Ophelia

by Briana Rain

  When we got to the corner, Addeline and I looked at each other and I remembered that she didn't like me.

  Not a time, Ophelia.

  I stepped in front of her and raised my bat, because if I'd learned anything from any movie ever, it was that there was always something around the corner.

  I stepped around it and swung my bat at the figure running at me. Only this figure ducked.

  I slammed my bat into the brick wall with much pain on my end, not much to the wall. Between looking at my hand in pain and at the figure, I realized I recognized him.

  “You?”

  He had a lot less mud and rage on him, but it was definitely one of the guys from the woods.

  “Yeah, I know it's me. Listen, we can talk later. Right now we have to get out of here.” He waved his hand and gestured us to follow him as he stepped away

  Nobody did.

  He let out a dramatic sigh and came back towards us, “It's either us, or them.” He gestured to himself, and then the building.

  That was the most convincing thing I'd ever heard in my life. I would've jumped off of a cliff with that argument.

  “James!” Someone yelled.

  He turned around so quickly I'm amazed that whiplash wasn't involved. He ran and yelled at us to hurry up.

  I followed him, because, at the moment, he seemed to be the lesser of two evils, and I doubted that Roger and his gang would help Viola in any way.

  Footsteps pounded the grass behind me as the rest of the group sprinted after James. I felt bad, a bit or two worse than I already felt, for making the decision for the group to go with James, this stranger we knew nothing about. The last time I made any sort of decision, my little sister got shot.

  Maybe I should be put in the back of the group from now on.

  We were keeping to the front side of the building, and changed direction to accommodate for the giant jutted-out brick wall that descended as you got to the end. That wall was the only thing hiding us front whatever hell waited on the other side. We were in view of the gate, and could've just made a run for it since it was open, but—

  “James!”

  James’ brother, Harrison I think, was on the other side of the wall. The wall that was protecting us.

  Great.

  So, of course, instead of avoiding the chaos, we leaped right into it. The group rounded the descending brick wall to see Harrison struggling to fight a Crazy that had pinned him down, using the machine gun that James had bruised me with the day before, to keep it away from him.

  Okay, there weren't any actual bruises, or any sort of lingering pain, but the memory still stung.

  The Crazy flopped over, courtesy of a single shot by Addeline, who turned out to be just as good of a shot as her brother.

  James ran up to his brother and helped him up, and I noticed that they were right next to the four-wheelers.

  Once again, I took it upon myself to make a decision for the group.

  Running was never my strong suit. Ever. In P.E., well, I don't even want to think about the disaster that that class was, but the concept was the same. I never ran because I never had a solid reason to. No motivation. Zero drive. Zip.

  But now. Now I'm booking it to those four-wheelers with James right in front of me. The others, well, I didn’t know what they were doing. James went to his brothers side and helped him up, and made sure that he was okay. I ran right past them and ungracefully hopped onto the closest seat. I uncapped the end of the handlebar and pulled out the keys from the “secret” compartment.

  “I don't know how to work these things!”

  I realized that the closest thing to a four-wheeler I'd driven was a battery powered Barbie Jeep when I was five.

  Of course, me being me, and here me equals being completely and utterly incompetent, I couldn't even locate the ignition thing to put the key in.

  “Move back.” James took the keys from me, shoved it into the ignition, the sight of which was completely blocked by the position of the handles, and the motor roared to life.

  The others followed my lead and piled onto three of the four remaining seats. Clyde balanced Viola in front of him on the one next to me, one hand on her, the other driving. Lucky was sitting in front of Harrison, like Vi was with Clyde, and for a second Harrison trusted him to hang on to the handles while he shot an incoming Crazy. Addeline jumped on one and grabbed my Mom in one motion.

  Engines came roaring to life.

  A thought popped into my head that Clyde probably knew how to operate one of these, and probably knew how to get the front two tires off of the ground. Then I thought about if it was still called a wheelie if there were four tires instead of two. Of course, my mind, wandering at the most inappropriate times, snapped back to reality when James gunned it and I almost fell back out of my seat.

  That would've been a sight.

  But not today. I managed to hang on by my Mad Skillz and Mad Skillz alone. Okay, maybe there was a little bit of luck involved.

  “Hold on!” This guy…

  “Yeah! No kid— AUGHHWG”

  He swerved to avoid an oncoming Crazy, your normal traffic hazard, and at the same time a bullet, either a stray heading for the Crazy or a direct hit by some peeved guys that we just stole from, hit James in his side. Even though his shirt was black, and I couldn't see the blood yet, I could still see the hole in the shirt and I heard the same cry of pain that had come from Vi just moments before.

  Then the screaming started.

  It seemed like the right thing to do, even though it probably wasn't, I was still doing it anyway. So, with one hand wrapped around his stomach and clutched at his shirt for dear life, I put the other where I thought the bullet had hit him. Judging from his reaction as we zoomed past the open gate, I was right on the money. I had no idea what angle the projectile went in at, but putting a little bit of pressure should be helpful to the whole not bleeding out and dying thing, right?

  Right?

  Harrison and Lucky pulled up next to us, which I thought was a bit dangerous because this road was not standard size for two full size car lanes. Bikes lanes, yes. But it was too narrow to expect cars to pass each other.

  Harrison shouted something, but I couldn't hear it.

  My hand was wet and I didn't like it. Not at all. It was gross.

  James wasn't looking too good. He was kind of slouching over, and kind of leaning back against me, but he kept driving. Thank god, because I couldn’t navigate one of these things in an unfamiliar town, with Crazies to dodge. I could barely drive my car to and from work, and that isn't even ten minutes away. Wasn't.

  I didn’t have that job anymore.

  These things were so. Loud. They weren’t practical in the slightest for a zombie apocalypse! We had a small herd following us and Mom was picking them off from the back. After we’d gotten onto a bigger road, one that I hadn’t seen before because Clyde and I came from a different direction, the others spread out a and I could now see them. Viola had woken up and was hanging onto the handles while Clyde talked to her. I made eye contact with him before I turned back to see Harrison was in the lead, hopefully knowing where we were going from Lucky’s intel.

  Hopefully.

  I saw the school sooner than I expected too. It was tall, in both comparison to the heights of other schools and the other buildings in the vicinity. I guessed that was how Clyde's fire signal was spotted so quickly.

  We arrived at the same entrance as my group came through before, with the Jeep still there, and intact.

  Thank god.

  Harrison slowed as he approached it. The rest of us slowed to a stop behind him and cut the engines.

  Even though all four engines were now off, and we had disembarked our vehicles, an engine could still be heard. It was loud. Unmistakably one of these things that's been screaming in my ear for the past five minutes.

  “Get in the car.” Mom didn't use her mom tone. She used a tone filled with fear and dread.

  My hand was co
vered in blood someone else’s blood, and if that whining engine didn't sound like it was right around the corner, then I probably would've freaked out and stared at the blood dripping down my wrist.

  There was no time to freak out, so I didn't freak out. Simple.

  I grabbed the handle and lifted the backdoor, gesturing for James, who I had helped walk the ten feet to the car, to get in. He didn't look good.

  Clyde was still carrying Vi, even though she was awake now. She looked pale, almost sickly, but then again that's how she usually looked, so I couldn't take much from that.

  He set her in the back, where she found a seat on top of the water bottles Clyde and I had taken from the soccer mom's car. Lucky, even though there was barely any room left, squeezed in next to his twin.

  The rest seated themselves in the limited space, with Mom driving and Addeline in the passenger seat, the rest in the back. I climbed into the back at the same time that Clyde climbed into seat in front of me. Upon seeing that Lucky had crushed himself to get next to his sister, Clyde urged him to compromise by climbing over the seat and sitting next to Harrison and Vi. I heard shuffling, and assumed that had Lucky listened to Clyde, but didn't see anything because I was leaning out of the back to close the door.

  I gripped the handle, and saw them. Them. It was two guys on four-wheeler. Two guys from the place that we all just ran from. Judging from the gunshots in the distance, Crazies still trespassed on their grounds, but the hoard must've been thinned. They must've been able to spare a few people, those few people being one of the guys who got us off of the roof and, more importantly, Roger. They came flying around the corner, guns out. My heart/chest did that thing that happened when you get scared. Really scared. Like every emotion and sub-emotion involving fear seeps into your bones and takes root there.

  I swung my arm down and brought the door down with me. Someone, possibly me, shouted “drive” in a loud, harsh tone. They fired. The door shut. Mom slammed on the gas and zoomed around the corner of the school, out of view and range of those guys.

  Something sharp stung my cheek. If it hurt more, then I guessed I would've cried, or cried out, but I was more confused than anything. I faced the others, who were all looking out of the back window, save Mom, who was driving.

  “Oh my God.” Both Harrison and Clyde said at the same time, in different tones, their eyes focused on my face.

  “What?” Mom wanted to know the same thing I wanted to know, and we spoke at the same time. There was a lot of speaking at the same time.

  Addeline leaned over and said something in a strategically low voice to my mother. My mother did not respond.

  “Ophelia, can you come here for a second?” Clyde sounded weird.

  They all looked at me weirdly. Mom jerked the wheel and James cried out in pain. Viola was just plain crying.

  The left side of my face smarted in different places, but just on my cheek and around my eye. I leaned forward towards Clyde like he asked. Mom kept glancing this way in the rearview mirror.

  “Don't panic, okay?” Clyde reached towards my face, causing me to panic.

  He mumbled something to Harrison about asking for help and now Harrison’s fingers were reaching towards my face. Clyde’s hand was pressed against the right side of my face, and it felt weird. Harrison put one hand on my right shoulder, and I flinched. Mom made another dramatic turn, but Clyde and Harrison kept me from being thrown to the side.

  Then they both started pulling on my face? No. No, they were pulling things out of my face. Little shards of glass. Red glass. Clyde’s cold fingers and Harrison's warm ones working daintily to pull out pieces of a taillight that’d been shattered by a bullet, inches from my face.

  But, yeah. Don't panic.

  Don't panic when you were almost killed and don't panic when you were almost blinded and no one told you and you had to put it together yourself and don't forget you can't panic even though your sisters been shot and another guys shot even worse and he keeps groaning and don't panic even though nobody will shut the heck up.

  I felt frustrated, and a bit panicky. If no one could tell.

  “There we go!” Clyde said. Good. So there were only a couple of pieces.

  I was about to say thank you, but suddenly, very, very suddenly, the windshield was doused with red, and Lucky screamed.

  Mom put the windshield wipers on, which got rid of most of the blood, but it was still streaked across the fiberglass. She leaned forward to see better and clicked the wiper fluid on.

  That worked wonders.

  But not for long, as more red was poured and splattered across the car, and, as if they were related, the road became very bumpy.

  James let out a long string of curse words that I was not comfortable with Vi and Lucky hearing, and I put my hand in something wet on the floor.

  Eck.

  I looked around the back frantically for the first aid kit. It was dawn, but the windows were tinted to heck and back, so with the sun not showing up to the party yet, I didn't have much light. I wanted to get out my flashlight, but at the same time I wanted to touch the least amount of things with my bloody hands. The crowdedness and general chaos in the truck from the bags that weren’t organized didn't help either.

  What also didn't help was that the first aid kit was in my bag, the one place I wasn't looking, where I had shoved it when we left the sanctuary of this car and I feared for the probability of our return. I had completely forgotten.

  Clyde reached over and unclipped my flashlight from my bag, clicked it on, and held it up for me. It was nice for two reasons, one being that I couldn't see much, the other is that I knew that Clyde had it, therefore, should it get lost or forgotten somewhere, it would be his fault, and not mine.

  The first aid kit… was… well, a first aid kit. There was nothing wrong with it— the problem was me. The only first aid anything I'd ever been associated with was giving a friend a band-aid from my locker after she was picking at her cuticles and they started to bleed. That was it. Everything else had only been me pouring peroxide on a questionable cut and slapping a band aid on. Band aid. As in, not like these giant white bandages and pads and skin tape.

  And let's face it, this was a bit advanced for me, and I was a bit overwhelmed.

  I guessed the first step would be to disinfect? Or would it be to clean up the excess blood around the wound so that the disinfectant can get it?

  I looked up to see Viola watching both me and the blood illuminated clearly by the flashlight.

  “Look away, Vi.” I swallowed, something suddenly obstructed my throat.

  I think it was anxiety.

  “Okay.” I whispered after she’d tried looking out the window, but then settled for closing her eyes.

  Boy, I was out of breath.

  Finally, I just decided on the disinfectant route first. If worse comes to worst, I could always use this stuff again and James could just hate me.

  I uncapped the aerosol can, lifted his sticky shirt that stuck to his skin, and sprayed. I flinched when he started screaming.

  “What are you doing? Cut it out!” Harrison sounded angry and paternally protective of his younger brother, but didn't do anything to stop me. Clyde glared at him.

  “Look at the wound. Did the bullet pass through? Or is it still inside?” Harrison guided me.

  “There's too much blood! I can't see anything!”

  There wasn't enough light and I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know CPR, so how was I supposed to do anything for this guy?

  Harrison groaned in frustration and told my Mom to drive faster. Clyde held the light up as much as he could, and glared at Harrison again.

  I got a weird clothy thing from the first aid kit and pressed down on the wound. I mean, if I could at least slow the bleeding, then that would be good, right?

  Right?

  As it turned out, pressing down on James’s bullet wound was on my top ten things I regret list. He screamed and cried out for me to stop. Listeni
ng to him repeatedly howl in pain made me cringe, and feel incredibly guilty, but I could only hope that this had to be done. There was nothing else I could do for him. I didn't have the knowledge, and if I did have the knowledge, I didn't have the equipment, and if I did have the equipment, then I was still stuck in the trunk of a speeding, swerving car.

  I was, by far, the last person here who should’ve been doing this. Even Vi and Luck have their scout training.

  Apocalypse? More like… Responsib-lypse.

  I should probably focus more on what I was doing.

  I reached under where Vi was sitting and grabbed a bottle. My hands were bloody, and I left smudged red over some of the plastic. Vi looked up at the crinkle and the movement, but quickly shut her eyes again. She was looking paler than normal.

  James was crying. Viola was crying. Lucky was crying. I'm pretty sure Harrison had some tears in his eyes, and I hadn’t stopped crying.

  I poured some water over where he was shot, and I think he passed out. I stopped, terrified, and held my breath as my hands shook.

  He… he was just unconscious, right? I mean, he just passed out, like Vi did, right?

  Right?

  Harrison was just as panicked as I was about the possible conclusions of James’s crying stopping, so he reached down and put his fingers on his neck.

  Harrison sighed with relief after a second, and collapsed back into his seat, his head in his hands.

  Well, at least he wasn’t dead.

  Chapter 24: Bullets

  “And there's no bullet? I'm okay?” James woke up after being unconscious for about an hour.

  Harrison had just left to find us gas, and put as much distance between us and this state as possible. Addeline had went with him, to Clyde’s distaste.

  “Well… I mean, it depends on your definition of okay, but once we pulled over, Harrison could see that the bullet went like this.” I pressed my finger flat against my arm, indicating that the bullet had only taken a chunk of him, “Instead of this.” I pointed my finger at my arm, indicating a bullet going through and still being in there.