***Warning***
THIS CHAPTER AND FURTHER ARE ALL UNDER HEAVY EDITING. CONTENT FROM THIS CHAPTER MAY NOT MATCH EVENTS THAT UNFOLDED IN PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
My lungs are on fire. My limbs ache. My head throbs.
Everything is wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong!
Wrong!
It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was never supposed to be like this. Today was supposed to be Mister Winston's retirement party. We were supposed to have cake at work and throw a pie in his face. Give him a good send off.
I was supposed to finally ask out Marie.
But now it's wrong.
Mister Winston broke into our house.
Mister Winston attacked me.
Uncle Tommy killed Mister Winston.
"Pack your bags," Uncle Tommy says. "More will be here soon."
"What the fuck, Uncle Tommy?!" Octavia exclaims.
"You killed our neighbor!" Felix accuses.
"That wasn't Mister Winston anymore. Pack your bags now, we have to leave."
And he left us.
Mister Winston is dead on the living room floor, his brains splattered against the TV and broken shards of our back door. He was fine the other day. I walked past him on my way to class.
He waved at me.
Said hello.
We talked about my classes.
His store.
He was fine.
He was fine.
Now he's dead.
The repeated realization gets me going, the weight of the situation tugging me forward.
"Come on, we have to do what Uncle Tommy says," I nudge my siblings towards the stairs so we can pack, screams echoing down the street. They don't argue as I take us back to our rooms, my legs like jelly and my head fuzzy.
Mister Winston looked sick.
He looked really sick.
I pass the open bathroom and spare a glance into the mirror.
Oh.
I can't even recognize myself.
I'm covered in blood.
The sticky substance is caked onto my face and matted in my long dark hair.
My hair.
I should cut it soon.
But not right now. We have to pack.
We pack in a blur, grabbing clothes, food, and medicine from the bathroom and Uncle Tommy leads us to his cruiser outside.
"Get in kids, we have a long drive ahead of us." He orders.
"Uncle Tommy, are we sick?" Felix asks.
"No, we're not sick." We get in the car and Uncle Tommy drives us down the road. "There are a lot of sick people though, keep away from them."
"Can we listen to the radio?" Octavia asks. Without a word, Uncle Tommy turns it on. Instead of music, the news broadcast plays.
"...On North Main Street where multiple gunshots can be heard. The McKinney Police Department has advised that all civilians stay indoors and restrict contact with infected individuals. No evacuations have yet to be mentioned by government officials and causality rates are rising by the minute. Forty-Three confirmed dead and dozens injured as the disease spreads." The news lady reports.
"Uncle Tommy, where are we going? The lady said to stay inside!" Octavia whimpers from the back seat.
"We're not staying in town, sweetheart. We have to leave before sunrise." Our Uncle answers tensely.
"Why? What happens at sunrise?" I demand, trying to look my uncle in the face.
"Nothing we want to stick around for, Cassy." He answers.
"That doesn't answer my question! What's going on?!"I demand.
The car careens to the left as something slams into my side of the car. My siblings scream, a bright light flashes, and everything goes black...
*****
I gasp awake, my chest heaving and my ribs aching. I'm lying on my back, but my side is pressed against the metal bar of the bed supporting the top bunk and it digs into my ribs, making it pinch when I breathe.
I groan and turn over on my side only to roll over my sister, who's curled up right next to me. She gives a cartoonish grunt of discomforted surprise and jerks to the side, her arms flailing and punching Felix in the stomach. He groans in exhausted pain and rolls over, flopping off the bed in an attempt to get away from Octavia's fists of tired fury.
I sit up and rub my eyes as Octavia steals the last of the blankets and buries herself in them, pressing her feet against my thigh and pushing me, trying to kick me off the bed.
God I hate sleeping in the same bed as my sister.
"W'time izzit?" Felix mutters nearly unintelligibly from the floor.
I glance out at the window behind us and sigh.
"Sun-up." I answer, my voice heavy with lack of sleep. I glance around the RV and spot Leon in the driver's seat of the front cab looking over some papers. Dani's bed has been turned back into the kitchenette table and she's nowhere to be seen. Jocelynn's arm is dangling over the side of the bed, twitching every so often with a groan.
It's looking like the others are waking up too. I crawl over my sister, making sure to be as obnoxious as I can be, and climb out of bed, putting my boots back on. The RV is freezing from the night without electricity and I really want to crawl back under the blankets, but I know we have a lot of ground to cover today. Felix slumps over to the kitchenette table and plops down, tying his boots on as well, his eyes half closed with sleep.
Glancing back, my sister is still nestled in the heap of borrowed blankets and pillows. I can hear activity in the back room as the boys back there are getting ready for the day. I grab a fistful of the blanket Octavia's buried under and stand, yanking it off of her. She makes an attempt to grab it back before it slips away from her and exposes her to the cold RV, but she fails miserably and makes a loud groan of displeasure.
"Five more minutes!" She groans.
"Sorry, little sis, but we have to get going soon. Everyone else is waking up." I tell her, glancing up at Jocelynn, who's still dead to the world.
Neither of them seems to be morning people.
"Today's cancelled, let's just go back to sleep..." Octavia groans, slapping my hands away as I shake her.
"However much I want to, O, we gotta put the couch back. Unless you want me to fold you inside of it." I tease.
She gives a long exaggerated moan that lasts for much longer than necessary, and for a moment I'm convinced that I have to flip the mattress on her, but she eventually sits up, her hair spoofing out at odd angles like a static-y lion's mane. I give a short chuckle and start to fold up the blankets as she rubs sleep out of her eyes, yawning and stretching loudly before scratching her stomach and smacking her lips.
That's a sure sign that today is going to be interesting.
Once the blankets are folded, I set them on the kitchenette table and walk over to see what Leon's looking at. The papers seem to be logs of inventory from the armory and food-shed from Camp Cottonwood and I spot a list with a bunch of people's names them.
Almost all of the names have been X-ed out save for our own.
"I'm sorry about the camp, Leon." I say.
"So am I." He sighs. "Could you do me a favor and find Danielle? She was supposed to be back by now."
"Yeah, sure thing."
I grab my bow and quiver and head out of the RV.
It's not much warmer outside than in the RV, but with the sunlight shining through the trees, it quickly warms me up as I search for her footprints and follow them into the trees.
Luckily for me, Dani doesn't seem like a very skilled hunter or tracker so I'm able to follow the footprints pretty easily.
That is, until they lead straight into a tree.
I glance around my surroundings and look up into the tree to see if I can spot her.
"Dani?" I utter, wondering if she saw something and hid from it, but I can't see her in the tree. I step back and search around the tree, looking for any places she might have jumped to, but there aren't any trees close enough for her to leap to, if that was the case.
A twig snaps somewhere to my left and I quickly draw my bow, nock an arrow, and aim it in that direction, my heart thudding in my chest.
"Dani?" I whisper, a little louder than before.
Another twig snap, to my right this time.
Heavy footsteps.
That's not Dani.
Something grabs me by the hood from behind, covering my mouth as it yanks me into the bushes and forcing me to suppress a yelp of fear. I'm flat against the ground with my bow tucked uncomfortably under me, and I'm nearly nose to nose with Dani, her hand over my mouth and the other gesturing for me to be quiet.
Her eyes are alight with alarm and she's all but laying over me at an awkward angle. The hand that's over her own, telling me to stay quiet, is red with fresh blood and I fear that she's injured, but when I want to ask, other voices speak around us.
"Did we really lose her?" A gruff man demands.
"Looks like it." Another answers.
"Damn it. I was hoping that hoard would have taken out the entire camp." The first one complains.
"How do you know she was from Cottonwood?" A woman's voice asks.
"Oh believe me, I never forget a face like that." The first one replies.
"Come on, we should report back to the Boss. If they're heading towards Eton, those freaks will take care of them." The second man says, and I can hear their footsteps retreating further in the woods. Even when the sounds of their footsteps disappear, Dani doesn't dare to move for several minutes, her eyes scanning the area through the bushes in case if one of them hung back. I carefully crane my head back to look around and listen to our surroundings before Dani slowly removes her hand from my mouth and sits up, scanning the area around us.
I try not to think about pushing her off from her perch on my pelvis and wait for her to stand before I move.
"I think they're gone." Dani whispers to me, offering me a hand. I take it, grabbing my bow and standing with her aid, glancing around myself.
"Leon sent me to find you. We need to tell him about this." I whisper back and she nods her head. We carefully pick our way back to the RV where we find Josh standing on top keeping a look out.
"About time you two show up! Leon was about to send a search party!" Josh teases.
"Keep it down you idiot and get in the RV!" Dani orders. "There's Widowmaker's in the woods!"
His teasing posture turns serious in an instant and he quickly hops off the RV and we all cram inside where the others are waiting.
"We need to leave." Dani tells Leon, but he already seems to be a step ahead.
"I heard. Buckle up, everyone, we'll be in Eton in under an hour." Leon orders, and pulls us out of the woods.
"Do you think Eton is safe?" I ask, glancing between Leon and Dani.
"Why do you ask?" Leon asks.
"Because we heard the Widowmaker's talking. They mentioned that if we were heading that way, that the 'freaks' will take care of us." Dani answers.
"Could be Ferals, could be people. This highway goes straight through Eton, and if we double back to avoid it, we run the risk of running into the hoard." Leon says.
"So what do we do?" I ask.
"We keep going to Eton and avoid stopping if we have to." Leon sighs.
The bunk-bed couch thing has already been converted back to a couch and Octavia and Felix are sitting on it, munching on some crackers while Jocelynn is sitting in the lazy-boy, trying to eat an MRE that looks like something I've seen Felix vomit up a few weeks back.
Judging from the look on Jocelynn's face, it probably tastes roughly the same.
I glance back at Dani, who's sitting at the kitchenette with a rag and a bottle of water, viciously washing the blood from her hands.
"That's not your blood, is it?" I ask, nodding at Dani. She barely glances up at me when she answers.
"One of theirs. Caught me by surprise in the woods, but I took care of it." She says quickly. I shudder at her words. I've never found it easy to kill a person before, and the level of detachment in her voice when she tells me is frightening, really. I've had to kill my fair share of people before.
It never, ever gets easier.
The more she scrubs, the more it smears, and she's starting to make a mess on the table and herself, and I can tell that her hands are shaking. Octavia notices too and glances over her breakfast to look at me, her eyes flicking between me and Dani, wonder and caution obvious in her eyes.
I know Dani doesn't trust me.
I know she doesn't like me.
I honestly don't care about either of that right now.
I've seen that look before, but not on her.
I grab the ice catcher from the freezer – not that we're ever going to use it – and take it over to Dani, setting it down on the table in front of her.
"Here, let me." I offer, holding my hands out for the rag and bottle of water.
"I got it." She grunts, shifting away from me, and I squint at her.
"Really? Because there's more water on you and the table right now than there is in the bottle." I retort. She tries again for a few more seconds before groaning and thrusting the rag and bottle at me.
"Fine." She mumbles. I roll my eyes at her, taking the rag and bottle and taking a look at her hands. Both are covered in dried blood, nearly up to her elbows and staining the sleeves of her pushed up button-up, and there are smears all over her face. Bruises, scrapes, and cuts dot her arms, the signs of a struggle, and she's shaking.
No, she's quivering.
Her eyes don't meet mine and she looks like she hasn't slept at all last night, dark, heavy bags under her eyes, and the cut on her cheek – the one I put there two days ago – has reopened and is dripping fresh blood. I kneel down in front of her with the ice catcher balanced on my knee as I gingerly take one of her hands. Her knuckles are split and bruised, blood oozing from the mess, and her hands are cold and trembling.
Whatever happened out there got violent, and she's not telling me what happened.
I wet the rag with what little water is left in the bottle and gently scrub her hands, all the while she refuses to look at me.
I sigh. "I'm not going to ask about what happened out there."
"Good."
"But," I continue, cutting her off. "It would be nice if our only medical professional didn't run off into the woods in the middle of the night by herself." I pinch the top of her hand and she winces, trying to snatch it out of my grasp, but I grab it firmly, looking her in the face.
"I'm not a professional." She confesses.
"Could have fooled me."
"I'm not. I just know things." She mutters. "I'm too young to be a full-blown doctor."
"You're not too young to be anything. You're, what, twenty-five? Twenty-six?"
She scoffs. "Something like that."
"Regardless," I chide. "It's not a good idea."
She glares at me and I know exactly what this conversation mirrors. Before she can rebuttal, I speak up again.
"I was expecting to leave yesterday with my siblings in tow and never see your group again. I didn't consider us a single unit until Leon said we were sticking together." I look up at her confused eyes, hoping she understands. "I'm taking care of my people."
She stares at me for several seconds, processing my words and at a loss of her own. Eventually – and I'm sure I'm hallucinating – her cheeks tint pink and she slides her hands out of mine, stands, grabs a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and locks herself in the tiny bathroom.
I guess that's progress?
I glance back at my sister, who's glaring at me now, and Jocelynn is watching me with vague interest.
"What?" I ask.
Octavia just glares harder at me, taking an aggressive bite out of one of her crackers and starting to chug her water. Felix is oblivious to it all except when Octavia coughs from drinking too fast and spits a mouthful of water on him, in which he just sighs and gives our sister his 'was that really called for?' look while she continues to recover from choking on her water. Jocelynn is patting her back, trying her hardest not to laugh, but snorts escape anyway and I'm still confused.
"Nothing, nothing! That was just an interesting show!" Jocelynn chortles as the guys walk out of the back room.
"What happened in here?" Sparrow asks, looking at the water all over the kitchenette table.
"Long story, nothing harmful." I reply, still unsure of what the deal was with my sister and Jocelynn. Is there a joke I don't understand that passed between the two?
Was something I did look funny?
I quickly wipe my face with a spare rag, and pull it away clean.
There's nothing on my face, so they can't be laughing at that.
I sigh.
Whatever it is Jocelynn's laughing at, and Octavia's getting worked up over, must be an Octavia thing I can't decipher, and at this point I'm not even really sure if I want to. I grab a cereal bar for breakfast and a bottle of water and eat while Leon drives on down the road.
Eventually, Dani comes out, her hands, arms, and face clean and bandaged and she trudges up to the driver's cabin to sit with Leon while he drives down the abandoned road. Josh and Sparrow sit at the kitchenette table and are chatting with Felix and Octavia, occasionally engaging me in conversation.
"So what made you convince Leon to go to Atlanta with you?" Josh asks after I've been staring off into space for a while. I consider his question and even Felix and Octavia look at me inquisitively.
"He just said that it wasn't a good idea for us to go alone, and that there might be opportunities in Atlanta for everyone." I say. I'm not convinced that it's a lie. It's true that Leon doesn't want me to go alone or for me to take my siblings to Atlanta without help, but if I know people like Leon, he also believes that there might be something down there that would benefit us all if we go.
"Well I can't fault him for that. What do you think is down there?" Sparrow asks.
I shrug. "Maybe a military base? Or another camp, like Cottonwood, with other survivors where you – I mean, we, can rebuild."
"That would be nice." Jocelynn sighs. "I lost a lot of friends yesterday in that attack. It'd be nice to make some new ones."
We all quiet down at that and Jocelynn looks as though she realized an error in her words.
"Not that you three won't be good friends!" She corrects, and I can't help but to chuckle.
"It's fine, Jocelynn. I understand. To be honest, my siblings and I have been traveling alone for such a long time, I was beginning to think we were the only ones left." I sigh. "It's nice to be around others who don't want to kill us for a change."
"Well, I mean," Sparrow glances at Octavia's bandaged head and over to the back room and we can all hear Matt's disgusted groan and we all chuckle.
"So Cass. I can call you Cass, right?" Sparrow asks.
"Yeah, I mean, almost everyone else does." I reply.
"Awesome. Expect a nickname soon," He chuckles. "So Cass. Now that you're a part of this dysfunctional family, how do you feel about boys from Eton?" He asks.
"What? Are you from Eton or..?"
"Limber sort of men," He goes on, ignoring my question. "A real boarding-school afternooner, if you would."
"I can assure you that I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now, and it's kinda freaking me out."
"Neither do I. Sparrow, what the fuck?" Jocelynn pipes up.
"Ugh, do none of you understand 1960's slang?" He groans.
We all share clueless looks and his annoyance doubles.
"Uncultured, I swear." He mutters. "That's fine, you'll find out in due time, I'm sure. I have a feeling that you're a real pal sort of gal, if I might say so. Quite an evening girl, fond of the twilight hours."
"Okay, you can stop with whatever it is you're saying, it's too early for this 1960's stand-up talk show." I chime in.
"Well, besides whatever the hell that was, today's been off to a particular sort of start, huh?" Jocelynn comments, making it obvious that she's looking between Dani and I.
Dani and I must be the only one's in the conversation who don't understand what she's talking about, because everyone but Octavia are looking at us expectantly.
"What?" I ask suspiciously.
"You two were gone for an awfully long time this morning when Leon sent you to find her." Jocelynn says it like we're a couple of school-girls who ran off together, and frankly it makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
"We just got caught up with a Feral, that's all." I lie. I notice Dani glancing back at us through the rearview mirror and I catch her gaze and hold it for a few seconds before she breaks it, continuing to talk with Leon.
"Must have been a fighter with the condition Dani came back in." Josh adds.
"It caught her by surprise and she couldn't her gun. Must have been freshly infected." I shrug.
"Awe, it didn't have anything good to loot from it?" Sparrow asks. I shake my head.
"I heard her say something about people being in the woods." Jocelynn adds.
"Yeah, after we killed the Feral, the noise drew in some Widowmaker's in the area and we lost them in the woods before we came back." I say.
Man I hate lying.
"That makes sense I guess. Must have been a sneaky one if it got to her that bad." Josh says. The look on his face tells me that he saw right through me, but I'm glad that he's smart enough – or maybe he cares enough – not to call me out on it.
We sit and chat for the remainder of the ride through Crandall – which was little more than a pile of burnt ash – and as we enter the Eton city limits, there's a series of loud POP-POP-CRASH and the RV lurches to a halt.
"The fuck was that?!" Matt exclaims from the back of the RV.
"Road spikes..." Leon mutters as he stands up. "Is everyone alright?"
"Good back here." Josh calls after giving us a once over.
"Good. Keep an eye out, whoever set this will be here to investigate soon enough." Leon orders.
"What do we do in the mean time?" Octavia asks.
"We're going to split up to cover more ground here." Leon says.
"Um, no?" I argue. "That's, like, the worst idea you can come up with in this situation."
"Whoever it is, is organized. If we split up, there's a smaller chance of them getting all of us." Leon reasons.
"There's also a larger chance we'll get overwhelmed. Aren't you supposed to be a military dude?" Octavia asks and I tense.
There is no such thing as moderating my sister...
"We're splitting up, end of discussion." Leon orders. Luckily my sister knows well enough not to argue back. "Murphy, you're with me and Jocelynn. Joshawa, Danielle, Sparrow, you're a group, and lastly are the Cage siblings. Danielle, your group is in charge of searching for any medicine or first aid supplies we can use. Cassandra, you're in charge of food and fuel, while we look for a viable map and strip this place for parts." Leon orders.
"Look for anything we can use that could help, and meet back here in half an hour, stay in shouting distance of one another. Understood?" We all nod, all skeptical of the plan, and I glance around at our surroundings, gauging what place would be best to look for food. Dani, Josh and Sparrow make a B-line for what looks to be a veterinary place back up the road and I happen to spot a faded sign that reads 'Happy Helper's Food Pantry'.
Bingo.
I steer my siblings off in that direction, across the abandoned highway and waving through empty cars as we cross a grassy field to the gated building. The chain-link fence is rusty and has clearly seen better days, even before the infection, and I spot a section that looks to have been broken or cut into.
"That way, weapons drawn." I tell my siblings as we each squeeze through.
The building itself is old, the red and green paint decorating it peeling and chipping away with years of wear and tear. Several of the windows are busted out and boarded up with several painted signs all over the place reading 'Keep Out!' and 'Infected Inside!'. I point the signs out to my siblings, who all take note of them, and I unsheathe my hunting knife, ready for anything. We sneak towards the open back door and I give the wall a few quick knocks.
Silence.
Something small scurries around inside.
More silence.
I gesture for my siblings to wait outside while I check to see if it's clear, and step inside. It's dark in here, the only light available being from the open back door and whatever sunlight filters in through the cracks of the boarded windows. There are several shelves, boxes, and crates here, most of which are empty or filled with long-rotted perishables. I venture deeper into the building as it curves into an L shape inside, making sure to check every obvious place a Feral would hide.
The front of the building looks to be a small lobby with a reception desk, an old corpse sitting in the chair and leaning forward onto the desk, the back of its head blown out. The corpse seems to have been sitting here undisturbed since the infection began, and I pay it no more mind as I look around.
There's a door behind the counter labeled 'bathroom' with a chair wedged under the doorknob. I inch towards the door, curious about what could be inside, and I give it a firm knock.
Silence.
I put my ear against the door, and hear nothing.
I give the door a small kick, hoping that whatever is inside will make a sound, but there's nothing still. I sigh.
I remove the chair and put my hand on the knob, the other armed with my knife, and I yank the door open.
And lose my breakfast.
The putrid stench of death washes over me and I stumble back. My foot rolls on something just as a loud screech pierces the silence. I catch my footing and whip around, looking for the source of the sound.
Something is moving around under the reception desk.
I edge myself slowly towards the sound, my knife raised, and peek around.
A calico cat is furiously licking it's crooked tail and I relax instantly.
"You gave me a heart-attack, stupid cat." I sigh, the beat of my heart slowing back to it's normal pace as I wipe the remaining vomit off my chin, checking my clothes.
Thank God I didn't puke on myself.
"Cass?" Octavia's worried voice echoes from the back door.
"It's fine, I just stepped on a cat is all." I reply, glancing back at the corpse in the bathroom. It's a young man in overall's and a plaid shirt, his clothes hanging off of him like sheets on a pole. There are bloody scratch marks covering the side of the door where the body is, and written in blood are the bold last words of 'FUCK YOU'.
He was probably locked inside.
"It's safe, you can come in." I call to my siblings.
My sister pokes her head around the corner and immediately wrinkles her nose.
"Ugh, a little warning next time, please." Octavia groans, tucking her nose into the neck-line of her shirt in an attempt to distill the smell.
"I didn't get much of a warning myself, O." I groan, taking my water bottle out to rinse out the vile taste of bile and Octavia chuckles.
"I can see that." She notes, looking at the mess I made.
I glare at her.
"He's recent it looks like." Felix comments as he steps around our sister, taking a peek at the corpse.
"Yeah, keep your eyes peeled. We don't want whoever set up that trap to get the better of us while we're scavenging." I reply. They both nod and we set to work looking around for food, all the while the calico with the crooked tail watches us.
There isn't much left to pick; a few forgotten cans of beans and tomato paste, a box of granola bars, and a package of pudding cups that Octavia is all too excited about.
"Alright, let's pack this up and get-"
I'm interrupted by a shotgun blast – Dani's shotgun blast – from the Vet place down the road.
I jolt into action.
My siblings follow after me as I bolt out of the building and into the cover of bushes looking out to the vet office, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary.
"What was that?" Octavia whispers, situating herself next to me.
Another shotgun blast.
One of the windows of the vet office shatters outwards.
A shadow falls over us and I whip around to face whoever it is.
"Mornin' kiddo's." A gruff sounding man greets.
My sister screams and my world goes black.