Time to Survive

Don't Think About It

  Chris POV

"GO!" I bellowed, and Ryans eyes went from Kelsey to me, wide and panicked and... Hungry.
He could smell the blood, before she'd even began bleeding.

Oh god.

She was bleeding.

I looked away from him, and fell to my knees beside her, my hands hovering desperately.

What was I supposed to do?

She was just sitting there, her shirt up around her thighs, and I could see it. It's was seeping beneath her, crimson and bright and staining her skin. She had a terrified look on her face, one I'd never seen her wear before.

She didn't know what was happening.

I didn't know what was happening.

Oh god.

"Kelsey ---."

Her eyes flicked to mine.

She was scared.

"Move!"

My elbow slammed hard into the concrete as I was shoved to the side, and I winced, feeling the skin split. Carol was abruptly kneeling in my spot, kneeling in blood.

"Chris!"

Kylies hands closed over my shoulders, and I looked up at her blankly.

What was wrong with Kels?

What could I do?

"Everyone back!" I could hear Carol hissing. "Kylie, get over here! Bring water and any kind of linen you can find. Janie ---."

Oh god she was dying.

Kelsey was dying.

She was going to bleed out.

Something was terribly wrong.

"Does it hurt?"

"N-no."

"No cramping, pain?"

Kelsey actually looked aggravated. "I'm not having a miscarriage, there's no way I can be pregnant."

Why did all the guys actually look at me?

"Didn't you guys need to back off?" I hissed, crawling to my feet, my muscles tense.
When I'd started yelling, everyone had run over, all that was left, anyway.

And we're still here.

Except Ryan, who I was fairly sure had disappeared outside after I'd yelled at him; if he could smell the blood, he could change at any moment, and that was definitely not something we needed.

I didn't know what to do with myself, so I just kind of hovered in the background, feeling useless. I couldn't help her, I had no medical training whatsoever, unless she wanted me to give her a piercing or something.

Now I really wished I'd tried out the whole doctor thing.

"Stop TOUCHING ME!"

Fuck.

I hesitated, then stepped over to where they all huddled. I hastily knelt behind Kelsey, letting my hand rest on her tense shoulders. She was beyond aggravated, but yelling at Carol wasn't going to help the situation; plus the bitch might get vindictive again.

"You have to let them figure out what's wrong," I murmured, relieved when my voice was normal. I was going for a soothing tone, not a cracking, frantic one like what I felt.

"I think I know what it is," she mumbled, her hair falling in front of her face as she leaned forward, the short curls tangled and dirty.

"Then what is it?" Kylie frowned, holding some dingy towels in her arms, water bottles around her feet where she crouched.

"GUYS!"

We all turned, and I heard the door slam as Ryan bolted into the room, pieces of his hair literally falling from beneath his beanie and fluttering to the ground. I winced as he abruptly stopped, his eyes dilating as he suddenly remembered Kelsey was literally bleeding to death.

"Ryan, what is it?" Kylie demanded, turning to look at him. "What's happened?"

"D-deaders," he managed after a moment, raising a hand against his mouth as if he felt sick. "They're outside the fence."

"How many?"

"I'm not sure."

Fuck!

I hesitated, glancing down at Kelsey where she sat, her back leaning against my chest. I couldn't leave her with Carol, but if there was deaders out there ---.

"Go," Kelsey rasped, and my eyes flicked down to her. She looked resigned, tired, and I could feel her muscles trembling where she pressed against my chest.

I didn't want to leave her.

"If there's... Deaders... The others can't go around them," she mumbled, her green eyes roving to meet mine. "Just go. I'll be fine... Okay?"

Goddammit.

"You fix her," I almost hissed as I turned to look at Carol, and she just stared at me, as if I'd surprised her. "You make her fucking better, understand?"

"I'll do what I can to stop the bleeding." she said after a moment, casting her eyes away from mine, her entire body wary.

She fucking better be.

"I'll be right back," I muttered, running my fingers through Kelsey's limp hair before slowly rising to my feet. I could feel that her blood had soaked through the knees of my jeans, sticking to my skin through the material, and Ryan's eyes weren't leaving the areas.

Great.

Just something else to deal with.

I grimaced, and then glanced at Devin's girlfiend, motioning her to where I was. I wasn't letting Kels be by herself, and I was praying that Kylie wouldn't off and disappear, that she would stay around and help and make sure nothing went wrong; I was hoping

Kylie quickly took my place, letting Kelsey lean back against her as I strode for my bag.

I grabbed my pipe where it lay, clenching the rusty, bent metal tightly as I made my way to the door. It would be easier to shoot the deaders if there were a lot of them, but we couldn't afford to waste any bullets right now --- especially with all the others gone; Kuza had taken most of what was left of our arsenal, and we didn't have much anyway.

This was turning out to be a really shitty situation.

I sighed as I made it to the outside door, and I carefully pressed my fingers against the hot metal, opening it ever so slightly so I could see out.

It was like opening the door to a sauna; the mill, despite it had busted windows and no air conditioning to even think of, was still fairly cool on the outside, almost cold if you could get in the darker shaded areas. But when I opened the door, the hot air rushed in over my skin, moving my hair away from my face eagerly, making my skin burn at the sudden change in temperature.

I loved L.A., dont get my wrong, but I was from Pennsylvania, a cold as fuck state, and I'd never gotten used to the heat. I still preferred the cold, where you didnt die of stroke no matter how much heavy black material you wore.

Not that this was the time to even be thinking about that.

I cast my eyes forward, letting them roam across what I could see of the fence, which was starting to break down even more since we'd been here, the barbwire around the top hanging low over the edges, easily pushed to the side if you wanted to climb over, and the grass was all the way up to it, making it an easier hiding spot for someone to be watching us, if they could avoid the deaders, that is.

Speaking of.

Fuck.

I could see them around the fence, pressing against it, dark bodies trying to find a way through, one already halfway through a rip in the fence, arms flailing around uselessly.

I counted eight, maybe ten.

I could knock them through the fence, couldn't I?

Me and Ryan.

Because obviously it didn't matter if he got bit, but the others didn't need to take the risk.

"Ryan, come on," I glanced behind me, and he hesitated from where he'd started to disappear into the managers office, my voice echoing across the floor to him. "There's too many for just me. I'll need your help."

"Okay."

I was glad he didnt argue.

I pushed open the metal door, wincing as it screeched on its hinges. I could practically feel all the rotting eyeballs roving in my direction as I stepped into the sunlight, Ryan hastily scuttling out behind me and halfway down the steps before I could even turn.

"There's probably about ten," I muttered, walking behind him onto the lower concrete, weeds and trees growing through the cracks in it. "We should be able to beat the shit out of them through the fence and not have to worry about it."

Ryan nodded, gazing at the deaders as if I didn't exist.

They were looking worse now then even before.

They looked ghastly, their faces sunken in, chunks of their skin peeling off in places where I could actually see the muscles twitching when they snapped their jaws. One man's arm was completely torn off, his white business shirt ripped and stained black from old blood and god knows what.

And I could smell them from here, that sickening scent that seemed to overwhelm all the other senses; rotting flesh was a scent unlike anything else I'd ever inhaled, and there was hardly anything I could compare it too that would even give it justice for how awful it was.

The only thing I could think of was roadkill, after it had been in the sun for days, bloated and full of maggots and ready to bust; it was rank, and pungent, and something no one wanted to stop and smell. Add some cheap perfume in, and still was no where near to how awful the smell was.

You'd think after all this time I'd be used to it, but I wasn't. It still churned my guts and made me gag, throw up whatever little food I'd managed to get in my stomach.

"Is that a kid?" Ryan muttered, and I glanced towards the field where we'd come through the first day, our paths through the grass still visible.

It was a kid, probably five or six in a blue onesie. It had originally had space ships on it, but now they were shredded, stained with dirt and grime, and the pale child trying to get through the fence only had half an arm to work with.

Dear god.

I pressed my sleeve against my mouth, able to taste the bile rising in my throat. I couldn't keep fucking doing this.

I couldn't keep this up.

"I'll take care of those," Ryan said after a moment, glancing at my face. "You take the ones on the left. I'll... Deal with the kid."

"Fine," I bobbed my head, lowering my eyes.

I just couldn't do it.

We both took off in our directions, and I stepped up to the fence, staring the business guy down. He snapped his teeth at me, ramming his face against the fence until his skin started to catch on the metal, peeling away with a sickening sound when he reared back to do it again.

Oh for fucks sake.

I didn't think about it, I just shoved the pipe through the fence, right through his yellow, flat eyes and into his brain.

He dropped immediately.

Movies and shit made it seem so simple to do this, shove something into someone's eye, but it wasn't. It got easier, you got more numb to it after a while, but it wasn't simple, it wasn't fun --- it was disgusting, and the sounds and smells only made everything a hundred times worse.

But I couldn't think about that.

I had to finish these guys off and get back in that building and make sure Carol fixed my woman before I fed her to one of these fuckers.

I had no patience for her.

I stepped up to the next one, the girls manicured nails peeling off as she scraped them against the barbwire, and this time, I couldn't control it. I had to turn before I spewed my guts all over myself.

"Dude, you okay!?"

I threw my hand back.

I wasn't fucking okay.

This wasn't okay.

Nothing was okay!

Aggravated, I swiped my mouth with the back of my hand, panting for breath. just don't think about it, and you can do it. Don't think about the heat, how it's burning your skin and baking the deaders like some kind of cannibalistic cake. Don't think about how hungry you are, how thirsty. Don't think about how all of your friends are dying and there's nothing you can do to help them.

Just don't think about any of it.

Kill the deaders, get back to Kelsey, that's what you gotta do.

And so that's what I did.

Ryan was almost done by the time I managed to kill the second one, and he ended up having to help me finish my side off. By the time we were done, I had counted twelve.

Which meant more had come up while we'd been out here.

There shouldn't be so many of them around, there hadn't been until now. Could they smell us or something? How did they find us out here?

Was there another horde traveling through?

Why couldnt we just be left the fuck alone?

I ran my sleeve across my forehead with a huff, glancing up at the sun.

Kuza and the others really needed to get back soon, we couldn't stay here much longer. It wasn't safe or secure, and we didn't have enough people to adequately guard it, it was too big.
What we'd done to the men here before us, someone was going to do to us if we didn't get a move on.

"I think that's all of them," Ryan said after a moment, eyeing me. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm good," I grimaced, staring at the bodies liter ing the other side of the fence. "Maybe these assholes will be a good cover for our scent. I'm figuring they can smell us or something. We couldn't be making that much noise."

"It is the smell," he agreed, gazing at them. "The scent is strongest when all of us group together.it builds. That's how they always know where the living are, which buildings to hoard around, to wait out. They're thoughtless, but their senses still work. That's what makes them so dangerous."

I just looked at him.

God I was going to miss him.

I hesitated, then gingerly let my fingers rest on his shoulder, feeling nothing but bone meet my grip. I squeezed lightly before stepping away, my eyes roving back to the dead.

We were so fucked.