Day 657
It felt good to release all the pain of my past. It felt good to talk about what had happened to my family.
I hadn't realized how badly I needed to say the things I said to Jack, but now I am so glad I did so.
After we ate some breakfast we were traveling back to base. Jack was a few steps ahead of me, and he wore this wide-set grin on his face.
"Why are you so happy?" I ask the smiling fool in front of me.
He turns back around and quickly drops his smile, but it just as quickly returns.
"I honestly do not know. I'm just...happy hanging out with you. It's so boring at base...with Dad." He answers, becoming grim at the last detail.
I nod. "Let's play a game." I offer.
Jack turns around with a confused expression.
"What?"
I grin at him. "You heard me, let's play a game." I repeat.
He looks taken aback. "Um, okay. What kind of game do you want to play?" he says.
I look around and nod at my surroundings. About seven corpses litter the streets.
"There's a garage key on one of these corpses. Find it." I say.
Jack purses his lips in disappointment. "Oh. One of those games..." he trails off.
I roll my eyes. "Find the key and I promise you we'll find a real game to play." I say.
Jack nods. "Alright. Wait is it on one of the walking corpses or the dead ones?"
I grin devilishly. "Have fun." I say.
Jack shoots me a glare before he takes out the bat underneath his arm.
He strides over to the first corpse that's closest. It's a fat man with a beard. His skin is rotten and peeling, and blood has caked itself in his facial hair.
The creature whines and grunts at Jack as he stumbles towards him. Jack looks back at me obviously unamused, but as the corpse comes closer Jack pushes him away with the end of his bat.
"This isn't going to be pretty Amy, I think you should look away." he warns.
Jack keeps the end of his bat to the man's chest keeping him at bay.
I roll my eyes at him. "Your kidding right? You swear as if I haven't seen this kind of stuff everyday."
"No, I just think I should preserve a lady like yourself from this kind of impending brutality." Jack snidely comments.
"Well thanks." I say as I take out my gun, and shoot the man Jack is holding back with the one shot. "But your wasting your time."
The shot I just fired has alarmed all the other zombies on the street, and possibly more around, to come in our direction.
With that I give Jack a playful look.
"There. Is the game more your speed now? Get started before they herd." I say.
Jack lets out a groan. "You didn't have to do that." he says.
"Oh but I did. Your taking far too long." I reply.
By then Jack charges for the next nearest corpse and swings. It wasn't a good hit, in fact it just makes the zombie uglier as it tries to sink it's teeth into him.
Jack steps back a few feet and swings again causing the zombies head to become concave, and his eyes to pop out.
Since the zombie is so old his eyes have a soup-like consistency. They begin to drip from his skull with blood, and the milky liquid of his eyes.
Still the zombie is alive and determined to eat Jack.
"What the heck-" I hear Jack proclaim at the STILL alive zombie.
"You're getting messier with your swings." I chime in.
Jack shoots me an annoyed look. "No, I'm just...tired. Yeah, my muscles are just tired."
I laugh at his excuse, and point at the zombie on the floor crawling to him. "He's not." I tease.
Jack grunts as he takes his next swing. It finally ends the movement of the corpse just in time as another one treads behind him.
Jack looks at me, then the corpse and runs to it with full force as he swings at the head.
This one dies instantly.
"See." Jack says. "I still got it."
While Jack smiles at me he forgets there are still more around him. A zombie comes dangerously close as he is still talking to me.
"Jack! Behind you!" I call to him.
Jack reacts instantly swinging behind him, knocking the female zombie to her butt.
He then takes out a knife from his belt and slides it into the dead woman's skull.
He looks at me apologetically and slightly embarrassed.
"What? Don't look at me like that! My arms are tired." He explains.
I laugh at him.
Two more are coming closer to the now exhausted boy ahead of me.
Jack groans. He looks between me and the corpses.
"Would you mind?" he says panting.
I smirk. "Need my help already?"
Jack glares at me. "Nevermind."
He runs up to one zombie and kicks it back, and hits the other one back with his bat.
He kills one in two hits, and then walks over to the other and steps on it's chest holding it down.
The corpse reaches it's arms up at him hoping to make contact with anything.
Jack looks down apologetically. "I'm sorry."
The word slips his mouth as he picks up his foot and brings it down hard on the monster.
Two more stomps and the corpse is motionless.
Jack looks up to see me holding onto my own lifeless corpse. My arm holding it up, and my blade between its eyes.
"Really?" he says raising his eyebrows up at me.
I smile at him. "I couldn't let you have all the fun." I say.
He keeps his cold look for seconds more until he breaks into his own smile.
"You're a strange one." he says. I laugh.
Jack begins to walk down the street again.
"Wait. Where do you think you're going?" I ask. "The game's not over. Find the key."
"Okay, where is it?" He says.
"I already told you. It's on one of them." I say looking at the lifeless bodies around us.
Jack looks at the mess of corpses. He slowly makes his way over to one of them and reaches in his pockets. Nothing.
He goes over to another, and again comes back empty handed.
After checking all but one Jack still hasn't found the key.
"That's it. None of them have it." He says.
"No. There's still one left." I say hitching my thumb in the direction of the last corpse.
Jack groans. "You've got to be kidding me! That's like the ugliest one!" he whines.
I smile. "Get the key."
Jack walks over to it and his disgusted expression keeps me entertained.
It's this nasty almost green looking man with his jaw hanging open.
As Jack approaches it he lets out a disgusted sigh and pokes it's head with his bat.
The corpses mouth opens further, and you see that his rotten teeth are falling out.
Jack cringes at the sight making me laugh harder.
"Well...go on." I say.
"I'm going, I'm going." he says. He crouches down to the corpse and looks one last time at his being.
"Well your certainly not going fast enough." I tease.
"Your certainly not going fast enough." Jack says mockingly.
He slowly reaches a hand down the corpse's pants and lets out a sickening sound.
"This is so gross. This is so gross. This is so gross." He says. He moves his hand around searching for the key.
"Having fun there?" I say.
Jack doesn't answer me. He slowly pulls out his hand that is now covered in a sticky blackish-red goo. He wipes his hand on his jeans and then returns it to the next pocket.
He slowly searches again.
"Never did I think I'd have my hands down another man's pants, let alone a zombie's." Jack says grimly as he tries not to gag.
I break into more laughter as he pulls his dirty hand out empty.
"Amy there's no key here." he says looking disappointed.
He turns back at me to see the ever-present grin on my lips.
"Check his neck. Something tells me Mr. Russel wore his garage key on a chain." I say.
Jack looks distraught. "You knew!?" he says. "-And you made me put my hand down his bloody pants!"
I break into laughter as Jack straddles the man and inches closer to the zombie's face.
He lets his hand fumble with the hem of Mr. Russel's wife beater.
Jack rips the shirt to find the chain around his neck.
"I have to get the chain off him." Jack says.
He lifts the corpse up and leans him on his shoulder as he blindly searches with his hands for the chain's clasp.
"Be careful." I warn. Something about how close the zombie is to Jack scares me.
Jack turns his head to me. "Oh, yeah, now you care if I get hurt." he says.
At the same time a gasping for breath sound escapes the zombie's lips.
"Jack-"
The zombie becomes full of life again as it thrashes its arms and grabs hold of Jack's shoulders.
Normally he would have had this zombie pinned in seconds, but the uncomfortable position he was in gave the corpse the advantage.
The corpse got Jack pinned to the ground, and his face was only inches from the boy I had just begun to enjoy.
"Ugh-Amy-Amy help!" Jack managed to get out between grunts.
"I-I can't hold him much longer! He's too heavy!" Jack cried.
In that moment I froze. I felt fear pool into my brain as my hand fumbled desperately for my gun.
"Amy!" Jack cried.
"I'm trying just hold on!" I yelled back.
I finally got my gun out, and it slipped right out of my hand landing on the floor.
Shit. Please please don't die Jack.
I quickly grabbed my gun off the floor, and blindly shot at the zombie.
The movement of both the bodies stopped. The zombie laying on top of the motionless Jack.
Silence.
"Jack?" I say, my voice quaking in fear.
Is he gone? Did I already lose him?
Silence.
I walk slowly over to the boy and just as I get there the zombie's body is thrown over to the side.
Jack let's out a loud breath that he has been holding in.
"Jack!" I yell as I run up to him and tackle him into a hug.
"Amy?" he says as he loosely wraps his arm not holding himself up around me.
I hold him tightly, giving no sign of ever letting go again.
"Did you really think I was a goner?" he asks, still amazed by my reaction.
I nod into his chest, not trusting my voice.
After a few seconds I pull away and slug him in the arm.
"Ow! what was that for?" he says.
"That was for scaring me. Do it again and you really will be dead." I say.
Jack rubs the pain away from his arm and gives me a smile.
"You'd miss me wouldn't you?" he calls to me.
I stand up and walk away. "Nope. Not even a little. I was just thinking about how I'd have to explain this to your Dad." I lie.
Jack doesn't believe me. "Sure." he says.
He then stands up from the ground and holds out the key to me.
"Are you going to show me where this leads to?" he says.
I exhale sharply. "Sure. Follow me."
I lead Jack to a garage on the street. As I lift up the metal door Jack lets out a "Whoa..."
In front of us is a large collection of board games. Twister, Monopoly, Clue, and a bunch of other games we had never even heard of.
"I told you we'd play a real game." I say.
Jack looks at me confused. "How'd you know about this place?" he asks.
I shrug my shoulders. "Uh, Mr. Russel had a boy about my age. He took me back here on a few occasions to play some games."
"Oh." says Jack. "Did you...like this boy?" he asks.
I turn to Jack with a smile. "Jackson Carter, are you...jealous?" I say sounding amused.
Jack quickly shakes his head. "No! I-I was just asking. It was a stupid question, nevermind, forget it." he says quickly as he stares at the floor.
I shake my head at the boy.
"Jack..." I start to say. I wait for him to look up at me, sure enough his cheeks are slightly red with embarrassment.
"His son was named Jonathan. I really didn't like him, he was a know-it-all who, yes had a crush on me, but had an even bigger one with bugs; so no I did not like him." I answer.
Jack smirks a bit. "Okay."
I smile at his awkwardness and quickly grab a few games to try.
"Hurry. We should get back to base now." I say.
Jack shakes his head. "No, let's just play it at your house." he says.
I stop in my tracks not sure how to react.
"Um...okay. I guess that's alright." I say.
Until late afternoon me and Jack play Monopoly. I win twice, and Jack finally beats me the last time.
"Yes!" he exclaims. "I am victorious!"
"Oh please! I beat you double the amount of times." I say.
We both sit there laughing for a bit until we slowly calm down.
"Hey Jack, it's getting late. We should go back now." I say.
"For what? So we can just sneak out together a few hours later?" he says.
I sigh. "I get it, you want to stay, but you have to go back eventually." I reason.
Jack nods. "Okay, but can we stay a little longer?" he asks.
I think on it for a bit. "Your sure your Dad won't be angry?" I ask.
Jack smiles. "I don't even think he knows I'm gone." he says, slowly at the realization of his own words his smile drops.
I notice his change in mood and am quick to comfort.
"Oh don't say that, I'm sure your Dad cares a-"
"No, um, let's just play the game, alright?" he says quickly. He shakes the thoughts he's thinking from his head and starts to set up the game again.
I meet the icy glare in his eyes put there by his father and nod.
"Okay." I say.
And with that we both play more games until the sun goes down.
I wish I could say that when we returned, Jack's Dad was worried sick, but he wasn't. He wasn't even there to greet us at the doorway.
....................
A/N: I find it funny that I had an entire other idea for what I wanted to do with this chapter, yet when I started it I got carried away; and well...here we are. Next time I suppose.