Another Zombie Apocalypse Tale: Part 11

Three Weeks and Two Days Since the Apocalypse

Present day.

Blood dripped from the blade of my machete. One swing and the dead woman staggering toward us was completely dead. I aimed for a particular rotten spot on her head, and the blade sank easily and clean to her collarbone. More dead lingered in the distance, not aware of our existence yet. 

Beckett and Elsie were finishing the splint on Myra’s leg. The girl was whimpering but stayed conscious, her hand clamped over her mouth. 

“Check for bites,” Elsie said. “Should have done that before but—” 

“She’s like me,” I said, crossing over to them. My grip tightened on the machete. “Three bites on her ankle, but they’re healing, like mine. So don’t you dare think about doing to her what you did to me.” I stared hard at Beckett, anger burning my face. 

Elsie glanced between us before confirming what I said by tugging up the leg of Myra’s pants. The girl flinched but otherwise remained still and silent. Beckett held my gaze, muscles in his jaw moving like he wanted to argue or plead his case, but decided against it. He bowed his head and spoke softly to Myra, letting her know the next steps. He was going to carry her, it was going to hurt, but we would get her to safety. 

“We won’t let anything happen to her,” Elsie said, standing to put herself in-between Beckett and my death glare. “Words are useless, I know, but you’re going to have to trust us.”

I snorted, and tapped the machete against my leg. “Yeah, sure.”

Myra’s head rested against Beckett’s shoulder, her hand clutching his shirt. I needed these people—No. I didn’t need them. Myra needed them, and she needed me to make sure no one threw her to the dead just to confirm the glaringly obvious. 

“Best route?” Beckett glanced at me, to the dead woman I’d cut down, then up at the bridge, where Marianne, Erik, Amber/Kimber, and my attacker looked down at us. 

“Well…” Elsie tightened her backpack straps before grabbing her sword, giving it a little flare swing as if making sure it was still intact.

“Talk to me,” Marianne called. 

“Going around may take as long as heading straight back,” Elsie called up to her. “That mess of gads was the biggest I’d ever seen, who knows how long it’ll take for them to clear out.”

“Let’s loop around, then. Meet at the truck,” Amber/Kimber said. “We’re burning daylight.” The sun was at the highest point in the sky, ready to start making its curve down for the day.

To our credit, we wasted no time. We climbed up the embankment, the others across the bridge began to retrace their steps. We headed the opposite direction, naturally, heading deeper into the city, where the buildings clustered together and the city tried to even out the urban feel by planting trees along the street. 

The pro and con to this was that it created cover for us, and cover for other things. Like the dead. 

Shouts erupted from behind us. Beckett and Elsie turned first, concerned for their friends. My attacker was running away from the group on the other side of the bridge, already several paces ahead of Erik who dashed after him. 

I shook my head and said, “Leave ‘em. Freaking jerk attacked me under the bridge.”

“Attacked you?” Beckett’s brow furrowed.

“Mhm. It’s a trend, apparently. People attacking me.”

“Enough with the jabs, Camille,” Elsie said, still staring across the bridge to make sure her friends were all right. Marianne threw her hands up in defeat, and called for Erik to let the kid go. 

“Nah,” I said, “I don’t want history to repeat itself.”

“It won’t,” Beckett said softly. 

“Look, Camille.” Elsie turned and locked gazes with mine. “I wasn’t around for what happened to you, but I’m around now. Maddock and Dr. Johnston will not be performing any of their sick experiments on Myra, I promise you that.”

Her gaze was so intense. I wanted to believe her, but if she knew the intentions of those two—four including Marge and Beckett, since they played the part of locking me in a room with a hungry, dead corpse—why on earth would she remain in the same group as them? Let alone stay in the same vicinity as them?

I dipped my head in submission to the swordswoman, but she had yet to earn my trust. That test would come when we made it back to the refuge. 

If we made it back.

With one last look at the other half of our group making their way back across the bridge, we continued our trek. Beckett kept casting glances at me as if I were about to bolt. I wanted to, but the little girl clutched to his chest was the only reason I didn’t. Why did I care so much about some kid I just meet? Was it because she and I were alike in the way we didn’t turn into brain hungry monsters after being bitten?

I had plenty of time to mull that over while Elsie led the way, singing oldies under her breath. From In The Still Of The Night by The Fives Satins to Sh-Boom (Life Could be a Dream) by The Cords to songs I’d never heard before, reminding me of my mom, who loved Doo-Wop music. 

I hated and loved the reminder of her, my mom. I wanted to both sing along and tell Elsie to shut up. Instead, I remained quiet and paid attention to our surroundings, using this to try and distract me by taking account of street names, landmarks, and graffiti. I paused at an alleyway, staring at a white arrow graffiti on the wall. It pointed into the alley. It was atop grime and seemed fresh. I stepped away from the group and poked the paint with my finger. 

Dry. 

Staring down the alleyway, I could see another arrow at the end, pointing to the left. I let out a quiet snort of a laugh, and turned back to join the group. Elsie was a few paces ahead, Beckett hung back, watching me. 

“Only an idiot would actually follow that,” I told him, gesturing back to the arrow as I walked past him. 

He didn’t respond, and emptiness grew in the pit of my heart. My sister would of had a great reply, and we would have mocked those who fell prey to their own stupidity like we did when watching horror movies. Her laugh, her cackle, her snorting giggle, echoed in my head, and I hated the scars I had. The ones that meant I was alive. Because I should be dead like she was. 

Elsie held up a hand, fingers curled in a fist. Beckett stopped moving, but I kept walking until I stood next to the swordswoman. I watched her face for moment as she scanned the area before us. It opened up from buildings towering around us to a parking lot, scant of cars, trash tumbleweeds flitting in the breeze. 

Squat buildings loomed in the haze beyond the lot. I had no idea where we were, but it reminded me of outside the hospital. The air did hold the stench of burning fumes and rubber, like the stack of burning vehicles in the hospital parking lot. 

“What is it?” Beckett appeared next to us, silent as shadow. I shot him a look, lips pinched to hold back the startled yelp that threatened to burst from me. 

“I thought I saw someone moving up there.” Elsie jutted her chin to the right side of the parking lot. “Too fast to be a gad.”

“Gad,” I mused, lips pursing.

They ignore me, continuing to stare, as if that would magically make whatever Elsie saw appear from the haze. A soft murmur from Myra pulls them from their stupor, and we move deeper into the shadow of the building we’re next to. That’s when I see the white, spray-painted arrow, pointing between the two buildings we stand with. Of course, this was the direction Elsie started to lead us. 

I hesitated, staring at the arrow, my sister’s voice screaming in my head, “You freaking morons, don’t go that way.” She’d shove a handful of caramel popcorn into her mouth before washing it down it with root beer. 

Beckett looked back at me, raising his eyebrows in question. I puffed out a breath. The arrow glared at me, taunting. I followed them between the buildings, looking for the next arrow, wanting to scream when Elsie turn down a street where another arrow was directing to go. 

“Did you guys paint these,” I asked Beckett when I caught up to him, pointing at yet another arrow that we were following. My skin crawled and my grip was white-knuckle tight on the machete. 

Beckett shook his head and said, “Never seen those before.” The furrow of his brow deepened. “It’s like the one you pointed out in the alley back there.”

“Exactly,” I said. “We’ve been following them for a while now. I don’t like it.”

“Well, we don’t have a lot of choices for getting back to the truck,” he said. “Backtracking isn’t something we can afford right now.”

“Neither is getting ambushed.” 

Elsie returned to us at some point and said, “What ambush? We’ve got to keep moving.” She gave us both a pointed look, but it was directed more at me. 

“Seen these arrows before, Else? You come out here more than I do.” Beckett motioned to the direction graffiti. 

She touched it like I had, rubbing her fingers together. “It’s not fresh.” She leaned over and sniffed the paint, then shook her head. “I can’t say, but we need to get moving.” She looked at Myra, but the intention of her look was meant for Beckett and I, pointing out the reason we needed to get back to the refuge.

“I know we shouldn’t backtrack, but it’s not that far to the parking lot. We can cross the street and go around the other way, can’t we?”

Elsie squinted at me with suspicion. “Do you know something we don’t?”

I shook my head. “Just that I’ve watched way too many movies for this not to lead to something bad.”

She and Beckett stared at me, and I had never felt so impetuous in my life. I was basing a decision off movies I’d seen. Maybe I wasn’t so much impetuous as I was downright foolish, but that did little to pacify my instincts that this wasn’t the way we should go. 

“Please.” My skin wouldn’t stop crawling, and my idiot brain decided it was my Spidey Senses going off. Adding more TV and movie references to my already quashed reputation. 

“Camille.” Elsie’s tone reminded me of when my mom was about to refute whatever argument I was making. “We’re going this way. The way you want to go is where that mess of gads was, and possibly still is. We can’t afford to draw their attention. Not with Beckett not being able to run.”

“If you have to,” Myra’s meek voice rose, soft like a mewing kitten, into the conversation, “you can leave me.”

“We’re not doing that,” Beckett said.

“No way,” I said at the same time as him. 

Elsie let out a breath through her nose, clearly trying to maintain her cool. I sort of felt bad, but at the same time…suspicious arrows with no context—but all of the subtext—pointing us in a direction after we abandoned our other route due to Elsie ‘maybe’ seeing someone at the other side of the parking lot? If that’s not horror movie plot, I don’t know what is.

“We’re going this way. I’ve been this way multiple times, I’ll know if something’s off,” Elsie said, reassurance in her tone. 

“Oh, like the spray-painted arrows leading to our doom?” I tapped the arrow with the tip of my machete. 

She sucked the side of her lip in her mouth, holding my gaze, before she said, “Those arrows could be a week old, they could be a day old. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I’m about the leave your ass here.”

She didn’t wait for a response and resumed on down the street, touching Beckett’s arm as she passed. He didn’t look at me before he followed her. I stared after them for a couple beats of my heart before I followed them, walking on the other side of the road and keeping my distance. 

I argued with myself. Should I be closer to them, or hang back? Strength in numbers, but also if we were all together, it would be easier for whoever was out there planning an ambush to surround us. 

I wanted to be right for vindication’s sake, but I hoped I was wrong. 

I really, really freaking hoped I was wrong.