by Lee, Raymond
“I know but friends don’t take the easy way out and make their friends suffer due to it. You need to work on being a better friend.” She grinned at him as she stood and offered him a helping hand.
He grinned back as he accepted the help and allowed her to pull him to his feet. “You saved my life.”
“Yeah, well, don’t make me do it again.” She frowned, remembering Damian’s promise to come running if he heard screams. Granted he’d said if she screamed and it had been Cruz screaming, but still, he should have come to help them. “We need to get to the others now. Are you good?”
Cruz ran a hand through his hair, seeming to think over the question. “I’m good for now. It’s … not as loud.”
Raven nodded, understanding what he was trying to say. “Next time it gets too loud, let me know. I’ll help as much as I can and we will find you what you need. Right now we need to make sure Damian and Jeremy are safe and we need to get moving.”
“OK.”
Raven took the lead, katana in hand, as they made their way back to the road. She noted the sun rising in the morning sky as she retraced her steps and was thankful she’d managed to break through to Cruz and quiet the voices in his head before it had peeked out. Acid curdled in her stomach as she realized how close she’d come to losing someone else. The unease grew as she neared the road and heard the sound she was beginning to associate with death.
“Are you hearing that?” Cruz asked in a low voice behind her.
“Yes. Those are real.”
They crept closer, as softly as they could, using the trees and tall grass for cover as they reached the road. Pressed against a tree, Cruz at her side, Raven quickly counted eight infected people, one so rotten she couldn’t make out its gender, on the side of the Escalade facing them. She didn’t doubt there were more on the other side as they seemed to know someone was inside judging by the way they scratched at the sides of the vehicle, trying to get in.
“If Damian and Jeremy were dead they wouldn’t be trying to get in the SUV,” Cruz said softly, echoing her thoughts. “They probably saw they were outnumbered and locked themselves in, thinking they might pass. My screams probably attracted them but then they saw Damian and Jeremy.”
Raven picked up the guilt in Cruz’s voice and reached out with her empty hand to squeeze his. Guilt was always the most painful sucker-punch. “It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for things you have no control over. I’m just glad you’re here with us now so you can help us survive.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll succeed. We’ll do it together.” Raven held out the katana, rotating it as she tested her arm. “My shoulder’s pretty sore. I’m going to take out as many as I can but I’m going to be moving slower than I normally would.”
“You hurt your shoulder saving me?”
“Don’t you dare feel bad about it. You thought you were saving me, but if you feel you need to redeem yourself, help me save those two.”
“Just tell me what to do.”
Raven turned to look at him, eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“Men are usually bossier and more take-charge.”
“What can I say? I’m used to being directed.” He shrugged.
Raven smiled, amused, but quickly remembered the dire situation they were in and returned her attention to the SUV and the team of infected people around it. “Shooting could draw others. Use your knife unless you absolutely have to use the gun. How are you at fighting? You actually do any of the action in all those action movies or was that just camera effects?”
“I trained with a marine to prepare for the Action X movies. I can hold my own. How about you?”
“Spent a little time in juvie, learned how to fight dirty enough to win most fights.”
“Really? Juvie?”
“Not important right now.” Raven assessed the situation. “We don’t know how many are on the other side of the SUV. If we rush in to save the day the others can come up behind it. If there are a lot of them, we’re toast.”
“We can draw them to us.”
“Too many trees here. They’ll restrict our movements and if there’s anything in the woods it’d be too easy for them to creep up on us. We need a diversion, something to get them away from the Escalade but not draw them straight to us. If we can make them go up the road a bit we can then swoop in and start cutting them down. Damian can get out and help us once they clear the SUV.”
“How about this?”
Raven turned to see Cruz stooping to pick up a rock, small enough to be held in one hand but large enough to make noise. He drew his arm back and threw the stone, sending it skidding along the road ahead of the SUV.
Raven held her breath and watched as the zombies turned their heads in the direction of the noise, but they didn’t go for it.
“I don’t think they can see that well. Something that small and that far ahead won’t grab their attention enough.”
“Then we’ll make more noise.” Cruz bent down and picked up more rocks. He started throwing them three to four at a time so they continuously made noise.
The zombies turned their heads again and a few slowly moved forward but the majority stayed at the vehicle, scratching and pounding on the windows.
“It’s no use,” Cruz said, out of rocks. “They know there’s fresh meat in that Escalade. They’re not leaving it.”
“Dammit,” Raven growled as one of the zombies hit the passenger side window hard enough to crack it. “They’re going to get in. We have to move now.”
“Go left and come up behind them. I’ll thin them out as much as I can,” Cruz advised before he emerged from their hiding spot and ran for the road, moving diagonally at a fast clip, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Cruz!”
He continued on, ignoring her. “Hey you ugly bastards! Fresh meat over here! I’m only half Mexican so I hope that’s spicy enough for ya!”
“Shit, shit, shit!” Raven left the safety of the tree and made her way to the road, also moving diagonally but opposite the way Cruz had ran.
Dangerous as it was, his move was working. The zombies moved forward along the road, momentarily giving up on the tasty morsels inside the vehicle in order to chase the moving feast taunting them.
Secure enough that all the infected were focused on him, Raven crept along the side of the SUV and raised her katana. She gritted her teeth together against the pain flaring through her shoulder and swung. The pain in her shoulder affected her swing and she missed her mark, the blade of the katana slicing into the zombie’s clavicle instead of its neck.
“Dammit.” She pulled the weapon out and raised it to swing again as the injured zombie and two of its partners turned toward her, realizing Cruz wasn’t the only option on the menu. She swung the katana in a sideways arc, crying out in pain as it whistled through the air. The blade sliced off one zombie’s outstretched arm, took off the top of a shorter one’s head and landed in the already injured one’s shoulder.
“Die already!” she screamed at it as she pulled the katana free and raised it again.
The zombie rammed her, knocking her onto her back. Before she could raise her legs to kick it away it was on her, its mouth open wide as its face lowered to take a bite out of her.
The back door of the Escalade opened and Damian jumped out, rock hammer in his raised hand. The sharp edge of the tool sank into the back of the zombie’s head, interrupting its snack.
“You alright?” Damian asked as he jerked the weapon out of her attacker’s head and turned to hit the armless zombie in the forehead with it.
“I’m alright.” She quickly scooted back to avoid being caught under the zombie’s fallen body and did her best to ignore the blood soaking into her jeans. It landed across her thighs and she shoved it off. “Help Cruz.”
Damian unsheathed his machete and surged forward, dual wielding his weapons as he cut through the zombies between him and Cruz.
Raven rose t
o her feet and turned in time to see a zombie crawling into the Escalade’s open door. Jeremy screamed. Raven lunged.
She grabbed the zombie by the shoulders and pulled, tears streaming down her face as her shoulder protested the action. The infected woman’s hands were wrapped around Jeremy’s shoulders and they were clamped on tight. Its mouth hovered over Jeremy’s neck as the girl pushed desperately at its chest, unable to push it away.
Her katana had dropped when she’d desperately grabbed the zombie, leaving her weaponless. Raven released one of the zombie’s shoulders in order to grab its hair. She grabbed a handful of its dirty, matted mane and yanked back as hard as she could, putting distance between its mouth and Jeremy’s throat.
“Your knife, Jeremy! Stab it in its head!”
Jeremy still pushed at the zombie, crying hard.
“Do it now, Jeremy! Stab it!”
Nodding her head, Jeremy fished around the seat and found the knife she’d dropped. She closed her eyes and plunged the blade into the infected woman’s head. The zombie’s body dropped on top of her and she screamed, kicking at it as she scrambled away.
Raven pulled the body out of the Escalade, not wanting to leave it in there with the young girl. Blood poured from its wound but she didn’t care about preserving the cleanliness of the vehicle’s interior. She cared about preserving Jeremy’s life. “Keep the knife in your hand,” she ordered, “and use it if you need to.”
Raven closed the door, cursing Damian for not thinking to when he’d jumped out to save her, and bent to pick up the dropped katana so she could help Damian and Cruz.
Pain shot through both shoulders as she was grabbed from behind. Bony, dead fingers dug into her shoulders, threatening to break skin. She tried to turn toward her attacker but the zombie’s grip was too tight to allow the movement. If it were alive she’d be feeling its breath on her neck. With no better way to get it off of her before it took a bite out of the back of her neck, she kicked back and hooked the zombie’s leg with her foot.
She brought her foot forward, knocking the zombie off balance. It fell to the ground, dragging her with it. Bones snapped beneath her. Wasting no time, Raven scrambled off the zombie, grabbed the katana and turned. The zombie, what appeared to be a man in a dark T-shirt and jeans, reached for her but couldn’t move.
“I guess that snapping sound was your back,” Raven taunted him. “Y’all seem to break pretty easy, don’t ya?”
She kicked its head but didn’t hear a satisfying crunch as the head rolled to the left, then back. The zombie turned its face toward her again and made that growly groan they made when they saw people. The sound took her back to the hotel, to her last moments with Sky. As the zombie reached out to her, its mouth open and hungry, she pictured it and a dozen more surrounding Sky the same way. She thought about how scared her sister had to have been as they circled her making that awful sound. Did she cry, knowing it was her end or did she foolishly hold on to hope that she’d be saved? Did she die questioning why Raven hadn’t saved her, why her own sister had sent her out into the waiting arms of the monsters instead of saving her life like a big sister should?
“Shut up.”
The zombie growled louder, straining to reach her, its arms stretched as far as its bones would allow.
“Shut up.” She tightened her grip on the katana, started to raise it, but stopped midway. The katana was too clean for such a creature.
It groaned, saliva dripping out its open, hungry mouth and the sound seemed to amplify until it was all Raven could hear. It taunted her, the sound of death, the last sound Sky ever heard as she’d strained to hear her sister come to her rescue.
“Shut up!” Raven screamed as she brought her foot down onto the zombie’s rotting face. Bone crunched as blood and other fluids gushed beneath her boot. A small sliver of satisfaction crept inside Raven’s chest and she repeated the action. More bone crunched. She stomped again. And again. The crisp sound of bones smashing was the most beautiful sound she’d heard in a long time. She continued stomping, unaware of the tears streaming down her face, the vile words leaving her mouth as she cursed the zombie and others like it, or the creature approaching her from behind.
“Raven, look out!”
She turned just as the zombie fell upon her, and lost her footing. She fell backward, sprawled over the lap of the zombie she’d been stomping on, the other zombie on top of her. It opened its mouth and the smell of blood and decay washed over her.
“The least you could have done was popped a mint you nasty bastard.” She pushed at the zombie, but her shoulder had taken all the physical activity it could handle. The zombie didn’t budge. Raven cried as its teeth drew closer.
A gunshot blasted and the zombie’s head exploded. Raven reflexively turned her head sideways to avoid getting its blood and other gross bits in her mouth.
“That gunshot could draw more!” Damian scolded.
“There wasn’t time,” Cruz replied. “Just get her up. I’ll stand guard.”
The zombie’s body was rolled aside and Raven looked up to see Damian reaching down for her, his nose scrunched in disgust.
“That bad?” She asked, grabbing his hand with her good one and allowing him to pull her to her feet.
“Not unless you consider zombie brains a good hair treatment.”
A chunk of brain matter dripped from her hair and hit the road with a sickening plop. Raven gagged.
“Try not to think about it.”
“It’s in my hair. How can I not think about it?”
“You all right?”
Raven looked over to where Cruz stood with his gun ready to fire if needed, his gaze scanning the perimeter.
“Yeah, my shoulder’s just really messed up.”
“What happened?” Damian frowned.
Raven’s gaze locked with Cruz’s for a brief moment before he turned away.
“Just came down on it the wrong way,” she answered, seeing no reason to share Cruz’s role in her injured shoulder with Damian. Tensions between the two were already high. “You think you two can get this thing running again?”
“I don’t know anything about mechanics,” Damian said, turning to Cruz, “but I’ll stand guard while you take a look.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Cruz put his gun away. “Raven, you should clean up and check on Jeremy.”
“We all should clean up.” She nodded toward the men’s clothes which were also heavily splashed with blood.
“Sweetheart, you have brain sludge in your hair,” Damian pointed out. “We’ll survive with some blood on us but that shit’s gonna start drawing bugs and I’m about two minutes away from puking already. Use one of the water jugs and rinse that out. We’ll deal with our nasty, bloody clothes after we get this thing running and get somewhere safe. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a mall.”
“I don’t want to waste our water.”
“We have enough to last until we reach Kansas. We’ll stock up there,” Cruz said. “Clean up. You’ll feel better.”
Raven went to the back of the SUV as Cruz went to the front to take a look under the hood. Damian kept a watchful eye on their surroundings in case another group of zombies popped up on them.
She opened the trunk and reached for one of the remaining jugs of water, pausing as she caught sight of Jeremy over the seats. The young girl sat huddled at the edge of the middle seat, still holding her knife protectively pointed out in her shaking hands although her head was bowed to her knees. No doubt trying to block out all the horror that had happened outside the safety of the vehicle.
Raven started to say something, to tell her it was all going to be fine, that she was safe, but stopped herself. She didn’t have a mirror but she knew the sight of her would frighten the girl more. She needed to clean up first.
She rooted around the contents of the trunk, finding a hand towel and a comb to help with her task. She opened the water jug and poured a small amount on her hair to wet it. More clumps of brain m
atter fell from her hair, sliding in a trail down her T-shirt where she saw bits of bone and other gore.
Disgusted, she removed the shirt and shook it out, fighting back bile as gross, slimy things fell from it. Cursing under her breath, she balled the shirt up and flung it to the ground before sitting on her haunches and lowering her head into her hands. Her fingers touched something soft and slippery and she choked back the sob forming in her throat. She’d survived the loss of her sister. She could survive a little gunk.
“Hey. What’s wrong?”
She looked up to see Cruz standing in front of her. “There are pieces of the inside of someone’s head in my hair and all over my shirt.”
His eyes softened. “Sorry.”
“Can you get us moving again so we can get the hell out of here? Find some new clothes somewhere, maybe a bath?”
“I came back here to get tools.” He went to the trunk and picked up the comb she’d left there. “Stand up. Let’s get you cleaned up first.”
“I got it.”
“You helped me when I was going through something rough. Let me help you. Come on.”
She stood and let him run the comb through her hair, wincing as it snagged on tangles she hadn’t bothered to comb and various bits of zombie remains.
“Sorry. I’m being as gentle as possible.”
“No problem. It’s not easy combing through a rat’s nest. Extra zombie gunk makes it even worse.”
He alternated between combing and rinsing with water from the jug then instructed her to close her eyes.
“Relax,” he coaxed her, sensing her hesitancy. “I’m just getting the blood and other nasty stuff off your face. I won’t let anything creep up on you.”
Taking a deep breath, Raven closed her eyes and trusted Cruz to keep her safe while she stood there blind to her surroundings. A few months ago she’d been walking in the mall and seen this man’s cardboard cutout staring at her from one of the shops. He’d been nothing to her, just some rich movie star who made way too much money and thought far too highly of himself. Now he was her friend, her family. Her curse. She didn’t want anyone to care about, to protect. She shouldn’t have saved Jeremy, or Damian, that day. She should have stayed by herself where she was safe from losing anyone again. Now these people were her people and she couldn’t lose them. She couldn’t lose a single person ever again, even if it meant continuing to live like this, beheading zombies and being soaked in their blood and guts.
