Kill or Cure (Extract)

Winter in the spring

As he runs, he decapitates two Infected as they attempt to stagger towards me. Tommy stands beside me in an almost catatonic state, clearly still in shock. Before Will arrives, I despatch the last of the Infected in my vicinity and lean heavily against a tree, feeling weary.

Will looks at us concerned. "You okay, Ally?"

Before I can respond, a noise reverberates through the trees, almost as loud as a thunder crack. Will and I stare upwards, searching the clear sky for the source of the sound. Completely confused, we quickly realise that whatever it was, it wasn't thunder. Behind me, I hear Tommy struggling. We spin around to find him pinned by an Infected.

Cursing myself for not paying attention, I run straight for him with my sword held high. Tommy suddenly launches the Infected into the air and throws it like a rag doll. It cracks its head against a tree and slumps to the ground.

Stunned, I stand rooted to the spot. My nervous teenage brother has morphed into some kind of killing machine. Tommy glares back at me with clenched fists, breathing heavily. The grief-stricken boy that just ended the little girl is nowhere to be seen. His eyes suddenly dart to my feet, as an Infected with no legs grabs at my boots. At lightning speed, he dashes forward and stamps on it as he runs into the remaining crowd. I turn to see Will standing there slack jawed, probably mirroring my own expression.

An Infected seizes the opportunity and catches Will off guard by grabbing for his face. In shock, he stumbles backwards as it falls on top of him. I cry out and lunge for the monster pinning Will to the ground.

Grabbing it by the shoulders, I pull with all my strength, giving Will enough room to end its miserable life. Using the length of his sword, he presses upwards sharply as it slumps forwards onto his chest. In disgust, he pushes the thing off him and rolls to his feet.

As the crowd finally thins, I see Joe finishing off the last of them, but Tommy is nowhere to be seen. Fear begins to rise in my chest as I blindly stumble forwards, desperately trying not to slip on the river of body parts now strewn across the floor. Panic surges through me as I call out for Tommy, feeling terrified that I have failed to protect him once more.

I'm filled with momentary relief when he finally responds, but his voice is guarded, and he is hidden behind a large oak tree. Rushing to his side, I skid around the corner to discover that Tommy isn't alone; standing a few paces in front of him is the wild girl with long, wavy white hair.

Without moving a muscle, her intense electric blue eyes look past Tommy and stare at me unblinking. The hem of her moss green dress flaps in the breeze as she continues to stare at me, poised like a cobra.

Will steadily steps out from behind a tree and faithfully joins my side. At the sight of him, her hand jerks, making the thick black whip cascading from her hand twitch. That must be the source of the sound that we heard earlier.

Joe casually paces towards her, wipes the blood from his sword absentmindedly and stares at her unblinking. "What's your name, kid?"

Her eyes dart to Joe's mouth, but the girl remains silent. Pursing her lips into a hard line, she remains mute and continues to stare at Joe.

Furrowing his brow he swallows his impatience. "You do understand the question?"

She stares at his mouth again as a smile creeps across her face. Joe tenses reflexively as she starts to bring her free hand up to her face. Not taking any chances, and with Tommy far too close, I grab the gun tucked into my belt loop and aim it directly at her forehead.

"Don't move, just answer the question."

Tilting her head slightly, the whip in her hands suddenly glows neon blue as a smirk quivers at the corner of her mouth. She starts to raise her hand once more but much quicker this time.

Clicking the safety off, I grit my teeth. "I mean it. Don't move!"

She holds her hand up next to her face and points to her ear.

Joe exhales loudly beside me and shakes his head. "She's deaf, kid."

Without taking my eyes off her, I respond cautiously. "How do we know she's not lying?"

Joe holds up his free hand and points to his mouth as he speaks, "You read lips?"

Her eyes dart to his mouth once more, and with an almost smug expression she nods her head steadily.

Joe begins to calculate his next move. "Okay kid, drop the weapon, and we can talk." The girl narrows her eyes at him as he continues, "Alyx, drop the gun."

I hiss at him. "Not with Tommy that close to her!"

Trying to diffuse the situation, he holds up his hands. "Okay, Tommy, nice and easy. Start making your way back to us."

Tommy slowly steps backwards, and as a show of good faith, Joe drops his sword to his feet and kicks it towards her, quickly followed by Will. Joe then gestures to her, trying to encourage the wild girl to do the same.

The girl glares at me, silently demanding that I lower my gun first. Sighing heavily, I ram the thing back into my belt loop as she lets her whip fall to the ground with snakelike grace.

Joe takes a few guarded steps forwards. "We ain't here to start anything, kid, so let's just start with your name."

Mimicking Joe, she holds her hands up and points to a satchel bag hanging at her waist.

Joe nods his head at her. "If you need something from your bag to communicate, we gotta search it first, sweetheart."

Moving her weight to her other leg impatiently, the girl swiftly chucks her bag at my feet. Trying to ignore her glare, I scoop it off the ground and quickly search through it: a knife, rope, change of clothes and what looks like a piece of black slate. I hold the slate up for her to see.

She nods her head and sarcastically mimes at me for something to write with. I reach to the bottom of her bag and find a dusty piece of chalk jammed in the corner. With the chalk and slate in hand, I carefully make my way over to her and. As soon as I present it to her, she suddenly snatches it from my grasp.

Feeling irritated by her attitude, I snap, "If you keep this up, I'll tie you to this tree and leave you for the Infected!"

She smirks and laughs silently, which only makes me want to smash her in the face even more. Trying to take the high ground and keep my temper in check, I take a deep breath and slowly walk backwards to join the others.

She stares at us curiously as she idly twiddles the chalk between her fingers, almost as though she is assessing our worth. From the glint in her eye it's clear that whoever this girl is, she is fearless and will do whatever it takes to survive.

With his patience waning, an agitated Joe opens his mouth to challenge her, but before he utters a single word, she quickly scribbles something on the slate. She studies it and tilts her head to one side before slowly turning it over for us to see; in spidery letters filling the entire slate is the word Winter.