by Raymond Lee
She stepped out of the closet and set the clothes she’d decided to take on the younger girl’s bed. There was a backpack on the floor by the foot but it was also One Direction. Sky needed a backpack, but she didn’t want to take that one. She looked around and found another sticking out from under the older girl’s bed. It was a plain navy blue L.L. Bean bag. She unzipped it and spilled out its contents, which were textbooks and school supplies. This bag she would take. She raided the dresser for socks and underwear, stuffed it all in the backpack and lay down on top of the bed with the One Direction sheets. She figured Torres had planned for her and Sara to sleep in that room so she rested there waiting for Sara to join her.
After what felt like an hour of tossing and turning she gave up on Sara climbing into the other bed. She walked to the stairs and listened. She could still hear Sara making noise downstairs and contemplated going down there with her, but she was tired. More than being sleepy, she was tired of Sara’s questions and fussing about Torres. Like him, she was mentally worn out and wanted a break. Torres had the keys. She did trust Sara not to do anything to harm them so despite the feeling in her gut that she should stay with Sara, she turned back and went back to the girls’ room where she continued to toss and turn on top of the One Direction sheets. After a while she gave up. She’s never slept by herself. She’d always gotten up in the middle of the night to sleep in between her parents and after they’d died she’d started crawling into Raven’s bed at night, which Raven allowed her to do. She was nine years old, old enough to know the boogeyman was make believe, but zombies were real so she allowed herself the right to be afraid to sleep in a room all by herself.
Torres opened his eyes a sliver when she entered the room, his hand reflexively wrapping around the handle of the bat. He released it as recognition flickered in his dark eyes. “Sky? What’s wrong, honey?”
“Sara isn’t sleepy and I can’t sleep in that room by myself. I’m not a baby but there’s zombies.”
He grinned. “You’re right. There are monsters.”
“Can I sleep in here?”
He sat up and patted the bed next to him as he scooted over. He pulled back the sheets on the right side and waited for her to kick her shoes off, remove her gun, and crawl in before he tucked her in. Once she was snug he kissed the side of her head and turned away to sleep on his side with his back to her. “Good night, pequenuela.”
Sky woke up to find Torres sitting up next to her, his entire body tense. Something had awakened her, but she couldn’t place it. Then she heard it again. Gunshots.
“Where’s Sara?” Torres asked.
“She was downstairs when I came in here to sleep.”
“Damn it. Get your shoes on and stay with me. Hurry.”
Sky scurried out of the bed and pulled her shoes on as Torres shoved his gun into the back of his jeans and grabbed the baseball bat. “Bring your gun, just in case.”
They heard two more gunshots by the time Sky got her holster on. “Ready.”
“Stay right behind me.” Torres led her out of the room, scanning the hall before stepping fully into it. They took the stairs down slowly, careful not to make much noise. Judging by the amount of sunlight filtering in through the blinds, lighting the rooms, it was mid-afternoon. Torres paused at the foot of the stairs and looked around the railing. “Sara?” He called out for her twice more without a response.
Another gunshot sounded followed by a scream. This time they could clearly tell the noise came from outside. Torres ran over to the window and opened the blinds just enough to allow them to see out.
Sky looked through the window just as Sara went down in the street, three infected people on top of her. She let out a blood-chilling scream as one bit into her cheek and pulled out a chunk of her flesh. Sky opened her mouth to scream but Torres clamped his hand over it and pulled her away from the window, expelling a string of curses as he carried her into the dining room, away from windows.
“I need you to be very quiet,” he said as he plopped her down onto a chair and knelt before her, hand still over her mouth. “If you scream you will draw them here. Do you understand?”
Sky nodded as tears ran down her face and strangled sounds of fright escaped her throat.
“I need you to calm down and not make any noise, Sky. You have to be calm and quiet, honey. Calm down. I know it’s scary what you just saw. I know it’s awful. We don’t want that to happen to us so calm down. Be quiet, sweetheart.” He slowly pulled his hand away from her mouth.
“You have to save her!” Sky whispered as quietly as she could given the pure terror coursing through her veins. Her voice came out shrill, but nowhere near as loud as she wanted to scream.
“She’s gone, honey. She got bit. She’s infected.”
“Torres!”
He grabbed the sides of her face and looked into her eyes. “She is gone, sweetie. She’s going to die or she’s going to turn. I can’t save her now.”
Sara let out another deafening scream and shot off another bullet.
“Damn it, she’s going to draw every infected bastard in the neighborhood this way. We’ll be stuck until they leave.”
“Torres, they’re eating her. You have to do something! She’s suffering.”
Torres looked at her, wiped the tears from her cheeks and kissed her head before crossing over to the living room window again. He watched for a moment, flinching as Sara screamed, and returned to her, muttering curses under his breath.
“You stay right there,” he told Sky, pointing at her. “I mean it. You do not move at all. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” She nodded as fast as her head would move, knowing each second Torres stayed with her was another second of agony Sara would be going through. “Save her!”
He stood still for a moment, seeming to have second thoughts, then bit out a curse and ran through the kitchen, slipping out the back door. Sky lurched forward to go to the window but caught herself. She’d promised she would stay still and she knew Torres told her to for a reason. She stayed in the chair, her hands clamped around the wood beneath her, squeezing with every ounce of muscle her fingers possessed as she fought the urge to watch what was happening outside. She could still hear Sara screaming, the sounds coming from her more terrified than pain-filled now. There had been three infected people on her when she’d looked. More could have joined and she’d just sent Torres out into the open to help Sara. She rocked back and forth in the chair, whimpering, praying that Torres didn’t meet the same fate, and she prayed that Raven had never been given reason to scream the way Sara was doing now.
“Please!” she heard Sara cry out. “Torres! Please! No!”
There was another gunshot and Sky gasped, knowing Torres would never shoot his gun unless he absolutely had to. He was adamant they should never draw more zombies to them. Had Sara shot to save him? Was he bitten?” Sky gripped the chair tighter, quickly burning through her willpower as she struggled to keep her word to Torres that she would stay put. Sara wasn’t screaming anymore and Sky had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing. All she knew was she couldn’t survive being alone again.
Footsteps pounded near the back of the house and Torres burst through the back door, quickly turning to lock it behind him. The bat in his hand dripped blood.
“Torres!” Sky rocketed off the chair and ran for him, plowing into his outstretched arms as he turned and reached for her. “What happened? Where’s Sara?”
“We have to be quiet,” he whispered as he carried her through the lower level of the house and packed her up the stairs, his heart racing against her chest as he took several rapid breaths. “There’s more out there. They were headed this way but if we’re quiet they won’t know what house we are in.”
“Where’s Sara?” she asked again as he set her on the bed in the master bedroom and placed the bat on the floor. “What happened?”
Torres knelt before her and took her hands in his. “I’m going to tell you but you
have to be quiet. You can’t scream or yell no matter how upset you are, and you have to listen so you can understand.”
Tears poured harder as Sky looked into Torres’s face and saw the same expression there as she’d seen on the faces of the people around her when her parents died, heard the same tone in his voice as Raven had when she’d told her their parents were never coming back. “Where is Sara?”
“I had to leave her out there, Sky. She was bitten, more than once. There was no way she could survive.”
“You were supposed to save her.” Sky struck out at him, aiming for his chest, but he caught her fist and pulled her body tight against his, embracing her as she pushed against him. “You’re letting them eat her!”
“She’s dead, Sky, she can’t feel anything, I promise.” He took a big breath and held her tighter. “I’m so sorry, pequenuela. Sara is dead.”
“You left her.” Sky pushed away, using all her strength to break away from Torres’s hold. “She’ll turn.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t save her life, but I could keep her from turning. She is gone now, completely gone.”
“But you went out there to…” Sky remembered the last words she’d heard Sara cry, and the gunshot followed by silence, and realized what had happened. “You shot her.”
Torres’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Baby, I had to.”
“No!”
He reached out for her. Sky swatted his hand away and ran. Without many options for escape she ran to the closet and pulled the door closed behind her before dropping to the floor and dissolving into tears.
“Sky.”
Sara? Sky raised her head to see Sara standing in the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
She looked around but couldn’t see much in the darkness of the walk-in closet. Shadows of shoes and clothes surrounded her. Just enough light shone behind Sara for her to make out her silhouette and a few strands of blonde hair. She remembered how greasy it had been when Sara first arrived at the bar, how skinny she was. How plain looking. She’d turned out to be very pretty with bright blue eyes, the lightest smattering of freckles across her nose, and not so much skinny as slender. She’d turned out to be a pretty nice person even if she and Torres liked to bicker.
“Sky?”
Sky scooted back and Sara stepped inside, closing the door before sitting on the floor across from her. “How are you here? I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Torres didn’t want me to, but he can’t always be the king of everything.”
“Where is he?” Sky asked, looking at the door. He’d been on the other side of it trying to talk to her, asking her to come out while she’d stayed inside, crying. There was no lock on the door. He could have opened it at any time, but he didn’t. He gave her the space she needed, but she knew he wouldn’t have wandered very far away from her, even after she’d cried herself to sleep. “He let you back in?”
“He couldn’t stop me.” It was too dark to really see Sara’s face but Sky could tell she smiled. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to help. I knew Torres wouldn’t do anything I asked, wouldn’t even listen to me. I know he has his reasons, wants to keep us safe, but sometimes he can be a little too safe.”
“You went out there and you got hurt,” Sky pointed out. “That’s why he told us to stay inside.”
“I got hurt because I went by myself, because I had to. He wouldn’t listen to me. If he’d gone out there with me, or if all three of us had gone out there we would have made it. He’s too safe and it got me killed.”
“Killed?” Sky’s hands started sweating. Her stomach rolled as cold chills ran the length of her body. She remembered the screams, the gunshots, and the blood on Torres’s bat. She remembered him telling her Sara was gone. “How are you here? You can’t be here. You can’t be talking to me.”
“I’m here with you because of Torres. He’s too safe. He kills threats. He killed me because I became a threat. He’ll kill you too, Sky. He’ll shoot you without blinking just like he did to me, but it’s all right.” Sara leaned forward and grabbed Sky’s hand. Her fingers were like steel icicles. An odd green halo of light highlighted Sara’s face, showing her milky white eyes and the hole between them, oozing crimson blood. “Then you can be with me and Raven.”
Sky screamed and ran out of the closet, colliding with Torres. He fell onto his back, holding her in his arms.
“Sky, honey, what is it? Stop screaming.” He covered her mouth as he sat back up and checked her over. The room was dark, but lit by moonlight filtering through the open blinds.
She’d fallen asleep crying, Sky realized, and now they were spending the night in the house. She quieted herself down, her screams turning into rapid breaths as she got her emotions under control.
“Your heart is racing.” He uncovered her mouth. “What happened?”
“It was a dream, a bad dream.”
“About Sara?”
She nodded.
“I’m not surprised. I imagine I’ll have them myself. I’ll certainly never forget her or what happened.” Torres stood and pulled her to her feet before walking to the doorway and leaning out, listening. “They wandered off a while ago. Your scream might have brought them back. We’ll stay really quiet and stay up here. Without any further noise hopefully they’ll just wander off again.”
“I’m sorry.” Sky sat at the foot of the bed and stared down at the bat on the floor. From what she could see it appeared to have been wiped clean. “What happened out there? Why was she out there?”
Torres ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I wish I knew for sure. She’d mentioned scavenging but I told her we’d discuss it after I’d gotten some sleep. I told her to stay inside.”
“You told me to make sure she did.” Sky’s cheeks warmed. “I was in charge.”
“This isn’t on you, Sky. You did exactly as you should. Sara was a grown woman and should have known better. She should have stayed inside where it was safe. She seemed fine with me going on the supply runs back at the bar after she first joined us. I don’t know why she suddenly wanted to be a part of it all or why it got worse when we had to leave. It’s like she had to prove herself or something.” He walked over to the bed and sat, resting his back along the pillows stacked against the headboard. “Everything happened so fast out there I didn’t have a lot of time to really check out the whole scene, but she had bags with her. They were the big kind, like trash bags. They were in the middle of the street and there were really big cans rolling out of them, like what you’d see at one of those wholesale stores. I think she might have actually gone to that school and found food. Sometime along the way back she ran into trouble.”
“In my dream she said she only wanted to help, but you wouldn’t let her. She said you’re too safe and it got her killed.”
“That was just a dream. Does what she said in the dream even make sense to you?”
Sky shrugged. It didn’t, but in a way she knew what Sara had been trying to say. “She thought you should have trusted her and gone out with her.”
“I told Sara we would discuss it after I’d gotten some sleep. She should have waited for me to get up.”
“She didn’t think you would do it. She didn’t think you would listen to her.”
“Sara told you this, or you dreamed that she told you this?”
“It felt real.”
“It wasn’t.” Torres scratched the back of his neck. “And I would have listened to her. I always listened even if I didn’t agree. Sara was a little impatient sometimes and like I said, she had something to prove. I’m not sure why but that’s what got her into trouble. I think she wanted to go out and bring back food so that when I woke up she could shove it in my face and say ‘Ha!’ I have no idea why she felt like she had to do that.”
“Because she liked you,” Sky said, turning toward him. “She thought you were hot.”
Torres’s brow wrinkled for a moment and he ran his hand through his hair again. “Geez. Don’t tell me that. It makes me feel worse.”
“She said she didn’t, but she did. She was always talking about your muscles and staring at you, even though she said you were too short.”
“I’m not short,” Torres grumbled. “I’m just not freakishly tall.”
“She wanted you to like her.”
“I liked her. She got on my damn nerves, but I liked her. I let her stay with us, didn’t I? I fed her when she was starving instead of putting her back on the street. I never hurt her… not until I had to, to save her. To help her.” He leaned his head back against the headboard and took a deep, controlled breath, his arms folded. “If she really liked me, really wanted me to like her, she should have stayed her ass in this house like I told her to. She shouldn’t have put me in the position she put me in, made me do what I had to do. I’ll never forget it. I didn’t want to do it, Sky. I know you’re mad at me, but she was suffering. She’d been infected and she was in pain. She couldn’t be quiet in that much pain so she would have kept drawing them to us, and even if she managed to quiet down, she couldn’t come back in this house. She would have died from the virus and she would have turned. I could leave her out there to die a horrible, long, painful death or I could put her out of her misery. Those were the only two options because I absolutely could not bring her inside with us and meet the same fate.”
