Chasing Colorado: (The Zombie Zovels #2) (20 page)

Day 12

I hate the desert. I hate the sun. And now I can add sunburn to my list of problems.

“It's too hot!” I complained. “It's, like, getting hotter every day.” I said, looking out across the desert, all I could see was orange with patches of green, and tall walls of unique shaped rocks.

We were walking beside one now, trying to stay in the shade. Shade was a rare thing out here.

“Welcome to the desert.” Drew said with a hint of sarcasm.

“More like hell.” I muttered.

“What do you think so far?” he asked.

“Like I said, it's hot!”

“Oh, sorry, I was standing in your view when you said that.” he said, flashing me a wicked grin while chewing on his lip ring.

I gave him a look. I wasn't impressed. I was
too
hot.

“I think you're running a temperature. It was the same yesterday, the weather's no different. Drink some more water.”

“There's hardly any left.” I said, holding up the water bottle I had found and filled up along the way.

Drew had a half full bottle of Coke in his back pocket.

We had been walking for hours over hot desert, Drew didn't like the idea of walking along the road as it was so open and it made us vulnerable, so we were trekking over uneven rock terrain. The number of times I had tripped over was un-frickin'-believable. The road was somewhere off to the right, I couldn't even see it we were so far away from it, Drew insisted, and he was right, it was safer away from the road, anyone could drive along and shoot us for the contents of our pockets, which didn't amount to much. Between us, we had a wallet, a half empty packet of cigarettes Drew had found in an abandoned car, a lighter, a pocket knife, Drew's crossbow and my knife. I think the majority of people that had survived were killers and savages, they didn't care who they killed or what they did, and then there were people like Drew and me trying to survive the best we could without losing our moral compass.

I scratched my chest again.

“Do you think I'm allergic to the heat?” I asked.

“Sure you didn't catch fleas from the forest?”

“Ugh. I feel hot and sticky.”

“Doesn't help you're wearing those black tights.”

“They're leggings. But I suppose I could roll them up.” I leaned over and rolled them up to just below my knee, I was wearing boots and leggings rolled up, Josh's red T-shirt, and my black hoodie tied around my waist. Drew was still walking around in the same clothes he wore out of the prison, baggy brown pants which were ripped at the knees, well-worn black boots, and Dan's,
Green Lantern
T-shirt which he had since ripped the sleeves off, but he was still wearing Josh's underwear, though. In this heat, Drew wasn't even breaking a sweat. I, on the other hand, could feel my face dripping. Unlike Drew, I burned in the sun, Drew just managed to top up his tan.

I took another mouthful of water, soothing my dry, sunburned lips, and looked at the remaining water inside my bottle, hardly enough to last the next hour.

While I was screwing the lid back on Drew dashed off after something. Probably dinner. Our diet the last few days had consisted of snakes and lizards. I picked up speed to see what he was looking at, he was standing on top of a rock watching something.

“What is it? Not another snake? I hate snakes!”

“Nope, tortoise.”

“What?”

“Tortoise.” he repeated, jumping down from the rock.

I walked around the rock and saw a real life tortoise strolling along.

“Huh, a tortoise.”

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Don't you dare. You can't eat that.”

“Why not, it probably tastes like chicken.” he said, about to grab the thing.

“Drew. No. Leave it, please. I'd rather eat snake.”

“You told me you hate snake.”

“I do, but I don't want you to kill it, it's cute.”

“Cute? Damn, woman!” He stepped back away from it. “The things I do for you.”

“I've never seen a tortoise before.”

“You said that about the moose.”

“Well, I only grew up with a cat, which my mom gave away when she became allergic to it, a bird she set free when she was high, and we had a dog when I was little. Nothing exotic, though. You?”

“Rats.”

“Rats?”

“Yeah, they're great pets, very intelligent. I left my sister looking after the five I had left, but they're probably all dead now.”

I glanced at him, he said the most random and morbid things sometimes.

“They don't live that long.” he added.

“But you
eat
rats.”

“Yeah, but they're not pets and they don't have names so it's okay.”

“So if I named everything before you saw it, claiming it as my pet, then you wouldn't be able to eat it?”

“Then we'd be very hungry.”

We both stood for a moment watching Mr. Tortoise stroll off into the desert.

“Now you can tick
'seen a tortoise'
off your list of things to do before you die.” he said.

“I never put that on there, I never even made a proper list.”

“I just added that on there for you.”

“Thanks, we were three seconds away from adding
'watched Drew kill a tortoise'
.”

“Ha ha, funny girl. Come along.”

We walked for another twenty minutes, Drew had walked on ahead and left me, it was a lot safer around here for him to leave me, the landscape was so bare that I would be able to spot a deadbie in seconds, but so far I had seen none. There was a gap in the rocks up ahead, I had seen Drew go inside it a few minutes ago. I slowly made my way toward the hole in the rock, crunching over rocks and stones in my path. I didn't know what was on the other side of the rock wall, probably more desert, but it must be something interesting because he hadn't come back. I walked through the archway hole in the rock and into a long tunnel of sorts. Tall, orange rock walls lined either side, blocking out the hot sun, so much so the tunnel felt lovely and cool. I squinted, it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the shaded tunnel. I looked down the tunnel, still squinting, trying to get a better view of the other end, all I could see was another opening, like the one I had just walked through. I wandered along the tunnel, looking up at the sky through the opening at the top. I had to shield my eyes when I came out at the other end, the sun was blinding. I was back in the desert, of course, I knew that already, but I was standing at the top of a rocky slope, the desert stretched as far as the eyes could see, and in the distance, I could see more, tall cliff-type, orange rocks. After staring at the breathtaking view, my eyes drifted to the bottom of the slope, and to my surprise, there was a narrow stream.

I hurried down the slope as fast as I could without falling over. Drew was already at the bottom waiting for me, he looked over his shoulder at me, grinning.

“Oh. My. God. Am I hallucinating?” I said, skidding to a stop beside him.

“Well if you are I am as well.”

“Is it safe to drink?” I asked.

“Do you really care at this point?”

“Nope, but I'd prefer it if you boiled your water.”

I looked back at the stream, my mouth was dry and my throat was sore, and to top it off all that sweat I had dripped off had left me majorly dehydrated.

“Right, we need a fire, pronto, I'll go get the firewood.” I said.

“And what do you plan on boiling the water in?” Drew said.

“Shit. I forgot we have nothing.”

“I'm sure I'll survive, a little water won't kill me.” he said, bending down and cupping his hands together in the water, and lifting them to his mouth.

“We need firewood anyway, it's getting late and the temperature will start to drop, maybe you can find us a snake or something for dinner.”

“No,” he said, standing back up. “You sit down, dip your feet in the water. I'll go get the wood.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it's no problem. Now you can finish off that bottle of water you've been nursing all day.”

I had the bottle tucked inside my hoodie arm that was wrapped around my waist, I undid the lid and downed the last of it in record time, then I started filling it back up with fresh water from the stream.

“Okay, stay here, don't wander off.”

I crouched down and ran my fingers through the water. I hadn't been able to have a wash since we left the cafe, I was already looking forward to getting naked, and not in a
dirty
way. My hands and arms still had bandages on them, the ones on my hands were pretty manky now, spotted with blood and covered in dirt. Maybe it was time to take them off. My arms felt like jacket potatoes been baked in foil with all these bandages wrapped around them. I untied my hoodie from my waist and dropped it on the ground and quickly unwrapped my arms and peeled off any extra dressings, it was nice to feel the air on my skin again. The cuts were healing which was a good thing, even though I was infected my body was still working to keep going in other ways. I slowly unwrapped my hands, they were still sore but manageable with the bandages off. I left the bandages in a pile at the side and sat down at the edge of the stream and pulled off my boots. My feet were hot and sweaty and it felt
soooo
good to take them off. I stripped off my socks and left them with my boots and slowly dipped one foot into the water. The cool water rolled over my skin and felt amazing.

The stream was shallow enough to paddle in. I gingerly tiptoed further into the water, careful of the stones, and stood in the middle of the stream letting the water flow over my baking hot feet.

The water flowed around my ankles and felt gorgeous. I looked around and checked there was nothing around before I bobbed down and dragged my hands through the water. I un-clipped the knife and chucked it onto the side, next to my boots. Before I knew what I was doing I was sitting in the water with my legs stretched out in front of me. I hadn't had a wash in days and suddenly felt like a crack addict not able to get enough, and I laid down and let the water trickle around my body. It certainly helped to cool me down. It reminded me of that time I made snow angels in the backyard with my dad when I was little, the only difference now was, I was flapping my arms up and down in water.

I got distracted watching a large bird circle above me, high up in the sky. Drew had pointed it out before and he had told me what it was but he pointed out so many different birds I got confused a lot. It was probably checking to see if I was dead and edible. The water made a gentle splash behind me.

Drew.
I thought.

I let out a laugh, waiting to see what he was going to say having found me in the water. But I got nothing, except silence. I craned my neck and looked up and saw a face looking back at me. It had teeth and a long nose, and eyes that looked wild and hungry. I froze for a second, quickly trying to decide what the best thing to do was. It stood tall, staring at me, the side of its lip lifted up and it half growled while flashing its teeth to me.

Shit! A wolf!?

I was certain it was a wolf. I knew what a wolf looked like without ever seeing one up close. I started to turn over, I felt vulnerable on my back, but I was still as vulnerable sitting up with no weapon. I sat up and was still looking over my shoulder at the wolf. I tried to make a move for the side but the wolf snarled, showing its teeth and scrunching up its nose. It was staring me down, but couldn't decide whether it wanted to attack me or not. What was it doing? The wolf was gray, with patches of golden fur running along its underbelly. Drew had forgotten to mention this particular animal when he was talking about the desert. It started to edge forward, this was it, I could either try to reach the knife, (which was almost impossible because the wolf was so close, and ten times quicker than me), or I could try and fight the wolf off with my bare hands, and I didn't like either of those choices. Getting killed or eaten by a wolf wasn't what I had in mind for my last days on earth.

The more I tried to edge away from the wolf, the more it growled. But I figured if I stayed still I was as good as dead anyway as it looked like it was about to lunge at me any second. My heart pounded like a jackhammer inside my chest and I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my forehead.
On the count of three go for the knife. One, Two-

I never got to three as someone spoke nearby, “Shayleigh, leave her be... Shayleigh!”

The wolf reluctantly relaxed its stance and straightened up, still watching me like I was prey about to take off and it was about to chase after me. I slowly took my eyes off the wolf and turned my attention toward the person that had spoken. I shielded my eyes from the sun and saw a tall, dark-skinned man with dreadlocks, wearing tatty clothes, standing beside the stream... and another two wolves either side of him. One white wolf, one black. I gulped.

“Hello.” he said.

“Uh.. h-hello.” I stuttered, frightened to turn around in case I came face to face with the same wolf again, that was apparently called, Shayleigh.