I press the needle into my skin. I am
somewhere else. I am the girl on the carousel. Her smile becomes forced as
tears slip from her eyes and land on her pale yellow blouse.
Leo whines. He never whines much but he
senses it. I can't look back. The sickening feeling that is creeping around
inside of me grows with every step I take. The cabin is a parent, a hug, a
haven. It's the only thing I have from before. Turning my back on it feels like
cutting myself. Every step I take is a betrayal of my soul.
"We'll come back Emma."
I look over at her. I want to scratch her
eyes out and roast her flesh over a spit. My face expresses this. I know
because she winces when she meets my eyes.
Leo rubs against my side, his back comes
up to my hipbones. I rest my fingers in his coat. I grip the fur, as if holding
onto him will ground me and I will get back a semblance of my safety.
Fingers brush my arm and then squeeze.
I'm pulled back into an embrace. I want to fight against it but the warmth
overwhelms me. I can’t fight my tears and Jake so I let him hug me.
"Emma we will come back one day. We
didn’t hide all that food for nothing. It and the wood and the supplies will be
here when we come back."
I push his body away from mine and crane
my neck to look up into his bright blue eyes, "Don't you see? We can never
come back. This is always going to be a place that’s watched. They won't stop
until we're all working the farms."
His eyes grow passionate, "We erased
all of the signs of life. Give it time. Not that many places have a functioning
well Emma. We can't afford to just ignore it."
I want to push him away but a funny thing
is happening to my skin when he touches it. It's just like in the books I found
in my Granny's closet. He makes me swoon and shiver simultaneously. Then he
frustrates me. The romance novels were right.
I shake my head and tear from his grip,
"Look we need to get going."
The path down the mountain isn't my
favorite hike, but today I feel distracted. I walk quickly listening to the
forest song. It speaks of happiness and peace. Leo seems content. His sloppy
wolf face is a great indicator of what's what in the forest.
"Anna remember the second house dad
hid us at?"
She ignores him. I wish I could.
"I think it was near here. Remember
it had the pool and we swam in it to get clean."
I glance at her, her jaw is set.
He looks oblivious, "God then we
found that pantry full of food. Cherry pie filling on toast made on the
barbeque was my favorite."
I imagine the cherry pie filling for a
half a second but catch a glimpse of Leo in my peripheral. He's crouched with
his hackles up. He stalks into the long grass.
I imitate him and crouch low. Anna
follows along, not from watching me but from seeing Leo. Her eyes haven’t left
him.
"What?"
I groan, "Get down." He ducks
along with us, but he's too large to actually hide in the grass.
I raise an eyebrow at Anna who rolls her
eyes. It makes me snicker. I've never actually snickered before.
"How are you still alive?" I
whisper.
She laughs quietly, "Luck. Not even
kidding."
I glance back at a red-faced Jake and
smirk.
"Nice to see you have an actual
personality Em."
I stick my tongue out at him until I hear
it.
The high moan.
I feel my eyes close in fear and
disappointment. One of us is going to die. Whoever can't run fast enough will
die.
Leo looks back at me for a second. I see
the worry. I nod. He creeps forward along the grass. I lick my finger and put
it in the wind. The breeze is behind us and carrying our smell down the hill.
They are the survivors that don't seem to die, we are screwed. They hunt like
an animal.
Anna licks her lips. I can see worry and
fear crossing her face like clouds moving in the sky. Her heartbeat is pounding
in her neck. I can watch it increase. She looks around and points to the trees
behind us.
I shake my head. Climbing only puts you
in a tree surrounded by the infected. I look for another option, my brain
flexes under the strain.
"The river." I whisper.
Jake looks at me unconvinced, "How
far?"
"A mile."
"Emma your leg and mine won't make
it outrunning the infected for a whole mile."
I know he is right. I know this to be a
truth but I don’t have anything else.
I pull one of my guns from my sack and
pass it to him. I look into his blue eyes, "Don't shoot unless you have
to. Don't shoot me or yourself either."
Anna takes the rifle with the scope,
which she has grown fond of, and takes the right flank. Leo stalks down the
middle of the field and I take the left. We leave Jake on the hillside. His
injuries are worse than mine.
The bullet never made its way very far
into my leg. The new stitches, lavender and tea tree oil have made it heal
fast.
I look at Jake's dark head of hair poking
out of the long grass and sigh. He is too big to try to hide. He will be the
death of us all. I know I will leave them if I have to. I force myself into the
agreement. No matter what happens, my father never died so I could waste my
life on strangers.
They don’t feel like strangers anymore
though.
I focus my thoughts and scan the grassy
and thin forest.
Bile rises when I see them. They're
slumped over something. They look disgusting and diseased, even from the
distance I am at. One shoves the other and the high pitch moan shrieks out
across the emptiness. It takes up all of the space. I feel the walls of fear
closing around me. I see a hand come up and down on whatever they have on the
ground. One of them is striking it. It is still alive. It is sick now, infected
like them. They are the closest things to zombies. Not real zombies. They are
human but they live with the sickness in a way that would never be considered
survival. Their skin is covered in sores, open and scabbed over. Their hair is
falling out where the sores have taken over their scalps. They cry tears of
blood like the fantasy movies that were out when I was nine. The first thing
the virus destroys is the throat. The high moan is from the scaring in the
throat and the brain damage the high fever causes.
I look toward Anna and hope she isn’t
scared. I force the thought from my brain and look back at the infected dinner
party. The last time I worried about either of them I got shot.
I pull my mask from my back pocket and
slide if over my face and loop it around my head. It's not a guarantee but it's
better than a gamble.
It's a rule. I wear it whenever they are
around. The virus should have died out years ago but the ones who got sick
after it mutated survived, if you can call it that. They are contagious but
don’t seem to die, no matter how sick their bodies get. There aren’t many of
them left but somehow they still manage to ruin lives.
I count the heads, seven. Not to mention
the one on the ground, if it's a human. It could be an animal. The infected
have no sense. They attack anything that moves. Their hunger is too great. I've
seen them attack a bush on a windy day.
I can take down three at least before
they will at least get close enough to make reloading my bow a gamble. I don’t
like gambles. I know Anna has a pocket full of bullets, but I will be forced to
trust she can shoot them before they get to me. It too feels like a gamble when
I think about it.
I feel stuck. My back is against a wall.
I know Leo will take down one. Together we can guarantee four. It doesn’t feel
safe enough. I turn back and look at the hill behind me. I want to go home. I
want to climb the hill and climb into my own bed and lock the world out. Again
I regret opening the stupid door. I should have left them. I should have left
him in the hole.
I am about to run and whistle when I look
at Jake once more. He winks at me and grins. My stomach does the hurting twinge
thing. My lips grin back. I never told them to do it. They seem to be making
choices for themselves.
I pull the arrow back and site in the
largest one. I feel the gusts of wind and the cycle they seem to come in. A
large gust hits and then leaves space in the air until the next one. I exhale
and release the arrow. He has dark brown hair and his face is swollen. He was a
man once. I turn my heart off to him and reload instantly.
I feel the next gust and fire
compensating for it. The arrow slices into a matted head of dark blonde locks.
I reload ignoring the tickles on my cheeks. The infected have noticed two are
down. They turn their faces around, searching. My next arrow hits the milky eye
of an older one. The remaining four stand up and begin to make the squeal. I
cringe knowing the sound will haunt me for weeks.
My next arrow hits the one pointing at
me. She drops the second it slides through her open mouth.
I feel a shiver at the sight. I reload as
the remaining three shriek and start their mad dash toward me.
I drop another one before I turn and
start to run for the nearest tree. I want to run the other way. I want to run
into the hills and leave them but my feet don’t listen to me. My leg won't make
it far with the bullet hole in it. The long grass tangles in my feet and pulls
at me. My leg burns and tries to convince me to stop running.
"Emma. Emma." I ignore the
voice and run. I feel the panic hitting.
"Emma they're all dead."
I reach the bark of the huge tree. I want
to climb but the pain in my thigh is killing me. I grip the massive branch and
pull myself into the tree using only my arms. I've practiced this. I pull
myself up and sit on the branch. I look down at the two people standing in the
grass looking at me like I'm nuts. Leo paces. He understands. We've run from
them many times.
Jake approaches the tree limping
slightly. He puts his hands out like he is scared of me, "Emma they're all
dead."
"How?"
Anna beams, "I shot them. I waited
for them to run to you and then dropped them all instantly."
"You? You killed them?"
She tilts her head, "You still don’t
trust us to help you?"
I want to say yes but I sit for a moment
in the tree.
"I'm stuck."
Jake stands below the huge branch and puts
his arms out, "Jump."
I throw down my bow and arrows and look
around. The field doesn’t move, except where the winds stroke the dark amber
colored grass.
I turn over on my belly and lower myself
from the branch. I hang there for a second before the strong arms circle me and
hold me tightly. The screaming agony of my leg is dulled suddenly.
Leo nudges my legs and whines.
Jake's breath brushes against my face as
he speaks softly, "You looked a bit like you were going to run away."
I don't realize how close our faces are
until I see myself in his eyes. I bite my lower lip and shake my head, "I
panicked. I've never been hurt like this when they were close before."
He pulls me close, "I'll protect you
Emma." He looks toward his sister, "We both will."
I can see the darkness in her eyes, it's
the same look I give everyone.
"Thanks." I say it just loud
enough.
She nods, "You killed most of them.
You have to leave more for me to kill next time"
I still feel scared and alone.
Jake places me on the ground softly.
"Emma you're like Robin Hood."
I smirk, hearing the reference to the
novel I love.
Anna sighs, "Jake don’t start again
on the stories."
I smile at him, "I love reading too.
I've read the same books for ten years. Sometimes I get lucky and find a small
paperback that I can fit in my pack. Robin Hood is one of my favorites. My
granny read it to me when I was little."
Jake smiles and I see it again. There is
a joy inside of him that I have never seen before. I think I must have in the
world before, but I don’t really remember it. I want to be near him. He makes
me feel things I've only read about.
Instead of enjoying the feeling of being
near him a heavy disgusting feeling blankets me. It forces away the borrowed
joy from him.
I almost left him. I almost left them. I
will leave him. It's my nature.
He frowns at me, "I'd ask a penny
for your thoughts but I think it would be more than I can afford."
I laugh, but it isn’t the free feeling of
joy I had seconds ago.
I walk away from him and pat Leo, who is
needy suddenly. He rubs up against me and jumps up on his back legs to stand.
He wraps his paws around me. I hug him back.
"I love you too." I whisper
into his fur. I glance at them and nod in the direction of the farmhouse.
"It's a days walk to the house." I point down the hill.