Dead World Rising (Book 1): Staying Human

by Petrova, Katerina

  Those poor girls, they did not scream until the first ember caught their skin. We had been instructed not to turn away, anyone who did so would be punished. I stood, tears cascading down my face as their screams filled my ears. The flames spread up their legs, I could only imagine how painful it was to die that way. Now as their legs had fully caught fire, they did beg to be let go.

  'Please, we'll do anything!' The tall girl cried in agony.

  'OH GOD PLEASE DON'T LET US DIE THIS WAY!' The other girl screamed.

  'This is what happens to traitors, let this be a lesson to all of you!' Nathaniel shouted. The smell of burning live flesh was unlike anything I had ever smelled before, though the sight was far worse. In the end I don't know if those poor girls actually died of burning or just plain fear, I'll never forget the look of utter terror on their faces as they took their last breath upon the pyre.

  'Those of you who are new here have now seen what happens to those who try to escape, and just in case you think that hasn't taught you a lesson, I'm leaving these two here for sevens days and each morning you will look upon their faces as a reminder,' he said harshly.

  The rewards you got for being good could not outweigh the truly evil things these men did, my poor Maggie. I feared that with being Nathaniel's pet, she too would become hard and cruel in time. These men were the true definition of evil and this place was our hell.

  Chapter 25

  Frankie

  As we walked towards the little town of Meltham the memories of what happened back at the hospital filled my mind. Jensen and I had unknowingly ran towards the stairs leading up to the roof, as we opened the door we saw the flood of corpses fall through on to the second floor. I slammed the door shut behind me, trying to stop any biters that still had legs, from getting back up the stairs. I sighed with relief as I slumped down in front the door, we called down to Finn and Tamara but we heard nothing back. There was nothing up here to block the door with so I had to rely on my own strength, Jensen tried to edge past the giant hole in the floor to see if Finn and Tamara had made it outside.

  Of course he bloody slipped and almost fell in, luckily for him I was fast enough to grab hold of his arm. I was stretched, I had one arm holding on to him, one foot near the edge while my other foot was still trying to keep the door closed. He started shaking his leg vigorously as a biter from the floor below had got hold of him. I tried to pull him up but that corpse had got a pretty strong hold of him.

  I could now see the large crowd of walkers that had gathered beneath his swinging legs, oh shit I had to get him up. I tried my damnedest to pull him up but I was struggling, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I couldn't lose him, I just couldn't.

  'You can't save us both,' he said softly.

  'No I won't leave you, we'll get out of this together,' I told him, feeling the tears fall down my face.

  I now grabbed him with both hands, trying desperately to pull him up.

  'You will not leave me damn it, I can't lose you as well,' I cried.

  I could now hear the walkers trying to get at the door, if I didn't block it soon we'd both be dead.

  'Just leave me please, I love you too much to let you die for me,' he said tearfully.

  'You stupid fucking idiot, I love you. You will not die today!' I shouted. I pulled with all my might and just about managed to get him up, he collapsed on top of me for a moment before we rushed to the door. I'd heard Tamara call us before, but I'd been too busy to answer.

  'Frankie, Jensen, can you hear me?' Tamara called again.

  'Are you alright?' I shouted.

  'We're fine, can you get down?' Tamara asked.

  'No, we're trapped. There's too many walkers blocking our path down, we need help,' I cried.

  'Hold on, we'll radio in some help,' she replied.

  A few moments later she called back to tell us to hold on, I could feel the biters clawing at the door trying desperately to get to us. Despite our very fucking dire situation at least our feelings were out in the open, though now was not a good time discuss them. As we sat in front of the door we dug our feet into the ground, I took his hand in mine and just looked at him and for a single moment we just smiled at each other.

  I was so thankful that not long after that, Tamara, Finn, Izzy, Cammi and Jillian came to our rescue. I've no idea how the five of them got through all the corpses, but I'll be forever grateful that they did.

  We had just said goodbye to Faye, Gail and Cammi as they went in search for Finn and Faye's parents. I could see just how hard it was for Finn to let her go, but Cammi and Gail assured him that they would keep her safe. We had a radio so that Faye and the others could keep in touch with us, should anything happen. Cammi saying goodbye to her mum Jillian didn't seen to be as emotional as Finn and Faye's departure but it was still sad.

  Our first stop once we reached the town, was an old church where we would stay for the night.

  'So are you going to tell me what happened with you and Jensen?' Tamara whispered as she pulled me back to walk behind the others.

  'Ha ha, your like a dog with a bone, you know that,' I laughed.

  'Oh come on, dish the dirt lass,' she said wiggling her eyebrows.

  I let out a groan, I knew she was not going to let this go. 'Fine, I'll tell you,' I replied caving in. I spoke in a hushed voice and told her what happened back at the hospital being careful not to let Jensen hear, neither of us had really spoken to each other about it and I didn't how he'd feel about me telling Tamara.

  'So, after all that you didn't even kiss?' She whispered.

  'No, I mean we've kissed before but-,' I broke off halfway because Tamara was staring at me.

  'Wait, you didn't tell me you'd kissed before. When did that happen?' She asked excitedly. Oh crap, now I really was going to have her buzzing. I filled her in on our kiss back at Esco, and the one at the pub, of course she wanted all the details. The apocalypse sure put a dampener on having fun, so my weird love life was all the entertainment she could get.

  'Was it, you know good?' She quizzed.

  I so did not want to answer that, feeling myself blush Tamara looked at me and smiled.

  'So it was good,' she laughed.

  'Okay, yes Jensen was a very passionate kisser,' I let the words slip out before I realised that Jensen had slowed his pace and heard everything.

  I looked to see him red faced and clearly embarrassed, Finn looked at Jensen and just said 'The girls poking fun at you again,' and just laughed.

  Jensen straightened up and replied, 'those girls are lethal, they should not be together,' and laughed along with Finn, brushing off his embarrassment.

  'You always seem to be the butt of their jokes,' Finn said jokingly.

  'I don't mind too much I would just like to see someone else take a hit for a change,' Jensen laughed.

  'As long as they don't point their jokes my way,' Finn replied. Before Finn could even brace himself Tamara had ran up behind him and jumped on his back, good thing Finn was strong or they both would have gone flying.

  Tamara wrapped her arms round his shoulders, when Finn smiled instead of throwing her off I knew he was enjoying her playfulness; maybe a little too much. I stood back and laughed as I watched them, even Jillian could not help but laugh with us.

  'Got tired of walking did you?' Finn said trying to sound casual.

  'Yup, thought a nice strong guy like you could give me a lift,' she replied playfully.

  'Well I don't mind giving you a lift, your not that heavy,' he teased.

  'What do you mean not THAT heavy, you cheeky little git.' Tamara started tickling Finn, we all just stood back and watched happily for a few moments. Finn dropped Tamara on the grass and somehow she pulled him down with her, we looked on with amusing looks as she continued to tickle him. While Finn could have easily pinned her down he chose to let her have her fun.

  After ten minutes of her vigorous tickled Finn called time out, he clearly couldn't take it any more. She sat up and smiled at Fi
nn, she had a twinkle in her eyes that made us all for a minute forget the world. This had been the only true laughable and innocent moment since the supermarket, if we could have more times like this our lives wouldn't feel so harsh and lonely.

  'Now do you want to take back that last comment?' Tamara said mockingly.

  'Okay okay, your not heavy at all your light as a feather,' Finn replied still smiling.

  She got up off the floor and wiped the grass of her trousers, Finn held out his hand which she took, he pulled her up and she gave him a sweet smile. We all walked along leisurely not bothering to hurry up. I looked around at every to see the smiles on their faces, Jillian shook her head in a disapproving way like a parent would though I could tell she was smiling inside. We'd had our moment of playfulness now we needed to return to the task at hand.

  I looked up a while later to find the clouds getting darker, it had been bright and sunny not long ago but now the clouds were turning black and the sun had disappeared. I felt a cold chill in the air and knew that a big storm was brewing.

  The houses here were small and pretty just like in Holmfirth, though this place was larger. I was surprised to see that it too had been left untouched by the bombings. Another deserted town, or so I thought.

  We walked past a restaurant called ''The Pink Elephant'' when a walker came running out of the broken glass doors, it seemed faster than a normal biter but we didn't have time to think as it was heading straight for us.

  We all dropped our bags and got out our weapons.

  Tamara was the first one to get at it, she stabbed it several times before it fell to the ground, Tamara pushed it off her knife and wiped it on her clothes.

  'I think we need to check out the restaurant before going any further,' she said worryingly.

  'I agree, we don't want any surprises as we're walking along,' Jillian replied walking towards the restaurant. We put our bags at the door and knocked loudly on the remaining glass, we heard loud moans coming from inside. Before we even had time to react a large group of biters came charging out, Jensen and I got pinned to the floor. The others couldn't help us as they were busy dealing with this mini herd.

  From what I could see there were ten walkers, I tried vigorously to get the biter off me but my efforts were in vain as it was just too strong; Jensen kicked the biter off him and mercilessly stamped on its head, it took many attempts to kill it. I moved my head quickly as it tried to bite me, even in my panicked state I wondered why it was so strong.

  Jensen descended upon the walker that pinned me down, viciously grabbed it by the throat and threw it to the ground. I got to my feet and helped him kill it, I felt my strength waning it took more out of me than it should of done.

  'Thanks for that, I'm fine though we need to help the others,' I said panting.

  He nodded as we ran to the others, it looked like they had faired better with the biters than we had; not much though as the strength of the walkers somehow seemed to match theirs. Between the four of them they had only managed to kill two biters, I ran up to the walker that was trying to grab Finn I pulled it away from him. It took the two of us to kill it, it seemed like its head was made of steel as it took us several minutes to end it.

  Jensen was helping Izzy take down two of them, though it appeared that they needed help as the walkers seemed to be able to withstand a lot of our attacks. Jillian and Tamara were trying to deal with three of them but only succeeding in getting knocked to the ground. The rest of us raced over to help them, Izzy, Finn and I held a corpse each while the others tried to stab them.

  It felt like it took forever but we finally took them all down, we all panted with exhaustion wiping the blood off our weapons.

  'Is it me or did they seem unusually strong?' I asked putting my knife back in my belt.

  'Yes they did, it was strange but it was almost like they knew what they were doing,' replied Jillian sounding very frustrated.

  I bend down to examine the corpses, I noticed some strange marks on their arms.

  'Jillian, take a look at this,' I said confused.

  She took a look at them, the same looked of confusion appeared on her face.

  'Well I'm no research scientist but I'd say they were injected with something before they turned. Look they all have needle marks on them' she replied grimly.

  'What do you think it is?' Tamara asked concernedly.

  Jillian shook her head.

  'I have no idea, but I'll bet you it isn't good.'

  'Well it's no use staying out here, we need to get to the church,' I told them. We got our things and carried on walking to the church, thankfully there were no other walkers along the way. Finn radioed in to the others, telling them about the strangely strong ones we had found.

  'We will keep an eye out, be careful though,' said Faye through the crackly radio.

  'Don't worry we will do, I'll check in with you later,' Finn replied looking relieved.

  We reached the church and put our bags round the back, as we looked in the windows, they were hard to see through as they had been painted. 'It looks like there's a few biters inside but not many. I think we can handle them,' said Jillian confidently.

  We hashed out a plan, deciding that we would go in two groups. Jensen, Tamara and I would go in the front and the others would go in the back.

  Fortunately the front doors were only closed and not locked, we opened the doors and stepped inside there were five walkers shuffling around.

  Jensen and I crept up on two of them while Tamara shot the other two with her crossbow, I was thankful that these ones weren't extremely strong like the ones at the restaurant. Jensen took down the remaining one, stabbing it furiously in the head. We could hear the others coming in the back way, we could hear fighting and scuffling. We ran into the back room to see them taking care of three biters, although they needed no help from us.

  Just as we began to throw out the bodies and close the all the doors, the storm really hit. Thunder banged loudly, echoing through the town. The lightning flashed filling the surrounding areas with a strange, almost alien light while the rain fell so heavily that I feared the town might flood if it kept up. During the fight none of us had noticed the large hole in the middle of the floor, we took a peek over the edge being careful not to get too close. To our relief there were no corpses down there, feeling as safe as we could in this little church we settled down for the night in the back room after eating some food.

  I got my blanket out my bag and settled down for night, I saw Jensen get up and walk out the room he mumbled something about keeping watch. I tried for a while to sleep but found my mind thinking about Jensen who still hadn't returned, I still didn't know what to do no matter how much I pondered I could not decide. I was still torn between feeling like I was betraying Nikkita and wanting to be with him.

  I sighed and got up, looking at the others I could see they were all fast asleep. Must be nice to just fall asleep so easily, I felt envious.

  I wondered out into the main hall to find Jensen sat at the edge of the hole, sometimes I swear he could be so irresponsible; he could fall in at any moment.

  'What are doing, the floorboards could collapse at any moment!' I hissed at him angrily.

  'I'm just sitting here, thinking about things. Don't worry I'm not stupid enough to fall in.,' he replied. His stupidity was infuriating, and yet his charm was so captivating that I felt my anger vanish. He turned to smile at me, looking at him it was like butter wouldn't melt I found it difficult to stay mad at him.

  I sat down next to him not looking down the hole, I felt that if I did I would panic. Despite my worry about what our next move would be, I felt tranquil sitting by his side. 'So what's on your mind?' I asked trying to sound casual. 'Just thinking about what we're going to do next, I mean the storm is pretty bad and those exceedingly strong biters do worry me,' he said concernedly.

  Although he claimed to feel worried, he certainly didn't look it, in fact he looked rather relaxed. We sat and talked for
a while, we both seemed to dance around the topic of us. I both wanted him to ask and didn't, my heart was racing and my skin was filled with goosebumps. I turned my head away from him in the hope that he would not see my cheeks blush as the image of his naked chest flashed in my mind.

  My head was starting itch as it had been in a ponytail for so long, I pulled the thick red bobble out and let my hair flow loosely down to my waist. To my surprise Jensen was staring at me with such a lusting hunger in his eyes that for a moment I forgot about everything and I just stared at him. His green eyes were so clear it was like looking into a sparkling pond, for the longest time we just looked at each other. It was like we were seeing each other for the first time, he reached up to stroke my face and the cautious part of my brain wanted to move away; but I couldn't move I was frozen in place. I could see the pale freckles on his face as he moved closer to me, it was at that moment I decided not to deny myself the happiness I knew that he would bring me.

  I felt his soft lips on mine, I did not think as I let him hold me I simply let our passionate embrace take me away. At first our kisses were soft and gentle but they soon transformed into hungry almost forceful ones. I felt my heart beating faster, my skin was tingling with excitement as my fears and worries melted away. It was sometime later that we pulled apart, his pale face was now red. He looked at me like I was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen. We did not speak as we got up, we didn't need to. There was no need to ruin this moment with awkward words, I now knew what my choice would be. Jensen and I stood for moment holding each other, when the floorboards gave way. We screamed as we went down, not knowing what else to do; I felt Jensen trying to grab me as the darkness took over.

  Chapter 26

  Jillian

  It had been three days since Frankie and Jensen's accident, while Frankie had injured her leg and had a mild concussion, Jensen on the other hand was in a coma and had swelling on his brain. It was lucky that the others had got to the hospital before we left for Scotland, I had the medication to help Jensen but there was still no guarantee that he would make it. Shortly after we'd put Jensen and Frankie in the side room walkers had invaded the church, no doubt they had been drawn by the noise of panicked shouts.