*****
Chapter 13
“I heard something,” Jessell said.
“I didn’t…” Mark began but he didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence as a zombie’s arm circled his neck and its teeth bit into his throat.
“Mark!” Kate screamed.
“Shoot it,” Pete yelled rushing over to Ridec and gripping onto his leg fearfully.
“No,” Jessell instructed as she pulled the pair of daggers from the strap and raced towards the creature. “You’ll only draw more of them.”
“Don’t hurt Mark.” Kate was hurrying forward as well but she needn’t have bothered for Jessell had quickly put an end to the creature by slicing its head from its body with her blade. It was like cutting through wood. The creature had no running blood in its body; every vein contained hardened brown substance only a white jelly like fluid flowed from the bottom of its head as the decapitated member laid wide eyed on the ground. It was not the pumping of a heart that drove these things to live; it was the viral infection alone that controlled their bodies.
“Be careful,” Kent yelled even as Jessell hurried away from the body which was still standing trashing about the same white jelly fluid oozing down its back. The creatures were so contagious, the slightest scratch or bite could spread their disease.
“I’m fine,” Jessell muttered as Kent came hurrying over; he launched his body at the creature and caught it solidly in its chest with both his feet, it staggered back and collapsed to the ground. He needn’t have bothered; Ridec thought angrily, the creature was already taken care of.
“Are you sure you didn’t get any of that white stuff on you? It’s lethal,” Kent insisted.
The trashing zombie had collapsed to the ground and was only twitching slightly now.
Ridec couldn’t help but feel a little jealous at Kent’s take charge attitude and he found himself wondering if Jessell liked that, the fact that Kent was always there and always able to help.
“You think there are more out there?” Pete asked staring ahead nervously.
“Of course there are,” Linda responded roughly as she hurried over to where Jessell had just turned around.
“It would be great if there was water around here somewhere,” Jessell grunted as she rubbed the daggers into the grass on the ground to clean them.
“It would be, unfortunately I have no idea,” Kent said.
“I think I hear something,” Pete muttered as Kate pulled off her shirt and pressed it against Mark’s wound.
“It got a vein; he’s not going to survive,” Linda said flatly.
“He’s been bitten before, his immune system is strong; he can make it,” Kate insisted.
“He’s bleeding too much, if the infection doesn’t kill him the lost of blood will,” Linda pointed out.
“Darn…” Mark gurgled a trickle of blood running from his mouth. “I didn’t hear it.”
“I think something else is coming,” Pete insisted his tiny hands gripping Ridec’s leg as if his life depended on the contact.
“I don’t hear…” Ridec began.
“The kid’s right!” Jessell was swinging the daggers even as she spoke and just then three zombies burst into the area.
Linda pointed her gun.
“Don’t shoot, there are just seven of them, this could be a small band, we don’t want to bring hundreds of them here,” Kent yelled angrily.
“Use the knives,” Jessell instructed and Kent drew out a long bowie knife from his boot as one of the creatures raced towards him.
“Stay back Ridec,” Jessell was shouting as she swung her daggers about her expertly decapitating a small one that looked as if it could have been a five year old child when it had been human. This one had blood, Ridec noted, it was so much more human than the other creature had been. Why was that? The more he saw the more questions he seemed to have.
A tall old looking zombie launched itself at Ridec; he gripped Pete and jumped out of the way. The creature was persistent and was back at them again before Ridec could pick himself off of the ground.
“It’s going to get us,” Pete was screaming.
“Watch out,” Jessell shouted as she swung the blade and severed its head; the zombie took three more steps before falling to the ground. Ridec grabbed Pete and rolled out of the way just as the zombie’s body collapsed on the very spot they were laying.
Kate was wielding her knife competently, fighting to protect Mark who was lying on the ground defenseless still clutching the shirt to his neck. The zombies seemed to sense that Mark was easier prey than the three adults that were standing and slashing wildly at them, two of them dove at Kate and Mark.
“You can’t stay down there,” Linda screamed at Kate angrily who was barely able to push off one of the zombies and drive her knife into the chest of the other. It staggered back only momentarily and then it was at her again.
Kent’s knife travelled across the neck of the zombie in front of him; his knife sank an inch deep but that only seemed to make the creature more determined. It started to slash at Kent more wildly, he parried and slashed at the neck again catching it much firmer and deeper this time; the head bobbed awkwardly to a side hanging on by a mere inch of skin.
“Die monster,” Kent shouted as he finished the creature off.
Kate had grabbed the knife from Mark’s waist band as a zombie settled down beside Mark and proceeded to bite his face. She plunged the knife deep into the back of its head. It sputtered strangely for a few seconds and then collapsed to the ground.
“Aaaaaahhhh!” Kent said as his knife sunk into the head of another zombie.
Ridec scrambled from the ground and pulled Pete up beside him. He had been hurrying over to Kate to help defend Mark from another zombie that seemed determined to attack them but Jessell beat him to it. With one swift blow she had decapitated the creature and its lifeless body dropped to the ground next to Mark.
“Die undead,” Linda commanded as she finally put an end to the creature she had been battling for the past few minutes.
“You think there are more?” Pete asked breathing heavily as his young eyes flickered around the area searching for movement.
“I don’t know,” Ridec admitted sinking down to the ground beside Mark. He looked a mess, blood was still coming from his neck, a huge chunk of skin was missing from his face and he was clearly in a great deal of pain.
“We need to get moving it’s not a good idea to let night catch us out here in the open.” Linda’s words were addressed to Kent, she was clearly only seeking his agreement. “We can’t keep fighting them hand to hand like this; that juice in the back of their neck is toxic.”
“Aren’t you all unclean? Doesn’t that mean you are immune to their illness?” Ridec asked.
“Not immune completely, the more we get exposed the quicker we are likely to change. I can’t afford to get any of their fluids into my wounds; it will speed the process up,” Linda explained.
“Are you an unclean too?” Jessell asked looking at Kent. Ridec couldn’t help but feel jealous. Why did she care if Kent was an unclean or not, she belonged to him, she was his princess.
“Isn’t everyone here?” Ridec knew it sounded harsh but he couldn’t help himself from trying to turn Jessell’s thoughts away from Kent.
“You don’t know that,” Jessell looked annoyed.
“Cleans are precious here, if he was clean they wouldn’t risk sending him away from the safe house on stupid missions. He’s dispensable,” Ridec pointed out. Whatever bit of information he had picked up while on this god forsaken land he intended to use it to let Jessell know that Kent was not the man for her, he was.
“You’re an authority now?” Jessell demanded.
“I’m an unclean,” Kent cut in. “We all are.”
“She’s clean!” Ridec offered his voice deep and laced with annoyance. “And cleans and uncleans don’t belong together.”
“She’s clean?” Linda’s eyes widened. “If we could bring in two and a woman at that…”
“Don’t even think about it sweetheart,” Jessell said dryly.
Ridec scrunched up his face, he had let slip that Jessell was a clean, now they would want to take her in as well. He glanced over at her apologetically and she glared at him. He couldn’t help how he was feeling; he was seeing a different world out here, out here looking good didn’t matter nearly as much as being able to fight. He felt like a horrible second class citizen compared to Kent, there was no way Jessell would want him. His only chance was the fact that Kent was an unclean.
“We need to find someplace to stay for the night until we can figure out the best way back to the Headquarters,” Kent said already pushing past the previous conversation and moving onto more pressing issues.
“What about Mark?” Kate asked struggling to pull Mark up from the ground; blood started to spurt even more as a result of the exertion.
“You can’t move him…and we can’t stay here, connect the dots lady,” Linda said bluntly.
“Maybe if we had a stretcher or something we could put him on?” Kate suggested. It was so strange, she had seemed so strong and brave before but now she seemed just weak and desperate. Was that how it was with the women here on this earth when they lost their mates? Were their reactions like that because their mates contributed so much to their survival and were strong? Ridec couldn’t imagine Jessell feeling so desolate if he were to die. Perhaps she would be happy; she would make it back to the sea much easier on her own.
“Go…” Mark grunted. “Leave me.”
“You’re going to be okay,” Kate insisted.
“No.” Mark shook his head. “You know the rules. We always keep going.”
Ridec could see her mind; there had been ten of them when Kate had started out, friends mainly it appeared, but now it was only her left.
The earth was too much to bear; it contained too much pain and too much death. He couldn’t help but wish there was some way he could fix things.
“He’s right. It’s the way humans have survived so long. We don’t try to help the wounded, we don’t try to save the captured; we just look out for number one. It we try to carry him he’ll only slow us down and all our lives will be in danger,” Linda said. “If you don’t get moving we’ll have to leave you too.”
“Maybe that’s why humans have only survived and never overcame. Perhaps if you started caring about someone other than yourselves you might find life is a lot more worth living,” Ridec responded stooping down and tossing Mark’s arm about his shoulder. “Grab his other arm Kate, I’ll help you carry him.”
“Ridec.” Jessell’s face carried a look of concern and admiration at the same time. “Maybe we can make a stretcher out of some of the old wood about here and carry him.” She glanced about looking for bits of material that could be plaited together and make a stretcher. “Put him down, you have to be careful not to get too much of his blood on you in case you have a cut or something.”
“Thanks.” Kate was fighting back a tear from her eye as she and Ridec were laying Mark back onto the ground gently now.
“You’ll all regret this; no good turn ever goes unpunished,” Linda advised.
“Perhaps, that doesn’t mean we aren’t still obligated to do good turns. If it was you, you wouldn’t want to be left here helpless for those creatures to turn up and eat you alive,” Ridec pointed out and Linda looked embarrassed.
“Okay, this should do. It’s not perfect but it will hold his weight.” Jessell dropped a makeshift bed of sticks plaited together with some leaves on the ground in front of Kate. “You and Kate can carry the stretcher, you carry the foot Ridec and Kate can carry the head. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The head would be the more dangerous area, if Mark died and came back to life again he would try to reach out to the nearest human to him and attack, that would be the person holding the head of the stretcher.
“That’s fine,” Kate muttered as she and Ridec laid Mark on the makeshift stretcher.
“Are we finally ready to leave this place?” Linda queried. “This is a total waste of almost an hour.”
“Yeah, let’s move out,” Kent responded glancing around the area one more time before going forward. He slipped a small compass out of his pocket and shook it a few times. “I think we should head in that direction, I don’t know where it will lead us to but at least it’s in the general direction of headquarters.”
***
“Good grief, I can barely feel my arms or legs?” Kate grumbled after five hours of walking.
“I know; it’s not my fault that you guys chose to carry him.”
Ridec could barely stand he could feel the muscles in his arms straining and Kate had dropped her side of the stretcher several times prompting Ridec to offer to carry that end but Jessell was having none of it, insisting that Ridec hold the feet. He wished that he could somehow prove to Jessell that he was able to look after himself, perhaps she would respect him more, look at him the way she looked at Kent.
“I think we need to take a break,” Jessell suggested as Ridec stumbled under the weight of the stretcher. “The top of that hill isn’t nearly as close as it appeared.”
“We’re not stopping. If you guys stop we’ll go ahead and leave you,” Linda responded.
There was safety in numbers especially in unfamiliar territory, she was bluffing.
“We can’t leave the cleans; the Authorities would be upset if they knew we had cleans and left them alone out here,” Kent pointed out and Linda screwed up her face angrily.
“Our lives mean nothing to them.”
“We knew what it would be like when the Authorities accepted us as part of the Resistance. We were lucky to be selected from the hundreds of uncleans that make it to the headquarter gates every year. We may risk our lives finding cleans to take back to the Authorities but at least we know we have somewhere safe to lay our heads every once in a while and weapons that work.” Kent was scolding her, he wanted her to see that compared to the uncleans on the outside they had it good.
“Fine,” Linda muttered grudgingly.
“We’ll break for fifteen minutes and then head on,” Kent advised.
“Thanks.” Jessell’s hand brushed Kent’s arm gently and they stared at each other.
Ridec flexed his muscles, his whole body tensed, he had not come all this way to lose Jessell; he needed to prove himself to her and he needed to do it soon.
“Ridec!” Jessell yelled. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I need to take a leak…if that’s okay with you?” He couldn’t help the way he felt. He had loved Jessell all his life and now suddenly someone seemed set to take her away from him. Someone that was far more worthy than he especially in a world like this one.
“Don’t go too far, stay where I can still hear you and shout if you see or hear anything funny,” Jessell instructed. She was treating him like a child, she saw him as someone she needed to protect but she probably saw Kent as someone who could protect her. Any logical person would prefer to be with Kent.
“Sure.”
“I’ll go see if we can find some kind of food out here,” Kent was already heading off into the wooded area as he spoke.
“Be careful,” Jessell called after him and Ridec seethed mentally.
“Can I come?” Pete asked gripping Ridec’s hand.
“No!” He pulled his hand away and strolled away from the group. There was no reason why he had been so hard on the boy, but he just felt in a really sour mood. Perhaps Jessell saw him as only good for babysitting.
As soon as he was out of sight of the group Ridec pulled the knife he had stashed in his boot, it was one of Kate’s that she had plunged into a creature; he had pulled it out and hidden it when no one was looking. He wasn’t sure why he had done it or even why he had felt he needed to hide that he had done it, perhaps because Jessell would see him as no more than a klutz with a knife in his hand – a dangerous combination indeed. He would prove her wrong.
He lunged forward with the knife outstretched now, imitating an attack on a creature. No, that wouldn’t do, he needed to strike more violently. He lunged again. That was much more like it.
Wasn’t it pointless to try to teach himself to fight? He didn’t even know where to start. Yet, if it was strength that Jessell wanted he was bent and determined to show her he had that.
Perhaps a slash across the neck as Jessell had done? That had appeared quite effective. Ridec slashed repeatedly at thin air two or three times. It would really help if he had an opponent but yet he wasn’t that anxious to come face to face with one of those creatures alone.
Ridec shifted the knife from his right to his left hand and then back again, he took two more wild slashes at the thin air and grunted angrily. Perhaps he should try something more challenging? He was a bright man, if he could just think this whole fighting thing through he would be sure to find some way he could defend against the zombies that would make him more useful in battle.
“Shoot.” He didn’t have a gun only a knife. Knives required skill as it meant fighting pretty close to the attacker. He didn’t have that kind of skill but he was willing to learn for Jessell.
He psyched himself up, imagined a zombie was standing in front of him, held the knife firmly in his hand and dove…and then he saw her, Jessell was standing in the distance staring at him with a huge smile on her face.
Ridec stashed the knife quickly behind his back and scrambled to his feet.
“I…um...you…” He wasn’t really sure what to say. Had she seen him? She must think him something of a clown; if possible he must surely have fallen even further in her sight.
“I thought you were coming out here to do your business,” Jessell said coming closer now.
“I…um…” Should he carry on the charade? “It would have been quite embarrassing if you had turned up and I was in the midst of my business.”
She grinned and slid her hand into his bleach blonde hair. Ridec stiffened.
“You want to learn to fight?” Jessell asked her beautiful black eyes dancing with amusement.
“I…I want to help,” Ridec explained even as Jessell stepped forward pressing her body against his. He could feel his own body harden in response.
“You think you are no help?” She asked as her head tilted just slightly and her full luscious lips pressed closer to his.
“Jessell…” He was far too weak to resist, his hands went out and surrounded her slender body and pulled her close to him but she was only teasing him, he should have known. She grinned as she gently unlaced his fingers from around her waist and stepped away slowly.
“You think I came all the way here to see you get yourself killed?”
“I’m sorry,” Ridec muttered.
Her hand reached out swiftly and her finger traced a tantalizing line along his jaw.
“I love you,” he whispered. Those were probably the three most pointless words in the English language but he didn’t seem to be able to help himself from uttering them. Had someone asked him what fired him up for Jessell he was sure he would not be able to stop explaining. It wasn’t just the sexy way she walked, or the way she looked at him, the way she held her head or the way her hair billowed under water, it wasn’t just her dark and mysterious beauty or the fact that she was strong and confident, it was all those things and more and Ridec was hopelessly and completely in love.
“Love works both ways Ridec,” Jessell whispered but she was removing her hands from his face as she spoke.
“What do you mean?” Ridec asked immediately missing the warmth of her touch.
“You want to learn to fight? Fight me then.” That was Jessell; one moment she was on one topic and the next she was talking about something totally opposite.
“I can’t fight you.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Why didn’t she understand how he felt about her? Ridec felt as if he spent all of his life telling Jessell just how much he loved her and yet she didn’t seem to understand. How could he fight her? Nothing in him wanted to hurt her, nothing in him wanted to attack her, nothing in him wanted to do anything other than make love to her. How could he fight someone when his feelings for them were so strong?
Jessell’s hand flashed out so suddenly it caught Ridec by complete surprise.
“Wh…” He couldn’t even manage to choke out the words because Jessell’s arm had become a rod of steel and a stranglehold about his neck. Ridec found himself fighting to breathe.
“Ugh….Je…ugh…” His arms were trashing wildly and he was struggling to stay conscious, just as quickly as she had grabbed him she released him.
“I want you to fight me Ridec.” She looked upset and her thoughts flowed to him freely now. She was trying to protect him. “I’m deeper in this world than I have ever been and I would be lying to you if I told you I knew how to get us back home from here without tracing our way back through that cave, but if you could fight at least I would know I wouldn’t have to worry about you.”
He had been right, Jessell had been wishing that he would be more like Kent, she might care about him but right now clearly she wanted a man like the earth men.
“Fight you?” He wanted to be everything she wanted him to be. “But…I couldn’t…” He couldn’t help it; he just couldn’t fight with Jessell.
“Perhaps I can help. A gentleman never strikes a lady, right Ridec? That’s old school,” Kent said as he strolled into the small clearing and stood beside them. Jessell turned about slowly to face Kent with a sultry tilt to her head.
“I didn’t go to that school,” she said.
“I can teach Ridec some fighting techniques to keep him alive, if he isn’t afraid to hit me?”
The words had not properly left Kent’s lips before Ridec had swung his arm with all his might and caught Kent squarely along the jaw; he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Jessell looked impressed, “You little…” Kent not so much.
Kent snatched his knife from his waist and held it out towards Ridec.
“Remember, you’re only teaching him,” Jessell said her voice sounding a little worried.
Ridec plucked his own knife from his waist and shifted it in his hand awkwardly. He watched as Kent circled him slowly. It was Kent that lunged first, gripped Ridec about the neck and tugged him down to the ground; his knife point positioned at Ridec’s throat.
“Never take your eye off the opponent Ridec. Look at their body and mind and try to read their next move,” Jessell said. “Okay, let him up.”
Kent’s eyes focused on Ridec just a second longer and Ridec could see that for one moment Kent was considering killing him. With Ridec dead he would have a better chance at Jessell.
“I said let him up!” The cold metal of Jessell’s gun was pressed onto the back of Kent’s head. He chuckled rolling off of Ridec.
“I wasn’t going to kill him; I was just having some fun.”
“Sorry.” Ridec felt horrible as he pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself off. He couldn’t believe he let that jerk Kent beat him, and in front of Jessell.
“Don’t worry about it. Your strong, but strength without skill isn’t much help. We just need to keep practicing.”
“I can throw well,” Ridec offered.
“Rocks aren’t much help against these zom…” Kent’s sarcastic remark faded away at the sound of Kate screaming followed by a gunshot and then two more.