Un-edited!
2094: Chapter Eight
Sometimes, I look up at the sky and wonder if the stars are actually there, or just something we've put there because we needed something to remind us how small we actually are.
I shake my head, clearing these crazy thoughts. Breathing in the cold nights air, I looked towards the sky. Small specks of light separated the empty darkness. The stars. It amazed me how the stars were so far away, yet we could see them so clearly, even if they looked a billion times smaller.
I took a few steps forward, and shivered, curling myself up to keep warm. I breathed in slowly, and smelt nothing. Only the emptiness of the air. It was beautiful.
I have been with the Resistance for two days now. We haven’t made it back to the base yet, so I haven’t met Warren. Although he does sound intimidating. Mostly everyone has taken a liking to me, except for Whitford and River. Whitford hasn’t even spoken one word to me. But River, has been trying to annoy me the whole time I’ve been with them.
We will be going back to the rebel tomorrow. Right now I’m on watch, while everyone sleeps. The tip of my nose feels like I’m about to get frostbite. The weather has gotten quite cooler, since I’ve been out here, even though I haven’t been in the wild for that long.
I find it insanely strange that while I was living in Salvatore going through school classes, these kids that are my age, were out here having a war. The apocalypse has been going on for seven years, and I’ve only been living for one of them. The rebels have been here for all of them.
Dani had fixed my wounds up very well, even better then Kuro had with the bite on my arm. It turns out that they had gotten quite successful on their run for medicine. Dani had my ankle wrapped along with my arm. She had also wrapped my head, and gave me some Tylenol for the major headache I had.
Leafs crumpling behind me, pull me out of my trance. I turn around swiftly, aiming the gun in my arms at the zombie. But I let out a long shaky breath when I find out that it’s just Whitford.
He seems to go out every night, and he gets back right before sunrise giving him a few hours before of sleep. I’m not sure how he’s able too continue doing this without getting tired.
“You’re on watch?” Whitford asks me with major confusion. He lets his bloody knife that he was probably killing zombies with, fall to his side.
“Yes,” I answer with no emotions. Like Whitford I let my weapon fall to my side.
“Stupid. These people are stupid. Letting you go on watch. For all we know you could be working for Nova Vida,” Whitford whispers harshly. He takes a step forward holding out his hand for my gun.
“Why do you want my gun?” I ask him, but I give him the gun nonetheless.
Whitford rolls his eyes. “Stupid questions get people killed,” he tells me. I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. First of all, this isn’t a situation where I could get killed. And second of all, it wasn’t a stupid question, I just simply wanted to know.
He takes the gun from me, and puts it near the pile with the other weapons. “Go to bed. I’ll take over watch,” he tells me, already turning away.
“Don’t you want to sleep? You’ve been up all night, and I’ve only been on watch for an hour,” I offer.
Whitford shakes his head. “I don’t need any sleep. You go.”
“Are you sure? I mean you seem pretty tired,” I tell him, stepping forward.
“I said go,” he yells at me, probably waking up the people in the tents beside us. I instantly walk away back towards my tent I’m sharing with Dani and Reagan. I can feel Whitford’s eyes staring at me as I walk away.
Once I make it to the tent, I zip it open and step in. Dani and Reagan are both sleeping heavily, and snoring. I slip into my spot on the left side. Dani is in the middle and Reagan is on the right side.
I lie down, and close my eyes. Though I know I won’t fall asleep. It usually takes me hours to fall asleep, and I still feel extremely bad about letting Whitford go on watch, even though he said he was okay with that.
I try to fall asleep, and let the darkness take over.
When I wake up, the tent is empty, and I can hear voices from outside. I had dreamed of nothing night, or at least nothing I could remember. I heard Whitford pacing back and forth all night, but I’m sure that he didn’t have to kill any zombies.
Morning came much too quick for comfort, the skies tumbling from deep purple to a clear bright blue as the sun burn the cloud cover away.
I get up from the tent. Everyone is awake, and standing in a circle. I walk towards them, and Dani notices me. She ushers me forward and I go walk to her. The other two tents are packed up, so we just need to pack up the one I was sleeping in.
“I still think Warren’s gonna be pissed,” River tells the group. When he notices that I have now joined he stops talking.
“We should finish cleaning up,” Reagan suggests, “And then we can get out of dodge.” They all nod at her, and everyone splits up. River, Chase, Zed and Whitford go into the forest and I lose track of them.
Reagan walks over to me, Dani at her side. “You should’ve woken me up. I could’ve helped pack up,” I say.
“You needed your rest. I mean you did just jump off a cliff, and practically die,” Dani tells me.
Reagan bites one of her lips. “Like Dani said. You needed the rest. But now you can come and help us?” she asks more as a question then a demand. I tell her yes, and we move towards our tent.
Dani folds up the blankets, while Reagan and I close down the tent. It surprisingly turns out to fold in very tightly, and I am able to hold it only using one hand. Of course I’ve never gone camping in Salvatore. Neither was Salvatore a real place.
Zed runs up to us out of breath. “Reagan come quick! Chase and Whitford are fighting.”
Reagan’s eyes practically bulge out of her head, “Why are they fighting?” she questions, dropping some of the blankets.
“I don’t know. Whitford said something about Chase’s medication running out. And then Chase just pounced on him!” Zed explains. He runs his fingers through his hair, and looks around like a crazy man.
“God! These people are stupid! Chase has ought to know that Whitford will be him in a fight any day. I mean I know that Chase’s meds is something that you don’t want to mention, but seriously?” Reagan yells to no one in particular. “Where’s River? Why isn’t he helping?”
“He was there, but he said he wasn’t gonna interfere, he was only gonna sit back and enjoy the show,” Zed tells us.
“Sounds like him,” Reagan sighs. “Lets go before they start to attract Hollows. Where are they fighting?” she ran towards Zed.
“They’re by the truck.”
Reagan ran away, yelling for me to follow her. I do, as does Dani and Zed. I tried to catch up to Reagan, but it seemed impossible. She was a really fast runner. I’m still so confused of why Chase began to fight Whitford. It didn’t make sense. What could Whitford say about Chase’s medication that would want to make him fight? Why did Chase take pills?
And why must they be fighting so far away?
The trees go by in a big blur, and I have to make sure that I jump over every tree root that is coming out of the ground. But finally Reagan comes to a stop in front of a small meadow, and I see why. There on the ground, is Chase and Whitford all tangled up, throwing punches at each other.
Chase’ fist collided with Whitford’s jaw, probably shattering a tooth. Blood fills Whitford’s mouth and begins to over fill. Whitford raises arms up in time to block the next punch. They fell to the ground, arms and legs entangled, and Chase’ fists sunk once, twice into Whitford’s stomach. Whitford wrapped his hands around Chase’ neck, digging his fingernails into his flesh. Chase made a chocking sound, and pulled back hard. Whitford used his leverage to grab Chase’ head and slam his temple into the ground. Chase’ eyes dilated, and blood began to flow from his head. He seemed to sway, dizzy, so Whitford knocked him to the ground.
Now, finally in a position to retaliate well, Whitford proceeded to punch him repeatedly. His hands raised sluggishly, slick with blood as Chase tried to grab Whitford wrists. It was easy to swat them aside, disorientated as he was. Whitford swung his elbow down with crushing force against his nose. There was a loud crunching sound, and his nose began to spew blood. Chase laid there, his breath wheezing and eyes closed as a bubble of blood formed at the corner of his mouth and popped. They both looked equal, their faces coated in the red liquid that was draining down onto their chests, staining our shirts.
“Stop!” Reagan yells, finally out of shock. But they don’t listen to her. Instead Whitford continues to pound down on Chase. With fists at her side, Reagan runs up to Whitford and kicks him in the side, off of Chase. She holds a knife out at both of them, even though it doesn’t seem like Chase could put up much more of a fight.
“Would you two stop fighting, and actually help put everything away, so we can leave this place? Or are you going to act like ten year olds, and continue to fight because one of you said the other one sucked at playing Nintendo DS?” Reagan asks them with a serious face. I get an insanely funny mental image in my head of that scenario.
Whitford gets to his feet, and starts to walk away. “Where do you think you’re going?” Reagan asks him.
“Back to the rebel base. I can’t spend another minute with you people. More importantly, him,” he points towards Chase on the ground. Whitford continues to walk away, not letting his pace diffuse.
Reagan gets an angry look on her face. “You can’t walk! It will take you days. Just come in the car with us,” she tells him, but he does nothing, only walks away. She lets out a big sigh, and runs a hand through her hair.
I run over to her and Chase. Bending down I go and feel Chase’ pulse, which is still beating rapidly. “He’ll be fine.” Reagan says swatting her hand at me. “I know Whitford. And he wouldn’t kill him.” She looks down at the broken boy by her feet. “Chase, you’re an idiot. If you looked up idiot in the dictionary, it would have a picture of you.”
Chase groggily says, “What?”
“You’re an idiot.” Reagan tells him again.
Even though Chase’ eyes are barely open he still pants out, “Yeah, since you said that twice, does that mean I’m a double idiot? An idiot squared?”
“Uh... That’s not what I meant,” Reagan says slowly.
With Chase’ eyes now closed he still manages to say, “Did you mean the opposite? A negative idiot squared?”
Reagan’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What does that even mean?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m the idiot.”
Reagan gets a small smirk on her face. “Well, a negative times a negative is a positive... So you’re positively an idiot!” Reagan, who was crouched down next to Chase, stands up and walks away.
“That conversation did not end where I expected it to,” Chase says opening his eyes a little to look in my direction.
“Stop wasting your energy,” I tell him, and he immediately closes his eyes
I look over River who is leaning against a tree. Reagan is already making her way over to him. Zed and Dani aren’t standing near us anymore; they probably went back to camp. I listen in on Reagan and River’s conversation.
“Have you ever noticed how nothing ever turns out how you expect?” Reagan asks him.
“Well yeah, but that’s life, right?” he answers somewhat confused. I guess he was expecting a beating from her, not some talk about life.
“No, no it’s not.” She gave him a long look. “When I said nothing, I meant it literally. I can’t think of one single thing you’ve done that’s turned out the way you intended it to.”
“But it’s worked out in the end.”
“That’s not the point, no matter how bad your luck, something should have gone right.” Reagan frowned, “There’s something not right about you, but damned if I can figure it out,” with that being said she walks away.
“Imogene can you stay here to help Chase get back on his feet? I think there is some water, gauze and cloth in the truck” she tells me, “He still might be in a fighting mood, so be careful with him,” she tells me sarcastically, even though she whispered the last part I can still bet Chase heard her.
Although I want to be helping the group, I don’t reject. I need to earn my place in the rebel base somehow. They’re my only chance at defeating Nova Vida.
River follows Reagan back to their camp. Chase’ eyes have closed, but he is still breathing. Blood is on every inch of his face. And if I saw him from a far, I would’ve thought he was one of those zombies.
Most of the blood seems to be coming from his neck and nose. I look around for the truck, and it isn’t too hard to find, since it’s pretty big. Throughout the whole fight I didn’t even notice its presence. I walk over to the truck, but I also make sure that I keep an eye out on Chase just in case any zombies come.
The truck is a dark grey color, although it probably used to be black. On the front there is dried bits of flesh, which makes me want to throw up a bit. I guess these guys like running down zombies.
I open up the door, and am happy to know it’s not locked. A strong stench of smoke and rot hits me like a bullet, and I begin to wonder if they found this car with a zombie in it. I immediately notice a water bottle and a cloth in a pile of garbage. I grab them quickly and jump out of the truck closing the door tightly behind me. I don’t know how I am going to spend a whole car ride in there.
I turn around and notice three zombies coming out of the trees, and I quickly try and grab the knife in my belt loop, but it must be an old habit because it’s not there. My shoulders droop, and I run over to Chase to see if he has a knife or a gun. His eyes are open now, but he isn’t moving except for the rapid beat of his chest.
He doesn’t have a knife. Chase notices my frenzy, and his dart over to the zombies slowly making there way towards us. He must think that I have no training in killing zombies because he starts to try and get up to kill one of them. I push on his chest so he lies down again, but that was probably a bad thing to do since he groans from the pain.
Realizing that I have no weapon, I get to my feet, and use the only good thing Nova Vida gave me. My skill to kill.
The first zombie moved towards me quicker. I stood in front of Chase, so none of them could get close to him, since I’m not sure if Chase has H-H blood or not. Even if he did, it would be terrible to be a zombie’s snack.
The zombies face was sunken in, eyes unfocused. His mouth twitched and drooled as if craving for something, anything. Me. The smell of his rotting face made my stomach churn and it was all I could do not to vomit then and there. His nails were dark and bloody, but I wasn't sure if it was his blood dripping from them. Finally I saw his gross discolored skin close enough to see that it was falling apart. It was falling away from his muscle, his bones.
He was too close for comfort. I kicked him in the stomach harshly, and he broke in half his legs fell back, but his torso fell on me. I twisted away from him and stood up. Walking over to him, I smashed the heal of my boot into his brain. That felt way to easy. Then came the second zombie. She was a lot newer then the first one, thus making her walk faster. She had little clumps of hair attached to her scalp. Her teeth were rotted out, but she was still snarling.
I tried to use the same method I had on the other zombie, but it didn’t work. When I kicked her she didn’t move. She only continued to trudge towards me. I was caught in a moment of mystery. How am I going to kill her?
The answer popped into my head as soon as the answer left. My eyes spot a fallen tree with a big pointed branch sticking out of it. If I can get her over there I can kill her. But I also run the risk of the other zombie getting to Chase.
I make my decision quickly and grab hold of the zombie’s arm. I pull her to the fallen tree, keeping an eye out to make sure that she isn’t trying to bite me. But she seems dumb founded. I make it to branch and kick her down on it. Her back pierces the branch. And her body goes through. Since you have to destroy the brain to kill a zombie. She still stays alive, but with a branch sticking out of her.
I turn around and notice the third zombie almost at Chase. His life is on the line. I can’t let him die like this. If the rebels find out that I let him die, I will never be able to join their group.
I run over to him, as fast as I could. He tries to push up on his hands, so he can push the zombie away, but it’s too much work for him. The zombie leans down about to take a bite out of him. I make it to Chase, and sidekick the zombie. It falls to the ground, and so do I. Crawling over to the zombie, I punch it repetitively in the face, until my hand breaks through its skull and kills it.
I sit there out of breath for a moment, but then I get pulled out of my trance by the sound of coughing. I turn around expecting to see another zombie, but it is actually Chase. My first thought is that the zombie bit him, but he seems to be coughing uncontrollably.
I run over to him, not exactly sure what to do. I push him up so he’s in a sitting position, then I let his head go down a bit. He continues to cough loudly. I just hold him, so he doesn’t fall back down. I’m not sure what Reagan was thing when she said Chase would be fine because he defiantly doesn’t look fine.
Chase’ coughing turns into vomiting. And it splatters all over the ground. In this moment I feel bad for him. I’m not sure what Chase’ medication means to him, but it must be a sensitive topic, since he got in a fight. In fact this whole thing makes me hate Whitford more and more. Maybe even more then I hate River.
Eventually Chase stops vomiting. So I put him down, but this time on his side. I go over to where I dropped the water bottle and cloth, then I bring it back to Chase. My hands are covered in zombie blood, but I need to get Chase fixed up before he bleeds to death.
I ask him even though I know I won’t get an answer. “Chase do you have H-H blood?” Of course he doesn’t answer, but I still feel torn. If I don’t help him, he will bleed out quickly before I can get to Dani and the others. And possible he will get eaten by zombies while I am out getting them. If I do help him there is still a chance that I could kill him, and make him turn into a zombie. But there is also the chance that he will survive.
I ask him again. “Chase, if you have H-H blood blink,” I demand at him.
He closes his eyes, but they don’t reopen. Good enough for me.
I do my best to wipe off my hands on one of the cloths, then I get to work wiping away blood. When I start getting his neck free of blood, I notice the finger nail scratches from Whitford. He really made a mark. I wrap some of the gauze on his neck. The blood stops flowing out as quickly from his neck, since I had bandaged it up. I turn to his head doing the same thing. Through his thick black hair, I can see a long cut where his head got smacked on the ground. I clean it up, and put some gauze around his head.
Luckily, his nose stopped bleeding, so I don’t have to do anything about that. I let a big sigh rip through me as I realize it has been way longer then ten seconds. Chase is going to live.
I hear the rest of the group coming up towards me. They’re all talking about Warren again. I’m not sure what to think in regards to him.
“What happened here?” River asks. “And I’m not talking about that knocked out guy with bandages all over him.” Reagan, Zed and Dani also have confused looks on their faces. All of them hold stuff from the camp that they were bringing out to the truck.
“Zombies. Happened. Here.” I tell them choppily, also enraged that they left me here to take care of Chase.
“I’m not gonna ask, but what happened to that Hollow over there?” River points towards the zombie who is still alive, throwing its arms at nothing, since it is pinned down by the tree branch.
My eyebrows furrow from confusion. “I thought you said you weren’t going to ask?”
“I lied.”
I roll my eyes at him. “While maybe Chase can tell you if he wakes up.”
“If?” Dani asks, all of a sudden apart of the conversation. She drops the blankets she was holding, and runs over to Chase checking his pulse.
“Sorry, I mean, of course he’s going to live. I fixed him up to the best of my ability,” I tell her quickly. Dani starts to apply more gauze.
“I guess your ability wasn’t that good,” River whispers to me.
“Well, I don’t think I can spend another minute in this god awful place. So come on lets fill the truck up and get out of here. River, Imogene can you get Chase in to the truck?”
Zed starts to walk over to the truck to put his stuff away, but not before asking, “What about Whitford?”
“He made his choice clear, now lets go!” Reagan announces.
I was originally gonna have this be a boring filler chapter (as you can see in the beginning), but I quickly decided against it, and I got more action. (YAY, ACTION!!) Anywho I hope you enjoy! Plus remember to vote/comment!
Question to answer in your comment: Who is your favourite character?