Word count: 2800
Connor stayed upstairs the entire night, he didn't come down the next morning either. It was like he was trying to stay away my from either me or Caleb, but I didn't know which. I decided that I needed to patch things up with him so when Em handed out the food the next morning I took a bowl upstairs. I found Connor sitting on one of the beds, his head hung low like he was thinking. I knocked on the door and he looked up at me. He sighed but made a head gesture which I took to mean 'come in'. I sat down on the bed and felt the softness curve into my body. It felt like forever since I'd had the pleasure to sleep in a bed and I felt kind of envious of him.
"You know I would like to get along with you," I said as I passed the food over to him, he looked at it suspiciously.
"I feel like there might be poison in this now. Not a very good opening line." He half smiled and tucked in. I smiled back nervously as I waited for him to continue. "It's not you I dislike, it's Caleb."
"I know you don't like me as well," I replied and he cocked his head to one side, "but that's fine I just think that-"
"What do you mean? If I didn't like you I would've 'accidentally' shot you yesterday," he said to me and ate some more food. A part of me felt like he was joking about the shooting, but I wasn't too sure. "Although, honestly, I have no idea to use the thing. I aimed for the skeletons head yesterday and got it's foot-" I cut through his sentence before he could go off topic.
"-but you told Pat you didn't..." I trailed off, my mind whizzing around in a state of confusion. "You told her to keep an eye on me." He had said that to her the day before, I was sure I wasn't hearing things.
"Oh that," he said after a moment of thought, nodding in understanding. I waited for what felt like a century whilst he put more food in his mouth and swallowed it. "I didn't mean it in a bad way." He laughed like he found my misunderstanding hilarious. "I can tell she likes you so I was making sure she looked after you too. She needed a little push, she talks a lot now but when she first met me she barely wanted to know me. Think she still misses her best friend but right now Pat needs a someone like you, a friend she can be close to," he told me but I felt like he wasn't saying something.
"Aren't you already her friend?"
"Well yeah, but she needs a girl don't she?" He said. "I'm crap at all the emotion, touchy-feely stuff."
"Oh," was all I said. He really did care about Pat, he was looking out for her. I got up and walked over to the door.
"I'm sure she'd rather talk to you more than me," I told him.
"Why?"
"She likes you." I looked back. "A lot actually."
"Serious?" He looked so happy in that moment.
"Well duh! Anyone could see that." He nodded his head some more.
"Oh cool," he said casually but a grin was permanently plastered onto his face.
"So we good?" I questioned. It took him a minute to register I was speaking to him but then he nodded more vigorously.
"Yeah of course man." He smiled and I returned it before exiting the room.
I made my way down to the living room again and saw Caleb eating his food. He was the only one in the room and I saw that it was the perfect time to have a talk with him. I ruffled his short ginger hair.
"Hey bud," I tried to smile at him and he grinned up at me, it was nice to see him settling in. I hated that we would have to move soon and I doubted the group would take him in so it would be just the two of us. Don't get me wrong, he seemed like a good kid but I was crap at looking after Ella and she was older than me so how on earth could I look after a little kid? I shook the thought away, I just had to focus on the present.
I sat cross-legged on the ground.
"How old are you?" Simple first question.
"Nine," his little voice spoke. "Ten in... " His face was contorted in concentration and he began to count on his fingers. "Ten days."
"Wow, the big one oh! Little man's growing up I see." He laughed at me and nodded. Then his smile was suddenly wiped off his face.
"I was meant to be having a party. All my friends were invited. Dad said he was gonna make me a massive cake." He spread his arms out wide. "This big!"
"Was your dad a baker?" I asked and his eyes went bright .
"Yep! He worked in a patis..." He paused and tried to say it again, "patesery." He furrowed his brows.
"Patisserie?" I helped and he nodded.
"Dad said he was gonna fit in at the safe house. Said everyone loves cake." My eyes widened, was I hearing that right?
"Safe house?" No one had ever mentioned such a thing. It felt like someone had shined a light in a dark tunnel and I was finally seeing an exit.
"Yep. Dad said it was a hospital. Up north. Manchester he said. He was always saying it over and over again. So he wouldn't forget," he told me and I heard a chair scrape back from the kitchen.
"Shh. Don't tell anyone, okay?" I told him and he just looked at me like he didn't understand. After a short time, he put out his little pinky finger.
"Pinky promise," he spoke. I quickly wrapped my little finger around his.
"Em's not coming with us today," Tyler told me as I stood up and walked over to get my hatchet.
"She know about it this time?" I asked and he nodded.
"She decided it would be best." I looked over to Em who was sitting at the dinner table, Caleb was standing in front of her. He was laughing at something funny she had obviously said.
"Hey Em," I moved towards her, "Tyler said you're staying?"
"Yeah," she confirmed.
"Would you mind looking after Caleb? After what happened yesterday, I don't think it'd be safe to take him with us." Caleb looked at me with his big green eyes but stayed quiet.
"Sure, of course," Em told me and I sighed in relief.
"Thank you so much," I told her. I put my hand on Caleb's shoulder, "be good."
"Remi, come on," I heard Pat call from the front door, I turned to see them all ready to go.
"Thank you," I said once more and left the house.
I got into the back seat of the car as Tyler kicked in the engine. I could see my breath in front of my face and my toes ached with the cold. I couldn't wait to get moving again, but at the same time, I dreaded facing the creatures. The only thing that stopped me from jumping out the car and heading back to the safety of the house was the small hope I had that Logan would be safe and at the school. We went down the street that the fields were on and looked to see it was filled with the infected. They covered every inch of the grass and turned their broken faces towards us as the car noisily passed.
"Gonna have to find another way," Connor said from up front.
We soon stopped down a side road that faced an alley. The alley was too small for the car to fit down.
"That leads to the school," Tyler pointed out. "We have to walk from here."
He unbelted his seat belt and we all followed suit. There was something about the alleyways that gave me the shivers. The high, close together walls and the idea of only two exits made my cleithrophobia run riot. The thought of being trapped made anxiety rush through me and my heart beat increased drastically. I could imagine a horde appearing from both sides and then we'd have nowhere to go, no way to survive.
I put my hatchet up into the air and stayed low as we made our way down the long stretch of stone. Our feet pattered as it hit the wet floor, water from the puddles seeped into my thin shoes. It soaked my socks and an uncomfortable feeling spread through my foot, the squelching noise it made didn't help the situation either. I hurried up a little bit and was soon as close as I could be, without it being uncomfortable, to Tyler who was leading the group.
We got to the end of the alley and Tyler put his head out to check.
"Skeleton, by the bench."
I put my head out and was hit by a sharp wind that the high walls had managed to block out before. Even with the wind blowing my hair in all directions I could make out an infected crouched behind a bin, obviously occupied. Its face was deep in the gut of someone. I grabbed a pebble from the gravel road and threw it into the street to limit any surprises. I hid again and looked out quickly to see the infected put his head back down. It wasn't just any infected though and a small gasp escaped my lips. I put my hands on my face to cover my emotions.
Sometimes you forget that those creatures were once real people. A sea of unfamiliar faces that each had a past before they lost themselves. It's easy to kill if you don't know them and if you have to in order to survive. The creature that was down the road was Elliot, my best friends boyfriend. Now, Elliot, he was once real. I knew him, he was an asshole but I knew him. Tears sprung into my eyes as I saw a former high school student eating a body on the floor, guts stuck between his teeth- it's teeth.
"We should go around," I whispered to the group, hoping they'd agree.
"It looks like a clear path," Tyler replied. "Take that one out and it's straight to the school gates."
I felt my throat tighten as I knew what was to come. Ava would hate me for it.. if Ava was even alive. I should've messaged her that day, I should've made sure she was fine. Ava and I had argued a lot in the past, maybe we wouldn't have survived together but I should've tried. I had assumed she wouldn't talk to me, that she would blank me out the same as usual. Just like I had assumed Elliot would look after her, but Elliot couldn't even look after himself. The weight of my decisions hit me hard and even though I knew I had made a mistake, I couldn't change the past. I just had to keep going. I nodded softly. Pat got her knife ready but I put it down and got my hatchet out. I knew him, I should be the one to end the suffering.
"I got this." I got out from behind the wall and crouched down low. I moved at a steady pace towards a virus in Elliot's body. He was too busy eating to notice I was there, blood was all I could see on the ground below. Nothing human left, neither of them had anything human left. Elliot wasn't Elliot anymore, he was something else. I got up close behind him and swung. All the while reminding myself he wasn't human anymore. I felt my hatchet connect with his head and he stopped being anything at all.
I saw its blood connect with the blood of what it was eating, it intertwined on the wet floor so you couldn't distinguish whose belonged to whose body. I stopped when I saw the victims face. Red hair covered her face but I knew her well. I froze and heard a clatter on the ground as my hatchet fell.
Her lower half had become nothing at all; just organs, vessels, tendons, blood. Most of all bone, the flesh viciously torn off. Nothing that made up her personality remained, just the biological crap was left behind. I heard her groan after a long while, by this time the group were right behind me.
"Ava," I whispered and the creature titled its head up, it was her. Her eyes were dead. She hissed at me and her arms reached out to grab me, but she couldn't reach, or even move from where she sat for that matter. I dropped to my knees in front of her. I felt the wetness of her blood, or Elliot's blood, seep into my trousers. "I'm so sorry," I told her as tears blurred my vision. "I-I should've been here."
She looked so defenceless at that moment, so helpless. I wanted to grab my hatchet, I wanted to help her out by letting her rest, like I had done for Elliot, but it didn't feel right.
I heard footsteps behind me but didn't turn to look. I was focused on Ava, she looked pained - through the death that smothered her that was what I could see, pain. Finally, I moved my arm to the side of me, I gripped my fallen weapon.
"Remi, you don't have to," I heard someone say, I think it was Tyler but I didn't turn to see. I said nothing and the voice took that as my reply. I felt arms on me and someone embraced me so my face was hidden in their shoulder. I heard a noise that sounded like metal hitting bone and then a body drop.
Three people (I had known) were gone, four if you included Logan - which I didn't because everyone's alive until you get evidence saying otherwise, that's what I had convinced myself to believe anyway.
"Rem, you aright?" Pat asked me as she pulled me out of our hug, her blonde hair blew in the wind and hid the gore. She wiped something off my face, I assumed it was blood. I didn't look at her, I looked passed her. I couldn't take my eyes off Ava's corpse. I remembered the time we were sorting out shoes for prom before we knew she would even have a date, and even though I would've gone to prom in slippers Ava had been so happy... so alive. It was the most recent memory I had had with her where she looked happy to be around me and only me.
I wiped the tears, and whatever else was on my face, away with the back of my hand and stood up slowly. Pat followed me up but once on my feet she gave me some space. My body felt completely numb like it wasn't my own. My feet were moving but I didn't know why. I felt like I could crumble to the ground any second. I heard voices but they were all a dull buzz.
"Remi!" It was Connor's voice but it was fuzzy, unreal, I felt like I had lost grip on reality. "Remi! For fuck sake!"
I felt a warm sensation radiating from my face and instinctively cupped my face. I looked to see Connor, his hand slightly red.
"What the-?" I questioned as I regained control of myself and crawled my way back into the real world.
"Wake up call. Everything's dead, deal with it," he told me.
"What he means is ya can't just start wandering off because of a skeleton otherwise you'll become one of 'em," Pat said, her voice less harsh compared to Connors.
"I meant what I said," he butt in but then uncrossed his arms as Pat gave him a hard stare, "but that too."
The pain faded quickly and I was thankful for someone doing that, I needed it. I now understood why people slap someone else in drama's when they're being over-dramatic, it sounds bizarre but, it actually works. Must be something biology could explain if only I knew enough about the science.
"How far to the school?" I asked quietly because I had never gone this route before.
"Not far now," Tyler replied and we walked carefully down the road, tightly packed together. I still felt numb but I willed myself forward. I didn't want to see Ava and Elliot again, I just had to think that their suffering was over. That was the only thing that stopped me from breaking down again.