Becca (16 page)

“Oh shit.” I mumbled. She has deep scrapes on her neck, rips in her shirt, and I think that’s a bite mark on her arm, too. Tasha is going to die. She’s going to be one of those inhuman things. “Oh Tasha.” I said, wrapping her in my arms. I began to sob. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“We don’t have time for this. We have to find some place safe.”  

“What’s the point, Tasha? We’re going to die.”

“You don’t know that.” she said. She pulled away from me and looked into my face. “Don’t you give up on me, Becca. Now come on, we’re finding some place safe.”

We stumbled around in the dark back area. At one point we ended up in a bathroom, and Tasha grabbed a first aid kit that was hanging on the wall. And then we found some stairs leading to the roof. There was a wedge, apparently used to keep the door open, but we shoved it into the door after closing it, hoping it would make it more difficult to open from the inside.

We walked around the edge of the roof, looking down. There were hundreds of those things surrounding the building. Most were walking in random directions, bumping into each other. Did they hear the gunfire and come? The moaning sounds some were making just made me wish I were deaf.

“Let’s take care of these cuts now.” Tasha said. She sat down and opened up first aid kit.

“What’s the point? We’re going to be just like them.” My Tasha is going to die. 

“Stop talking like that.”

“I don’t want to be like that, Tasha. We should just... um...” I held the gun up. “Ya know.”

“Stop being melodramatic.”

“We’re dying!”

“Well giving up isn’t helping, is it?” She opened a tube of antibiotic cream. “Sit down so I can do something with your cuts.”

“What’s the point?”

“Becca, if we do nothing we could die from infection or blood loss or something. If we at least treat the wounds...”

“We turn into one of those things.”

“Maybe not. You survived before, so maybe we will this time.”

“I... I...” I nodded. “Okay. Yeah, sure.”

I sat and watched and prayed as she cleaned and treated my wounds. It hurt like hell, but I was mentally checked out anyway. I let them get Tasha. I can’t believe I was so stupid. If she gets sick I have to kill her to keep her from becoming one of them. I don’t know if I can do that. And even if I do, I’m going with her. Even if I’m not sick.

“I’m so sorry, Tasha.” I said. I was cleaning her bite.

“It has to be cleaned, you can’t help that.” she said, wincing as I wiped at her wound.

“Not about that. About getting you hurt. About bringing you here.”

“It’s not your fault, honey.”

“If I start to... um, turn into one of those things, I want you to shoot me.”

“Becca, it’s not going to happen.”  

“If it does, promise me. Please.”

“I’m not making that promise.”

“Tasha,”

“No! I’m not doing it, Becca. Stop asking.”

I finished cleaning and treating her wounds. We took another trip around the edge of the building. Great, there are even more of them now.

“So we just sit here and wait to get eaten.” I said.

“We’re not going to be. We’ll figure something out. Maybe they’ll get bored and go away.”

“Maybe they’ll figure out how to get up here and get us sooner.”

“Stop being so pessimistic.”

“I’m sorry. I just... I got you killed.”

“You didn’t.”

We sat there, in the middle of the roof, sort of just staring at each other. I wonder what she’s thinking. Maybe she’s trying to decide how to keep from blaming me. She has to be figuring out that this is all my fault.

“This might be our last date.” she said softly.

“I thought you weren’t giving up?”

“I’m not. I’m just saying...” She shrugged and actually smiled. “I’m not driving right now.” she said, referring to what I asked earlier. 

“So, um, we’re sitting here, surrounded by people that want to eat us, we may be dying, and you want to... I mean, like, just strip down right now and...”

“If they do kill us, or we do become infected, this could be our last chance to make love.”

“Right here on the roof?” I asked. I actually laughed.

“Gotta do something to kill time while we wait for them to leave.”

We found a relatively smooth place on the roof. A concrete slab that looked like it was designed for something huge, like an air conditioner or something, to sit on. It felt weird taking my clothes off outside.

“I don’t deserve someone as great as you.” I told her, and I kissed her neck, right next to her ear.

“I’m the lucky one. Now stop talking and start... doing.”

Friday, May 13
^th
 

I woke in the early hours, well before dawn, and I laid there on our clothing, still naked

and cold, staring up at the stars. At least I got to make love to her before dying. I spent a couple of hours just thinking about the things we did the night before.

“It’s beautiful.” Tasha mumbled. She was staring to the east, at the sun rising.

“You’re beautiful.”

We sat up and stared at the east, watching the sun until it was full in the sky. Just sitting there snuggling against her was one of the best moments of my life.

“We’re still alive.” she said softly.

“Yeah.”

“If we were going to get sick we would have by now, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Probably.”

“Maybe we’re immune. Maybe that’s why we weren’t ever infected in the first place.”

“Maybe. That would be nice.” I stood and slid my shirt on. “I wonder how the crowd looks this morning.”

We walked around the building after getting dressed. Still a huge crowd. Maybe a few less, but still a lot. I wonder why they just wait there. Do they smell us, or hear us, or what?

“How do we get out of this?” she mumbled.

“Obviously we aren’t just waiting them out. And nobody knows where we’re at, so hoping for a rescue is silly.”

“So we just fight our way through? If we’re immune then we could be okay.”

“Maybe we won’t get infected, but they still can hurt us really bad, Tasha.”

“I know. I just want out of here. But whatever you want to do, angel, I’m with you.”

We walked around the building again. I was looking for some way that we could get down from here without just jumping into a pile of them. There weren’t a lot of options.

“Our best bet is over there.” I said, pointing toward a covered entryway that led into the back of the store. “We can hop down to that roof, and then to the ground. There’s only a few of them there right now, if we hurry.”

“That’s like ten foot to that roof, then ten foot to the ground.”

“I know. We can hang off the edge of the roof by our hands for the first drop, so that’ll shorten it a lot. But if we hang off for the second it’s going to put our feet down where those things could get them.”

“Do we shoot those things first, then drop?”

“Maybe. If there still is only a few there before we drop. I don’t even want to go over there until we’re ready, though. I don’t want to draw attention to that spot.”

“Let’s just do it, Becca.  It’s our best chance.”

“Okay.” I leaned in and kissed her. “I love you so much, Tasha.”

“I love you.”

We went over to the place by the awning and hung off, then dropped to the awning. It sort of wobbled under our weight. It would be great if this thing collapsed with us on it, wouldn’t it?

I pulled my gun out and fired at three of the infected ones below us. Tasha took out two others. And then we hung our feet over the edge and jumped down to the ground. Tasha let out a yelp and grabbed at her ankle after she landed, but she jumped up and was taking aim at the next infected immediately.

We ran past most of them, Tasha shooting two of them as we went. And then we were out on the street. There were several more of them, but they were more spaced out and we were able to hurry past.

We got to the car and jumped inside. There were four of those things right there, and they were banging against the windows as Tasha pulled away. She ran over two of them at the edge of town.

“Did you get any more wounds?” I asked.

“No. You?”

“No.” I started laughing. “I can’t believe that worked!”

“It had to work.”

“Yeah.”

“Because if it didn’t we wouldn’t get to complete my dreams for us, angel.”

“Oh yeah? What dreams?”

“The works. Marriage, a family, our own home.”

“Typical American dream.” I said, smiling at her optimism.

“Except America doesn’t exist anymore.”

“The ideas behind it still exist, though.”

“Yeah.” She reached over and grabbed my hand. “Did you miss the part where I said we would get married?”

“I didn’t miss it.”

“So how do we accomplish this? There’s no judge or preachers or anything to do it.”

“When the time comes we’ll figure it out.” I said. I love her so much.

“What if the time is now?” she asked.

“I... I... um... huh?”

“We should just do it, Becca. Because I’m ready to be with you forever.”

“Wow. Just... wow. We’ve been together exactly one month today, Tasha.”

“Happy one month anniversary.”

“Aren’t you the one who said we should take it slow?”

“I changed my mind. We don’t have time to take it slow. The world is screwed up, Becca. I just want a commitment. Like, some sign that we’re together always and forever.”

“We don’t need to get married for that. I love you, I’m never leaving you.”

“I know. I don’t need it for me, I need it as a sign to everyone else.”

“So you’re asking me to marry you?”

“Yes.”

She wants to marry me. Amazing. Unbelievable! I don’t deserve to be this happy. I just don’t. It’s just unreal. We’ll have to have our parents sign off on it, though, for it to be legal. What the heck am I thinking, of course we don’t need that. There is no law anymore. We can decide for ourselves.

“I want to wait.” I said. It hurt to say it.

“What? Why?”

“Because we didn’t get any rings.”

“We could turn around and go back.” she suggested.

“I need to figure out how to tell my parents anyway.”

“One week, Becca. That’s the longest I’m waiting, honey.”