This Would Be Paradise (Book 1)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 35

My body really didn’t like the idea of moving, but I had no choice. An infection wouldn’t just wait for me to get off my ass. Memories of the hospital came flooding back to me, making me even more hesitant. What are the chances the center wouldn’t be picked over?  Is it worth it? That was a selfish question. Of course I had to go.

Now I had to decide if I should walk again or take a vehicle. I had found the spare key to the Taurus in the drive way and could afford to damage that one. It would attract attention, but I didn’t think my body was in any shape to be running away from hordes. And I would get there faster. The alleyway behind the house was still littered with infected, so I would have to leave out the front door. This meant taking the longer way to where I needed to go.

Vehicle it was. I just hoped the owners had left enough gas in it. I began packing for my scavenging trip. I emptied out my backpack and straightened up our supplies. There was a fair sized mound of bags and items taking up room in the living area. If I monitored the provisions, we could easily make them last two weeks. But the question was do we stay here expecting a miracle to drop into our laps? Or hit the road? I had no clue where to even start looking for this Hargrove place, so the chances of running into it while driving aimlessly, were pretty nil.

Hopelessness began to daunt on me once again. It seemed like it was a constant battle. Not just to keep ourselves from the infected, but to keep ourselves from giving up. It was easy to give up once hope was lost. I wasn’t used to making the hard decisions, before all this shit happened hard decisions never came up in my old life.

And as much as Ethan was not happy about it, John had made most of our hard decisions thus far. John was a natural leader and the most mature of us, so it was easy to let him steer things. I mean we all had a say in matters, but John had this way about him that made you feel like he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe I would have been better off right now if we hadn’t let John slide into that role so easily.

All of that was moot right now. John wasn’t here to tell me what the right path was; I had to figure that out for myself. And it made me want to pull my hair out, how John was not bald by now, was a mystery.

The sound of shuffling upstairs pulled me from my thoughts. It looks like Chloe was awake. I heard the stairs creak as she descended down them. She was rubbing at her eyes, still yawning from sleep, courtesy of the allergy medication. I picked up a water bottle, twisted off the cap and passed it to her. She took it from me and sat down by all the supplies, rooting through for something to eat. Silent the whole time.

I let her get some food down before I started to talk.

“Chloe, I need to redress your arm.”

She froze mid-chew. I glanced away awkwardly, not sure of where I should even be looking.

“It will be quick, I promise.”

She didn’t say anything, but just gave a little nod and remained seated. I went to the kitchen to grab the peroxide and gauze. She eyed me warily as I kneeled beside her. She held her arm as far away from her body as possible, as if she didn’t want me any closer. I tried to act like it didn’t affect me. I tried to handle this like an adult, but it was difficult. I wanted to plead with her that I did it for her own good and her wound was treated because of me. I wanted to beg for her forgiveness and to stop hating me, but I didn’t.

I carefully removed the old, soiled bandage. The wound was an angry shade of red and I could see the hardened superglue on the surface. The veins that ran from the gash where a lot more visible than before, making it look like thin tentacles slithering from the wound. That couldn’t be good. She really did need those antibiotics. I poured some peroxide on the wound and Chloe hissed in a breath from the contact. Once I cleared off the liquid oozing from the cut, I rewrapped her arm with clean gauze.