Authors: Julie Cooper Brown
He had to take care of this and soon. He didn’t want to become a soul trapped in a dying body, but ultimately, that was they all were anyway. Dying from the moment the first breath is taken. He wasn’t afraid of dying; it was the manner in which it may occur that he had always feared most. His own cause of death now held no my
stery for him any longer. He could feel the infection ravaging his body. His muscles have become stiff and sore, each step he had taken in the last few hours had been painful. His clothes were drenched with the sweat that continuously seeped from his pores, even at rest. His eyes feel as if they are bulging out of his head, there is a sour taste in his mouth and his head is pounding. The latter could be the result of the gut wrenching bout of vomiting that he had succumbed to only an hour before. He had taken some of the ibuprofen that he had in his pack, but it didn’t help. He really didn’t expect it to, but he had hoped it would have at least taken the edge off.
He thought about what had happened at the church. He was relieved that it had happened while he was still in the condition to help. No one looks forward to that kind of situation, but when you know it’s coming, you really just want to get it over with. He had managed to kill most of the infected inside with the grenades, but there were a few, very wounded stragglers, that he shot in the field behind it. He saw what he guessed was recently a sixteen year old boy, wondering aimlessly, his arm hanging by the skin, his face slack and jaw askew. He even thought he saw little Kimmy trying to crawl out of the building, hair and face on fire. He didn’t want to end up like that.
He thought about Kate and how much he still cared for her, he was grateful that she had escaped death this time around. Hopefully she would continue to do so. That is of course, why he gave her the cross, to help carry her though her journey. It had always worked for him, until now. So, it must just be his time. He thought about the rest of them as well, he saw the mustang drive off as he ran from the church. He prayed for their safe passage to Ohio. As far as he knew it was their next destination, but with the way it is now; they could end up anywhere, or not make it very far at all.
He thought about his parents. He’d been adopted at four years old and he remembers the first time he had laid eyes on Jim and Brenda Fraley. Their faces lit up with such joy, that he thought they couldn’t possibly be the cause of it. He was the cause, though. They were overjoyed to be getting the son that they had wanted for so long.
They had let him do whatever he wanted, which wasn’t a bad thing, as long as it was within reason. They had let him be whatever he wanted to be, supporting him in every decision and every event. They had been even more understanding when he began going through the phases of adolescence. He said he wanted to start a band, they bought him a guitar and a set of drums, his father had helped him set it up in the garage. When he died his hair blue and decided to wear all black, they had taken family pictures. They said that they had liked his style. They never refused him anything and he never gave them a hard way to go. They were awesome parents and he could not have asked for more.
When he returned home after learning how far the infection had spread so quickly, he had found his parents; already infected and they had tried to attack him with more speed and strength than they had actually had in life in over 20 years. He had hoped that this virus didn’t mutate into a strain that will cause every infected to be so treacherous. If they mutate in this way in large numbers, no one has a chance. They are too strong and too quick, those who have managed to survive this long won’t have a chance in hell. His parents change frightened him, saddened him and almost broke him. He pictured their sweet faces as they were in life and they melded into the rotting, bloody masks that they had become. For a moment, he had wanted to collapse at their feet and let them attack him.
He would have rather died than to have to hurt them in any way, zombie or not. The only thing that motivated him was he knew that they would have wanted this. They would not have wanted him to give up his life so easily. He had no choice but to kill them and at the time he had not yet had thoughts of them having a conscience, as he did now. It was ripping his heart out and he finally broke down in tears and released a grief stricken wail that he had been holding in for so long. He knows now, that they had understood why he had to put them down. They were in their own world of pain as well, and he knew that once it was done, they had been at peace. He did not feel sorry for himself, the way things were going, he was sure that this world would never be the same. He wouldn’t miss a thing.
As the song came to its extreme climax, he didn’t waste another second, just as quickly as he had done everything else in life; he put his gun under his chin and blew his own brains out through the top of his head. They splattered against the tree behind him and bits of his brain flopped off the bark and hit the ground. It had been such a powerful shot that blood that had covered the lower tier of dying leaves and was now dripping back down upon his lifeless body.
Kate picked up her pack and made her way around to the back of the church. Several dead were still coming out of the burning church and she tried to pick off as many as she could while looking around for Dave. Not seeing him, she ran towards the dense woods and tripped on a rock, painfully twisting her ankle in the process. Two more infected had grown closer when she fell and she flipped on her back, and shot them both in the head. Pulling herself up, she still scanned the churchyard beyond for any sign of Dave but there was none. She entered the dense woods in search of a place to hide. After twenty painful minutes of dragging herself through the woods, she came upon a path that led to a cemetery. The sign at the gate said it was the All Souls Cemetery and Arboretum. The sun had begun to break through the clouds shedding light across the beautiful scenery and showing the vast expanse of the cemetery. She was not afraid, for the dead here couldn’t hurt her.
Seeing a large crypt with an open door ahead, she limped her way there to hole up until her ankle could heal. Not long after she had settled in, she heard a single gunshot and knew with her heart, that her old friend had run out of time.
Well, being stuck here I have nothing left to do but add to Jillian’s journal which I have kept with me, as well as her cellphone that has since lost its power. My heart is heavy with the loss of my old friend and worry for my new ones. I hope that I don’t have any more dreams, though it may be inevitable. I will have to sleep sometime. I have no ammo, having spent the last of it on two infected that grew too close to me when I fell. For now, I will try to heal and pray that it happens fast. The infected have an acute sense of smell and I am sure that I will be sniffed out before too long. The church isn’t really that far from here. I am very afraid. I haven’t been alone since this all began and I am not sure how long I can endure this seclusion. Though its very peaceful here, I will need to leave in search of food, ammo and a better place to hide until….until when? This is never going to go
away! In the movies, people form groups and gather together to rid whatever building they choose, of the dead and that just isn’t possible! At first, it took time for people to change, but lately they have been turning quicker and some of them have come back after destroying the brain. I doubt very much if I will find anyone else left alive in these parts. I’ve never been very religious, but I am beginning to think that Jillian was right about this plague being a punishment from God. So, I am praying now, with all my heart that if any of us survive, it will be Angel. She is so sweet and innocent that she does not deserve such a horrifying death. As mean as Kimmy was, she didn’t deserve her death either. So I pray for her soul as well. In the meantime, I must keep the faith that I will escape and find my friends.
The infected that I have encountered up close, some of them do seem to possess some kind of conscious, though it is useless. I wonder what kind of thoughts flow through their mind, if they do retain some part of their former self. Are they horrified? Saddened? Do they know what’s going on? Sadly it remains a mystery until I end up becoming one, myself.
Chapter Twenty Six
If you did not know that more than three quarters of the population were now the living dead, it would appear to be just another gloomy autumn morning. The streets and sidewalks are wet and littered with leave and limb of trees as they begin the process of shedding, to conserve their energy for the approaching winter. The remnants of the latest showers were dripping from the tree branches as the cold heavy winds cause them to sway to and fro. The sun obscured by thick, dark clouds that threaten to unleash another heavy rainstorm before the hour is up and preventing its warmth from beaming down upon them. It had rained so much in the past week you would think that it was in the middle of spring, but it is late October and the rain has an icy chill; it would freeze you to the bone if you were standing out in it.
The roads were slick as well and once again surprisingly clear. It should not have been that easy to travel the eleven hundred miles from Florida to Ohio. They shouldn’t have been able to get that far. Sure, there were times when Tank took a turn to try for a shortcut, but those areas were blocked and crowded with the dead, moaning loudly and reaching out as the headlights illuminated their decaying faces. He saw them a bit differently now. He had heard the conversations of their being conscious and able to feel and at times, display emotion.
He remained quiet while he picked apart and analyzed it. Coming to the conclusion that although they were still aware, they could not be allowed to survive. They would kill you no matter what their inner thoughts were, so they had to be destroyed.
Tank and his companions were still alive when by all rights they should’ve died many times over. Somehow, they have managed to make it. By the Grace of God, he was sure of it. There’s something about that little girl, too. He didn’t know what, but he felt that he had to protect her, though at times it felt like it was the other way around, like she was protecting them. ‘
Maybe she’s a real angel’
, he thought, but why would God trust her to be safe with a gang of average sinners instead of a band of loyal Christians? He quickly scratched that question as he thought about Father Barrett. On the outside, he looked the part. On the inside he was as cold as ice. He had to be, to lock his entire congregation in a room with infected people. He entrapped them and they died what he was sure was a terrifying death, all to save himself, but in the end Father Barrett had gotten wha
t
he had deserved. Tank’s thoughts turned to Dave.
It was a brave thing that he did, blowing up the church and killing the infected within to save them. He wondered if Dave had made it out and hoped that Kate was okay, but it wasn’t likely. She had been in an open field and they’d seen many undead as they drove away from the area. He didn’t want to leave her.
They had travelled from the church in Tennessee, to Ohio with a flock of birds flying overhead most of the way, disappearing only after dropping a little purple heart into the hands of Angel. He normally didn’t think much about religion one way or the other but the birds made him lean a little closer to thoughts of an existing higher power. They stopped in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the parking lot of a place called Camp Washington Chili to syphon gas, the area was deserted other than a few undead lumbering around in the BP and Shell stations nearby.
John looked into the drive-thru window; he hadn’t seen any dead inside either. He did mention that the sight of the interior of the restaurant made him very hungry. It looked very clean and the décor reminded him of an old school diner, shiny stainless steel rimmed counters and red capped stools, black and white checkered floors and big, comfortable booths. He imagined that he could hear a classic from the 50’s blaring from the old Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner. He said all this with a silly dreamy look in his eyes and Tisha laughed at him.
Tank had told them he had eaten there once and the chili was great. The restaurant had made quite a name for itself, existing for seventy three years, winning awards and national recognition with their secret chili recipe. The owner had a reputation of being very sweet and down to earth. All that being said, everyone was even hungrier and wished they had gotten a chance to try the ‘Best Chili in the Country’ (Said the banner that had been strung up above the entrance of the deserted restaurant). Their thoughts of hunger didn’t last long when the birds became restless. Angel had been standing next to Allen holding his hand and clutching her ever present sleepy time bear in celestial pajamas. The cap that Kate had sewn back on still held in place.
The birds swooped down to fly in front of her face and they frolicked around her as they did before when they found them. They had seen some strange things lately; so this display did not surprise them, nor did they fear it because they knew the birds were not there to harm them.
A bird that was identical to the pretty tiny lavender bird that Kimmy had smashed, (he guessed was a hummingbird) appeared and hovered in front of her with the purple heart in its beak. Angel looked at the bird and knitted her brows and held out her right hand. The bird dropped the heart into it, chirped and flew off through his flock of feathered friends and high into the sky, the others followed behind him. Angel stared at the heart and they could see it was no bigger than a quarter and that may have been too large of an object to compare it to. It was very shiny as well and he’s never seen anything shine that way. Though they wondered what it was for, no one said a word as they all watch the birds slowly disappear. Angel palmed it tightly and seemed to be lost in deep thought. For a child of six, she could show some very adult expressions at times.