The lump in his chest subsided and the color returned to his lips. I watched his chest rise and fall as the light started to dim. Looking down the tubing, the blood was flowing fast from my arm into his and I thought about how pretty it was as I lost consciousness.
Chapter 8:
The smell of wood burning brought me back. I didn’t open my eyes, just focused on the sounds and smells around me as I struggled to free myself from the haze of sleep.
Fire crackled in the background of hushed voices and Chloe’s giggling. My chest felt like there was a car sitting on it and I forced an eyelid open.
“Welcome back.” Penny smiled down at me as she held my wrist and focused on a watch.
Blinking up at her, I turned my head to Jack. His eyes where open and he smiled at me.
“If you hadn’t just saved my life, I’d kill you.” He winked at me and punched me lightly on the shoulder from where he lay next to me.
I coughed and struggled to sit up. “It worked?” I asked. My throat felt like sandpaper and I licked my lips, which only made everything that much drier.
“Here, drink this.” Penny held a bottle of something orange to my lips and I sipped slowly, grateful for the warm liquid.
The bitter sugar from the drink made me flinch. “Ugh. I hate Gatorade.”
She chuckled and put the bottle back down and grabbed my arm, helping me to sit up.
Looking back to Jack, I noticed the straw had been pulled from his chest and a large bandage had taken its place and he was breathing on his own. It had worked.
“Hey.” I said to him. Swallowing hard, I traced my hand lightly over the bandage. “You ok?”
“Aside from being a mutant like you now, I’m fantastic.” He winked at me and closed his eyes.
“Ass. Least you could do is thank me for saving your life,” I mumbled back to him.
Without opening his eyes, his hand grabbed mine and squeezed.
Faces were staring at me through the smoke of the fire and I was glad for it. They all looked tired but at least we were alive. Well, most of us anyway.
“Has anyone figured out where we are yet?” I asked while picking up the offending beverage and chugging the rest of the bottle.
“Far as we can tell, we’re somewhere in Daniel Boone National Forest.” Ty answered.
“Where’s that?”
“Kentucky. On the Tennessee border.” He sounded as tired as I felt. “The GPS from the plane is shot, but I got just enough to put us there. On the bright side, we’re so far outside of civilization that zombies aren’t the biggest concern.”
Watching flames jumping, I thought about that for a minute. We had only brought what we could carry onto the plane which meant food and water would be an issue very soon.
“What is our biggest concern right now?” I asked.
“Bears, cougars and weather.” Earl answered with his low grumble. His face was drawn and pale in the firelight and I knew we were both weighing which was worse; bears or zombies. At least bears probably wouldn’t come investigating the fire, but the coppery hint of blood that was still hanging in the air was a concern.
“We need to get rid of anything with blood on it.” I started to untie the hoodie from my waist. The blood had dried and it was flaking off onto my lap as I struggled with the knot.
“Why?” Ty looked up from the maps he was always studying, a look of pure confusion on his face.
“She can smell it. If she can, animals can.” I looked over to Jack at his words, the shock on my face barely contained.
His eyes found mine and he shrugged, wincing at the gesture. “I can smell it too.”
The others stared at us openly for a moment before grabbing the debris from our blood transfusion and throwing it in the fire.
I had managed to free myself from the ruined hoodie and chucked it into the fire before peeling my shirt off and tossing it in as well. I was a little sad to be destroying anything with Jack’s face on it, but there had been no redeeming that article of clothing. I reached down to my pack and pulled the Playboy cami I’d worn at the dome and pulled it on over my head.
Once down, I reached over to Jack and pulled his destroyed t-shirt the rest of the way off as he struggled to help me. Tossing it in the fire as well, I looked at his jacket but before I could grab that too, his hand stopped mine.
“Not the jacket. It’s fine, I can wash the blood off.” There was no pleading in his tone and his eyes were hard. Apparently he’d rather die than part with the jacket. Fine.
Pulling my hand back, I made sure he could see my irritated expression before turning back to the group. “How far are we from civilization?” I asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
“No more than 5 miles north of Honeybee.” Bash pushed his map next to Ty’s and his finger traced the page. “We can either head south to Interstate 75 and take that up to D.C. or we can zigzag our way there along the back roads. Either way, we can’t stay here long. The smoke from the crash has probably already caught anyone nearby’s attention and it won’t be long before we’re found.” He looked up and met the eyes of all of us staring back at him.
If the world were still normal, catching attention from anyone nearby would be a good thing. Now it just filled me with dread as the likelihood of anyone nearby still being alive and not wanting to eat us where slim to none.
“We leave at first light.” Earl’s words were definite and left no room for argument.
“And go where? We have no plane, no pilot and D.C. is still hundreds of miles away. We should have stayed home, at least there Brian would still be alive!” Penny finished on a shout and I could only look on in surprise as she stormed off into the night.
I couldn’t say I blamed her; she’d lost her husband and the father of her children after all, but what she couldn’t possibly understand in that moment was if they’d have stayed in that house, they would’ve all died. At least on the road with us, they had a chance.
No one said a word as Bash stood and followed his mom into the dark. I stared at Earl whose gaze was so intent on the fire it would seem it kept burning because he willed it so. Moments later he rose and stormed off after his grandson and daughter.
I looked over at where Johnny was curled up with Roscoe, sound asleep and sucking on his thumb softly. A lock of dark hair had fallen across his face and combined with the shadows from the fire, he looked beautiful and ghastly all at the same time.
It felt like I was still getting used to teenagers, so the sleeping child seemed an anomaly to me. I thought about what a strange life he was in for if he survived. There would be no first grade, no video games, no chicken nuggets with ketchup. It probably wouldn’t be long before a gun was thrust in his little hands and he was forced to fight for the right live with the rest of us. Of course that was assuming he lived that long. Being so young, I didn’t have the highest of hopes of his survival but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t still try to protect him. Sometimes we do things not because we have to or because we’re expected to, but because we still have to live with ourselves if we don’t.
Grabbing my pack, I pushed it up against the makeshift pillow Jack was laying on and laid down beside him, making sure my guns were all in their harnesses and my sword resting across my chest and let myself drift into an uneasy sleep.
I woke up to find a rabbit staring at me from behind the tree Jack and I had been sleeping against. Its nose twitched, causing its whiskers to flicker and I met its gaze moments before Roscoe came barreling over after it, causing it to run away.
I turned my head towards Jack’s soft snore and smiled. The color had returned to his face and his breathing was normal. He was going to be ok. How much my blood had affected him would remain to be seen, but he was alive and that was good enough for me.
I poked him insistently until his eyes opened and peered over at me through the haze of sleep. “What is it, Angie?” He mumbled before giving a little cough with accompanying wince.
“N
othing, just glad you’re alive.” I left it at that and sat up to find everyone else busying themselves with packing and kicking dirt on the fire.
“It’s time to go,” Earl said, throwing one last handful of dirt on the now dead and smoking ring of charred wood where the fire had been.
I pushed myself to my feet and reached down to give Jack a hand. We grumbled and moaned but managed to make it to our feet. Neither one of us said anything as we packed up our stuff and checked our weapons.
Between what was in the chambers and the bullets and shells in my pockets, it didn’t look good. I was pretty low on ammo and was willing to bet so was everyone else; we needed to make a supply run.
“We need to get more ammunition and the two of you need antibiotics. We’re going to head into Honeybee, stock up and based on what we find, we’ll decide from there which way to go.” I looked over to where Penny was busily strapping Johnny into his Spiderman backpack and nodded my head when she met my stare.
I started to wander off when Jack grabbed my arm, questions in his eyes.
“Need to pee,” I said, hoping that was answer enough.
He didn’t have the chance to say anything else as Chloe ran over and grabbed my arm from his grasp. “I’ll go with you.”
“Fine,” I said, turning to walk deeper into the woods.
Chloe and I walked for a few minutes until I felt we were far enough away to illicit some semblance of privacy.
Once we were both finished, we walked back to the clearing to see everyone standing around awkwardly waiting for us. I just nodded my head and waited for someone to point the way.
There was still a lot of tension between Penny and Earl and Bash didn’t look so hot either. I could only hope they could put aside their differences long enough for us to get somewhere safe.
Ty and Bash led the way through the brush. Still no one spoke so I focused on the sounds of the trees and the few birds. The sun had barely risen and there was a chill in the heavy air. I wiped my hand across my forehead, pulling it back to see sheen of dirt and sweat. It was barely after dawn and already the air was oppressive enough that each breath felt like it was being drawn through a small hose.
Pulling up my shirt, I flinched seeing the angry welt from where I’d pulled the metal out of my gut. It was puckered and had a reddish purple tint, which told me it was healing. I’d have a nasty scar though.
“What happened?” I looked over at Jack who was also checking out my wound.
“Not sure. I woke up after the crash to find a piece of metal sticking out of me. So I pulled it out.” I pulled my shirt back down and focused on my feet. If I didn’t look down, I wouldn’t see the twisted tree roots until it was too late and I ended up doing a face plant.
“You just…pulled it out? Just like that?” Jack’s incredulous tone got a shrug out of me.
“Just like that.” I looked over at him; “How’s your chest?”
“Looks a lot like your stomach.”
I smiled. “Sounds about right.”
“I get what you mean now,” he started. I didn’t look at him, just waited for him to continue. “I can hear everyone’s heart beating. I can hear animals rustling around that are nowhere near us and I can hear the wind in the trees even though there’s no wind. The light is brighter and I can feel the blood coursing through my veins. Is this what you feel like?”
I looked over at him. The curiosity on his face made me want to run away and never look back. It seemed strange for someone else to echo back what I was just starting to get used to and it was kind of embarrassing to have what I could feel and hear echoed back at me from someone else who apparently could feel it too.
I met his eyes and looked away almost instantly. I knew he could hear my pulse speed up and see the blush creeping up my neck from embarrassment. He didn’t press any further, having obviously caught on and graciously letting me cower.
“Tell me about the tattoo,” He asked, changing the subject.
He caught me off guard until I followed his eyes to my shoulder, remembering the grim reaper holding a scythe and standing on a pile of skulls on my right shoulder blade. The blade of the scythe came up and over my shoulder, stretching down my arm slightly, but not enough that it couldn’t be hidden with a regular t-shirt.
“It’s to remind me that death is never very far behind me.”
“Wow. Ok. That’s a bit more gothic and emo than I’d expect coming from you.” The genuine surprise in his voice instantly put me on guard.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I snapped back at him, picking up my pace and trying to catch up with the others.
“So tell me,” He said, starting in a light job to catch up with me. “We’re both mutants now, so far as I can tell, we’re in this together.”
I stopped suddenly and heaved a sigh. “Maybe someday. But not today.” I looked up at him and he just nodded and started walking in silence.
This was the number one reason I didn’t let people in: they always wanted to know where you come from and where you grew up and what your life was like. I absolutely hated telling anyone about my past and for as fond of him as I was, I found this moment to be no different. There were just some things that were better locked away in dark dusty attics, padlocked inside boxes and left to rot and mold with age. I hated opening those boxes.
I focused on the sound of our feet in the dirt and the sounds of the forest around us. We’d been walking in silence for what was probably just over an hour as the sun climbed over the trees.
It took a few minutes, but I realized it had been a while since I’d heard birds or any other animals. I took that to mean we were getting close to town.
“Hey, I don’t hear birds anymore,” I called out to the group. They all stopped and turned to look at me.
“How long since the last one?” Earl asked.
“Not sure, but a while.”
“Alright then.” He turned to address the group as a whole. Just like yesterday, we keep the kids in the middle and stay alert. We’re looking for drug store and a gun store.” Earl turned around again and started walking.
I tightened my grip on my sword and my knife and tried to stay alert. It was hard to focus when we were so vulnerable. I was still sore and not moving as fast as I’d have liked, Jack was wounded and Bash had a broken arm.
Circling up on the left, Jack took the right and we kept Johnny in the middle. Ty was glued to Bash’s left side, making up for the disabled arm. We all crept as quietly as we could now that we knew people couldn’t be far; where there was people, there would be zombies.
Rolling my neck and shoulders, I mentally prepared myself for the fighting that the day would inevitably bring; grateful that at least I was well rested from all the recent unconsciousness I’d enjoyed the day before. With any luck we’d come across more survivors not trying to kill and experiment on us and we could rest a few days while we all healed. Of course I knew that was just wishful thinking and it was far more likely we’d run into zombies than survivors. And if we did run into real people, they’d probably just try to kill us for our supplies and I’d have to kill them anyway. Either way: a crapshoot.
The trees around us had been growing increasingly sparse and it wasn’t long before we were standing at the edge of the forest, staring at a small group of houses. Earl put his fingers to his lips, signifying that we needed to stay quiet and we all started to creep out of the woods slowly.
I was on high alert and the racing hearts around me were distracting. It wasn’t long before we reached the houses and I started to hear moaning in the distance.
Before I could tell anyone, Jack beat me to it. “I hear dead people.”
Ty and Bash started to snicker and Chloe rolled her eyes. “Ha ha,” she whispered at him.
Jack’s eyes were wide and innocent. “What? I do,” he answered innocently.
“Shh…” Earl chastised us as we continued darting quietly around the last few trees and closer to the homes.
>
The houses were little more than run-down shacks with unkempt yards. We crept around them, staying as close to the cover of trees as we could. There were a couple of zombies wandering around in the overgrown grass around the houses and we kept our distance. I knew we could take them, but getting closer to them would mean we’d be easier to spot.
My attention was divided between watching my step and listening for footsteps around us that didn’t fit the bass line of the song our feet had begun in my head. Our pace was rhythmic and I kept it in the back of my mind while listening for anything outside that threw the beat off.
It was odd to hear the world and break up the sounds into strings of music, but it almost made up for not being able to listen to my IPod in so long.
I stopped sharp when rustling to my left caught my attention. Chloe saw me and stopped too, drawing her gun. I shook my head at her and put my fingers to my lips; a gunshot would be ringing the dinner bell right now. She nodded at me and put her gun back to pull out the large hunting knife that had been clipped to the belt of her gun harness.
I crept towards the noise as quietly as possible. There was a giant bush 10 feet out and I could see its branches shaking from something on the other side. Whatever it was let out a grunt and I knew it was a zombie.
I took a deep breath and darted to the other side of the bush, sword and knife ready.
“Holy shit!” Before I had a chance to do anything, the two zombies growled and started to rush me.
My mind was reeling from seeing the tall skinny man and the extremely obese woman naked, rotting and attempting to fornicate. I pulled myself from that clusterfuck of a thought and met the guy in the gut with my katana, waving the machete across his neck hard enough to nearly sever his head.
Yanking my sword from his belly, I sidestepped to avoid the pudgy flesh logs covered in veins that had once been the woman’s arms as they tried to grab me and with a spin, I jabbed the machete through the back of her neck.
This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet Page 13
