“Yeah,” echoed the pair.
“Liz are those packs ready?”
“Almost,” she yelled back.
I looked at Sarah and Sam, they were dressed similarly to me. Sarah was wearing jeans and a tan Carhartt jacket and Sam was wearing almost the same thing as me. Grabbing our packs we took off in pursuit of the elk. Now, we didn’t have to hurry or run after the elk, we could never have hoped to catch up to them. They were too strong and too fast for any human to run down. All we could do was follow the tracks they left and hope they would bed down somewhere close to the house. “Ok guys, we really need some fresh meat so we’re going to follow these tracks for as long as we have to. No matter what we’re bringing back some elk meat.” They both nodded seriously, understanding how important the food would be to the group. “Now if you have a clear shot try to wait a second for someone else to get one too. I don’t care if it’s a cow or a bull. We’re not looking for big points, we’re looking for food.” We walked side by side for about half a mile, Sarah on my left, Sam on my right, when I decided that we should spread out. “Ok, spread out about thirty yards, try to keep in visual contact. Try to keep radio silence unless absolutely necessary, but keep them on channel nine.” As we walked I had been tying strips of orange plastic around trees to mark a clear path. I knew the area pretty well but the tall trees and the thick underbrush could cause even a local to lose their sense of direction. We walked for about another mile and a half when I noticed the tracks left behind became shallower, meaning that the elk had stopped running. I hoped that that meant they would be bedding down.
We slowed, favoring silence over speed. After another one hundred yards or so I could see a clearing in the distance. I would bet anything that’s where the elk would bed down. I signaled Sam and Sarah that we should slow even more to avoid making as much noise as possible. Coming up on the clearing I saw a mass of bodies consisting of around thirty elk. Sam would reach the clearing before either Sarah or I and I was hoping that he would have the common sense to wait for us so we could at least take a shot. Thankfully Sam had the sense to do so and we raised our rifles together, each targeting a different animal. As our shots rang out over the clearing I knew I had hit my target, but I also knew that it would take more than one shot to take down this huge beast. I remembered an elk my dad took down a few years ago. He blew out both of its lungs and all it did was stand there and cough. I raised my rifle to take another shot, aiming carefully I took my shot, targeting the same spot as before, hoping to take out the lungs and the heart. My second shot dropped the big animal. I heard another two shots ring out and then a third from Sarah. Walking towards the downed animals I saw Sarah running. I radioed Sam to stay with the animals and I took off after Sarah. “Hey,” I yelled. Sarah didn’t answer but she did slow a little to let me catch up. Jogging side by side I asked, “Why the rush?”
“My second two shots missed and it took off.”
“Why are you running?” I asked slowing to a walk.
“We have to catch it.”
“Do you really think we could catch a bolting elk, even a wounded one?”
She slowed and then stopped, “No.”
“Ok,” I said picking up my radio, “Sam, we’re going to try and track down Sarah’s elk. You wanna stay and finish off the elk and maybe start dressing one of them?”
“No problem,” replied Sam.
“Alright, let’s see if we can find your animal.”
We started off in the direction the elk fled and it wasn’t long before we picked up its blood trail. It turned out that we didn’t have to go very far. Lying in some tall grass was Sarah’s elk, breathing heavily and bleeding. Sarah walked up to it and shot it in the head. Its labored breathing ceased and its struggle with death was over. I crouched down to point something out to Sarah. “See here, your first shot probably took out a lung and your second hit it in the leg right here,” I said showing her the wound. “That second shot is probably why it didn’t make it very far.” I pulled some rope out of my pack and held it out to her. “So you going to drag it back?” I said with a smile. She just stood there and looked at me. “I’m just kidding,” I said as I put the rope away. I marked the spot by tying a piece of orange plastic to a stick which I stuck in the ground making a little flag.
Walking back to Sam I turned and told Sarah, “I need you to go back to the house and tell everyone to grab backpacks sacks, baskets, buckets, whatever they can use to carry back some meat. We’ve got a lot of it and we’re going to need all the help we can get, Leave one person on watch and another to watch Michelle.” She turned to leave and I added, “Please hurry but don’t hurt yourself and don’t get lost. Make sure to follow the orange markers.” I could see she was flipping me off as she ran. I laughed and turned to help Sam with the elk. Soon enough we were elbow deep in blood. We quickly gutted the animal and began to quarter it. It would’ve been a lot easier if we were able to hang it but since we lacked the tree and rope strong enough to hold it I guess this would have to do. We probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it by ourselves anyway. We were cutting off great pieces of meat and piling it up on my sweatshirt when Sam broke the silence with something other than our swearing and grunts of effort.
“So what’s with you and Sarah?” Sam asked breaking up the monotony of our work.
I kept on cutting as I said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh don’t give me that bullshit,” he said grinning and wiping some sweat from his nose.
“Seriously. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alright man. If there’s nothing between you two then you won’t mind if I take a shot, will you?”
I didn’t respond, I don’t want to say anything I would regret. Honestly, I wanted to hit him. I could feel something stir in my chest, something wanted to tear Sam’s arm off and beat him with it, but I stayed quiet. We worked in silence for almost an hour before we heard the unmistakable sound of a large group of people stumbling through the forest. The next time I looked up they were emerging from the tree line, Sarah in the lead, and I waved them over. Standing up to greet them I saw a couple of the girls’ eyes widen as I stood there with blood up to my elbows, a bloody hunting knife in hand. I probably even had a little blood on my face from wiping the sweat away. All in all, I’m sure I looked a little gory. “Hey guys, relax, it’s just a little elk blood, you’ve all seen worse.” They stopped staring and got busy loading the meat into the baskets and bags. “When you get back there’s a bunch of wax paper in the pantry. Go ahead and wrap the meat till we can cook it.”
“I was going to ask what we were going to do with all of this,” said Hannah.
“Well, since we don’t have a fridge or any real way to keep it cold, we’re just going to have to cook all of it and hope for the best.”
We worked for several hours, stripping as much of the meat as we could. By the time we finished with the third elk it was beginning to get dark. I told Justin to start a big fire on the front lawn and to fire up the grill so we could start dinner. Walking back to the house carrying my own load of elk meat, most of my thoughts were about the amazing dinner I was going to have and how good it would feel to wash off the dry blood that covered my body. I would have been totally lost in a fantasy of a full stomach but one thought kept popping in and out, what Sam had said. I glanced in Sam’s direction and seeing that he was talking to Sarah, I felt the sudden urge to drop my pack and tackle him. I reeled in that anger and made sure to keep my other emotions in check. She’s not with you. What’s wrong with you Ryan, you’re never been jealous before, at least not like this. Get a hold of yourself, I thought angrily. And with that, I shook my head to clear my thoughts and marched on. Back at the house I shrugged off my pack and cracked my back loudly. I saw Sarah cringe, she hated that sound. “Sorry.” She stood there and shook her head at me. Inside I saw that Liz had hot water, soap, and several towels ready for us. “Liz! I could kiss you.”
“How about you wash fir
st, then we’ll talk about kissing,” she said while smiling.
“Deal,” I said as I plunged my arms into the steaming water. I let them soak before I started to wash off the layers of blood. By the time I was done the liquid in the big basin was more of a reddish brown sludge than water. After drying off I headed to my room to find some clean clothes. Having donned a fresh pair of jeans and shirt I walked out to check on the cooking. “Smells great,” I said to Jason who had the gas grill packed and a huge grill we used when hunting set up over the fire.
“Thanks, man. I’ve got to tell you, after eating out of cans all this time this is the best thing I’ve ever smelled.”
“I couldn’t have said it any better myself.”
After a tray of meat had been cooked I took it inside so it could either be eaten or stored. During the last several weeks Liz and a few other girls seemed to take over the kitchen. They were never asked or forced to, they just did. I think that it gave them a feeling of normalcy, reminding them of cooking with family or friends. Needless to say, in the kitchen, they were the boss. I asked Christina where they wanted me to put the tray and, after grabbing a couple pieces of meat, I got the hell out of their way.
Later that night, after Michelle had gone to bed, we sat around the fire and I pulled out a bottle of whiskey. After a few rounds, I called up to Thomas on the roof. “Hey Thomas, get down here and take a break. I’ll cover for you.” I swear it couldn’t have been thirty seconds before he was off of the roof and around the fire with a glass in his hand and Christina in his lap. I smiled and headed to the ladder.
“Hey James, mind if I join you?” asked Sam.
“Yeah, come on,” I said noticing the can of coke in his hand.
Sitting on the roof in silence I watched as my friends sat around the fire talking, smiling and laughing. I felt good. Things were going well. Breaking the silence Sam asked again the question I had been thinking about all day. “You sure there’s nothing between you two?”
I smiled, my stomach was full of good food, I’d had a couple of drinks, I was tired, I had just been sitting around a nice warm fire and now I was sitting with one of my oldest friends. Fuck it, I thought to myself and decided to tell Sam everything. I told him how I really felt about Sarah, how if I could pick anyone I’d pick her. I told him that she meant the world to me but that she was always talking about different guys. Then I told him about the flowers, about how fucking hopeless it was and how I had given up.
“You are an idiot.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”
“No you idiot. She likes you too. I don’t know why but she does, she has to.”
“Fuck you. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever you say chief,” he said with a grin
I decided not to believe Sam, I couldn’t take getting my hopes up again only to have them crushed. I had to keep my focus on keeping everyone alive. Keeping my focus was hard enough as it was, especially when she was so close to me every day but at the same time, so far away. Changing the subject I asked Sam, “So, you never explained to me what happened on your way here.” His face darkened and he sat there in silence for several minutes. “Look, man, if you don’t want to tell me then it’s fine. I was just won…”
“No, it’s fine. If I can’t tell you then who can I tell?” He sat there in silence for another minute before he began. “I was hanging out with a bunch of guys from the AFROTC program. We had just gotten back from PT and were just relaxing when we got a call that some shit was going down. Something about rioters or a mob. We didn’t think much about it, I mean it was Portland. You know how it’s full of whackos and protestors and everything. They say ‘Keep Portland Weird’ but what we saw was more than weird, it was fucked up. We went outside and headed to meet up with the rest of detachment. I can’t explain to you what I saw. It was fucking awful. There was this little girl. She was running from a huge group of people. I only saw her as we were turning the corner or else we would’ve stopped man. I swear we would’ve stopped.” He was quiet for a second. I could see he was angry and I was about to tell him he could stop but he kept going, “We got to campus and there were people running everywhere. When we joined up with a couple of other guys from the detachment we started talking. A guy named Mike had been attacked on his way to campus. He said one of them bit him, now that I think about it, he didn’t look very good from the start. We decided that we should stick together and after gathering some supplies we’d meet in front of Corrado Hall and get the hell outta there. Before we left to get our things there were nine of us. When we met up there were only seven of us left. We were all armed with bats and makeshift clubs, we didn’t want any of the rioters, or whatever the fuck we thought they were at the time, to attack us. We started talking on our way to our trucks about where we should go. I suggested that we head to Astoria. I told them there weren’t a lot of people, that I knew the area and that I had some guns at my place. I was sitting in the bed of a pickup with Mike and another guy named Tony. We decided to take highway twenty-six to avoid the majority of towns and cities but the problem that we ran into wasn’t from outside our group, but inside,” He paused to gather his thoughts, “Mike… turned, became a Walker, or whatever. He went real pale and quiet before he fell asleep or passed out I don’t know which but when he woke up he was one of them. He attacked Tony and then he turned his attention to me. I did the only thing I could think of and bashed him with my bat. He tumbled over the side of the truck and bounced off the road. As we kept driving I saw him get back up. He should’ve been dead, he was dead, but he kept coming. Tony was bitten on the neck, it was really bad, blood everywhere. I knew he was going to die, there was far too much blood but I tried to stop it. I used my shirt to apply pressure but I couldn’t stop it.” I could hear the regret in his voice but he kept talking. “He died while I tried to save him. He bled out in my arms and there was nothing I could do. I covered him with a sleeping bag and figured that we’d bury him when we got to Astoria. Turns out we didn’t need to because he turned only twenty minutes later. I don’t know why it was so fast, maybe the location of the bite or something but when I saw that sleeping bag rise I nearly pissed myself. I did the same thing I did with Tony and sent him and the sleeping bag over the edge. We stopped in some small town Baxton or Buxton, something like that and then again in Seaside. We lost two while we were there trying to get gas and food. We had figured out by then what was going on or at least that we needed to kill whoever got bit. Jack and Rick were good guys but Jack was dumb enough to get bit and Rick got some blood spit in his mouth. We got to Astoria and there were three of us left. The other two, Marco and Kevin, they died looting the houses around mine. They were looking for food, guns whatever they could get their hands on. So after everything I was the only one left. I stayed in different houses after I ran out of supplies at mine and that’s when I ran into Jason.” After he was done talking he got up and left without another word. I know that it was hard for him to tell me what happened. That he killed several people before or just after they turned. Every Walker that I’d killed was a stranger and they weren’t even human to me, not anymore. He’d killed his friends. I didn’t know if I could do the same. I knew I threatened Sam earlier but that was more bark than bite. I had to wonder if I really could back it up. I decided that I would cross that bridge when I came to it.
The fire had dimmed and the warm feeling from the alcohol had worn off, and yet I sat on my roof keeping watch. Everyone had long since gone inside, having had their fill of food and drink. I was beginning to feel the work of the day creep up on me, my muscles tightening and my head beginning to throb. I glanced at my watch, only twenty more minutes left on my shift and I could finally go to bed. I wasn’t supposed to have had first watch but I decided to trade with Jason so he could spend some time with Carrie. As I sat there freezing my ass off I figured it was probably a bad idea, I was so tired, but then again we all were. Twenty minutes later I was stumbl
ing to my room thinking of only my warm bed. I couldn’t wait to crawl under the covers. Walking into my room I didn’t bother turning on a flashlight, good thing too, turns out my bed wasn’t empty. I saw the outline of a person and as tired as I was I didn’t care who it was. But as I lay down next to them I started noticing things. First, the breathing and the size of the person told me it was a girl. Second was the smell, I knew that smell, it was Sarah. This wasn’t really all that different from when we were at school. If we were watching a movie she had no problems falling asleep then and there, it was even common to find her napping in one our beds in our house, but having her close was a comfort.
I woke up a couple times when Sarah would have a bad dream or kick me and I would move closer until she calmed down, but when I woke in the morning she was gone. “Why do they keep doing that?” I said to myself. Getting up and dressing I headed out to start the day. I had a chunk of elk meat for breakfast and washed it down with a cup of coffee. I didn’t see Sarah the whole day until dinner. The next day it was the same thing. I wasn’t actively looking for her but it was obvious she was avoiding me. I mean, in a house of thirteen people you’re going to run into each person at least once, but I never saw her unless she wanted me to. I couldn’t tell if she was playing mind games with me or if I’d done something wrong but I wasn’t going to force the issue. Things went along like that for three days and I was actually beginning to miss her. She was there, I knew she was but I missed seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, I even missed her getting mad at me. On the fourth day after finding her in my bed, I saw her. I guess she decided to stop avoiding me, but that didn’t mean she wanted to talk. She would say hello in passing but that was pretty much it. I was happy with just seeing her again but I wondered what I had done to make her avoid me. I knew from experience that when it came to Sarah it was best to give her space if she wanted it. So I didn’t push and I didn’t prod, I just let things go at the pace she wanted. A couple more days passed and I let the events of the last week fade. I couldn’t handle thinking about it all the time so I just let it go.
Survivors Series (Book 1): Heroes Aren't Born Page 13
