Unedited....
Author's Note- Warning: nacho-cheese ahead... I dedicate this madness to my best friends: Hailey @HaileyMarcedes, Chloe @ccleder, Sam @ so_much_fanfiction, and my loyal readers who stick through the weird chaos that emerged from my zombie addiction. I know this may not be the best or most professional story ever written. I wrote TDS for two reasons; one being I needed to get zombies out of my system and two being the fact that I wanted to start my Wattpad journey with a short book. Tis is the final chapter for this part, so Ill leave it up to you. My very smart friend told me that zombie stories can end one of two ways; everyone dies or they find a cure. I usually go for death but I'm ending this part on a happy note. FOR YOU BECAUSE I HAVE NO ISSUES WITH KILLING MY CHARACTERS! So yeah. Enjoy this (unedited) chapter that I'm kind of scrambling to finish because I'm so tired and I just want to watch the premiere episode of Z Nation...
Chapter Fourteen
The cold sucks. It was chilling my poor nose and making my teeth chatter.
But it was keeping me awake.
"Are you cold?" He asked. He had taken a notebook off the counter and started to sketch on the lined paper. I was seated with my poor butt freezing on the cold wood with my knees on my chest. Staring out at the yard seemed to be the only thing I was capable of at the moment.
"Nope," I lied, rubbing my hands on my cheeks. He gave me a look, leaving enough room for me to see what he was drawing.
I was looking at myself.
Hyper realistic me. Even though I was in pencil, it was as accurate and detailed as a photograph. He was drawing me now, staring out at the yard with my fingers resting on the handle of my rifle.
"Why me?" I took the notebook and jumped up before he could take it back. Flipping to the first page, I noticed a label for the bowling alley on the cover. "Seriously?"
"Yep," He gave me a standard cheeky grin, which I returned with flipping the pages. Me again, leaning over the side of the building as I watched the parking lot. Me at the hotel, curled up under the blankets. And then me in the car, reading out loud. Honestly, the thought was sweet- him using me as a model for his sketches. I just didn't do well with overwhelming amounts of pictures of myself.
"Wow, you know how to draw," I observed, handing it back to him as I found it.
"I didn't have a camera," He shrugged, pink tinting his cheeks.
"I didn't know I was worthy of you taking pictures," I stared at my shoes, feigning interest in the toes of my worn boots. Would you look at that?
"I used to do photography like my mom," He put an arm around me.
"I can tell," I replied, sitting back down on the porch. The others were starting to wake up, so it was time to start packing for our road trip.
***
"You need new clothes!" Declan said for the millionth time, pulling out the jeans of the girl who once lived here. "She has unopened underwear!"
"I'm good," I shoved my books and what little I had in the duffle, rejecting his ideas for the third time in two minutes. "I don't want to wear a dead girl's clothes!"
He responded by taking a Walmart bag and putting the clothes in there. I frowned and went back to doing my own packing. There was just something about taking what didn't belong to me that I didn't like.
"Imogen, your socks are awful. At least take a perfectly clean pair of hers," He rubbed his temple, obviously irritated with me. I complied and changed my socks, knocking over a pair of high topped converse as I did.
"You're a nine right?" He picked up the right shoe and handed it to me. Once again it still had the tags on. They were so pretty; a dark pink color with clean white laces.
"Declan-"
Then he, gently, knocked me backwards and took my boots away. I felt like an apocalypse style Cinderella when he put the stupid shoes on. As much as I liked them, I felt like stealing a dead girl's shoes was so wrong. He took my boots and put them back in his duffle.
"You guys ready?" Tristan knocked. "You'll be in the back to take out anyone in case we get tailed."
We tossed our bags in the pile at our feet. The guitar was sitting in the trunk, much to my dismay...
"It's a ten hour drive. Anyone have to pee?" I smacked Declan for that one.
***
I couldn't stop yawning. I was so exhausted that the tiredness was this impending fog desperate to drown me.
"Sleep," Declan played with my hair, pulling pieces in and out of my braid. Tristan had spent the last fifteen minutes explaining how to braid- with me as the unfortunate dummy. Every time Declan yanked mu hair I'd wince, which made him feel terrible and apologetic.
"Nope, your braiding skills are keeping me awake," I chirped, trying to read the same paragraph over and over again. He gently rested my head in his lap and let me extend my legs over the backseat. A blanket covered me against my will.
I looked up at him, met his big blue eyes, and felt my stomach fill with vicious wasps. I hated that he made me nervous. He was only a boy- a person like me. Well, I was only sort of a person so you get the idea.
"Sleep," He playfully ordered me.
"I don't like what I see when I close my eyes," I felt my voice breaking. Every time I talked about it I was reminded with this ugly truth, I killed and ate three people.
"Dream of me," He stroked my face, from my temple to my jaw. It faintly tickled, relaxing me.
Obediently, I closed my eyes.
I just kept them closed so he wouldn't know I was awake. Stubborn, I refused to allow myself to sleep.
I may have accidentally fallen asleep though.
I woke up when we started running over Creatures.
*****
After we'd succeeded in crushing a ton of them under the wheels of our car- blood splattering like a grotesque paintball game-, Declan and I climbed out of the car. My gun was loaded as I took aim at the Creature 50 yards to the left.
Right through the eye.
We cleared the road on the horizon before I retired to my knives. I chose a serrated blade from my belt and buried it in the forehead of the nearest zombie. Blood splattered all over my hands and arms, disturbingly to my delight.
"Dang," Declan muttered as I lunged for my next target.
She was the girl from the auditorium. The one who let them take her back without another thought.
She was staring at me.
Not attacking- just staring. Her head cocked to the side and she let out this moan from the back of her throat. It was almost like an empty statement. But somehow, I knew exactly what she meant. You aren't so different from me.
No. I'm not.
But what if you hurt that little boyfriend of yours?
I won't.
Put yourself down before he has to.
I stumbled back as Declan finished the job.
"Imogen?" He slowly eased the knife out of my fingers. Whether I meant to our not, I was holding it just barely over my right wrist. Once slice could've ended it.
I'm going crazy. She wasn't talking they don't talk. I'm losing it....
I didn't look at him as I brushed my hair from my face, starting back for the car. Dragging my shoes, I effectively got the gore off them before stepping on the upholstery. Jeremiah praised us for clearing the road as he started off.
Our van was speeding past a four way stop, one that I'd remembered from before the apocalypse. The Mcdonald's sign was still (barely) hanging from the building. I saw the Starbucks where I used to buy lattes when Layla and I went shopping. The familiarity felt like this nostalgia I could never escape from.
"I used to shop there," I said longingly before I could stop myself. The little bookstore was still on the corner, never to sell another trade paperback again. Layla would set a timer for me when I went in because I could stay for hours. I was going to apply that weekend before the world got flushed down the toilet.
"I know," Declan grinned. "You dropped a receipt this one time when you were reading in the halls. I think it was something like Let's Get Lost or whatever. You never said what it was about- you just showed me the cover and started reading again."
I barely remembered the book, it was one of the ten I had to read that month.
"You remember everything," I rolled my eyes.
"I think it's romantic," Tristan pretended to be a swooning victorian lady. I cracked up.
Jane and Jo had been asleep the whole ride, which I envied. Alex was deep into Looking For Alaska which he oddly seemed to like.
"Al?" I tapped his messy head of hair.
"If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane," Declan read over his shoulder.
"Jeez, it's all your girl has to read. Would it kill her to get some action and adventure novels?" He complained, not taking his eyes from the book.
"I'm not his property and I'm right here!" I flicked his ear and sat back in my seat, trying to get the blood off of my hands with an old Prime Shine wipe.
"I know. Just trying to irritate you," Alex went back to the book.
"Someone has a soft spot for John Green," I said under my breath. Declan stifled a laugh as he extended an arm over me.
"Five more hours!" Jeremiah called back. "The indicators we have to look for are red graffiti on white cars alongside the road in the city."
I wanted to tell him that there's probably an abundance of graffiti all over the highway but he seems pretty sure. I figured even though the world had ended I should let the adults be adults.
I yawned again, attracting Declan's immediate attention.
"Imogen," He shook his head. "The apocalypse is draining you."
I laid my head on his shoulder and let him hold me. He pulled me into his lap and held me close. The air was thick with a tangible cloud of words unsaid. I knew exactly what he meant with each touch.
I love you. He played with my hair.
I don't want to lose you. He gripped me tightly.
"Declan?" I put my forehead against his and closed my eyes. "I hate the world."
"I do too," He exhaled a deep breath, like he'd been holding it.
"I- there aren't any new books coming out," My voice broke a little. "I won't g-get to go to college- I won't get married-"
Then in the backseat of that awful van I had a breakdown. Everyone (excluding my boyfriend) let me be. I hated crying, but it just happened. I was quiet, just sniffling and avoiding talking because annunciation was rendered impossible.
But sometimes we have to break. Even if it felt like the world was ending all over again I knew I was strong enough to make it.
***
"There was this time after the world went down the drain," Declan held my hands and looked at me. "I was sitting on the roof keeping watch- thinking about you actually. I remembered what you were wearing that day. You were so casual and your hair was sort of messy but I had this infatuation with it. I wanted to tell you you looked great, but it came out like an insult. For that, I'm sorry. But it was then I realized I loved you. In that moment, I knew that if anyone was gonna make it, it was Imogen Logan. Cuz that girl was tough. You can imagine how shocked I was when you quite literally fell into my arms."
"You are a cheeseball," I said, watching as Jeremiah followed this overwhelming line of white cars with red graffiti marking them. There was no mistaking this stuff, the colony was incredibly precise on which way they wanted us to go.
"Is this really it?" Alex asked.
"I think so," Jo looked back at us"Mommy says it's safe here."
"No more running," Jeremiah pulled up alongside a curb.
The road had been cleared of the gore as best as could be expected. I tried to ignore the dark stains on the abandoned streets. As for our destination, we knew it was exactly where we should be. They'd taken an old banking building and built a barbed wire fence around it. Ten guards were on either side as we drove up, opening our windows a crack to speak.
"We're survivors," Tristan smiled over at them. "Is this a safe place?"
"As long as you aren't infected we'll let you in," The guard assessed all of us. "Welcome to our colony."
We hopped out of the car and grabbed what little we had. Now that I wasn't looking through tinted windows I could see this fully functioning society. I saw this town on the news once, a place where everyone lives under one roof. They had a generator and lights going. Undoubtedly there was also running water.
By apocalypse standards, this was a utopia.
"I'm Clyde James," A man approached us. "This is our home. Everyone is armed, but trusted to only shoot at the undead. We all pull our own weight. Names?" Clyde was tall, fairly young if I had to guess. Maybe twenty two or so? Lanky with grey eyes and blonde hair. He seemed really nice.
"Jeremiah, Jane, and Johanna Preston," Jane shook his hand. "I was a nurse and my husband was a doctor."
"Wow! That's amazing!" Clyde looked so relieved. "We have a shortage in the medical field!"
"I'm Imogen Logan," I extended my hand. "Minor. But I love books if that helps anything."
"Logan?" He repeated. "I think we have a Mr. and Mrs. Lake here. They lost their daughter day one and were wondering if her friend survived. They filed a missing person report for you."
"Layla's parents," I realized, exhaling. "Wow."
"We'll get you washed up and you can meet with them," He nodded towards the front door. I lagged behind to wait for the others.
"Tristan. Nineteen with a love for teaching," He shook his hand and followed Jeremiah. That sounded about right, I knew he had volunteered at the preschool and was planning on taking over one day. Tristan was always super patient, he would make an amazing dad.
"Declan and Alex Blaze. Eighteen and lazy," My boyfriend smirked. "Well. He is, I can do patrol work and what not. As long as I come home to my girl everyday." Clyde clapped his hands together in admiration for us. I guessed adults really liked the idea of love.
I fought the blush in my cheeks as they all walked into the revolving doors of the building. This was it. No more going from place to place.
"Come on, babe," Declan came back for me, grabbing my wrist.
"It's over. No more running," I felt my eyes well up with tears.
"I have a good feeling about this. As long as I'm with you," He walked with me slowly as we stepped inside the building.
It was like I was leaving the bad behind me and stepping into the good.
This was happy ever after.