I had to put my other hand on its chest to keep its mouth away from me. She was frigging strong! I was screwed. My knife was gone and the gun. The gun! I looked down at the holster where it should have been. Then a glint of metal caught my eye, I glanced over and there it was. Out of my reach, lying in the middle of the alley. How’d it get all the way over there? Crap. First my knife goes missing and now my gun is all the way out there. This was definitely the worst day of my life. I was aware that tears were streaming down my face. I was going to die. My arms were starting to give out and it was getting closer and closer to my face. I did the only thing I could do at that point. I screamed.
Within seconds the man that had been following me appeared. He swore and shot the thing in the head. It immediately became dead weight and I pushed it off of me but in front of him so he would have to step over it. I sat up and started to scoot away from him, towards where I had seen my gun. He held out his hands. “Sweetheart, its ok. I got it. I saved your life. Now, just come with me. Your dad will be there and everything will be just dandy.” He stepped slowly towards me with his hands raised in what he thought was supposed to be a comforting gesture. Well he was wrong, there was nothing comforting about him or this situation.
My hand landed on the gun. Without hesitation I wrapped my hand around it and pointed it at him. His face paled and he turned his gun towards me. But he was too late. I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him right through the left eye. He fell back and landed spread eagle.
I sat there and started sobbing. After a moment I pulled myself to my feet and ran with tears streaming down my face. I ran for what felt like hours before I reached the brick building. But in reality, it had only been minutes. I had killed a man to save myself. I killed him to get away from him. Hysterically I slammed into the front door. I ran in and hauled myself up six flights of stairs before flinging myself into a hallway. At the fourth door I ran into the apartment. I ran into the hallway and pulled the string that was hanging from the ceiling. A piece of the ceiling dropped down, revealing a ladder. I pulled the ladder the rest of the way down, climbed up it and I hauled it back up. I scooted to the only window and waited. I sobbed for hours. I killed a man and I didn’t regret it. I didn’t regret it one bit and it scared me.
I waited for my dad for three days. I let my stomach grumble and my mouth dry out till it was dryer than the desert before I decided it was time to go. Hesitantly I made my way back to where I left him. I was sneaking down the alleyway where I had shot the man. He was still laying there, not four feet from the dead infected. I started to shake so badly that I had to stop and compose myself. Still shaking I carefully stepped over them and made my way through the kitchen and back through the lobby. Keeping my head purposely clear. Trying my best to keep all thoughts away from why dad never met me. As I stepped out, I realized that building wasn’t a lobby but a restaurant. I shook my head. Well that explains the expansive kitchen.
At the corner of the street that met with the main road, I peeked around the building. There was nothing moving and there was no sound besides the birds singing. How could they still sing after everything? I forced myself to not to think the worst as I approached the bodies that were laying on the ground. When I got close enough, I had to use all of my self-control to not scream but that was all that I had managed to hold in. I ran over to him and collapsed next to his body.
He was laying there in a pool of blood. His face was almost unrecognizable. In my arms he felt broken. Broken bones jutted out from his body and the skin I could see was bruised and bloodied, he looked like he’d been beaten to death. “Dad…” I whispered, before I started sobbing. Snot ran out of my nose but I didn’t care, my Dad was dead. He was dead! To move, to get home to mom was too much to register. She was probably thinking we were either dead or that we had abandoned them. But no, dad was dead. I wasn’t. I shouldn’t have left him. He was dead because of me. If it hadn’t been for me, he would be alive. It didn’t matter that that stranger wanted me to know some truth. The only truth I knew was that someday I’d kill him.
Dean grabbed my shoulder. “Hey, you ok?”
I jumped. Shamefully I wiped tears from my eyes. “Yeah, we might as well get going.” I said, my voice was gravelly. It sounded like I had been crying. Great, just what I needed. I picked up my backpack and adjusted it.
“Alice, you were a million miles away. What was going through your head? You were talking about the raiders then bam you were gone.”
I let my shoulders droop but I looked Dean in the eye. “Couple of years ago a group of them tried to take me but my dad wouldn’t let them so they killed him.” I tried to say it coldly but just saying it out loud felt like it ripped my heart into pieces all over again. “To be honest I’ve never been able to get over it, because if I hadn’t been there, they probably would have left him alone.” I shrugged. What I really wanted to do was to sink into a hole. Everything had gone wrong so far, I didn’t want to step foot into downtown. But I really had no choice in this matter, what was left of my family was resting on me to help Richard to find this cure.
Dean looked at me with compassion but didn’t say anything. Even Richard kept his mouth shut. Which I mentally awarded him points for. Why did I tell them that? I didn’t have to; a lie would have been easy to make up. I could’ve said I was thinking about Brody and how I was going to kick his butt when I finally find him for leaving us to go through this place alone. Just stop! No more telling them things that they don’t need to know! I gripped my backpack and followed the trail down.
I easily ducked under low hanging tree branches. Behind me I heard them mumble and groan when they got smacked in the faces by the branches that I could easily duck under. I couldn’t help a small smile at that. Dean eventually caught up to me. “You know you never really answered my question.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine.” I hissed.
I swear he rolled his eyes even though I couldn’t see. “No, you’re not.”
“Really. I thought you didn’t know since you were asking me. But since you obviously know, then I guess you don’t need to keep asking me. Now do you?” I walked a little bit faster to try to get myself out of this conversation that I really didn’t want to have, especially not here and now with a stranger. Strangely enough, at the same time I was flattered that he actually wanted to know.
He of course was able to easily keep up with me. Damn his long legs. “I think I’m figuring you out little by little. What your problem is, is that you carry around too much guilt and to top it off you live primarily in the past. And the time you do spend here in the present is all about necessities, you don’t think about yourself besides what you need. And you know what, that does incredibly bad things to your mental health.”
I frowned at him over my shoulder but he kept going. “You don’t like to eat, and you don’t seem to sleep all that much either. Is it your father’s death that haunts you? Did you kill someone on accident? I’m guess your father’s death is what eats you alive inside more than anything else.”
I bit my lip and kept walking. Behind me Richard started speaking about the effects of carrying too much mental baggage but I blocked them both out. I didn’t want to hear anymore. All I could think about was my mom’s face when I came home that day. When I told my family that dad had been murdered. What would her face look like if someone tells her that I was murdered? Will it look the same?
They stopped behind me. I whirled around, my temper getting the best of me. “What are you guys doing? We need to get in and get out of there as quickly as possible! Now let’s move.”
They both looked down at me. Richard looked away but it was Dean that spoke. “You get the job done but you’re a piece of string that is getting ready to snap. And if you snap in there it could mean all of our deaths.” He gently placed a hand on my shoulder.
I grit my teeth. “I see where this is going. You just want frigging information on me. That’s all you care about! I don’t see you giving out
your life story, so why should I? Why?!” I screamed. “You’re not a therapist, just some stranger who won’t mind his own business.”
Dean stepped back shock spreading across his features. I stepped forward. “You want to know why I live with that guilt, every single day of my life?” I was still screaming and there was a part of me that couldn’t understand why I had erupted like this. But the rest of me was pissed off and egging me on. “It’s because whenever I look at my family, I see blame! They all blame me for killing him, yes kill. That is exactly what I did when I ran. My mother tried to kill herself when I told her what happened that day.” I was crying again. “You see I’m a failure that got someone killed. I got my dad killed, just because I was there. So there! Now you know. Does that help? Because I sure hope it does, now leave me the hell alone!” I stomped off. Leaving them there. If they didn’t follow me then that was their problem not mine. I fingered my pistol again. If I didn’t leave, I was going to kill them.
Chapter nine… I’m my worst enemy
Dusk had fallen and we stuck to the shadows and the edge of the street as best as we could. But we didn’t want to get too close to the buildings. Infected didn’t feel pain or if they did they ignored it during the hunt for food. They wouldn’t hesitate to smash through what was left of the windows to grab us, in the hopes that we would be their next meal. You could stab them in the hand as many times as you wanted and they wouldn’t stop. Pain didn’t bother them. At least being a little bit further away from the windows they didn’t have as much of a surprise as if we were standing right next to them. They couldn’t grab us and pull us into the buildings as easily either. It also helped that the sun had almost set and the buildings were tall enough to hide the sun from us, leaving us in the building’s cold shadows. It would be harder for infected or raiders to pick us out as moving targets. I hadn’t said a word to either one of them since my screaming burst from earlier. Truth to be told it was better for us to travel in silence anyways. Sound has a bad habit of carrying in places like this.
My nerves were on fire. Even though the city had an abandoned feel to it, it definitely was not empty. There was the sound of infected coming through windows, fighting with each other and preying on other things. They sounded far enough away that they wouldn’t be an immediate threat but the sound of them still sent chills down my spine. I also shivered from the temperature drop from the lack of the sun. The world was slowly spinning around me, like I was on a carrousel. I shook my head trying to get rid of it but it wouldn’t stop and the ringing in my ears was going to drive me nuts. The pain was there. Right in the center of my brain. It was reaching outward and I don’t think I’d be able to stop it this time.
Off in the distance a gun went off, the infected that I could hear stopped their screaming. And over the ringing I thought I could hear cascading footfalls dissipating into the distance. When they stopped screaming that was when you knew you were in trouble. When they stopped screaming it meant they were on the hunt. I stopped, resting my hand on the wall of a building. It was smooth and cold to the touch. I hesitated before going forward. My head was pounding. Sharp pain had filled my head. Every beat of my heart felt like a sledgehammer being slammed into my head, every sound sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I closed my eyes trying to will it away but it wasn’t happening. It was taking over. Richard managed to pick up on my hesitation because he moved around me. He skirted up to the edge of the building and took a good look around. Dean stepped up next to him. He glanced back at me and I avoided his eyes by scanning the buildings across the street. It was dark enough that hopefully he couldn’t see the pain I’m in. There was an old coffee shop and an old antique shop. They both had been looted, with large front windows that had been broken for a long time. Inside they were dark. I shuddered again from the cold. I wanted to pull my jacket closer around me but that seemed like too much effort. By the time I looked back Dean was conversing with Richard. I let go of my breath that I was holding in. I needed to just suck it up and deal with it. I excess moisture filled my mouth while my stomach heaved from the pain in my head. I just wanted to lie down. My body felt like broken glass, I couldn’t think through the pain. The only thoughts that were somewhat put together was that we needed to find shelter.
Richard disappeared around the corner and Dean with him. I followed them. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. My eyesight was beginning to flicker. My head felt like it was going to burst from the pain. Every breath I pulled in and out was a struggle, the wind whistling through my lungs made my head pulse. I just wanted to lie down and sleep. To sleep would mean that I could escape this pain. I don’t want to think about anything or do anything for a little while. I want to forget about this pain. An image of the stranger that I shot appeared in my mind. I pushed it away and nothing could replace it, just pain. In the middle of the road the world started to spin faster and faster. It felt like a black curtain was flapping on the edges of my vision. I can’t give in. I can’t. My feet felt like I had cement blocks attached to them. I couldn’t lift them but my body kept moving.
The next thing I knew I was on the ground. The world was still spinning around me. I tried to pull in a shaky breath but my chest felt like it was being constricted. I put my hands underneath me and tried to push myself up but they started to shake and gave out on me. I was stuck laying on my face in the middle of one the most dangerous places to be right now. C’mon Alice. I grit my teeth and tried to get up again. This time the world lurched and I couldn’t help it, I threw up. All that came up was stomach bile. The pain was blinding. I stopped thinking. I just laid there.
Within moments I heard footsteps rushing towards me. This might be better if I died. I won’t have to feel this agony anymore. Instead of a mouth ripping into my flesh, gentle hands turned me over. So that I was staring into green eyes. It was Dean. Great, this’ll just feed his ego. He picked me up like I was a child, with one hand under my back the other under my knees. He held me in his arms, cradled to his chest. He ran back down the street to where Richard was waiting. “What’s wrong with her?” He whispered when we got close. The thumping of his heart was pushing my past the breaking point.
Dean shrugged. “I’m not sure. But something’s wrong.”
Just him shrugging made me cry out. I wanted to reach for my gun, I wanted to pin it right under my chin and pull the trigger. But my arm wouldn’t move. It didn’t even wiggle. Richard pointed to something that was out of my field of vision and for once in my life I didn’t care where we went. As long as this pain would just stop. I couldn’t handle it anymore. Dean must have agreed on it because they both started running towards it. Dean held me close enough to him that I didn’t rattle around. I didn’t mind, he was warm and I was just insanely cold. I was just so cold and I ached all the way to my bones, everything else felt numb compared to the fire in my brain. I buried my face into Dean’s shoulder and breathed in deeply. My lungs still didn’t want to work, almost as if they wanted to deny me air so I would just die. I still managed to pull air into my lungs, I was able to smell him. He smelled good, under his sweat he smelt like mint. Where did he get mint? I welcomed the darkness. But I still wondered, how he smelled like mint.
Chapter ten… Worst luck ever
I woke up laying on a bed, covered with a dirty blanket. There was no pain in my head, but I felt tender, weak. Almost like the first day after a broken fever. I should be worried about what happened after I blacked out but I was so comfortable. I could almost doze off again. Instead I forced myself to sit up and throw the blanket off of me. I felt light headed but no pain. I shivered at the onslaught of cold air. I pulled the blanket back up around my waist and I dug my hands down into it. Through the window light shimmered in, the window wasn’t broken either. If it is morning or at least I assumed it was morning, the room would be colder if it was broken. And if it was morning then that means I slept through the rest of yesterday and all night. I stretched and my back popped deliciously. I felt good,
a little groggy and weak but overall, I felt good. It wasn’t unusual for me to take a day or two to recover after one of my episodes. That one, yesterday I could only assume, had been a bad one. It’d been a long time since I’d had one like that that had made me black out. And of course, it had to happen in the open like that. If I’d been alone, I would have died. Infected would have been on me before I could recover. They wouldn’t have given me a chance. I moaned and covered my face with my hands. Now how will they look at me? I should have been upfront about my episodes, I should have told them. It was my Achilles heel. They were like seizures, they would come on and I had no control over them. I had to wait for them to go away, helpless the whole while. I’ll have to explain it to them. Tell them that they happen randomly ever since I was a kid. These have happened to me since I could remember. There was no rhyme or reason to it. They just happened. Sometimes I wouldn’t have one for months, other times I would have two or three in one week. But this one was the worse one that I’ve had for months.
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