Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 75

I dreaded telling you what happened next when I learned Luke was bitten, and I wished I could say that I would have done things differently, but that would be another lie. I see him in my dreams, sometimes when I'm awake, I can see him smiling at me from afar when I walk along the streets or during my patrols. For a moment, I think he's still alive, but when I turn around, he is gone. Was.

Then I'd remember the blood, the tears, and the last words. The dirt in my fingernails as I buried his body into the ground. The silent days where I stared at the windows for hours, listening to the wind. The others trying to coax me out for fresh air, to keep my mind off of things that would eat you alive from the inside.

It's all coming back to me now.

I'm going to tell you of the day I first killed a man—not a vector—but the one that still thinks and feel...the first time I had taken true life.

"I forgive you," Luke told me.

Perhaps he meant it, scared as he was, trying to make me feel better, still watching over me. Despite his forgiveness, I'm never going to forgive myself until the day I die.

——

The airport was burning by the time we reached its outer perimeter. We watched it all burned down to the ground just as a massive horde of vectors continued to stream through the broken walls. I reckoned about half of the vectors probably came from Albany itself. We didn't bother going in as we didn't see any aircrafts flying off the premises—we were too late.

I didn't know if Clemons survived as the university was also destroyed, but if he did, he might have been flown away to another safe-zone that was much secure than Albany. I gathered that we would be on our own from now on, left to survive off the destroyed landscape of the eastern seaboard, now a wasteland of death and monsters.

I was glad to see many vehicles driving away from the burning city. I felt better knowing that others made it out aside from us. We drove west in silence, following the refugees, but as we drove further and further, we lost track of them as they turned to other streets, trying to find their own sanctuary.

Peter drove the humvee aimlessly around, looking for our own refuge. There were roads blocked the military (now long abandoned), the highways clogged with more abandoned vehicles, and so we had to use the backroads just to navigate westward. We hadn't seen towns for hours now, only an expanse of forests.

Luke sat at the very back of the hatch, cuffed onto his chair by Peter. I knew half of the others wanted to throw Luke out, but they didn't have the heart to say it to my face. Instead, The others huddled to the front except for me. I stayed close to him, and I might have threatened the others that if they as so much as breathe onto Luke's direction, they're gonna have to go through me. My mind was left in a daze, clutching Betty on my hand, ready to shoot anyone who might try to attack Luke. Perhaps I was preparing myself too that if Luke turned, I would be the one to kill him.

But Luke didn't turn. He was one of the slow ones.

Don't get me wrong. I knew Luke was sick, but I couldn't help it but see him as the same man as when I woke up that day. I couldn't, no, I refuse to imagine him like one of them, and perhaps, that's what caused me to decide not to do the most logical thing thereof, which was to throw him out of the car. I didn't want to be that heartless, especially to a guy I was falling for.

I tried holding Luke's hand, but he pushed me away. I realized he was afraid that he'd kill me if he turned right then, and so he kept telling me to put some distance between us, but I'm not going to leave Luke all alone. I knew he was petrified—everyone was—and it must not be easy for him to know that the disease was slowly spreading inside his body. At this time, we knew little of the disease, what it does to your insides, and if he would remain asymptomatic until the point of no return when he's tearing someone's throat.