The high moan.
I feel my eyes close in fear and disappointment. One of us is going to die. Whoever can't run fast enough will die.
Leo looks back at me for a second. I see the worry. I nod. He creeps forward along the grass. I lick my finger and put it in the wind. The breeze is behind us and carrying our smell down the hill. They are the survivors that don't seem to die, we are screwed. They hunt like an animal.
Anna licks her lips. I can see worry and fear crossing her face like clouds moving in the sky. Her heartbeat is pounding in her neck. I can watch it increase. She looks around and points to the trees behind us.
I shake my head. Climbing only puts you in a tree surrounded by the infected. I look for another option, my brain flexes under the strain.
"The river." I whisper.
Jake looks at me unconvinced, "How far?"
"A mile."
"Emma your leg and mine won't make it outrunning the infected for a whole mile."
I know he is right. I know this to be a truth but I don’t have anything else.
I pull one of my guns from my sack and pass it to him. I look into his blue eyes, "Don't shoot unless you have to. Don't shoot me or yourself either."
Anna takes the rifle with the scope, which she has grown fond of, and takes the right flank. Leo stalks down the middle of the field and I take the left. We leave Jake on the hillside. His injuries are worse than mine.
The bullet never made its way very far into my leg. The new stitches, lavender and tea tree oil have made it heal fast.
I look at Jake's dark head of hair poking out of the long grass and sigh. He is too big to try to hide. He will be the death of us all. I know I will leave them if I have to. I force myself into the agreement. No matter what happens, my father never died so I could waste my life on strangers.
They don’t feel like strangers anymore though.
I focus my thoughts and scan the grassy and thin forest.
Bile rises when I see them. They're slumped over something. They look disgusting and diseased, even from the distance I am at. One shoves the other and the high pitch moan shrieks out across the emptiness. It takes up all of the space. I feel the walls of fear closing around me. I see a hand come up and down on whatever they have on the ground. One of them is striking it. It is still alive. It is sick now, infected like them. They are the closest things to zombies. Not real zombies. They are human but they live with the sickness in a way that would never be considered survival. Their skin is covered in sores, open and scabbed over. Their hair is falling out where the sores have taken over their scalps. They cry tears of blood like the fantasy movies that were out when I was nine. The first thing the virus destroys is the throat. The high moan is from the scaring in the throat and the brain damage the high fever causes.
I look toward Anna and hope she isn’t scared. I force the thought from my brain and look back at the infected dinner party. The last time I worried about either of them I got shot.
I pull my mask from my back pocket and slide if over my face and loop it around my head. It's not a guarantee but it's better than a gamble.
It's a rule. I wear it whenever they are around. The virus should have died out years ago but the ones who got sick after it mutated survived, if you can call it that. They are contagious but don’t seem to die, no matter how sick their bodies get. There aren’t many of them left but somehow they still manage to ruin lives.
I count the heads, seven. Not to mention the one on the ground, if it's a human. It could be an animal. The infected have no sense. They attack anything that moves. Their hunger is too great. I've seen them attack a bush on a windy day.
I can take down three at least before they will at least get close enough to make reloading my bow a gamble. I don’t like gambles. I know Anna has a pocket full of bullets, but I will be forced to trust she can shoot them before they get to me. It too feels like a gamble when I think about it.
I feel stuck. My back is against a wall. I know Leo will take down one. Together we can guarantee four. It doesn’t feel safe enough. I turn back and look at the hill behind me. I want to go home. I want to climb the hill and climb into my own bed and lock the world out. Again I regret opening the stupid door. I should have left them. I should have left him in the hole.
I am about to run and whistle when I look at Jake once more. He winks at me and grins. My stomach does the hurting twinge thing. My lips grin back. I never told them to do it. They seem to be making choices for themselves.
I pull the arrow back and site in the largest one. I feel the gusts of wind and the cycle they seem to come in. A large gust hits and then leaves space in the air until the next one. I exhale and release the arrow. He has dark brown hair and his face is swollen. He was a man once. I turn my heart off to him and reload instantly.
I feel the next gust and fire compensating for it. The arrow slices into a matted head of dark blonde locks. I reload ignoring the tickles on my cheeks. The infected have noticed two are down. They turn their faces around, searching. My next arrow hits the milky eye of an older one. The remaining four stand up and begin to make the squeal. I cringe knowing the sound will haunt me for weeks.
My next arrow hits the one pointing at me. She drops the second it slides through her open mouth.
I feel a shiver at the sight. I reload as the remaining three shriek and start their mad dash toward me.
I drop another one before I turn and start to run for the nearest tree. I want to run the other way. I want to run into the hills and leave them but my feet don’t listen to me. My leg won't make it far with the bullet hole in it. The long grass tangles in my feet and pulls at me. My leg burns and tries to convince me to stop running.
"Emma. Emma." I ignore the voice and run. I feel the panic hitting.
"Emma they're all dead."
I reach the bark of the huge tree. I want to climb but the pain in my thigh is killing me. I grip the massive branch and pull myself into the tree using only my arms. I've practiced this. I pull myself up and sit on the branch. I look down at the two people standing in the grass looking at me like I'm nuts. Leo paces. He understands. We've run from them many times.
Jake approaches the tree limping slightly. He puts his hands out like he is scared of me, "Emma they're all dead."
"How?"
Anna beams, "I shot them. I waited for them to run to you and then dropped them all instantly."
"You? You killed them?"
She tilts her head, "You still don’t trust us to help you?"
I want to say yes but I sit for a moment in the tree.
"I'm stuck."
Jake stands below the huge branch and puts his arms out, "Jump."
I throw down my bow and arrows and look around. The field doesn’t move, except where the winds stroke the dark amber colored grass.
I turn over on my belly and lower myself from the branch. I hang there for a second before the strong arms circle me and hold me tightly. The screaming agony of my leg is dulled suddenly.
Leo nudges my legs and whines.
Jake's breath brushes against my face as he speaks softly, "You looked a bit like you were going to run away."
I don't realize how close our faces are until I see myself in his eyes. I bite my lower lip and shake my head, "I panicked. I've never been hurt like this when they were close before."
He pulls me close, "I'll protect you Emma." He looks toward his sister, "We both will."
I can see the darkness in her eyes, it's the same look I give everyone.
"Thanks." I say it just loud enough.
She nods, "You killed most of them. You have to leave more for me to kill next time"
I still feel scared and alone.
Jake places me on the ground softly. "Emma you're like Robin Hood."
I smirk, hearing the reference to the novel I love.
Anna sighs, "Jake don’t start again on the stories."
I smile at him, "I love reading too. I've read the same books for ten years. Sometimes I get lucky and find a small paperback that I can fit in my pack. Robin Hood is one of my favorites. My granny read it to me when I was little."
Jake smiles and I see it again. There is a joy inside of him that I have never seen before. I think I must have in the world before, but I don’t really remember it. I want to be near him. He makes me feel things I've only read about.
Instead of enjoying the feeling of being near him a heavy disgusting feeling blankets me. It forces away the borrowed joy from him.
I almost left him. I almost left them. I will leave him. It's my nature.
He frowns at me, "I'd ask a penny for your thoughts but I think it would be more than I can afford."
I laugh, but it isn’t the free feeling of joy I had seconds ago.
I walk away from him and pat Leo, who is needy suddenly. He rubs up against me and jumps up on his back legs to stand. He wraps his paws around me. I hug him back.
"I love you too." I whisper into his fur. I glance at them and nod in the direction of the farmhouse. "It's a days walk to the house." I point down the hill.
"We need to deal with him too." Anna points at the beige mass at the bottom of the field and trees.
I squint, "It's a man."
"Great. You get to kill him."
I laugh bitterly and hand over the bow and arrow to her. She thinks like me and I like it. She never fired once when I was shooting the arrows. She understands conservation.
She gives me a wide-eyed smile and takes the bow, "Really? I've never done this before."
"We need to walk closer to him. When you pull the arrow back control every inch of your arms. It feels hard at first but you get used to the tension.
We walk to where the hill crests. We are near one of the fallen infected. I can smell him. I point at a tree further to the right, "Let's stand over there."
We walk away from the smell of the rotting sick carcass. At the tree she attempts to pull the arrow back. Her skinny arms tremble.
She looks frustrated.
I laugh, "I know how you feel right now. It took me two years. It won't happen on the first try."