Burning Daylight

Chapter Seven

The shivering now controls my body's movements, all I can feel is the wet slushiness of my own clothes against my body; and I don't have any spares either.

Luke's eyes narrow deeply into his so called friend's, a strange sense of overwhelming emotion hits me hard between these two, whatever they had previously; isn't here anymore.

"Well would you rather risk your chances in here or out there with bandits and Lurkers?"

"What difference does it make; there're still fucking Walkers, walking all over this fucking place."

Not now guys, please not now.

Tempers flare, the testosterone is fairly high between the two of them in this heated argument. Luke kicks over a massive rotten tree stump nearby, breaking it completely over and begins to dig a fairly decent sized hole in the snow underneath the roots of the massive stump.

"Oh what the Hell are you doing now?" Nick, clearly not impressed keeps his arms crossed, and a constant eye on my health.

"Makin' a fuckin' shelter for Clem." He mutters lightly, continuing to paw at the snow as Nick stands there, eyes darting back and forth from me, to Luke.

"Oh because that's going to keep her so warm. That's great that you were here to come up with this wonderful idea; too bad nobody else was alive to witness this." Nick turns around, kicking a large snow drift against the huge rotten stump that Luke was 'fixing' up for us to sleep under if worst comes to worst.

Luke's patience wears thin, so thin in fact that he doesn't even bother to say or do anything because he knows it's true; everyone else is gone besides us.

"Will you watch where you're fuckin' kickin'?"

"Make me." Nick dismisses Luke's temper, turning around and trudging through the snow to make some distance between the two of them; before Luke grabs a hold of him and beats him senseless. Disappearing into the thicket of trees and snow, Luke doesn't even bother to hunt him down; leaving him be to simmer down a little.

Is it such a good idea to be splitting up right now? We lost everyone as it is from splitting up...

I sigh; you've got to be kidding me right now. I'm dealing with a bunch of immature grownups who have finally reached the end of their breaking point.

The cold doesn't die down either, luckily it's still day time so we can at least see a bit of what we're doing and so far the other group hasn't shown any signs of following us here too.

I continue watching Luke feverishly work at the stump's makeshift hole underneath it, clearly that's all he's focused on right now as well. He pulls off his machete and starts hacking away at the frozen, loose thin roots that dangle around the edge. Tucking some packed snow around the dirt on the inside.

"If we can't find a place nearby or somethin', this will have to do." He huffs as he continues working at his little project which should keep the three of us nice and warm, combined with the two blankets we have.

It actually looks quite cozy, the stump acts as a wind barrier but if the snow changes direction we're screwed. I wouldn't mind trying to sleep here if push comes to shove.

"I like it." I smiling shyly as I sit on one of the fallen logs nearby while he continues to work, grinning as well.

The flakes completely stop falling after a few more minutes of dead silence, the sun warms up a bit of what damage the snowfall has done, but it's still slightly cold to the touch when the wind rustles around.

It must have been what feels like an hour or two since anyone spoke, Luke stops digging, pleased with what he created as he glances up at me flashing me a big grin.