Merman - Romance

Chapter 24

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Chapter 24

“It’s time to go,” Ridec whispered gently shaking Kent.

“Go where?”  Kent murmured sleepily.

“Go and find our subjects for the test,” Ridec explained.

“It’s not even…”

“Shhhh….I don’t want to wake Jessell.  She needs her rest,” Ridec explained.

“It’s her rest you’re worried about?”  Kent questioned with a huge smile spreading across his face and Ridec blushed.

“I need to go with you; I know what I’m looking for in these zombies.”

“But you don’t quite want Jessell to know?”  Kent questioned amused.

“She wouldn’t understand,” Ridec explained pressing himself up from beside Kent to go and quietly rouse the others.

Normally Rea would have kept quite a bit of noise about Ridec’s need to sneak around from Jessell but she didn’t, perhaps she was starting in some limited way to understand the nature of the relationship between the two of these strange persons.

“Make sure the door is closed securely,” Ridec whispered as the last of the group snuck out.  “We don’t want any of those things getting in there while Jessell is in there alone with just Pete and asleep.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rea grunted as they started to make their way away from the overrun building that was once a school.

“So where do we go from here?”  Mary wanted to know.  “I never imagined I’d be hunting these things.”

“Maybe just far enough from the school that Jessell won’t hear us,” Ridec suggested.  “And where we have enough of those things that we can comfortably choose from.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” Kyle said glumly.  “Two minutes out here and the hunters will become the hunted.”

“In a strange kind of way it’s kind of beautiful, the trees, flowers, even the dirt,” Rea said quickening her pace so she could walk beside Ridec.

“I used to think so,” Ridec said sadly remember when he had first glimpsed land for the first time and how excited he had been.

“I wish I used to live in the days when there were no zombies about,” Rea said continuing to walk side by side with Ridec.  “I can’t imagine what it would have been like.  I bet everyone would have been so happy,” she sighed wistfully.  “Imagine living in a world where you didn’t have to be afraid of being eaten alive?  Where humans outnumbered monsters…hell there were no monsters.”  She laughed at the very thought of such a place.

“Shhh…”  Kent whispered at the sound of a twig breaking.

Everyone stood completely still glancing nervously about them.

“I need to see it, to see if it would be one I can use,” Ridec whispered.

Ridec didn’t have to wait too long because a small creature with no eyes in its head came racing forward towards them.  She must have been eight or ten years old when she was turned, she was wearing part of what at some time must have been a very beautiful party dress and part of her hair still carried a beautiful pink and white bow.

“Oh my gosh,” Ridec muttered sadly as the tiny figure hurried towards them with her mouth gaping open, blood caked on the inside and the outside and her arms were outstretched feeling for her target.