Another Zombie Apocalypse Tale: Part 8

Three Weeks and Two Days Since the Apocalypse

I swung the machete, the attacker flinching away. The blade cut the backpack strap, freeing it from their grasp. I hauled the pack over my shoulder, spun on my heel, and launched into a run.

“Wait!” The attacker had the audacity to sound panicked.

Looking back wasn’t an option, nor was it necessary because I knew what was behind me. I stuck with my plan from before: try to get up the embankment to the bridge. It would at the very least slow the horde down. While pain didn’t faze them—they could press against a fence until they squished themselves through like Play-Dough, terminating themselves in the process—it didn’t mean they had the agility to climb a hill. Not quickly, anyway.

One con of proceeding with my plan, is that I had to put my machete away. The embankment was steep, the ground crumbling away with chunks of gravel and sparse grass. It was the epitome of three steps forward, one step back. I changed my tactic after a glance back to see my attacker trying to scramble up the embankment, the first couple of dead from the horde, reaching broken fingers out to grab them.

Trying to go straight up the steep, twenty-foot incline to the bridge wasn’t working in my favor, so I tackled it by performing switchbacks. Instead of going straight up, I would go up at a diagonal so that the angle was a little less aggressive.

A distracting giddiness swelled in my chest as I progressed closer to the top. Four feet to go. Hand over hand, up I went. The dead moans of desperate hunger my motivational soundtrack.

“Camille.”

My name being spoken started me, I slid down a bit, gravel crumbling under my toes. Panic replaced the giddiness. A rough hand wrapped around my wrist, the grip firm and offering an anchor to keep me from sliding down to the bottom.

I looked up into Beckett’s grim face. Mixed feelings warred inside me. A groan of annoyance, and a sigh of relief, because Mr. Hero Complex would definitely pull me up to safety, but then I’d be stuck with his idiotic group again.

He did just that. Marianne was with him, already taking his place to encourage my attacker to keep climbing. I wanted to tell her to leave them, but they likely didn’t know that punk attacked me, so I put my brain to work planning on escape. The others—Erik, Elsie, and Amber/Kimber—were nowhere to be seen. It would be that much easier to get away.

“Are you hurt?” Beckett’s hands were on my shoulders, concern stark in his eyes that I almost felt bad about what I was going to do.

I shook my head, “No.”

He gave me a final look before turning to help Marianne with my attacker. As soon as his back was turned, I retrieved my machete then took off running across the bridge. No horde behind me, just a bunch of people too scared to use their brains.

Maybe they didn’t have brains, and that’s why they survived this long. The brain hungry dead didn’t want them.

Again, Beckett was swearing and yelling my name. Guy should get a clue, for real. Even Marianne yelled at him. He was likely chasing after me, but I didn’t look back to check. I didn’t have to. I could hear his pounding footsteps and something metal rattling in his backpack.

The chase didn’t last long. I let out a groan and a stream of curses that would have had my parent’s giving me pointed looks of utter disapproval—as if they themselves have never dropped the F-bomb—and my sister would low-key give me a high five.

At the end of the bridge, as it began to reach the road, there was at least eighteen feet of empty space where the bridge had broken away, leading to a twenty-foot drop. Maybe more. I peered over the edge, skin crawling at the sight of crumbled concrete with rebar poking out. Images of being impaled on the metal rods shot through my mind.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Beckett called, out of breath, pulling my attention to him. He’d slowed to a walk, unbeknownst about what I was going to do.

A cold sweat broke out over my flesh as I planned. The long jump wasn’t my favorite or my best sport when it came to track and field, but I was pretty confident that I could make the jump. The distance looked to be eighteen feet across. My average long jump was six meters, around nineteen feet. I could make it. If it really was only eighteen feet across.

Pass or fail. Failing would be agonizing, I thought, as I looked at the rebar again before I started walking towards Beckett, counting the paces.

“Look, you make some good points,” said Beckett as he came to a stop, still a good distance from me. He propped a hand on his hip. “Erik’s an idiot. He shouldn’t have shot at you. And we shouldn’t be trying to throw you…”

I let his words disappear as I went through my own body check. My fingers were sore from climbing up the embankment. My ankle pulsed with a mild ache. The backpack hanging from its remaining strap on my shoulder may be a problem. My machete would have to stay in my hand, even as I pictured getting stabbed with it as I landed on the other side.

Maybe I would toss it as I started to land. If I could think that fast in the moment.

I took a couple deep breaths, working out the nerves and trying to steady my heart, going through the calming exercises my coach had taught me. I tried not to think that what I was going to do was vastly different than any competition I’d ever been to.

It was just me and the jump.

“I know you’re my runner, Kamikaze,” my coach would say, using my nickname I’d gotten at tryouts when I did a full send like a bat out of hell for each sport. She’d squeeze my shoulder and say, “Turn that speed into flight, and you've got this in the bag.”

Beckett was still rambling on. I turned on my heel, and took a full breath.

“Camille,” he said my name as a warning. He should know by now that I’m a runner.

The ground crunched under my toes as I took off. I gauged and counted the paces. Wind rushed past in a deafening roar as I pumped my arms. The distance to the edge closed. I let my hips sink a little, transferring the power of the run up to the take-off. Driving my knee forward, I changed the momentum from horizontal to vertical, taking to the air.

Open space flashed beneath me. A beat of panic. I’m not gonna make it. Then dark pavement was underneath me. I did not let go of the machete. I gripped it with a fierceness as my heels connected first with the hard surface. I let my knees bend to keep the shock from shattering the knee caps or tearing tendons and ligaments.

Shock jarred my spine as I came to a skidding halt on my ass. Staring up at the empty, blue sky, I took a moment to let any pain make itself known before I rolled over onto my knees to see how far I’d jumped, half wishing I had a tape measure, because what if I beat my personal record?

A backpack lay at the edge, and I felt my shoulder for the strap of mine. Nothing. I looked around me, nothing, then back at the pack.

On wobbly legs, my glutes a little sore from skidding across the hard pavement, I approached the backpack. It was mine, with its cut strap and one good strap. I picked it up then looked across the open space.

Beckett stood at the edge on the other side, hands on his head, staring at me with a paled face and eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“Why do you care?” I yelled.

He didn’t have an answer for me. He ran his hand through his hair then let his arms fall to his sides, giving into defeat.

I slung the single strap over my shoulder. Once I found a place to hunker down for the night, I would see what I could do to fix the other strap. I tapped the machete against my leg, and took one last peek down at the rebar protruding from the chunks of cement. A sense of triumph swelled within me, and I gave a nod of affirmation.

Then I froze.

Underneath some of the rubble was a leg. A small leg, like one that belonged to a child. It moved, pulling back as it bent at the knee. I followed the leg up to where the torso would be, hidden behind a jagged cement block, then up to where I could see the top of a head, black hair covered with dust.

Leaning forward, I got down on all fours to peer at the body as a small arm appeared, grabbing the jagged block, the fingers bloodied gripping tight as it pulled a torso and head upright. A girl, around seven or eight years old, squinted as she surveyed her surroundings. Dust ridden cheeks streaked clean where tears had slid down her face.

Her head turned, looking up, her bright eyes finding me. My heart hammered hard in my chest and I breathed, “Holy hell.”

As she opened her mouth, a single word tore as a cry from her throat. “Help.”