"I may have saved her from the monsters that crawl through the dark, but she saved me from the worst monster of all. She rescued me from who I would have become without her, the monster that would have easily conquered my body."
* * *
Reese Chambler...
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~~~
IT IS NOT long before the first bullet is fired. I don't know which side it came from, all I know is to stay down, stay down, stay down.
"Stay down!" Aunt Tara yells at me. She pushes me onto the grass as a bullet barely misses the top of my head.
Shouts rise all around me as I crawl backwards. Bullets ricochet off Lil' Louie, some landing in the dirt a few inches from me, sending up both fine dust and large chunks of earth. The windows on the cars shatter, raining down shards of glittering glass.
I continue to crawl away from my aunt as she sits paralyzed, staring at nothing with wide eyes. I want to stop, to go back to be near her, but the overwhelming fear I have forces me to continue scooting behind the cars.
Metal on metal screeches as Louie's wheels begin to turn. The first cannon is shot off, and I hear the sound of bricks crumbling, followed by a chorus of screams from a distance.
They are screaming, not us.
That is good.
I scramble to my feet and throw my back against the trunk of a minivan. The bullets continue to fly as I squeeze my eyes shut. I try to remember what possessed me to believe I could handle this, but my senses are too overwhelmed to allow me to think straight.
All the cars began to move towards the prison, the minivan I was hiding behind drives away, leaving me exposed. I quickly jump behind the cover of the slow-moving tank as it crushes the fences and continues its advance on the prison.
The sharp sound of artillery pops loudly in my ears. Smoke thickens the air as it pours out of the barrels of guns. My hand slips behind me to grasp my own gun. I yank it out of the waistband of my jeans and hold it in front of me.
Peering around the side of the tank, the first person I spot is a cowboy-looking prick standing behind the fence about a hundred feet away. A ragged breath gets caught between my lips and the material of the bandana tied around my head, making the skin on my chin slick with sweat as I exhale.
I point the gun at the person as he or she fires his or her own gun at my people. I close my left eye and squeeze the trigger.
A complete miss, but it caught her or his attention.
He or she swings the barrel of his gun right at me and without hesitation, he or she fires. The bullet whizzes through the loose strands of my blonde hair as I dart out of the way. The breath is knocked out of me as I slam myself against the tank.
The chill of fear grows stronger with every beat of my racing heart. Blood pumps through my body so fast that I can hear it in my ears, nearly blocking out the sounds of the war raging around me.
I stay crouched behind the safety of the tank as it moves closer toward the prison. I catch a glimpse of the person who shot at me as she or he runs back toward the ruins of the building. I take that opportunity to lean out from behind Louie a little further to take in everything that is going on.
An enemy is shot in the head, the body instantly dropping to the hard pavement. An arrow flies through the air and sinks into the chest of a friend with a hollow thump. I stand, my mouth gaping open in shock at the scene unfolding in front of my eyes. There is too much motion, too many noises. My mind is whirring.
I close my eyes and pray.
What pulls me out of my head and back into the smoke filled nightmare is not the spray of bullets or the loud booms from Louie, but a small shriek belonging not to an adult nor even a kid. My heart drops to my stomach as I hear the cry for help again.
After taking a deep breath and scraping up the last bit of courage I have, I peer around the side of the tank again to see what I was hoping not to.
There, sitting on the concrete strapped into a carrier, is a screaming infant.
A legless biter is only about a foot away, its rotten hand almost touching the bare foot of the small baby. I don't even stop to take a beat before my feet are carrying me out from behind my shelter and into the middle of the battle. I pray as I run, letting meaningless words slip out from between my ragged breaths.
"Reese!"
I think I hear someone yell my name, but I can't take my eyes off the biter that already has its whole hand around the baby's ankle. I sprint as fast as I can, trying to outrun the bullets that I am sure are about to bury themselves in every part of my body.
Using all my strength and momentum, I swing my leg as hard as I can at the biter. I hit it in the neck, sending it sprawling onto the ground. It growls at me, but I don't stop running long enough to see if it got back up. I grab the handle of the carrier and continue to run.
I don't make it very far, because not a second later, a suddenly intense pain flares up in my right calf. My leg fails to take another step and my center of balance is thrown off. I fall to the ground, dropping the carrier in the process. My teeth press together as I try to ward off the pain as it circulates through my whole leg.
The baby cries out again, and I finally notice an abundance of blood pooling around the baby. A lurch in my body rises from my stomach to my throat as I come to realization that I don't even know if the blood belongs to the baby, a biter, or me.
A bullet ricochets off the ground about an inch from my foot, causing pieces of the cement to crack and puff into the air. I block out any common sense and unhook the clips that bind the baby to the carrier. I gently cradle it in my arms, leaving the bloody carrier behind as I limp as fast as I can into the crumbling prison.
~~~
Dear friend, I love you.
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