“Thank you.”
We walk about twenty more feet when I finally see the chairs and plop into one. Dylann pulls one around and straddles the back making me think of how we first met which makes me smile.
“What?” She asks raising her brow.
“Do you sit in all chairs like that?”
“Sometimes. So we made it to Harper. Which means we have about twenty-five miles left and we should be able to cover it in ten hours.”
“How do you do that? How do you know exactly how long and how far we have?”
“I'm not completely sure but it helped me out a lot in geography class and history.” She said shrugging a little.
I look at her with a raised brow and sat there breathing a little more calmly. Dylann set her bag on the little metal table to her right. She pulls out her sword running her small, calloused fingers over the shiny blade.
“Where did you get that? I never seen one so nice.”
“I got it from my uncle when I was twelve.” She says still looking at the sword.
“Where did he get it?”
“I don’t know he said it would come in handy. I guess he was right.”
“Do you know where your parents?”
“Kinda.”
“What do you mean, kinda? You either do or you don’t.”
“Well my mom said they are in Era, Texas. She said that at the beginning of the outbreak. I still don’t know how she knew what was happening.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a zombie movie? World war Z. Zombie land. The Walking Dead.”
“Yes, but the man looked fine.”
“At first they did, then they have flesh and blood hanging from their mouths and the decay…”
“Stop. We need to get going now.” She stands up and puts the sword back in the backpack even though a foot of it sticks out the top. I stand and start hobbling behind her.
~~~~
“It is starting to get dark out.” I state my words slurring a little.
“We are almost to Harper. It is close to eight,” Dylann looks down at her watch.
“I just need a warm shower and a soft bed.”
“Have you ever moved around? Walked miles and miles with hardly any rest?”
“No. I only ran a couple miles to get the house I was in and then stayed there for the last year.”
“A year? I thought you said you got there after this whole outbreak started?”
“Yeah I did.” I look at her questionly. She has no idea how long it has been.
“It hasn’t been a year since the beginning.” Her head drops and her brows furrow.
“Today is June twenty-third three thousand sixteen.”
“No. It can be. This all started August thirteenth three thousand fifteen.” Dylann’s eyes search the ground trying to piece the time together.
“Dylann?” I try looking into her eyes. “I’ve kept track of the days.”
Suddenly she stops walking still looking down. I reach for her hand but second guess myself and instead look up. I see a sign with the paint chipped a little.
“Dylann.” She continues looking at her shoes. “Dylann. We are here. Harper.”
Her head lifts and looks at the sign then the little buildings. Her eyebrows furrow deeper and eyes narrow.
“Looks like it. Let’s go find a house to sleep.”
My leg practically wobbled at the thought. We walk a little ways into the town when I notice a hunched body over a trash can. The body jerked up and scanned its surroundings. It’s face so decayed and rotted away. You can barely tell it was once a human being. It lifts its ear to the sky and starts limping looking almost like a child play a zombie game but this was real and it was coming straight towards me and Dylann. I stat to step in front of her figure when i turn to look at her though, she isn’t there. She is a shadow in the alley hissing at me to follow her. So wobble to her and she pulls me behind her small frame. Her body crouches into a pounce like stance that reminded me of a white tiger waiting for her prey.
“Walk backwards until you run into the back wall then climb up the ladder to your left.” She whispers to me still facing the open mouth of the alley.
We both press our left shoulder into the grinding brick wall and take slow steps backwards till my hand feels the corner of where the wall we lean against and the back wall connect. I was about to tell Dylann that i couldn’t find the ladder when suddenly the zombie comes limping into the small alley. Dylann hissed, actually hissed like a cat, and turned to the wall where the ladder was suppose to be and then to a stride back. She practically climbed the flat wall. The first ladder rung was about ten feet above my head but somehow she grabbed it and threw her body weight to the growed but the ladder only squeaked and jolted a little. She cussed and climbed three rungs up the ladder and pulled a clip out that was holding it from moving.
The zombie was getting too close for comfort but when I looked back up at Dylann and she was gone. Nowhere in sight. She left me! I’m stuck for dead people food. I thought in panic but I heard a grunt from above me and there she was jumping off the side of the roof and dropping about twenty feet. I started to scream her name but somehow she caught the third rung with her right hand and her feet swung onto the first rung. The ladder came screeching down fast. Once it hit the ground Dylann dropped to the ground flat on her back from the impact. I took a step to her. She was already up and pushing me to the ladder. I started climbing but realized she wasn’t below me so I got to the top of the roof and looked down to find her with only her sword. I didn’t see that she had that or that her backpack was gone.
I watch as she pulls the sword between her body and the zombie. The zombie was now sprinting to her but she stood steady like she was practicing with a wood block. Dylann ran towards the zombie to my surprise and with a quickness I didn’t see as she brought the sword diagonally through the zombies head until the top half slid off and it’s body dropped like a sack of doorknobs. She then wiped the sword on the back of the body and tucked it behind her back. Dylann climbed up the ladder a little slow compared to everything I just saw her do. Once she is to the top I helped her over the ledge and she just walked over to her pack, picked it up and started walking. I scrambled to get up and run to her.
“What in the holy hells was that!?” Is the first thing to come out of my mouth.
“Survival. Now let's find a house to sleep in for tonight. Then we leave again tomorrow.” She says simply and climbing down a ladder on the other side of the building.
I take that as a shut-up que and climb down the ladder after her. After I reach the bottom she is already walking down the street and into a little brown house. I close the door behind me and follow her into what looks to be the dining room. Dylann tosses her backpack onto the table and plops into a chair and starts unlacing her shoes.
“How are you so fast?” I ask but she just eyes me for a second.
“I learned how to survive in a harsh environment it’s that simple now drop it.”
“That speed is not something you just obtain over one year. It was ungodly fast. You aren’t even breathing hard! You also just walked away like nothing!”
“I said drop it,” she says coldly.
“Also with the ladder! That’s not even human how you knew exactly where to grab when you were falling from a two story building! You were so fast at chopping the zombie’s head off that it was still walking after!”
“DAMN IT I SAID DROP IT!” She yelled, “I don’t know how or why! Okay?! I have had it for as long as I remember!” She finished shrieking so loudly I flinched away.
Chapter 2 part 2
Start from the beginning
