Chapter 5

“Coast is clear, I’m just going to drag this thing as far away as I can, and can you help me David?” I said.  

“Yeah, what do you need?” David asked.

“Just grab his legs and watch my back”

We carried the body about a hundred metres away from the shack we were staying in. When we dropped it, I looked around the large field, to check if it was safe. Then asked David if he was scared, and he started crying.

 “Dad, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do, and I trust you, but I don’t think we’re going to be okay. I mean mom already has a bite, and who knows how long she has until she’s one of them!”

 As much as I hated to admit it, he hit the nail on the head, and I didn’t have much hope on all of us making it out alive now, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Listen, I know things are pretty bad right now, but we’ll make it, me you AND your mother.  There ought to be a safe haven somewhere, and once we get farther north, I’m sure there’ll be a few survivors that have heard something about it.”

 “What are you talking about? Pretty bad? EVERYONE WE KNOW IS DEAD! We’re walking aimlessly trying to find something that isn’t there!”

 “Now you listen here, you believe what you want to believe, but you do NOT go back there and share those feelings with your mother! Like I said, we’ll all be fine; I know what I’m doing. Sure your mothers been bit, that doesn’t mean she’s going to turn, that’s just movie non-sense! We’re all still alive aren’t we? So I can’t be doing that bad of a job. Now I don’t want to hear another word about this around your mother. She’s just as, if not even more scared than we are. She’s the one with the bite remember? She watched all those movies with us, and she’s not stupid.”

The whole walk back to the shack was awkwardly quiet. David kept looking around to see if there was anything around, even though there wasn’t, we were in the middle of a field, I don’t know who planned the layout of this area, but I’m not going to complain now.

                When we got back to the shack, it was extremely quiet, and we had all just tried to sleep. After around thirty minutes of trying to sleep, I pulled Kelly out of the shack and told her I wanted to talk.

                “Where are you guys going?” David asked.

                “I just need to talk to your mother about something, you’ll be fine, we’re just going to be out front.”

                Kelly had the worst bags I’ve ever seen hanging down from her eyes, they pulled her face down like an overgrown tomato pulls down a vine. She was extremely pale, and there was some blood slowly dripping out of her ear.

                “Oh my god! Your ear! Are you okay?”

                “Yeah, I’m fine, a little dizzy, and things are starting to get blurry, but I’m fine.”

                I start to dab the blood on her ear with a rag I had found in the shack.

                “How’s your shoulder?”

                “It hurts.”

                “Mind if I take a look at it?”

                “Uh, no. Be careful though!”

                I start to peel back my sleeve, and as I remove the sleeve from the wound the most putrid stench escapes, and my head jolts back in defence.

                “How is it?” Kelly asks, her voice shaking.

                When I take a look at it, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, it actually looks like it’s starting to heal. This doesn’t make a lot of sense because my sleeve is totally drenched in blood, and no scabbing has taken effect, but yet it looks much better than it did before.

                “Uhm, it looks good?” I say, almost as if I was asking a question.

                Kelly chuckles, almost as if she were forced to.

                “You don’t have to lie to me Jason, I sat there and watched all those movies that David was obsessed with.”

                “I’m not lying Kelly! It actually looks better. I wish you could see!”

                Kelly turns her head to the left, trying to get a glance at the wound herself, but it’s just out of sight, because when she got tackled she had turned just before she got bit.

                “Really?!” She asks in disbelief.

                “I mean, yeah, it’s still bleeding, there’s no scarring happening, but it’s not bad it’s actually closing up, and the bleeding isn’t major, it’s almost halted.”

                “That’s really weird, it’s only been a few hours since my accident.”

                Then reality hits me, like a ton of bricks. No scarring and no bleeding. I start to think about all these possibilities, like maybe her hearts not beating, or maybe her bloods gotten so thick that it just stopped moving. I shake it off, and start to wonder if maybe she’s immune, I actually convince myself this, probably because I’m not willing to believe anything else.

                “That is weird, but why should we try and deny it. This could be a good sign! You could be getting better; maybe the infection isn’t spread through a bite!” I said excitedly.

                “You’re probably right! I mean we’re just basing our knowledge on the movies, and they’re just movies.”

                “Let’s go to sleep, we’ve got a long trip ahead of us and we’re going to need as much sleep as we can get.” I said excitedly.

                We both walk back into the shack, where David is now out cold; probably because he hasn’t done this much in his whole life. Just like David though, Kelly and I pass out from exhaustion; but we both feel safe after finding out that the infection isn’t spread through bites.

In the morning; I woke to David shaking me and yelling at me to get up.

“DAD! Mom’s gone!”

 I had never woken up as fast as I did when I heard those words.

“What do you mean she’s gone?!”

 “I just woke up, and she’s not in the shack! She left her tomahawk here to!”

“She probably just got up and went out for a pee.”

“How do you know she’s okay?”

“She’s not turning David! During our talk last night, we discovered that the infection isn’t spreading through the bites!” I said, almost excited to share the news.

“How do you know..?”

“When I took the sleeve off her bite, it was healing already!”

“That’s great, dad!”

“You’re right though, we should go look for her, it’s still dangerous out there.”

 I put the hatchet in one of the loops in my jeans as I stand up, and I pick up the tomahawk, and then we go outside. I told David to check behind the shack, while I look around the field. Seconds after we split up, I hear some yelling, and when I turned, I was in shock to see Kelly chasing David.

“DAD! HELP!” David pleaded, as he was running from his own mother.

I couldn’t move, I was so upset when I realized my own wife, I was so sure…we were so sure. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her, so I ran over and tripped her, so David could get away. She instantly got up and started chasing me. The look I saw in her eyes, it was blank. What I was looking at was not my wife, but still all I could do was run away. All I could do was run away, because I didn’t have the strength to hurt her.

Then, when she realized I wasn’t going to be as easy to get as David, she turned her attention back to him, and when he turned to run he tripped. Kelly wasn’t far behind, and without even thinking, I threw the tomahawk as hard as I could. The tomahawk flew through the air as seconds turned into hours, towards Kelly and what felt like days, was only seconds before the tomahawk’s blade pierced the back of her skull. I cringed when I heard the sound, and saw the blood of the woman I fell in love with sic years ago fly through the air, I fell to my knees at the sight of it. Once Kelly had hit the ground, I burst into tears, and David got up and ran over to me. I hugged him as tightly as I could as we both cried until no more tears could possibly come out of our eyes.

“I promise that you’ll get through this, even if I have to die to make sure your safe.” I whispered into David’s ear.

“Don’t say that dad! We’re both going to pull through this, we’re going to make it to that safe heaven thing you were talking about last night! Everything is going to be fine!”

 I wiped my eyes and nodded, we left the tomahawk behind, because neither one of us could even look at her. We were to weak. I grabbed hatchet from my pant loop, and we continued walking north into the ominously empty field, as dark clouds started to form in the distance.