The Rot: Book 2

Chapter 17

 It was a group of six dead things that were charging towards us. There were three blocks between us and the undead creatures, but the stenches were closing that gap pretty quickly.

Mick was too damn tired to keep running. There was no way he'd make it. I had to think of something fast.

I looked at the others, "You guys go. Get to the office. I'll catch up."

"What?!?" A shocked Cynthia asked. "What the hell are you-"

Before I could give Cyn a chance to object, I sprinted away from the group, heading right towards the dead things. You know, most people try to actually avoid the creatures. But no, not my dumb ass.

Anyways, I ran towards the biters to divert their attention from the rest of the group. When the stench at the front of the small group lunged forward to try and grab me, I moved out of the way and she stumbled forward. I pushed her aside using the handle of my axe and continued running.

I think I heard Cynthia back with the others shouting for me, but I couldn't turn around and look; I had to keep focused. I ran onto the sidewalk and sprinted past the rest of the eaters.

I looked behind me and saw that the corpses were following me and not my friends.

"That's right, follow your dinner!" I yelled at the biters. I'm pretty sure they didn't understand what I was saying, but they still chased after me anyhow.

When I made it back to the intersection I took a left hand turn to try and lose the biters. But, it didn't work and since I returned to the road that had the remnants of the horde, even more stenches decided to follow me. Wonderful.

I ran into the middle of the road, not wanting any biter that could be lurking in one of the buildings to reach out and grab me. That would just ruin my day. I could hear the corpses running behind me, wailing and snarling while they chased me. They must be starving.

A few blocks down the road was a beaten up, beige, cargo van sitting sideways in the middle of the street. There was my refuge. I never thought I'd be so happy to see a creepy serial killer van, but the apocalypse does weird things to people. It didn't matter if the van was locked or not, I wasn't planning on getting inside the vehicle.

When I was close enough, I jumped up on the side of the van and began to pull myself up. One of the biters grabbed my right foot, but I shook the dead thing free by kicking him in the nose. The corpse fell from the side of the van and down into some of his undead pals. I stood on the roof of the cargo van and looked down the road towards the intersection. There were around twenty or so undead creatures heading right towards me.

However, the dead things were only towards that one side of the van. Once the biters were close enough, I jumped off the van's other side and took off running, using the cargo van as a roadblock. I was a block or two away from the abandoned vehicle when I quickly looked behind me. A couple of the biters were starting to make their way around the van, but they wouldn't be a problem. I made a left turn down one of the side roads and into a neighborhood, running for a few more blocks until my legs started to get really tired.

I ducked in between two houses and laid low for a little bit to get some air and let my legs calm down. I sat there and watched the street out in front of the house, waiting for the biters to come running down the street looking for me, but none of the stenches showed up. After my legs finally stopped aching, the next order of business was to find my friends.

I got up from in between the houses and looked down the road in both directions. The biters didn't follow me down the street, but I wasn't about to head back towards them. I figured I'd continue down the residential area until I came to another intersection.