Awakened Desires (33 page)

“But I’ve hurt you in the worst ways possible. Irrevocably. I’ve taken everything away from you.”

“I forgive you.”
Impossible,
I thought
. Why would she give me such a tremendous gift?
I wanted to collapse on the ground when she said those three words. It was so much more important than the “I love you” she had voiced to me. “You need to forgive yourself. Yes, you were the one who pulled the trigger, but you were brainwashed. We will get through this together.” She held my face in her hands. “I know you don’t understand why I love you, but you have got to believe me that I do.”

“I can’t believe you forgive me.” I was astonished. My hands shook as I reached for her face.

“Gun…”

“Uhh, guys,” Josie warned. “We have company.”

I looked up. It was dark, but I could see there were several staggering shadows lumbering our way. “Both of you get back to the house, and don’t open the door unless it’s me.”

“I’m not leaving you alone with them!” Quinn yelled as she raised her Sig.

I grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her toward the house. “Go…now!”

“No!”

“Stop arguing with me, and do what I fucking tell you to do!” I growled. I know I scared her. Josie grabbed her hand and practically dragged her back in the direction of the shack. I could hear her protesting the entire way.

“Quinn, come on! Run faster!” Josie demanded as she clutched Quinn’s hand. Their feet were pounding on the ground while weaving around the trees. The chill of the night air was burning in their lungs.

“No! We have to help him!” Quinn stopped, jerking Josie back with her.

“He said for us to leave and that’s what we are doing. Now, let’s go!”

With reluctance, Quinn ran back to the shack with Josie. “I don’t feel right leaving him like that. What if he needs help?” She paced around the inside of the shack, looking out all of the windows, trying to see any signs of Gunther coming back. “If he isn’t back in a few minutes, I’m going out there.”

“He will be pissed if you do that.”

“I know, but I can’t leave him out there like that, battling on his own. Why did I agree?” She rubbed her hands together in front of her parched mouth while staring out the bedroom window, willing Gunther to appear from the woods behind the shack.

A gunshot echoed through the night, Gunther yelling right behind it. A shudder ran through Quinn’s body. She turned and looked at Josie. “Stay here.” She bolted out the door before Josie could stop her.

“Quinn!” she yelled, running behind her. She tried to grab her, but she was too fast. Josie stood at the front door, deciding she was too scared to go back out. Guilt was crippling her, but she slammed the door shut anyway.

The herd staggered closer. Since there were only a couple rounds left in my Sig, I looked around for something that I could use as a weapon. All I could find was a broken piece of a large tree branch.

“Come on, you sick pigs! Come on!” I began swinging at the undeads, using the branch like a baseball bat. Not that I knew a thing about baseball, but I caught a few Braves games in Atlanta while on the prowl.

Since the undeads were already grossly decaying, their heads splattered when the branch connected, dropping them in rotten piles of gore.

“Come on!” I yelled again.

As I stepped closer to hit another one, I stumbled over a root cluster. I fell to the ground, taking the undead man with me. I struggled, trying to keep him from biting me. My fingers sunk into his rotten flesh as I fought him. I tried to reach for my Sig, but I realized I dropped it in the fall. If I had a breath mint in my pocket, I would have jammed it in his mouth, along with the business end of my Sig.

“Motherfucker!” I pushed the undead back with the branch. He was much heavier than I expected. He gave a new meaning to “dead weight”. “Shit!” I screamed. He was doing his damnedest to take a bite out of me.

I heard more leaves crunching and twigs snapping around me, and I knew my time was up. I could only think of Quinn and Josie, fearing what would happen to them. How ironic was that? I finally figure out the whole love thing and I was about to bite the dust.

Eve stopped in her tracks. “Did you hear that?” The group had been walking at the edge of the woods, looking for a safe place to camp for the night.

“Yeah. Did it sound like a scream?” Mitch said as he took off toward the sounds. Eve, Levi, Janny, Reid, and Shannon followed closely behind. When they approached the sounds, they realized there was a commotion up ahead. Mitch pulled out his handgun and switched off the safety. “I’m going to continue to go forward a little. Be ready.”

“Be careful,” Eve said to her husband.

“I will be.”

Mitch rushed through the trees. At first, he saw that the ground was littered with a few undeads. He heard the unmistakable sound of a struggle on the ground just feet from him. He aimed his gun at the moving targets, then pulled the trigger.

I heard a few gunshots around me. Suddenly, I felt pain shooting up my left leg. “Fuck!” I roared. I thought maybe it was Quinn or Josie that came back, but then some wooly arseface pulled the undead off of me. Another gunshot startled me as I rolled around on the ground, holding my leg.

I attempted to get up, but my body wasn’t cooperating. “Motherfucker!” I yelled. I had many things done to me in my life, but I had never been shot. I’d trade that pain for the brass knuckles any day. The arseface squatted down and grabbed my arm, rolling me onto my back.

The next thing I knew, there were six people surrounding me. One of the blokes started arguing with the wally that just shot me. “Christ, Mitch! Why did you do that?”

“I thought he was a zombie!” Mitch yelled back.

“You need to be sure before you pull the damn trigger!”

“Well, what the hell is he doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“Probably the same thing we are!”

“Can I get some help, please? Some dickwad just fucking shot me!” I growled.

“Yes, sorry.” A kinder, gentler voice said. I forced open my eyes to see a thin, gray-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses trying to grab my leg. I thought I heard Quinn yelling for me, but the pain was like nothing I have ever felt before, so I wasn’t paying all that much attention. “Are you camped around here?”

“Yes…,” I groaned. “Fuuuck.” Then I heard the yell again, and I knew it was Quinn. “Quinn…,”

“Is that other person who is yelling with you?”

“Yes…,” I growled out.

“Mitch, go run and find her.”

“He better not shoot her, too, or I’ll kill him…regardless of my situation.” Shot or not, if he even thought about hurting my Quinn, he would be lying on the ground along with the undeads. I’d find some way to summon all that was left of my strength and gut the wally.

“I’m Levi, by the way. I’m a doctor. Just try to settle down a little so I can see if we need to put a tourniquet on. Janny, grab me the lantern.”

“Pleasure,” I growled. “Gunther.”

An older woman, maybe in her sixties, ran up to us, a bright light leading her way. I was still growling in pain and breathing through my teeth. I continued to writhe on the ground, not allowing the doctor to get his hands on me.

With her flashlight and Sig out, Quinn sprinted through the woods with zero regard to what could have been lurking around her. Her chest was pumping up and down, and she felt the burn in the back of her throat. She had to get to Gunther. His bellow scared her beyond her limits.

“Gunther!” she yelled between breaths. Her panic doubled when he didn’t respond. “Gunther!” she yelled again as she came up to where she thought she left him. She looked all around, seeing and hearing nothing. “Gunther!” The longer he didn’t respond, the more she thought he had put a bullet in his head. Quinn sucked in a sharp breath, filling her lungs with agony. She grasped at her chest and bent over, trying to catch her breath.

She dug deep within herself and found the courage to continue to walk around in the dark, looking for him. She shined her flashlight in the distance. Then Quinn faintly heard her name through the darkness.

“Gunther?!” She took a couple steps forward and spun around, shining the flashlight in all directions. She heard her name again, but it sounded weak. “Gunther?” She kept walking toward the direction that she thought she heard him. Then she began to hear a set of unfamiliar voices. “Oh god…Gunther!” she screamed.

The sound of panicked footsteps rushed toward her. She held her Sig straight out, ready to defend herself. A man, maybe in his late twenties, appeared out of the darkness. He had an overgrown beard and was about Gunther’s height, but nowhere near his build.

“Stay back!” she commanded with the strength of the Sig in front of her. “I
will
shoot you without hesitation!”

He held his hands up in front of his chest. “Are you Quinn?” She wasn’t sure if she should answer, so she stayed silent, clenching her jaw. “Do you know a Gunther? Big British guy?”

“I might,” she said indifferently while still pointing the Sig at the man’s head.

“He’s been shot.”

In an instant, her body shook from her core to the surface. Her eyes grew wide and her breath stopped. “What did you say?” she whispered.

“I shot him. It was an accident. I swear. I thought he was one of those zombies.”

“Oh god. Where is he?”

“Just that way.”

“Quinn…” She heard Gunther’s distressing moan carry through the night air. She took off running, leaving the man behind her.

“Gunther!” She ran another fifty feet until she saw Gunther writhing on the ground, an older man hovering over him. “No!” She dropped down next to him. His hands were covering his eyes.

“Quinn…,” I moaned in relief that she was there with me.

“Tell me where! Get out of my way, asshole!” She shoved Levi out of the way and was frantically feeling around my body.

“My left leg…,” I moaned out. “Fuuuck…it hurts.” As careful as she could, she reached down and pulled up my pant leg, which was saturated with blood. I was going to need at least a half-bag after this ordeal was over.

“Oh, Jesus…,” Quinn gasped when she saw my wound. “Gun…we need to get you back to the house.”

“Is it bad?” I asked through gritted teeth. “He said he’s a doctor.” I nodded toward Levi.

Quinn jumped up when Levi touched her. “Let us help you get him to your house.” She saw the half-dozen people standing around, including the wally who shot me. I was feeling weak, and there was no way I could walk back to the shack under my own power.

Quinn pointed. “The place we are staying is in that direction.”

The wally and another bloke squatted down and pulled me up. They wrapped my arms around their shoulders and bore my weight. I tried to keep my eyes fixed on Quinn because I needed something to help keep me from passing out.

She shuddered every time I moaned in pain. “If you need to stop and rest…,” she murmured.

“No. Please. The quicker, the better,” I said as I ground my teeth together.

Minutes later, she blew through the door. They carried me in so I wouldn’t have to climb the dilapidated stairs. I was thankful for that.

“Back there,” Quinn ushered, waving toward the bedroom.

“What happened?” Josie was panicked as she stared at the four strangers standing in the doorway.

“They shot him.”

“What?!”

“They said it was an accident,” Quinn muttered. I groaned when they pushed me back onto the bed. “It’s his leg.”

The wally and the other bloke left the bedroom, but the doctor stayed. “My name is Levi,” he said as he approached Quinn. She looked at him with skepticism. “Please, allow me to help. Do you have a pot and water?”

Josie was lingering around the door. “I’m on it,” she said and ran off.

Quinn sat down next to me on the bed, and it was quite obvious that she was scared out of her mind. “Gunther…” Tears rolled down her cheeks and she took my hand. My breathing was rapid and I had my hand over my eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”

Sure as fuck didn’t feel that way.
I reached down and pulled my leg into my body again like it was going to alleviate the pulsating pain in some way.

“Do you have something with which we can cut his pants off?” Levi asked. Quinn jumped up and ran out to our supplies. In seconds, she came back with my hunting knife. She sat back down on the bed and started cutting up my pant leg.

I hissed a few times when she nudged my leg. My vision wobbled and sounds were echoing in my head. “Quinn…I don’t feel so well.”

“I know, Gun. Just try to hold on.”

She hit my calf while she cut the pant leg further up. “Ugh, fuck,” I moaned.

“I’m so sorry. I’m trying not to hurt you any more than you already are.”

“I know, love. Just hurts.” My jaw was clenched so tight, I was sure they could hear my teeth grinding together. The weakness was taking over and I was beginning to feel faint. “Quinn…,” I whispered, then the lights went out.

“Shit!” Quinn barked when Gunther went limp. Josie brought in the boiling water. Levi pulled his pack off and searched through it, pulling out a smaller kit.

“We need the cleanest towels and sheets possible,” Levi ordered. In a snap, Josie ran out of the room again and came back with several towels. “Thank you.”

He rolled up a towel and put it under Gunther’s ankle, another under his knee. With the gentlest of movements and a sob, Quinn removed Gunther’s grimy boot.

“I’m going to do the best I can to help him,” Levi said with a small smile.

“Yes. Thank you.” She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. When she heard Gunther moan again, she crawled up to his face. “Hey,” she said, touching his cheek. His eyes flickered. “Let me see your eyes. Focus on me so we can work through this pain together, okay?” Gunther knew what she was trying to do. She was checking the color of his eyes—noting a faint green. He saw her worry and nodded. Then he cried out in pain. Quinn looked down as Levi was sliding a towel under his leg.

“Mitch!” Levi called out.

“Yeah?” He peeked into the room.

“Grab me a lantern.”

Seconds later, Mitch rushed back into the room and handed Levi the lantern. Quinn looked toward the door and locked eyes at the man who shot him. Her teeth clenched while white hot hatred for him barreled through her. He turned away, feeling Quinn’s anger, and went back out to the common area.