This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet (17 page)

“What happened?”  I looked over at Jack who was also checking out my wound.

“Not sure.  I woke up after the crash to find a piece of metal sticking out of me.  So I pulled it out.” I pulled my shirt back down and focused on my feet.  If I didn’t look down, I wouldn’t see the twisted tree roots until it was too late and I ended up doing a face plant.

“You just…pulled it out?  Just like that?” Jack’s incredulous tone got a shrug out of me.

“Just like that.”  I looked over at him; “How’s your chest?”

“Looks a lot like your stomach.”

I smiled.  “Sounds about right.”

“I get what you mean now,” he started.  I didn’t look at him, just waited for him to continue. “I can hear everyone’s heart beating.  I can hear animals rustling around that are nowhere near us and I can hear the wind in the trees even though there’s no wind.  The light is brighter and I can feel the blood coursing through my veins.  Is this what you feel like?”

I looked over at him.  The curiosity on his face made me want to run away and never look back.  It seemed strange for someone else to echo back what I was just starting to get used to and it was kind of embarrassing to have what I could feel and hear echoed back at me from someone else who apparently could feel it too.

I met his eyes and looked away almost instantly.  I knew he could hear my pulse speed up and see the blush creeping up my neck from embarrassment. He didn’t press any further, having obviously caught on and graciously letting me cower.

“Tell me about the tattoo,” He asked, changing the subject.

He caught me off guard until I followed his eyes to my shoulder, remembering the grim reaper holding a scythe and standing on a pile of skulls on my right shoulder blade.  The blade of the scythe came up and over my shoulder, stretching down my arm slightly, but not enough that it couldn’t be hidden with a regular t-shirt.

“It’s to remind me that death is never very far behind me.”

“Wow.  Ok.  That’s a bit more gothic and emo than I’d expect coming from you.” The genuine surprise in his voice instantly put me on guard.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I snapped back at him, picking up my pace and trying to catch up with the others.

“So tell me,” He said, starting in a light job to catch up with me.  “We’re both mutants now, so far as I can tell, we’re in this together.”

I stopped suddenly and heaved a sigh.  “Maybe someday.  But not today.” I looked up at him and he just nodded and started walking in silence.

This was the number one reason I didn’t let people in: they always wanted to know where you come from and where you grew up and what your life was like.  I absolutely hated telling anyone about my past and for as fond of him as I was, I found this moment to be no different.  There were just some things that were better locked away in dark dusty attics, padlocked inside boxes and left to rot and mold with age.  I hated opening those boxes.

I focused on the sound of our feet in the dirt and the sounds of the forest around us.  We’d been walking in silence for what was probably just over an hour as the sun climbed over the trees.

It took a few minutes, but I realized it had been a while since I’d heard birds or any other animals.  I took that to mean we were getting close to town.

“Hey, I don’t hear birds anymore,” I called out to the group.  They all stopped and turned to look at me.

“How long since the last one?” Earl asked.

“Not sure, but a while.”

“Alright then.” He turned to address the group as a whole.  Just like yesterday, we keep the kids in the middle and stay alert.  We’re looking for drug store and a gun store.”  Earl turned around again and started walking.

I tightened my grip on my sword and my knife and tried to stay alert.  It was hard to focus when we were so vulnerable.  I was still sore and not moving as fast as I’d have liked, Jack was wounded and Bash had a broken arm. 

Circling up on the left, Jack took the right and we kept Johnny in the middle.  Ty was glued to Bash’s left side, making up for the disabled arm.  We all crept as quietly as we could now that we knew people couldn’t be far; where there was people, there would be zombies.

Rolling my neck and shoulders, I mentally prepared myself for the fighting that the day would inevitably bring; grateful that at least I was well rested from all the recent unconsciousness I’d enjoyed the day before.  With any luck we’d come across more survivors not trying to kill and experiment on us and we could rest a few days while we all healed.  Of course I knew that was just wishful thinking and it was far more likely we’d run into zombies than survivors.  And if we did run into real people, they’d probably just try to kill us for our supplies and I’d have to kill them anyway.  Either way: a crapshoot.

The trees around us had been growing increasingly sparse and it wasn’t long before we were standing at the edge of the forest, staring at a small group of houses.  Earl put his fingers to his lips, signifying that we needed to stay quiet and we all started to creep out of the woods slowly.

I was on high alert and the racing hearts around me were distracting.  It wasn’t long before we reached the houses and I started to hear moaning in the distance.

Before I could tell anyone, Jack beat me to it. “I hear dead people.”

Ty and Bash started to snicker and Chloe rolled her eyes. “Ha ha,” she whispered at him.

Jack’s eyes were wide and innocent.  “What?  I do,” he answered innocently.

“Shh…” Earl chastised us as we continued darting quietly around the last few trees and closer to the homes.

The houses were little more than run-down shacks with unkempt yards.  We crept around them, staying as close to the cover of trees as we could.  There were a couple of zombies wandering around in the overgrown grass around the houses and we kept our distance.  I knew we could take them, but getting closer to them would mean we’d be easier to spot.

My attention was divided between watching my step and listening for footsteps around us that didn’t fit the bass line of the song our feet had begun in my head.  Our pace was rhythmic and I kept it in the back of my mind while listening for anything outside that threw the beat off.

It was odd to hear the world and break up the sounds into strings of music, but it almost made up for not being able to listen to my IPod in so long. 

I stopped sharp when rustling to my left caught my attention.  Chloe saw me and stopped too, drawing her gun.  I shook my head at her and put my fingers to my lips; a gunshot would be ringing the dinner bell right now.  She nodded at me and put her gun back to pull out the large hunting knife that had been clipped to the belt of her gun harness.

I crept towards the noise as quietly as possible.  There was a giant bush 10 feet out and I could see its branches shaking from something on the other side.  Whatever it was let out a grunt and I knew it was a zombie.

I took a deep breath and darted to the other side of the bush, sword and knife ready.

“Holy shit!” Before I had a chance to do anything, the two zombies growled and started to rush me.

My mind was reeling from seeing the tall skinny man and the extremely obese woman naked, rotting and attempting to fornicate.  I pulled myself from that clusterfuck of a thought and met the guy in the gut with my katana, waving the machete across his neck hard enough to nearly sever his head. 

Yanking my sword from his belly, I sidestepped to avoid the pudgy flesh logs covered in veins that had once been the woman’s arms as they tried to grab me and with a spin, I jabbed the machete through the back of her neck.

Watching the trembling purple flesh undulate in waves, she gurgled as she fell and I definitely felt it when she hit the ground.  I stood there panting and trying to process what I’d just seen when I looked up to see the same shock echoed back on Earl and Jack’s faces.

“You guys saw that, right?  Please tell me you saw that.”

Jack’s mouth opened and shut a few times like a fish and I wondered for a moment if his eyes were actually going to fall out of their sockets.  Earl was frozen in place; eye brows raised but that was the only sign on his face that he was surprised.

“Makes sense if you think about it.”  I looked up startled at Ty’s words.  He shrugged and shook the hair out of his eyes.  “I mean the virus, it strips us of our humanity until all that’s left is our animal instinct.  To feed and apparently, to mate.”  Leaving it at that, he turned and walked back around the bush to the others.

Jack, Earl and I just stood there staring in shock.  I took a deep breath and filled my cheeks with air, letting them puff out as I exhaled slowly.  “That will be burned into my retinas for eternity.” I finally said, stepping around the pile of mutilated flesh on the ground and around the men back towards the others.

We stayed quiet as we continued our slow progress through the rundown neighborhood, avoiding the few zombies we did see.  We knew we could’ve killed them, but that would’ve brought unnecessary attention to us so we avoided them when we could.

My mind was still reeling from the zombie porn we’d stumbled across.  Before, I’d thought that the virus simply stripped people of all higher levels of functioning, reducing them to little more than animals focused on the core of survival, which was to feed.  I had to wonder if Ty was right though; all animals have a basic instinct to mate, so it seemed logical that even people who were nothing more than animals trying to feed would also have the desire to breed.

A shiver ran down my spine and I stumbled on an empty beer can, freezing at the sound.  Everyone else froze and turned to stare at me while we waited to see if I’d drawn any attention.

Looking around, we’d come to what I could only assume was downtown as the ramshackle homes had been replaced with rundown shops.  It looked a lot like the first town we’d stopped in in Texas to make a gun run; just a few stores lining the main drag, all of which were Mom and Pop getups.  The difference was this place looked like the town that time had forgot and I half expected to see two cowboys pop out of a saloon and draw pistols.

The sun had made its way higher and the heat and humidity were starting to take their toll on me. For only being April, I was really starting to dislike the south in general.

Wiping sweat from my forehead, I noticed everyone else had stopped.  I didn’t ask why, just stopped and stared with them.  The shops were lining both sides of the street and we were at one end, standing on the side of the last building behind a cover of trees.

A few zombies were wandering around the street, which was only sort of paved, but no more than 10.  I shifted my weapons around to wipe the sweat from my palms and rolled my neck, getting myself ready to take them out.

I started forward only to have Earl put his arm out, stopping me.  I started to ask what the holdup was when I noticed a much larger group of zombies spill out of the church at the other end of the street.  They were pretty far out, but even from here I could see the blood dripping from their faces was fresh.

“Fuck.  There were survivors,” I murmured as we watched the group start to disperse like Sunday services had just let out.

“Not anymore,” Earl grumbled back, motioning for us to fall back.

We all slowly backed further behind the building and into to the cover of the trees, forming a huddle.

“Wait for them to wander off, then we need to split up,” Earl met each of our faces and looked pointedly at me at that last bit.  “Angie, you take the girls and Johnny to the drug store.  Me an’ Jack an’ the boys’ll check out the gun shop.  With any luck, it won’t be completely cleaned out yet.”

I had to take a deep breath to keep myself from losing my temper.  I had to remember this was an old guy from Texas who was used to girls needing to be protected and also everyone listening to what he said.

Opening my mouth to protest and spout some feminist nonsense, I closed it just as fast.  I’d been on the run less than a week and knew just enough about guns to fire them.  Sure, I was fast and strong but that was only due to a freak incident, not from any real experience.

Swallowing my pride, I nodded.  “I really like the rifle and handguns I already have, any way you could maybe look out for shells and cartridges that will fit them?”

Earl looked at me straight-faced for a moment.  If it hadn’t been for the slight lift of his eyebrows, I wouldn’t have caught his shock at my letting him take the lead.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

Silently we split up according to orders and crept back towards the street, peering around the building to see how many were left.  Most of the dead who’d wandered out of the church had drifted into the woods behind it, while others had gone down the road leading away from it and towards what I could only imagine were more homes.  If there had been survivors in there, there certainly weren’t any now.

I wanted to feel slighted at Earl lumping me in with the “girls” until I realized that for a man’s man like him, sending us off on our own meant he knew we could take care of ourselves and was actually a compliment.
Well damn, now I couldn’t be mad at all.

The gun shop was across the street from us and closer to the church, so I hung back while the guys started darting across the road as inconspicuously as possible.  The pharmacy was on the side we were on, just a few shops down and much easier to get to.