I stood back up. Dean put a hand on my shoulder. “You did the right thing.”
I wrapped a hand around his hand. It was comforting. I didn’t like being touched, but his hand was warm and it felt good on my shoulder. Richard stared down at the body with a strange look on his face. I decided to ignore him for now. I started to walk away but Dean didn’t let go of my shoulder. He followed me, keeping his hand on my shoulder.
I whirled around to stare at him. “If I get bit like that, I want you to do the same thing. Don’t let me turn.”
He nodded. “Only if you promise me the same thing.”
“I promise.”
Chapter eight… Who needs memories anyways
In order to get back to the highway but to avoid the infected that we lost earlier, we took the roundabout way. Walking miles out of our way just to avoid them. Richard was being impatient, trying to push us to walk faster. Every few minutes it seemed he would ask about a possible shorter route and he kept hinting about using a car. I ignored him as best as I could, but I could see that Dean was starting to contemplate it. With the dark clouds starting to build above our heads I was starting to contemplate it. When it started raining that decided it for me. It wasn’t just a light rain either, it was turning into a torrential downpour. Within a few minutes my hair was plastered to my skull and my jacket was dripping. If we could find a car that worked at this point, I’d take it. It was either that or turn in for the rest of the day. I’d never driven a car before so I left it to them to decide on one. We passed car after car, and after peering inside Dean would shake his head. I was starting to scope out places, analyzing them in my head when Dean decided on one. It was a red four door car, that was basically sitting on rims but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The body was banged all to hell, the paint was chipped off of it and was entirely missing in some places. If you didn’t look to close you could pretend the rust was just part of the paint job. The back bumper was barely hanging on. The windows were cracked, the back-passenger window was missing entirely. Dean opened the door and slid in. “Jackpot.” He called out.
I stood beside the driver door looking over his shoulder. It looked like the keys were in the ignition. Down at his feet instead of the normal two petals there were three. He started to get out but bumped into me. “Sorry.” I grunted before stepping back. I opened the back door to throw my pack inside. The seats were covered in mold and it smelled like rot. I shrugged internally, I’ve had worse. I started to sit down.
“What are you doing? You need to help push it.” Richard sneered.
I climbed back out. “And why would I push it?” I sneered back.
Richard rolled his eyes at me. Dean dropped his face into his hand. Which was where he spoke from, his voice muffled. “The battery is dead. This car is a manual which means we can jump start it by pushing it.”
That didn’t make any sense to me. But this would be more up Jack’s alley than mine, and apparently up theirs’s too. I slammed the door shut and placed my hands on the trunk of the car. As they started pushing so did I. It actually wasn’t that heavy, not once we got it rolling. We started off at a snail’s pace but quickly became jogging. How long do we have to push this? I was trying to keep up with the car but I have almost flat out running, just to try to keep pushing on it. Dean stopped pushing and jumped in. I slowed down, letting the car get farther ahead of me.
The engine coughed but didn’t turn over. He tried again and still nothing. The car started to slow down. Richard started pushing on it again and I put on a burst of speed to catch up, my lungs weren’t even phased by this. This wasn’t so hard, I could actually keep up on this for a while if needed. I put my hands back on the trunk and started pushing. It was challenging to keep my hands on it. First of all, it was wet and secondly it was mossy. Combined, it was slick. Ahead of me I could hear the engine trying to turn over but it wasn’t catching.
Behind me something growled. I looked back to see three infected chasing us. Great. They were far enough behind me to not be a direct threat but they were gaining slowly. Ahead of me the car coughed to life, it shuddered under my hands. Richard slid in, shutting the door behind him and the car took off leaving me behind. I couldn’t believe it. They were leaving me. All my supplies were in the back seat. Shit. Red covered my vision. I knew exactly what to do.
I slowed down and pulled my knife out of its hilt. I shouldn’t have trusted them. I came to a full stop, pivoted and ran back towards the infected. The closest one snarled at me. Before the turn she would have been someone’s grandma, the kind that would bake cookies and knit sweaters no doubt. Using my momentum, I grabbed her shoulder and drove my knife through her skull and pushed her down to the ground. Her arms flailing useless around her. I landed on my knee but I rolled forward, tucking my chin to my chest while using my weight to drive me forward. As I rolled away, I pulled the knife out of her head. I came out of the roll and used my momentum to pull me to my feet. The second infected was waiting for me. I drove the knife up through the bottom of her jaw. This one was only a teenager, with piercings still sticking out of her face. The third one was on me before I could pull my knife back out. I punched him in the chest, my hand going through it. Uck. I tried to pull it out but the infected only stumbled closer to me. Instead I used my other hand and held him away from me while I pulled my fist out of his chest. It came out with a squelch, leaving my hand looking like I was wearing a crimson glove. I shook off as much gore as I could while I backed away from him, moving in a circle. As his arms reached to embrace me in their death grip I ducked and side swept his feet out from underneath him. As he dropped to the ground, grunting the whole while, I picked up my boot and slammed it down on his head. He moaned pitifully up at me, still trying to reach me. His hands wrapping themselves in my pants, trying to drag me down. I dropped my foot again and again. I didn’t stop until his head was a gory mess on the pavement.
I stood there my shoulders heaving. That felt good. It felt so good to get some of it out. Dimly over the roaring in my ears I could hear someone retching. I looked to my left to see the car was back. Dean was standing with the driver door propped open with his rifle pointed at the ground. He was staring at me wide eyed, not blinking. Richard was over to the side puking almost violently.
I pulled my knife out of the teenager’s jaw and turned to face them. Dean finally blinked. Shakily he climbed back into the car, slamming the door shut, his eyes still trained on me. Looking at me like I was the threat. Purposely not looking at me, Richard climbed back in as well. I stepped forward with long strides. Adrenaline was still coursing through my body; my heart was thumping steadily in my chest. I could keep going. I want to keep going. It felt good to let some anger go but I wanted to let more out. I wanted to be lost in that red haze. Full of anger, no hatred. I stopped midstride. What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t like this it so much, but it comes so naturally. Dad would know. He always had answers.
I stepped up beside the car and I looked around me once again before I dropped into the backseat but kept my knife in my hand. Neither one of them said a single word to me while we drove away. I forced my stiff and unyielding body to lean back against the seat. My hands were curled into fists and sat stiff on my thighs. With unblinking eyes, I watched the scenery pass by while reliving the satisfying feeling of destroying the infected, while wondering what kind of monster I was.
…
Hours later and miles away we stood on a hill overlooking the downtown portion of the city. We’d abandoned the car back on the highway when it had run out of gas. We’d only walked a short while before I decided to climb the hill to get a better view, to see what I could see. But staring down at the buildings a sense of dread imposed itself. The buildings where even in ruin they had their charm. The sky-rises reached towards the sky, reflecting the evening sun off of their broken windows, pieces that were left behind. The clouds had scattered somewhat but they still loomed overhead, threatening more rain. There was a short building off to
the side that had almost all of its windows intact. Looking at it you could almost pretend that everything was normal. But that was it, everywhere else showed their neglect. The buildings below us were covered in climbing ivy, some had even toppled over to be overtaken by trees and other greenery. From here the only thing that looked wrong with the buildings was the missing windows, toppled buildings and missing people, it would be up close that we’d see just how much it had degraded. There were a few light poles standing and even then, some were leaning at extreme angles. The few that were leaning were bent from the cars that tried to run them over. The cars were still sitting there with the front ends bent inwards from the impact. The roads that we could see through the grass, were cracked from tree roots. Cars crowded the streets and from here you couldn’t tell how rusted out they were, but you could see the greenery. The moss and plants growing everywhere. Grass had sprouted in the streets, with flowers covering the road. Everything was quiet. I could only hear the birds singing and in the distance a flock of geese were calling out to each other. Cities should be noisy with human life. There should be shouting and the humming of vehicles clogging the air with their smog and their horns. But there was nothing, no noise, nothing, except for eerie silence. And the ringing in my ears. There was no other way to describe it besides empty.
It was saddening. I didn’t exactly mourn the human race but the opportunities that they provided for each other. Lily would never know what a normal childhood or adulthood would be. She would only know this life. She wouldn’t get to go to school or college and travel the world. She would only know this miserable life. Instead of being filled with my normal anger, I felt deflated. Empty, empty like these streets.
I sighed. This was not going to be fun to maneuver through. For one, infected were going to be everywhere in this mess. Two, I’ve never been in an area that I didn’t know and that was this big. Sounds funny but it’s true, my parents had always believed in living in small towns and buying locally. They had been almost obsessed with staying away from other people. Except Dad. His job required that he work with other people but there were times when he’d border on paranoia. We moved a lot but always to small towns where the population was never more than two or three thousand. But after the infection hit, cities were the worst place to be. Higher population meant higher infection rates. Where the people went the monsters followed. He’d only moved us to the safe zone to keep us safe, that had been full of arguing between him and mom though. He still wanted to stay out but mom wouldn’t hear of it. Even back then I had trouble keeping my temper in check, maybe it was because of me that we moved a lot. But back home, in the other part of the city where we lived, I’d had Dad to show me the area. He’d given me hand drawn maps and his seemingly endless stream of knowledge. But here, I didn’t know this place at all.
But even with this high vantage point the intersecting streets confused me. It looked like a grid but my mind couldn’t make sense of it, there were too many odd intersections and just so much going on. Some streets all the cars were pointed one way, another they pointed the opposite. Then there were streets where cars pointed both ways. How did people live in this day to day? The toppled and leaning buildings didn’t help either. They just made the figuring out where the streets were all that harder. Dad had told me that in the beginning when they were trying to control the chaos and infected, the military had gone about blowing up some of the buildings to create roadblocks that no one could get through. This way they didn’t have to use as much man power to block off streets and alley ways. Didn’t do much good though, from here it looks like it just caused more chaos then it helped.
Richard interrupted my musing. “What if we traveled underground?”
I crouched down and rubbed some dirt in my hands. Dean rubbed his chin. “It could be possible. But I don’t know, judging by the state everything is in now it could be all caved in or even overrun. Or both.” He murmured.
Hmm, traveling through the sewers that could work. But at the same time, it could be a deathtrap. I dusted my hands off by clapping them together quietly. “Infected usually become more active during the day, but at night they don’t completely settle down either, they just roam less. We could use that to our advantage and travel in the dark. Using only one flashlight and keeping it muted to keep from attracting attention. But infected won’t be our only problem down there. But that’s even assuming that we could get in or out if it’s not completely caved in.” I pointed out.
Richard sighed. “Of course they aren’t.”
Dean shoved him. “Shut up. I’m sick of your attitude.”
“Done girlies?” I sarcastically asked.
“Shut up.” I got it in stereo.
I stood up. “Anyways, more than likely we’re going to be dealing with raiders. I mean there’s still infected but we’ll have a higher chance of actually running into raiders here.”
“What do you mean by raiders?” Richard looked uneasily towards the city.
I sighed. “I call them raiders simply because I haven’t come up with a better name for them. Basically, they aren’t infected and they prey on other uninfected. Killing them, stealing from them, doing whatever they feel like doing at the time.” I lapsed into silence, remembering.
The first and only time that I had had actual interactions with them was when I was with my Dad, the day that he had died. I had avoided them ever since, not that it was that difficult. They were loud and didn’t care about it. That day though, their caravan had come to a rumbling stop and the leader had stepped down from his truck holding a rifle over his shoulder, the rest of his caravan were climbing out of their own vehicles. We were in the middle of the road with nowhere to run to without being followed. Dad pushed me behind him, keeping me out of sight as much as possible. The leader, stepped towards us. For every step he took we took one back. More men kept coming out around him, leering and pointing weapons at us.
He spread his arms out wide, still carefully holding his rifle. “Come on. We aren’t gonna hurt you. Can we just talk for a minute, as friends?” He kept a smile on his face, the whole while staring daggers at me over my dad’s shoulder.
Dad kept backing us up. “I don’t think so. We were just on our way-“
“You know what?” The leader guy turned around in a circle, “why don’t we have a party? You two-“ he pointed at us. “Will be the guests of honor!” He began laughing manically as if he found the whole situation hilariously funny.
Dad began whispering furiously, there was a tone of anger to his voice. “Alice, when I tell you to, I’m going to need you to run as fast as you can. I don’t care what you hear or see. Just run and don’t let anything stop you. You know how to use your pistol. If they come after you use it. Whatever you do, don’t hesitate. Because they won’t. Do you understand?”
“But Dad. What about you? I can’t leave you.” I held onto the back of his shirt and stared up at his lined face.
He kept whispering. “Yes, you can. Remember the hiding spot we found?”
I nodded yes.
“Good. Go there, hide and when it’s safe, go home.” He looked down at me, his face was serious but he didn’t look scared, just determined. He looked back at the people in front of us again.
At that point the man was still shouting about a party. He then stopped moving and began to stare very intensely at us. “Now, we’re providing the food and drinks, which I might add are hard to find these days, right men?” They shouted in agreement. “You need to contribute.” He said in a mocking tone. His eyes drifted down to me. To stare me in the eyes. “Why not her? Why not the other one? She can join our party too.” He mocked while he stepped dramatically towards us.
Dad stiffened. “That aint happening you freak.”
“Oh,” he clutched his chest, right over his heart. “I’m so hurt. Oh Johnny, he hurt me!” He leaned dramatically on another man. Where he quickly straightened. The men around him chuckled darkly. “But I think your daughter will make it all
better. Besides she needs to know the truth.” His voice lost all humor, it sounded dead. “Bring both of them alive. I want him to suffer by my hand only.”
At that the ten or so guys with him surged forward with weapons raised. Dad pushed me away screaming for me to run. I ran. At the end of the street I looked back to see him crouched behind a dumpster shooting at them with several bodies spread out on the ground. I watched one guy get around dad. Dad tried shooting him but the other men kept pushing forward, forcing him to focus on them. I pushed myself to run even harder to get down the street. I have to hide. First, I have to lose him before trying to hide. Before I got halfway down the street I turned left into a building. There were no doors so I jumped through the entry way and crashed my way through the lobby of whatever it was and bolted through the back door. I slammed it shut behind me but there were windows on one side of the wall, allowing me to look into the lobby and whoever was in there to look in here. I slid away from the windows and looked around me trying to find something to hide behind. I was in a kitchen that was just as big as the lobby behind me. I crouched down while moving quickly but quietly.
I was in front of an oven when I heard him come running into the building. “Little girl! Little girl, where are you?” He called out.
I froze. Fear froze every part of me. I could hear his soft footsteps coming closer through the lobby. C’mon Alice, I begged myself, you have to keep moving. Gathering my courage, I crawled to the wall furthest from the door, staying behind anything that I could find so he wouldn’t be able to see me. I stayed in a crouched position. Using the counters and other objects that littered the floor I was able to get to the emergency exit without being seen. From the sounds of it, it sounded like he was still in the lobby, pushing things around and talking out loud like an idiot.
I licked my lips and turned the handle and pushed the door open a crack. I glanced through the crack to see that it led into an alley way. I stepped out pushing the door open as little as possible, I stood up so I could sneak through. I was closing the door when an infected screamed behind me. I turned quickly but it jumped on me before I could finish my turn. I smacked my head into the handle on the door, slamming the door shut with a bang and my back landed on the corner of the step knocking the wind out of my lungs. Instinctively I put my hands up to block the infected from biting me. It used to be a woman. I put one hand on the top part of her chest right underneath her jaw. She was straddling my waist; one arm was entirely missing while the other was broken. The bone was sticking out of where her elbow was. The arm didn’t work very well, it just waved itself around, and the hand was curled into a claw. She waved it around though as if there was no bone sticking out of the skin, her hand didn’t work properly. She snapped her jaws, trying to get past my hand holding her. My other hand was desperately looking for my knife. I couldn’t find it. It was supposed to be in my pocket but it was gone.
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