by Rain, Briana
“Um… next left?” He said.
I almost, almost used my blinker just then. As I slowed down to turn, I noticed that the sounds of the old man had drifted off.
“We’re not on this road for lo— watch out!” A stray Crazy had wandered into the road. It stood there, and looked at us for a split second before shrieking for another split second, and then I ran it over.
Blood absolutely covered the windshield. I let loose the wiper fluid, and then activated the wipers themselves. It streaked it around a bit, and made everything blurry, but at least I could see.
Then, I heard an engine. One that didn’t belong to this truck. One that was getting close and closing that distance fast.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t pull over, there were too many Crazies and this engine was like sending up a flare to the old man as to where we were. I couldn’t speed up, because like Clyde said, we wouldn’t be on—
“Now!” Clyde shouted, “Turn left here!”
I had never, in my entire life, made a turn this sharp, this fast. I felt the wheels on my side lift up a smidget, and feared the worst.
The music was on top of us. The engine was on top of us. Just when I felt the wheels of the truck recover from that perilous turn, I saw him. I couldn’t turn the wheel in any way, because he was coming at us to my left, and there was a steep hill with just a wooden fence for a barricade to my right. I tried to hit the breaks, but we were both going far too fast.
Ballroom Blitz, Ballroom Blitz, Ballro—
I screamed for everyone to brace themselves, and then I closed my eyes as he made impact with the driver’s side door.
Chapter 49: Ophelia
I was awake, but I couldn’t open my eyes.
I wasn’t sitting, which was weird, because the last thing I remembered was being in a car.
My ears rang.
My leg hurt. Scratch that, my leg was being held down by something.
Update: I managed to squint, even if it was just a small bit, but all I could see was brightness. White light.
No. This would not be one of those “don’t go into the light” scenarios. I refused. I vetoed it. So wake up Ophelia. Wake up. Wake up! WAKE U—
I forced my eyes open, despite all of my cells protesting against it.
I was hanging upside down in the truck. The windshield was smashed, and I was facing a huge river, which was reflecting the sun.
Like, I knew that you weren’t really supposed to move your neck or have your neck moved in this type of situation, but I craned my neck back to see the others. I had to.
Even though they were all unconscious, everyone looked okay, except for Vi. She was limp, and pale, with a huge cut on her forehead that was bleeding more than when she’d gotten shot.
“Clyde.” I reached over and shook him.
He made a noise that was similar to a groan. I felt relief that he wasn’t dead. Still, I started hitting him, and insisted that he woke up. I smelled smoke, and heard shrieking in the distance.
“Wha…?” His face was aimed away from me, and when I saw it… well, my reaction caused him to panic. He looked like how I imagine I looked when we were escaping Roger. He had shattered glass embedded all up and down the right side of his face, from his bangs to his chin. The good news was that there weren’t that many pieces, and none of them went too deep.
I told him this, and he looked somewhat relieved.
“Clyde, we have to get out of here. Your window’s smashed in, think you can fit out of it?” He nodded. Other than being very dazed, the glass, and the probable concussion, he looked relatively alright.
I glanced back at Vi and my empty stomach churned.
Clyde looked around like he was confused, and then put his arm against the “roof” of the truck, and braced himself. With his other hand, he unbuckled the seatbelt that was holding him up. Without it, his six foot and change figure crumpled in a painful looking heap on the ground, but he didn’t say anything. He just groaned in pain. I think his second hand landed in some glass.
Ouch.
He used my bag to rid the frame of the remaining glass shards that still clung on. He let out a string of swears that didn’t end until he managed to squeeze out of the wreckage. Then, he sat there for a bit, or two, out of breath, until his eyes widened and he scrambled to the backseat window.
All while he was doing this, I was struggling. My right leg was very, very pinned between the seat I pushed up so far and the wheel. I started to feel panicked, more so than I already was.
“Wake up! Wake up, kid!” Clyde was hitting the window and pounding on the door. My heart dropped into my stomach when instead of Lucky waking up, Addeline started to stir.
“Ads! Ads, thank god. Listen! Can you hear me! Good, now tilt his head away from the window, yeah, like that.” Addeline did as Clyde described as he took off his shirt, wrapped it around his already bleeding hand, and punched the already webbed window. After a few hits, the window shattered, glass showering Luck.
I was still struggling, trying to wiggle my leg to either side, and trying to push the wheel up with my hands. All to no avail.
Lucky was halfway out of the window when he groaned, which, naturally, triggered those tears that were building up in my eyes.
Thank god.
“I gotta get the others, okay, kid?” He put Lucky on the ground a few feet away from the truck, and reached in to help his sister out, whose face was screwed up in pain. Her eyes were nailed shut, and her mouth wad pried open as she tried with her remaining energy to keep silent.
She must have kept this from Clyde, because he didn’t notice, and as soon as he turned his back, she clutched her stomach and her face screwed up again.
Vi wasn’t waking up, and, apparently, Clyde didn’t count on this changing anytime soon, because he crawled through the entire backseat. Gingerly, and very, very fearfully, he put two of his fingers to her throat and glanced at me.
“No… no, Clyde. Clyde don’t. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me, Clyde, please.” My whole body shook as I wept. This couldn’t be happening. No, this wasn’t happening. I refused. I vetoed this. This was not a situation that would be taking place in my life right now.
No.
“I got it!” He looked shocked, like for a moment, there wasn’t anything to get.
I banished that thought immediately.
After Clyde got Vi out of the truck, which took as long as our other siblings combined because he was being careful not to move her head too much, I looked back at Addeline and Lucky. She was still in pain, but standing, with the help of Luck. Clyde demanded that she sit down. She refused, and said that if she sat down, she may not be able to get back up again.
Clyde set down my sister near my window, and looked like he wanted to rip his hair out, but instead, he helped his sister to this side of the truck and leaned her against it, then knelt by my window.
Before he even said anything I looked away from the window. He was understandably upset by everything, and when he punched through my window, glass went everywhere. I felt at least one bigger piece get tangled in my hair.
“Clyde… I’m pinned. I can’t move my leg.” I told him in response to him holding his arms out, ready to assist me in ungracefully falling.
He shook his head frantically, “Just unbuckle your seatbelt. Let gravity do the work.”
I shook my head, knowing for a fact that this wasn’t going to work, but I did it anyways.
And oh my god did it hurt. All of my weight and all of that gravity, it was focused on one point on my body. The wheel dug into and pulled at my skin, and refused to release me.
Quickly, with both hands, I braced myself, so that my weight could be distributed.
“No... no no no...” He looked at everyone, one by one, panicked.
He was making a decision.
“Clyde, quick.” I said, “Get something to leverage the wheel.”
Being given something to do seemed to help with his panic.
Action. He was good at that. That was something he could do.
So he punched out the window that Vi was originally at, grabbed something behind me, and came back into view.
He was holding my bat.
Before he could even kneel to do something with it, his big sister collapsed. It seems that my previous assessment that my sister was the only one with serious injuries was wrong. Addeline was bleeding, a lot. Streams of the stuff ran down her legs and pooled around her on the rocky sand.
Oh no. Oh, no no no no no.
Clyde lunged to catch her, which he successfully accomplished. To do this, he dropped my bat just outside my window.
“It’s bad, Clyde. It’s…” Addeline shook her head and started crying, holding onto her stomach like her life depended on it.
I knew what I had to do. I had to be the bigger person. It was the trolley dilemma. I had to end his panic by taking away the choices and give him only one.
“Clyde!” I yelled, “Clyde, listen to me.”
It took a minute, but he finally took his eyes off of his sister and looked at me.
“You need to get out of here. You need to take the others and go get help— no, shut up—“ Both of us wanted to interrupt the other, insisting that our points of view and ideas were the right ones.
“I’m not leaving anyone else behind O—“ Clyde protested, his volume rising.
“Clyde! Look at our sisters! They are going to die if they don’t get help, and I swear to god Clyde, if my sister dies because of you, I will never forgive you.”
He was crying now. Like that time I found him by that pond, after he had shot Sparkplug.
He wiped his face with his fist, which was still covered with his shirt, then picked up his sister, like a fireman rescuing someone out of a burning house.
“Pick your sister up.” He told my brother. It wasn’t a ‘can you pick up your sister’. It had to be done, and there was no question about it.
Lucky, struggled, but did what he was told.
“Listen. You guys need you go that way,” I pointed diagonally out of my window. “Go along the shore until you find a way up this hill, and go that way.” Clyde nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. Quickly, the boys went off, carrying their sisters to safety. It wasn’t long before the trees jutting out in the horizon swallowed them up, and I couldn’t see them anymore.
Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even think to ask them about the smoke I smelled, or where the old man and the ATV had gone to.
Now alone, my priorities and train of thought completely shifted tracks. I reached for the bat, but my fingertips could only just barely brush it. In order not to risk pushing in any farther, I retreated.
I looked, and there was nothing else around me.
With no other hope, I picked up both hands, my weight being held up only by the wheel cutting off circulation in my leg, and swung my body. My fingertips were able to pull the bat towards me, and in the next painful swing, I was able to grab it. I was determined. I needed to make some progress, no matter how little, before they got back.
Because they were coming back. Someone would be coming back for me.
With one hand bracing me, and the blood pooling in my cranium, it was safe to say that I struggled a bit. Everything being upside down didn’t help me at all. Eventually, after a few tries, I was able to lodge it on the wheel at an angle where it could possibly help me.
But then, like everything else, things started to go wrong. A shriek, way too close for comfort, echoed. The heartbreaking sound was accompanied by the sweet sound of metal shifting and shaking, and a moment later, answering shrieks from the top of the hill.
They were coming down here, and they would find me.
With one hand, I tested the leverage, to see if the bat needed to be adjusted, although if it did, I didn’t know where I would put it other than it’s current position. The wheel moved, even though it wasn’t much, it was something.
I pushed down with my hand, hard. Another shriek sounded, from the same place, even though I was easily making enough noise for it to zone in on my location. Even more shrieks answered, even closer.
Nothing happened and the hoard sounded like it was getting closer. There was no more oxygen in the air, and I was going to die here.
With the sounds of twigs snapping and Crazies throwing themselves down the hill behind me, I grew desperate, and somewhat crazed myself. I took both hands away from bracing my weight, took the pain, then slammed them, and all of my weight, into the bat.
I tumbled down onto the nicely laid out bed of glass, but I had come way too far, and gone through way too much, so I grabbed my bat, and painfully dragged myself out from the wreckage.
The ATV was at the base of the hill, a stone's throw away, with the Crazy version of the old man struggling and thrashing wildly in its seat, more so since it saw me. Between that and the wreckage, a few Crazies ran towards me, these ones were faster than the others. Behind the ATV, though, was where the real problem was. An entire hoard, no doubt rounded up by the old, drunk man and a looped playing of Ballroom Blitz. They were struggling to recover from their tumble down the hill, but recovering they were.
I decided not to deal with any of it, did a one-eighty and ran. With luck, I would be able to make it to the river, and lose them there.
But, Luck was with the others, and nowhere near here. So, my chances of anything going right here were slim.
The first step almost made me collapse. I had to use the bat to help me, and after that, each step got easier.
Out of the three that were faster than the others, one of them was faster than the rest. He caught up to me when I was only yards away from the river. Hobbling on mostly one leg, I swung, and missed its skull. I only threw it off balance, and knocked it on the ground. From there, it was easier to take it out, but by the time I did that, the other two were seconds away.
I could deal with two at the same time solo, but while also injured… It just wasn’t going to happen.
So, with the one closest to me, I stepped away, purposely missed its head, and swung the bat so that I hit its upper back, and sent it into the river. That gave me time and room to deal with the third one, although it went much like the first one.
I looked up from my small victory, and the world went into slow motion. So many. So many Crazies of all stages of infection. Fresh, rotting, and everywhere in between.
And they were all coming towards me.
I heard somebody call my name in the distance, but it was too late. I had already started moving.
I dropped my bat on the shore, turned, and jumped into the roaring river.
The water was ice cold. The current was fast.
And the one thought echoed throughout my mind, starting as soon as my boots hit that water, was:
I can’t swim.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my mother, who supported and encouraged me throughout this entire process, and never let me give up on myself. Special thank you to author John O’Brien for the finishing touch-ups and valuable information about publishing, without which I wouldn’t have been able to properly finish this book. He truly took me under his wing and for that I will always be grateful. For a listing of his books, visit his author page: https://www.amazon.com/John-OBrien/e/B005IDEPP0
About the Author
Briana Rain was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. Her passion for writing began in the sixth grade, after she had read nearly all of the books in her school’s library. She wanted more stories, so she began imagining and writing her own. Briana began writing Ophelia when she was 17, a junior in high school. When not writing, which isn’t often, she loves spending time with her family, friends, and her dog: Hamish.
Contact the Author
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https://www.facebook.com/Ophelia-by-Briana-Rain-114076469995689/