by Maya Riley
Cursing filled the interior of the car, mixed in with Maura’s shrieks. Puppy was then thrown toward the back, and Maura landed on top of me right as the window busted and the car was filled with smoke. I coughed, trying to breathe through all the smoke, but there was too much to even be able to see.
“Everyone alright? Fuck!” Cough. “Skittle?”
I could hear someone calling me, but the voice was having trouble getting through the ringing in my ears.
I pushed myself up slightly, feeling much heavier than usual, and looked down. Little red droplets were falling onto Maura. Lifting my hand, despite the sluggish feeling it had, I touched my face and felt a liquid substance. I pulled my hand away and looked down to see it covered in blood.
My blood.
Horror crossed Maura’s blood-spattered face and she tried to say something, but her voice was lost with the ringing in my ears. I shook my head, but it was no use. I closed my eyes to try and focus, and wait out the hindering noise.
Hands were on either side of my head, and I could feel the harsh breath of someone yelling into my face. Didn’t they realize speaking didn’t work right now?
I opened my eyes, and one eye was staring back at me. It was filled with worry and panic. It was as dark as the dirt of the ground during a rainstorm. Trails of mud swirled inside the iris, along with all the emotions of words left unsaid.
The ringing slowly began to lessen, and I could make out more words again.
“Trouble? Dammit, speak to me.” Mateo’s plea was frantic, needing some sort of answer. He repeated himself, determined to break through the veil clouding my ears. Then it finally broke through.
I smiled. “Bubble Butt.”
His panic shifted into confusion. “I think she’s delirious,” he told someone I couldn’t see.
“You have a bubble butt.”
“Well, at least she’s forming a full sentence now,” Adam commented, snickering behind me, before he broke out into coughs.
I tried to shift, then realized I was pinned. Mateo was on top of me and I was unable to move. Even if he wasn’t straddling my middle, my own muscles were still too heavy to do much. I could feel the pressure lessening. It was a slow process, but just as my ears took a minute to let in any sound, my body needed some time to heal.
He still had his hands on either side of my face, really pinning me down. I lifted my hands to rest them on his wrists, and gazed up.
“Uh, big guy, I can’t move.”
“That’s okay, you don’t need to worry about that right now. We got you. Need to make sure you’re okay, although I’m pretty sure you’re delirious right now.”
My fingers moved up his wrists, then stalled when they touched a sticky substance. “Are you bleeding?” My eyes darted around, remembering the blood spatters on Maura’s face. “You’re hurt. Where’s Maura? Puppy? Is everyone else alright?” I coughed out the last words. Speaking was getting to be too much.
Mateo moved off to the side of me, but not without a warning. “We’re fine, I promise. Our scratches will heal. Don’t you move yet, or I’ll get right back on top of you.”
I grinned. “Is that a threat, or a promise?”
“Yup, she’s still delirious. What’s taking so long?”
I tried to frown in confusion, but it hurt my face. “What happened?”
Adam’s hands were moving all over me, checking for injuries. He started with my neck and quickly moved down to my ankles. “A psycho rotter came out of nowhere and ran right in front of the car. Mateo tried to swerve, but it was too fast. Pretty sure the car is totaled.”
“We need to get some of this blood off her face.”
“Not right now, there’s glass mixed in and could cut her more,” Adam cautioned.
“So, what do we do right now then?”
There was a faint sound of something small falling onto the ground. It happened a few times, and I looked down. Tiny pieces of glass were falling out of my face and onto the ground at my side.
“Well, I think that answers your question,” Adam muttered. “She’s healing. Her body is pushing the glass out.” His hands moved around, grabbed my loose hair, and held it back and out of the way.
“This is so weird,” Mateo mumbled, fascinated. Slowly, my face began to feel better. I could feel each and every cut as they stitched themselves up without effort as soon as each tiny shard of glass fell out.
Jonah kneeled down next to Adam, took in what was happening, and then removed his shirt. He poured water on it from one of his water bottles, just enough for what he needed it for, and then began to clean my face once the glass stopped falling out. His touch was gentle, and he was careful not to hurt me.
A small, faint bruise was beginning to barely color the side of his eye. I reached a hand toward it, but he moved his face just out of my grasp. He gave me a meek smile, as though he knew what I was going for, but didn’t want me to heal it.
It was going to become a problem, this thing where I keep being drawn to fix their injuries, but they flinch away because we don’t know exactly what would happen each time. I didn’t think I could keep myself from trying to help each time I saw one of them hurt. Just like they still haven’t stopped helping me every time I got hurt.
A few minutes later, it looked like nothing had even happened to me.
I gazed up and my breath caught in my throat. I knew he was a swimmer back before all this, and his body certainly still had the same definition I assumed he’d had before. I did recently see them all strip down and play around in the water, but it was a sight I didn’t think I could ever actually get used to.
The absence of static cut through the silence as a familiar voice came through the car radio once again.
Salvaged. Beaumont, Texas. We have space for you.
Excitement rose as a smile cut across my face. “Let me up,” I demanded, unable to contain the bubbling excitement as confirmation of our destination came through.
The seatbelt flew away as someone cut it off me. Mateo wrapped his hands under my arms and hoisted me up into a sitting position. From there, I grabbed the damaged frame of the car, needing to get out and find the others. Looking around, I saw the windshield was still intact, but the back window was shattered. I grasped the seat I’d been sitting comfortably on not long ago, and attempted to climb over to it. Hands pulled me back down and I fought against them. “Either help me out or let me do it on own.”
“I’m trying. If you would just hold still for one moment… Your foot is tangled in the seat belt,” a gruff voice responded.
“Oh.” I waited impatiently for Mateo to free my foot, before he hefted me up and over the seats to get better access to the back window. The others were waiting outside, since there was clearly not enough room in the wreckage for everyone to safely be inside.
“Guess we gotta find another car to hot-wire,” I quipped, in an attempt to lighten the mood as I climbed out. Linc and Maura had such concerned looks on their faces.
I reached back inside the car and opened the nearest bag. Feeling around for the first piece of fabric and a water bottle I could grab, I pulled them out, walked over, and stopped in front of Maura. I opened the bottle and poured some water onto the men’s shirt in my hand. Lifting the fabric, I pressed it gently against Maura’s face and wiped away the blood.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” I questioned.
She shook her head beneath the fabric. “No, not really. A little sore, and a few scratches, but you cushioned my fall.” Her eyes darted up to mine. “I mean, most of the blood on my face is yours anyway. I’m good, you should focus more on your own injuries.”
I pulled the fabric away and looked into her nearly scratch-free face. “I’m good. I think I’ve healed whatever injuries I had.”
I lowered the fabric and then looked frantically around. “Where’s Puppy?”
A bark rang out as her name was called, and I could see my best, furry companion trotting over to me with a very slight limp.
“She’s okay,” Lincoln said. “She seems to be a little sore from the impact, but nothing is broken. Her walking is improving with every step she takes.”
I kneeled down to put my arms around her as she greeted me with a lick to the face. I let out a few laughs as her weight pushed me over backward. “Okay, okay, I get it, you’re good.”
With a bark, Puppy moved off of me and to the side, allowing me to get back onto my feet.
I lifted my hand to my forehead, shielding my eyes from the insanely bright sun, and gazed up and down the road we were on. Ash flew around in the wind, and the only thing on the road were weeds growing through the cracks, along with pieces of the car that had come apart in the wreck. Smoke billowed from the charred remains of a rotter, no doubt Lincoln’s doing. There was no car in sight.
“Looks like we may be walking. How far back was the last car anyone saw?” I dropped my hand to my side and waited for someone to answer. Mateo and Adam were climbing out of the SUV now.
The last car we passed was many miles back, Jonah signed. It would be better to keep moving forward.
“Especially now that we know exactly which city and state to head to,” Adam added.
Maura perked up. “Did you get a signal? A message from the radio?”
Adam nodded, then signed the information to Jonah. “We’d never get there if we tried to walk the whole way. Best bet is to get our stuff, start walking, and try the first car we see. We could keep changing cars later if necessary.”
I looked around. “I don’t see any rotters yet, or anything really. If we’re going to start walking, there’s no time better than right now.” I walked back to the car and reached inside for my bags. “The day is still young, we can make a lot of progress and hopefully find something useful.” I strapped the bags onto me. “Like a car. Or shelter for the night. Or maybe even both if we’re super lucky.”
“Hold on there,” Lincoln said as he walked up to my side. He reached into the car and pulled out a bottle of water and a clean rag. I watched as the rag grew damp as he poured water onto it, before lifting it up to my face. “You’re covered in blood, and it’ll only get more annoying to get off if you let it bake into your skin in the sun.”
I remained standing there as he wiped my face, and any dirtied exposed skin, free of dirt and blood. After a minute, he was finished and I felt much better. Not entirely clean, but better.
The others picked their bags up and we headed out. We started in the direction as we were originally heading.
Blyss
The road was eerily deserted as we walked. Not even rotters stumbled into our path. At least, not since the one that took out our car. We’d walked a few miles without any sign of life, or any sign of death. The sun blazed down upon us and we did our best to stay in the shade of any trees we could. Every time a batch of trees lined the road, we’d move over to take advantage of the brief respite from the heat of the sun.
Except there weren’t always a lot of trees lining the highway. Instead, when the sun was sweltering and there were no clouds in the sky, we hopped off the road and walked on the dirt-covered ground to be in the shade. We wouldn’t have lasted much longer otherwise.
“There has to be something coming up soon, right? This highway can’t keep going on forever without some kind of exit that has something.” Maura wiped the sweat off her forehead with the end of her already sweat-soaked shirt as we reached another patch of trees for temporary relief.
“Hopefully,” Lincoln answered. “Although, there are pretty long stretches of highway in the South that can go for many, many miles without any kind of rest area or exit.”
Maura groaned. “I’m going to choose to ignore that and keep my hopes up instead.”
“Adam, what are you doing?” I asked, when I noticed he was doing something strange with his hands. He was flicking his wrist about, but nothing was happening.
He sighed. “I’m trying to see if I can manipulate the wind, or to make wind come out of my hands or something, to create some kind of fan. But I’m not having any luck.”
“I’m telling you, man. The best way to determine that is for your life to be in danger. Or someone else’s life,” Lincoln supplied, possibly thinking back to when he first discovered his abilities.
“I’d much rather get a handle on them before that happens, so I can be more useful when it does. I don’t want to take the risk of flailing around during a rotter or scaver ambush, flipping my hands around waiting for something to happen.” He continued to put his focus on turning his hands in different angles as the shade began to disappear with the moving sun. We stepped back out into the sun and proceeded in silence. “But you might be right. I’ll keep trying though.”
There’s a large green sign up ahead, Jonah signed. There may be a place to rest soon.
Good, I signed back, while also speaking out loud, because I’m about to pull over to the side again for another break. Mostly for Puppy.
I eyed my favorite furry companion. She was still going strong, but she was panting a lot and exhaustion was beginning to creep into her eyes. I worried about how all the direct heat would affect her with her full, thick coat of fur. Not everyone could easily tell the slightest difference in their dog, but we’d been so close for so long that we could probably predict a sneeze for each other before it even happened.
Sighs of relief rang out as soon as we got close enough to recognize some of the fading symbols on the large green sign. There were gas stations, restaurants, and other types of buildings, all of which would most likely have been ransacked by now. Most importantly, though, it meant shelter and possibly transportation.
I looked up at the sky. The sun was still high, but a fairly large chunk of the day had passed by. “There’s most likely shelter here, but if we do find a car, what do the rest of you want to do? Stay the night here, or hot-wire and hit the road?”
“As long as there are no more crazy people with plastic on their furniture or rotters on leashes, I’m game for calling it a night here.” Sweat droplets flung into the hot air as Mateo ran his hand through his hair. The guys were taking turns carrying the radio, since it was an annoying thing to carry all this way, and it was now his turn. He readjusted his hand around it, fatigue apparently getting to him. Lincoln walked up behind him and silently relieved him of the extra weight he’d been carrying. It was too big to fit in, or on, anyone’s bag otherwise.
“I second that,” Maura agreed. “Although, if it’s a choice between that, and another day of walking under this sun, I may be tempted to take my chances with the crazy people.”
“The crazy people, is that what we’re calling them now?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call them, so they get a general term for right now. It seems kind of fitting.”
“I’m mostly curious.” A few eyes glanced at me before turning back to the road. “Why? What’s their purpose of keeping the rotters on chains? They could be loved ones, but then why did everyone step out of their house with their pet rotter when the alarm sounded? And then set them loose on us. It was way too weird.” If it was a friend or family member, I’d have expected them to protect them more than they did, especially with the level of care they obviously gave them beforehand. It was like they were their guard dogs or something.
“This whole world is a weird one now,” Adam remarked.
“Yes, but this was a whole new level of weird. A fucked up level of weird. If they hadn’t tried to kill us on sight, I’d honestly be curious to know their purpose for it all. At least, before the fight to the death.”
We reached the exit ramp and turned off, everyone eager to get inside some shelter and away from the blazing sun.
Some colored rooftops poked through the trees and we headed for them. As we got closer, I could make out a few buildings. Some were small shops and businesses, while others were little houses. I aimed for one of the houses, one of the most likely places to have a bed around here, or even car
peting to lay down on. My standards of comfort have dramatically decreased over the last several months.
Mateo kneeled down neck to a puddle of water that had collected in the dip where part of the street met the sidewalk. Setting his pack down and digging through it, he pulled out a clean shirt, dunked it into the puddle, and then proceeded to clean the sweat from his body. Not long after, the rest of us followed suit. It was the waterfall we’d found earlier on, but right now it would be the best bath we were going to get for the foreseeable future.
Standing up somewhat refreshed, I took another look at our surroundings. Numerous vehicles lined the street, and if the area was safe enough to stay, we’d be able to spend some time picking our transportation and siphoning as much gas as we could to the one we’d take. If not, then it would be a quick hot-wire of the nearest vehicle and hightailing it out of here for as far as we could make it.
Adam was still twisting his hands about. He used his hands to fan his face, but that didn’t seem to do anything out of the usual. I stepped in front of him, and reached out to cover his hands in mine, stalling his movements.
“Too much?” he questioned.
I nodded. “Save your energy. I know the unknown about this must be eating you up inside, but give it a short rest.”
The others continued on, overturning trash cans and opening car doors. Maura even peeked into a mailbox and started sifting through the mail that was still in there. What purpose that would serve, I had no clue.
Grinning, I turned around and pulled Adam behind me, guiding us to the side of a nearby house. “I’ll give you something else to focus on,” I murmured, as I spun around and pressed him up against the wall. My eyes closed as I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. My hands found their way to his chest, and pushed lightly as I leaned into him. He returned my kisses as his arms wound around me and tightened his grip, holding me close.
A few strands of his hair tickled my forehead, and I reached up to push them away, deciding to let my hands tangle up in his hair in the process. I gave a gentle tug, and smiled when he moaned into my mouth.