2024: Zombies

6

As we emerged outside, the place seemed much worse.

Lura made a sound, and I wish she never had to go through this. I doubted she was any older than eight, but she had already seen so much. Her mother dying was the worst.

‘’OK, so the truck is just at the entrance of Devon House,’’ I said.

‘’Not far then, we only have to be quick and be on the lookout for those dogs and zombies.’’

‘’The window washers were all on that road, but they didn’t seem to notice us,’’ Chrisean said.

The man slung his friend over his shoulder again. ‘’Let’s move.’’

‘’Please don’t let me die,’’ Lura said and hid her face in the crock of my neck.

‘’I won’t,’’ I promised her.

And for a while, things were going great until.

I felt Lura being pulled from my back. Her screams rang out into the streets and that got all the creatures’ attention to us.

“The truck is just right there!’’ I heard Chrisean saying. ‘’Run for it!’’

But I was looking at Lura, laying on the ground with blood pouring from the side of her head.

At first I thought a zombie got her, but there were now, they were only just running for us now.

She twitched, and I moved forward to help her, but just as I did, one of those dog things jumped out, biting her on the back.

‘’No!’’ I yelled, running towards her, but someone pulled me back.

‘’She is gone man, we need to get out of here,’’ the marine said to me.

‘’But I promised to keep her safe.’’ I could feel tears running down my face.

‘’Now you have to promise yourself this. Promise yourself that you will survive through this.’’

I turned to look at him and nodded.

‘’Good, now let’s go!’’

I glanced at O’Shea to see him staring at the dog eating Lura and a small smirk playing on his lips. I didn’t have much time to make sure I was really seeing it, because Chrisean took my hand and we dashed to the truck.

The marine man got in the bed of the truck and lay his friend down. ‘’Yeah kid, give me your gun. I can shoot at anything trying to run at us out here.’’

I didn’t want to, but it would make sense to keep those zombies from trying to get into the truck.

O’Shea got into the driver’s seat.

‘’Nope, we don’t know you, so you won’t be driving,’’ Chrisean told him.

‘’But you hear me all the time on the radio.’’

‘’So?’’ I said and pulled him out and allowed Chrisean to get behind the wheel, then hurried to the passenger side.

O’Shea gave me a dirty look, and I smirked in his face. I wanted to do much worse than that, because I had a sunken feeling that he was the one to cause Lura’s death.

There were no zombies behind us, but he was.

But with a heavy heart, I climbed into the truck and kept my mouth shut so as not to stall us and have the zombies come running.

There was a knock, and I looked in the rearview mirror to see the marine man asking for the small window to be open.

‘’Open the window for him,’’ I said.

‘’Why?’’ O’Shea asked.

‘’Are you dumb? He is a part of this group, and I’m sure he had something to say,’’ Chrisean said.

At first, O’Shea frowned, but then quickly smiled and opened the small window.

‘’Where are we heading to now?’’ He asked once the window was open.

‘’I was thinking about either St Mary or Portland.’’

‘’Yes, that makes sense. More places to hide, a vast verity of fruits from trees, and we would be safer with less population. Maybe there will even be more humans than zombies.’’

‘’Why don’t we just stay in the city? There is no need to drive all the way to the country,’’ O’Shea said.

‘’Didn’t you just hear me say it’s the safest bet? Fewer zombies and more food,’’ the marine said through grit teeth.

O’Shea was silent for a while. That was until we got to Stony Hill, and he said something that upset all of us.

‘’I mean, I don’t even see why we are trying to escape this. We are all going to die, anyway.’’

‘’What?’’ I heard the marine saying.

‘’Come on, you can’t possibly think there is any hope for us to get out of this alive. Our best bet is to just let those things bite us.’’

Chrisean and I exchanged glances, and I knew we both were thinking the same thing.

What that man had said to us, it seemed so long ago.

But he said to not trust anyone, because some people want to see the world burn.

I knew something was wrong with this guy.

‘’If you want to die so bad, then go die,’’ Chrisean told him, her voice angry.

O’Shea laughed. ‘’I was going to kill myself when this entire shit started, but my dumb girlfriend talked me out of it.’’

‘’And where is your girlfriend now?’’ I asked.

Without any remorse, he said, ‘’dead.’’

Shit, this man is going to be our bane, and I’m glad we didn’t let him drive.

He would have either driven us in a horde, or off a cliff.

And now I’m worried he would do some dumb shit.

Maybe make noise to draw attention to us, force one of us to get bitten or something.

‘’Why did you kill Lura?’’ I suddenly said.

Chrisean looked at me and had to swerve out of the path of a parked car.

I looked in the mirror but got distracted by a woman falling down the truck, but I could see the nasty bite marks all over her body, and her eyes were also starting to cloud over.

‘’We can pick her up,’’ O’Shea said.

‘’Are you blind? She is changing,’’ Chrisean said.

I went back to O’Shea and his suspected killing of Lura.

‘’You killed her, dragged her off my back and fed her to that dog.’’

‘’She was handicapped and slowing us down away.’’

My hands began to shake with anger, and the only thing I could do was hit O’Shea in the forehead with the handle of the ax.

He laughed, which wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.

‘’You idiots don’t get it. Survival is futile in this new age; it is better to die than suffer.’’

And just as he said it, the little prick moved forward and grabbed the wheel.

The truck took a sharp left, hitting the rocks.

Chrisean tried to regain control, but her actions caused the truck to move right and ran off the road and over the ditch.

I held on but saw that she was wearing her seatbelt and risked my life to put it on hers.

I braced myself as we got closer and closer to the water.

The truck fell on the front, and I lurched forward, but remained seated. O’Shea flew out the windscreen and a part of the marine came into the back seat.

Suddenly, the truck began to fall back on its four wheels, which caused me to bite my tongue.

We were all silent for a while.

‘’What the hell just happened, you two?’’ The marine asked.

‘’Fire!’’ I yelled and was the first one out.

Chrisean struggled to get out, and I was having a hard time opening her door.

The marine broke the window with his fist, and used a pocketknife to cut the seatbelt and she climbed through the window.

But the truck didn’t explode as I thought it would have, and that was a good thing because it wouldn’t have ended well for us.

O’Shea was also still alive, limping ahead of us and yelling at the of his lungs to get attention to us.

‘’What the happened?’’ a voice asked, and I saw the marine running to the side of the person laying down.

‘’A lot.’’

It was after the person stood up and looked around did I realize that it was a woman. Just with a buzz cut hairstyle.

‘’Come and get us!’’ O’Shea yelled and suddenly the marine rushed past me and managed to get the ax out of my hand.

With one clean chop, he sent O’Shea’s head rolling to the ground.

‘’What now?’’ Chrisean asked.

‘’We followed the river downstream. I’ll be in the front and Jesse can take the back, you two on the left and right. Any movement that you see, we run. Can’t risk zombies, or anyone else like that crazy fucker.’’

I nodded.

‘’And what’s your name?’’ Chrisean asked, pointing at the marine.

He was checking the gun for how many bullets we had left.

‘’Just call me mustang,’’ was all he said.

I quickly fished around my bag and took out the extra cartridges, then handed it to him.

‘’Where did you get the gun, anyway?’’ Chrisean asked.

‘’My brother’s room,’’ I told her.

‘’Hey, and I’m sorry about what happened back at your house. You didn’t deserve to see that. Sorry about Lura as well. I could see that you cared for her.’’

I nodded, not able to get my words out.

‘’Let’s go,’’ Mustang said.

And I had to remind myself that I need to see what’s inside that envelop my brother left.