My body really didn’t like the idea of moving, but I had no choice. An infection wouldn’t just wait for me to get off my ass. Memories of the hospital came flooding back to me, making me even more hesitant. What are the chances the center wouldn’t be picked over? Is it worth it? That was a selfish question. Of course I had to go.
Now I had to decide if I should walk again or take a vehicle. I had found the spare key to the Taurus in the drive way and could afford to damage that one. It would attract attention, but I didn’t think my body was in any shape to be running away from hordes. And I would get there faster. The alleyway behind the house was still littered with infected, so I would have to leave out the front door. This meant taking the longer way to where I needed to go.
Vehicle it was. I just hoped the owners had left enough gas in it. I began packing for my scavenging trip. I emptied out my backpack and straightened up our supplies. There was a fair sized mound of bags and items taking up room in the living area. If I monitored the provisions, we could easily make them last two weeks. But the question was do we stay here expecting a miracle to drop into our laps? Or hit the road? I had no clue where to even start looking for this Hargrove place, so the chances of running into it while driving aimlessly, were pretty nil.
Hopelessness began to daunt on me once again. It seemed like it was a constant battle. Not just to keep ourselves from the infected, but to keep ourselves from giving up. It was easy to give up once hope was lost. I wasn’t used to making the hard decisions, before all this shit happened hard decisions never came up in my old life.
And as much as Ethan was not happy about it, John had made most of our hard decisions thus far. John was a natural leader and the most mature of us, so it was easy to let him steer things. I mean we all had a say in matters, but John had this way about him that made you feel like he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe I would have been better off right now if we hadn’t let John slide into that role so easily.
All of that was moot right now. John wasn’t here to tell me what the right path was; I had to figure that out for myself. And it made me want to pull my hair out, how John was not bald by now, was a mystery.
The sound of shuffling upstairs pulled me from my thoughts. It looks like Chloe was awake. I heard the stairs creak as she descended down them. She was rubbing at her eyes, still yawning from sleep, courtesy of the allergy medication. I picked up a water bottle, twisted off the cap and passed it to her. She took it from me and sat down by all the supplies, rooting through for something to eat. Silent the whole time.
I let her get some food down before I started to talk.
“Chloe, I need to redress your arm.”
She froze mid-chew. I glanced away awkwardly, not sure of where I should even be looking.
“It will be quick, I promise.”
She didn’t say anything, but just gave a little nod and remained seated. I went to the kitchen to grab the peroxide and gauze. She eyed me warily as I kneeled beside her. She held her arm as far away from her body as possible, as if she didn’t want me any closer. I tried to act like it didn’t affect me. I tried to handle this like an adult, but it was difficult. I wanted to plead with her that I did it for her own good and her wound was treated because of me. I wanted to beg for her forgiveness and to stop hating me, but I didn’t.
I carefully removed the old, soiled bandage. The wound was an angry shade of red and I could see the hardened superglue on the surface. The veins that ran from the gash where a lot more visible than before, making it look like thin tentacles slithering from the wound. That couldn’t be good. She really did need those antibiotics. I poured some peroxide on the wound and Chloe hissed in a breath from the contact. Once I cleared off the liquid oozing from the cut, I rewrapped her arm with clean gauze.
“I’m running back into town.” This got her attention. Her head whipped to look at me.
“According to the map, there’s a medical center in town and I need to get you some antibiotics. You’re going to stay here with the doors locked. I shouldn’t be very long since I’m going to take a car this time.”
She didn’t say anything in return; instead she just stared at the floor and started to pick at a snag in her pants. I could tell she wanted to say something, but she stubbornly remained silent. I passed her more generic painkillers and she swallowed them in a hurry.
I went back to my preparation. Sitting on the couch, I refilled the clips for my gun. There weren’t very many bullets remaining in the box and since that hardware store was a bust, I didn’t know where else to get ammo from. All I needed were generic 9mm bullets, but even that was asking a lot now. I made sure I had my hunting knife and my axe. I really wished I still had my belt with the holsters to place the gun and my knife on. It was currently residing with my Berettas and that lunatic.
We could try for a run to John’s gun shop.
That thought honestly hadn’t occurred to me until now and I felt stupid for taking that long to come to that conclusion. Maybe they all went back there too. Although, they would have needed to commandeer another vehicle since the truck was more than likely taken by Darren and we currently had the car. It was the only place besides the cabin that we had all been to before.
I quickly pulled out the larger scale map of Louisiana and started to look for the area outside of New Orleans that John’s shop was located. Taylor had circled it on our old map before and I knew it was just off of a main road that ran outside of the city, through a small suburb area. I scrambled around for a pen and circled roughly where Taylor had before. I had to basically carve into the laminated surface.
If I could just get myself to the outskirts by back tracking from the interstate to the suburb area, I was confident I could locate the store. There was that gas station and grocery store we had stopped at that stood out. If I found that, I could find the store. I finally had a concrete plan and it felt invigorating. My brain had finally kicked into gear. I felt like I should share my plan, since I wasn’t the only one it affected.
“Chloe, I just had an idea.”
She had been watching me as I flew into motion, scanning the map.
“Once I go get some supplies from the medical center, I think we should try to go back to John’s gun shop.”
Chloe still refused to talk, but I could tell from her expression she thought this was a good idea too. Even if they weren’t there, we could grab some much needed ammo and guns. She nodded and continued to pop trail mix into her mouth. Her hands were filthy, reminding me that there was still some water to wash up in.
“So it turns out there is still some water in the tank here. It will be freezing, but you should go take a bath. I left soap and shampoo up there.”
Without a word, she stood up and headed for upstairs. I heard the groaning of the pipes a few minutes later. I was glad she listened. I would have to redo her wrappings again, but at least she wouldn’t be covered in germs to feed the infection.
Once my weapons were in order, I stuffed a couple of water bottles and some quick food in my backpack, along with a flashlight we had found. I rescanned the map, trying to memorize the route. I had to take a grand total of two left turns to get to the street I needed. The medical center was off of the main street, but there were residential houses still to one side of it. It almost seemed like someone converted an old house into the center.
I wondered what the chances were that the place hadn’t been picked clean. The rest of the town was still in pretty good shape, as far as buildings went anyways. The main street stores still had their windows intact and other than the major items like bullets and perishables, the stores were not completely empty. Which lead me to believe there would be something in that center I could use.
The keys to the house and the Taurus were on the floor beside me. I was not mechanically inclined in any way, shape or form and I hoped the car started without issue. I didn’t want to potentially damage John’s Mazda; we needed that one to run.
I got up and peaked out the front window, pulling the hideous curtains to the side. The street had a few roamers. One was dressed in a torn jogging suit and for some reason the image of a zombie speed walking club popped into my head. I really was starting to question my sanity, but at this point, who wouldn’t? After everything I had witnessed, I was surprised I wasn’t rocking myself back and forth in a corner. One day maybe. Right now I had a goal to focus on which seemed to keep the lurking insanity at bay.
It took some effort, but my sore body was able to move the couch away from the front door. With my axe in hand, I closed the door behind me. I would need to take out the few infected before I left. For Chloe’s safety. My limbs creaked in harmony with the porch stairs. There was nothing I wanted more than to soak in a hot tub at the moment.
One decayed head turned to me with a hiss and started its trek towards me. I brought the axe down and the infected’s head split open like a tree trunk. I quickly yanked the axe free from the fallen dead weight. The one in the track suit was now coming towards me, ironically a bit faster than the rest. Maybe she was in better shape as a human than the others. I swiped out my foot and the thing landed on the driveway hard. I heard the sound of a bone cracking and her right arm was now bent underneath her at an odd angle.
She reached up, intent on grabbing anything she could get her gnarled left hand on. I placed my foot down on her left arm to hold it down and clubbed her in the head with the flat side of the axe blade, like I was hammering a nail into a coffin. Despite my body’s protest, I took out the remaining two. I looked around at the fallen infected spread out. I sighed, knowing what I had to do next.
I started to drag the bodies to where I had hid the last one. By the time I was done, there was quite the pile, but the overgrown bushes still managed to hide them. I sauntered back to the house, my elbow giving off heat it was so sore. I peered up into the bright, blue sky. It gave no indication of the horrors we were faced with, in fact it seemed almost serene. You would think with all that had happened that the sky would be a constant mass of darken clouds to reflect the abysmal form of life we were now forced to live. But no, it instead mocked us with its ocean blue hues; I was almost resentful.
With the keys in hand, I started the Taurus. I had to try a few times as the neglected engine tried to start. It roared to life on the third attempt and I watched the gas needle land on the full line. At least it had gas. When I was done with it, I would need to syphon the gasoline out for the Mazda. I turned on the windshield wipers to clean off the dusty mess. Chemical cleaner and dirt ran down the sides and I could finally see out of the glass. Leaving it running, I went back inside and found Chloe sitting on the couch. I grabbed my backpack and weapons.
“Lock the door once I leave and keep your head down.”
She didn’t reply and I shut the front door behind me.
A/N: Thank you to mitchellpower1 for making a fanmade cover for TWBP! It looks awesome! You should be able to see it on the right of the screen.