When All is Lost

Chapter 15

The way he said it reminded me that zombies were still somewhere out there and it made me look at the body with a new sense of fear. I knew that as long as a person wasn't bitten, then death wouldn't make them a zombie. Even still, it was far past the time to go – especially since his question also reminded me there was still a woman in the store.

"Yeah," I answered him, lowering my voice despite the fact that we had already made far too much noise for it to matter. "There is still a woman. She's hurt, but alive."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Ray twist his grip on the crowbar. From that gesture alone, I felt positive if we ran into her, he wouldn't let her live. I couldn't fully blame him, but there had been enough violence for one day.

"What do you want to do?" Ian asked me, taking me by surprise as he looked between me and Ray.

Does he want to find the woman?

I didn't know if I wanted to know the answer. "Let's get out of here." I took two steps but noticed Ray didn't seem interested in moving. "What are your plans, Ray? Do you have anywhere to go or anyone...?"

Ray worried his lower lip but stopped quickly when I was sure he tasted the blood that was still speckled on him. "I don't know. Isabel... I mean my sister was all that I had left. We were going to go south, but... I just don't know anymore."

I blinked away my own rising emotions. "I'm sorry about your sister," I said again, truly meaning it. "You can come with us if you'd like. We're going east."

"East?"

"Yeah. New England. Massachusetts hopefully. Do you want to come?"

He didn't hesitate long. "Okay." His eyes still shone with deep sadness but just like how he carried that emotion, it was also easy to read the small kindle of hope that my words had sparked in him.

"We don't have a lot to offer. We are almost out of food," I warned him.

He shrugged slightly. "That's okay. I think-"

He was cut off by a crash coming from somewhere in the store.

The woman's up.

Ray's head swung in the direction of the sound, but I stepped back to him making him face me, and shook my head. "Let's go."

As torn as he seemed, he gave me a stiff nod in agreement. Ian clapped him on the back, letting his knife-free hand rest on Ray's shoulder. "Lead the way," he said to Ray in the most encouraging voice I'd ever heard from him. It was almost as if he was letting Ray make his own choice of where he really wanted to go and what he really wanted to do by letting him go first.

So he'll have no regrets.

I didn't object.

Ray moved and I started to follow when a gentle tap on my forearm from Ian made me pause. His eyes were on my hand holding my gun. "You okay with that?"

I looked down at my hand for the first time and noticed its near-constant tremor. I took a deep breath and met Ian's eyes. "I got it."

"Okay." The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "Just remember to put the safety on."

Shit.

Ian followed Ray as I hurriedly found the safety on the side of the pistol and clicked it on before following them out of the store.

---

The rest of the day went without much incident. Unfortunately, we seemed to be entering an area with a greater number of people scattered about and, with all of us feeling to varying degrees emotionally and physically fried, we made the choice to find a place to settle for the night early.