and rain and leaves and yelling and roaring and shrieking. I heard someone call out my name, but couldn't tell who it was. I was too busy not dying to concentrate on anything else. The only thing that mattered at this second was locking my elbows and putting as much distance between me and Earless’s forming drool ball. It stretched out its untamed fingernails towards my face. Its feet twisted and dug into the mud, trying to get closer to me. It pushed its jaw against the bat. I pushed the bat against its jaw.
My opportunity to avoid death came when its feet slipped in the mud, and I twisted the bat, its head following it, and flipped my body so that I switched positions with the Crazy, pinning its mouth to the mud with my hands on either side of the bat. It just kept chomping and kicking and reaching for me, a meal. Just a meal, and nothing else.
Well taste this.
Being careful not to slip in the mud and die, I planted my knees, and quickly brought up the head of the bat, and brought it down before it knew what’d happened.
I brought it down again and again and again, caving in the rotten shell that used to be a skull at one point. And again and again and again, just to make sure it was dead. Or dea
d again.
I was out of breath. I think I may’ve screamed each time I brought my bat down, but who knows. I was wet, the rain slicking everything and sticking to my eyelashes. I blinked hard to clear my vision, then slowly stood and raised my head to assess the situation.
Clyde was taking them out one by one. I saw him crouch as one flew towards him. He grabbed the Crazy’s leg or waist— it was hard to see through the rain— flipped the damn thing over his back, pinned its throat with his boot, and ended it with a shovel to the forehead. It was cool. I should ask him to teach it to me someday.
Two of them were coming for me. If I hadn't been looking at Clyde, I would've had an extra two or three seconds to deal with them, but I don't. I had to deal with that now. This was a war zone. We were in a battle. There were no regrets here unless you didn’t come out alive.
One was faster than the other. That’d be the one I’d take out first. I was glad that they didn't use their hands while mobile. They would just get in the way and make everything harder. I stepped forward to meet it, timed my swing, and swung like I was aiming for a home run— elbow up, moving my torso with the swing, and followed through.
Nailed it.
It went down, but the other one, the slower, fatter one, was right behind it, slobbering up the place, as if the battleground needed any more liquid added to it.
Boom!
Right in its face. It went down with a plop in the mud, its body stuck and sunk into the ankle deep… stuff.
A quick look over each shoulder told me it was clear. Clyde wasn't killing anything either. He turned to face me, and was as out of breath as I was.
His lips moved, and he said something when he looked at me, but the words were drowned in the rain. I looked for Lucky at the tree I’d pushed him against, but he wasn't there. I turned and looked in all three hundred and sixty degrees, but he wasn't anywhere.
Anywhere on the ground, that is. It turned out that Clyde had put him in a tree, or told him to climb up one. It was hard to hear exactly what went down. Either way, it was quick thinking. Smart thinking. Thinking that kept us alive.
Lucky jumped down, sending mud splashing in all directions.
“We have to go.” I grabbed his hand and started following Clyde again, trying to ignore my brother staring at the limp body of the kid as we ran by it. The first child Crazy we’d seen since… ever.
I was exhausted. If it wasn't for Clyde, I would’ve never made it back to the steep hill that led to our Jeep. Our sanctuary. Where I had a dry, extra shirt in my pack and some Gold Fish waiting for me, and there was no ankle deep mud.
Our feet pounded. The rain pounded. My head pounded. Stepping away from the tree line, onto the grass, and an even deeper ocean of mud, felt like lighting up a neon sign and extinguishing our only candle all at the same time. On one hand, we were out of the trees, and that much closer to a dry sanctuary. On the other hand, there was nothing covering us from god's wrath, that was this damn rain.
The hill was steep and slick, the top standing at just over ten feet above the ground we currently stood at. Luck dived right into the task, literally running and jumping, trying to use the momentum to propel himself upwards. It didn't work, and he fell straight on his tuchus.
I laughed, on the inside though, because we weren't out of the woods, yet. I mean, technically we were, but… oh, whatever.
“Here.” I shouted to Lucky, and locked my fingers together for him to step on.
Ha! Beat you to the good idea Clyde!
He stepped on them, and that was just the boost he needed to climb the rest of the way. When his foot left my hand, I cringed (and possibly gagged) from all the mud and who knows what else was left on my hands.
So gross!
“Any Sticks?” Clyde cupped one hand around his lips to act as a microphone as he ignored my discomfort with my even muddier hands. He wasn't laughing, not even on the inside. I could afford it, with him around, but I'm not exactly first pick in Team Apocalypse, if you know what I'm saying.
Lucky said something above us, but I couldn’t hear it. So he shook his head, and pointed behind us. And what was said next, I could hear. Even over the storm.
“Freeze, Asshole.”
Chapter 17: James and Harrison
But I didn't freeze, even if I wasn't the asshole they were addressing. I spun around like a flash of lightning, my bat raised. Only, it was caught. A black hand had wrapped around it, yanked it from my grip and threw it on the ground next to us. It looked like Clyde had done the same thing as me, only he didn't get his rifle taken away.
“Hey! Hey, Asshole! Put it down! Right now!” The one closer to me yelled at Clyde, and nudged my shoulder with the barrel of a machine gun he was holding. They're still called barrels on machine guns, right?
The second one had a handgun pointed at Clyde, but he didn't seem to care about it. He only lowered the weapon when the first guy jabbed me again.
The one in front of me looked younger, but angrier. The older one, the one in front of Clyde, looked mean, but calmer. He also looked to be the stronger of the two, with more muscle under his clothes. The younger one had the sides of his head shaved, while the older one had his whole head shaved.
The older one yanked Clyde's gun away, with much resistance from the southerner, and slung it over his shoulder by the strap.
“James—“ The older one addressed the younger one, whose name was apparently James, with a head much leveler than his partner.
“No! No, Harrison. These are the Assholes that ransacked our camp! They have to be! And they… They have to pay!” On the word ‘pay’ James made a point to jab me again, like I was some sort of pin cushion to him. It angered me greatly.
“Ouch.” I said, mildly sarcastic, but actually putting meaning behind the words. Like, come on dude, there's no need for us to just turn into animals here.
An outraged “Hey!” came from the southerner at the same time a “James!” came from Harrison. There were no farther jabs after that, and for that I was grateful.
“Just... just give us back what you took from our camp and we’ll leave you alone.” Harrison promised Clyde, sounding very tired instead of calm.
“We didn't take anything.” Clyde stood his ground against the pistol pointed at him, and spoke the truth instead of giving in to their reality.
“Liar!” James, who looked closer to my age than Clyde's, looked like he was going to start jabbing me again, but didn't. Thank god. “They took it! And it… it belonged to him. He…” James was barely keeping it together, and was probably crying, but I couldn't tell for sure in the rain.
Throughout all of this, I stood still. Unnaturally still, instead of shifting from one foot to the other, like I used to do when I was uncomfortable, before all of this. My back was caked in mud and who knows what else. The rain had washed the thinner layers off, but I could still feel it. My braid, which was falling out before that whole brawl in the woods, was now one big lump of crap.
It was gross.
I thought about what they thought we could’ve possibly taken. I mean, we weren't even there for more than sixty seconds… At least, Clyde and I weren’t. Lucky on the other hand…
“What was taken?” I asked Harrison, not wanting to even look at James and his distressed state at this point.
At least his finger was off the trigger.
“A toy. It belonged to a kid we were traveling with. We lost him. Just now.”
“If you lower your guns, I'll give it back to you.” I looked James in the eye.
James protested, but Harrison yelled at him again, and both guns were slightly lowered. Not much, but enough to show some trust. Now I had to show some back.
“Lucky!” I yelled, “Get out here!”
Instantly, the boy’s head popped out from the top of the hill. All you could see was his eyes and mud-filled blonde hair. He looked so young. Looking at him now, I couldn't believe his age was in the double digits.
“Did you take some
thing? Even after I told you to leave everything?”
He shook his head, obviously scared out of his mind. I would be too, kid.
“Lucky, just give it back, okay? Give it back to them, and everything’ll be okay.”
Please let everything be okay.
Luck shuffled out of view for a moment, then flung something over the side of the hill. The army man landed by James’s feet. He quickly bent down and snatched it up before the mud could claim it.
A child. A child they’d just lost. That would explain the human shrieking we’d heard when Clyde and I first entered the woods. That also explained the child Crazy. I felt bad for them, and guilty. What are the odds that the first child Crazy I’d ended wasn't the one that they’d just lost?
I didn't say anything. Not a word. I kept my face blank and my body still, waiting for what would happen next.
But Harrison kept his word, and warily gave Clyde his gun back, then retreated with James into the woods as silently as they came.
I unstuck my bat from the mud’s grip, and then clawed up the steep hill, with Clyde’s help, of course. When it came time for him to get himself up, I lent him my hand for assistance, but the asshole just ran and jumped, like Luck tried to, and appeared at the top, covered in mud. Just like that.
Show-off.
Chapter 18: Nuns
I closed the back door with a sigh, glad to finally feel somewhat safe and get out of the rain. Vi was in the front seat, looking scared at our states. Clyde and Lucky collapsed in the backseat, getting water and mud everywhere.
But hey, it's the end of the world, so who cares.
I sat up in the trunk, next to a first aid kit, hands shaking, either from the cold or the return of pain in my knees now that my adrenaline was was gone and our lives were no longer in any immediate danger.
I looked over to say something to Lucky, to scold or scream at him for going into the woods alone and stealing, but then Clyde took his shirt off. It was thin, and wet, and no doubt hazardous to his health, so of course it made sense to take it off. Of course. His skin was just as tan under his clothes as his face was. He had just as much muscle as I thought he did: which was a lot. I looked up at his face and met his eyes.