They Walk (21 page)

“
You know, I hate to say this, but you might not like what we find at the Collisee.” Noah says in a whisper, but I can still hear him loud enough.

“
What do you mean, why not?” Gabe says as he leans forward with his hand on his knees.

“
We haven’t found another living person yet Gabe. I can’t help but to worry about the condition of the place after a week. If they weren’t prepared, then who knows what we could be walking into?”

“
You really didn’t pick anything up on the CB radio?” Gabe asks.

When we first came into the mess hall, Noah had explained he was trying to get a radio to work before Claire walked in on the boy. He said that it was battery powered so power wasn’t a problem. He said it was just static interference and nothing else. I hate to agree with Noah, but it doesn’t exactly sit well, the fact that there is no communication of any kind going on.

“
It was just silence. You know I wouldn’t blame you if you and your friends wanted to go back to the apartments with the others. It could be more dangerous the father we go.” Noah says intently.

“
I promised Maggie that I would get her to her parents, and that is what I’m going to do. I’m not letting the unknown scare me away.”

I can hear Noah shrug his shoulders and sit back into his chair.

“
It’s your choice. I just hope she’s worth all the risks your taking.” Noah says.

“
She’s worth this and more to me. Isn’t your sister?” Gabe says softly.

Noah doesn’t say anything to that, and I wonder if any of us will find who we are looking for. They don’t say anything else to one another, and I feel the welcome embrace of sleep pulling on me. As I drift off though, I think of Gabe and how he said I’m worth it to him. I hope I don’t let him down, because he is worth it all to me too.

Eventually my body goes numb with sleep, and I’m free of thought, as least for a little while.

Chapter Thirty Nine

The next morning, I wake up to Gabe standing over me with a cup of something that smells like coffee, and I instantly sit up with a smile.

“
Is that what I think it is?” I ask dreamily ogling the cup.

He smiles and sits beside me on the loveseat, and hands it over to me.

“
If you think it’s slightly warm instant coffee? Then yes, it is.”

Grinning as I take a sip, I can’t help feeling self-conscious of my morning appearance. I put my long hair up into a knot before laying down last night, but it must have fallen out since, I can feel it around my shoulders. I feel myself blush, as I refrain from straightening out the rat nest that is my hair. I notice that he too, looks a little less than fresh. Whereas I look well rested, he looks like he hasn’t slept in ages. His eyes are a little too wide, and glassy, and he has dark circles under them.

His posture is stiff, but not in alertness, more like he is forcing himself to keep going.

“
I think you need this more than me.” I say as I offer the coffee mug over to him.

He simply takes it and sips from it before returning it to me, and sits back with a sigh and closes his eyes. After hearing him sigh, I realize that it’s far too quiet in the mess hall. I look around to see if the others are still asleep, but the room is empty aside from us.

“
Where is everyone?” I say, as I turn back to Gabe and find him watching me now.

“
They are loading the car with the loot we got last night.”

“
Oh. I didn’t mean to oversleep.” I reply as I lean back into Gabe’s side.

He lifts his arm and is about to place it around me, when I hear the sound of gunfire coming from outside. I instantly just to my feet, and scan the floor for where I placed my ax last night. Seeing it resting near the foot of the loveseat, I start for it in a hurry. Gabe stops me by grabbing my arm.

Wide eyed, I don’t understand why he isn’t freaking out.

“
Don’t worry, I just told them to wait until I could wake you up.” He says quickly and a little guiltily.

“
Wait for what?”

“
There were a few dead that wandered here in the night, and they had to take them out on the way to the car. I should have mentioned that right away, I suppose, sorry.” He takes his arm away, and actually lowers his head like a puppy waiting to get smacked.

“
It would’ve been nice to have been warned, but at least no one is in any real danger. Thank you for letting me rest.”

I step forward and lift his face up with my hands gently holding him. He stares up at me with a seriously, and he wraps his arms around my waist.

“
We should get going, I told them we’d be right out after I got you up.” He says softly as he pulls me closer to him, so that his chin rest on my stomach.

As I stare down at him, I wish we were in another place and time, and that we could have a moment of peace together. Since leaving the apartments, we’ve been sneakily touching whenever we think no one notices. But the longer we keep getting interrupted, the more I want of him. Maybe it’s the feeling that our lives are slipping away and we might not have enough time together, but it’s like I can’t get enough of him. I know that now isn’t the time for such thoughts though, so I nod at him and let my hands slip away from his face. Stepping away, I lean over and grab the only item of belongings I have with me, the ax. Gabe is on his feet now.

Together we walk out of the building and into the early morning light towards the others at the car waiting.

Ten minutes later found me in the backseat of Noah’s car, with Claire and Gabe on either side of me again. Noah is driving and Sam is in the passenger seat like yesterday. We’ve only gone done a little ways of the road, but it’s more of the same, but in the opposite direction we started at before. There are less tree’s on either side of us and more open space, but the farther we go the more side streets we pass, and the better idea of what we’re getting into. The mile all the way down Alfred A Plourde Pkwy is an empty one, but we pass a few buildings that couldn’t have lasted past the first day. It looks like they were ransacked by the living, but none are around now unfortunately. There are a few dead that wander around, but not enough for us to care about them. We’ve already almost got to the end of the street when Claire interrupts the tense silence of the ride.

“
So, you guys were inside alone for a while.” She tries to say in a whisper as she leans into my ear.

I can feels my cheeks warm when Sam turns in his seat and grins at us, and I can definitely feel Gabe shift embarrassingly beside me.

“
Yeah, what’s that about?” Sam asks in mock horror.

“
I, ugh” I stutter out looking between Claire and Sam, knowing my cheeks must look like a tomato.

“
Sleeps like a rock, this one. Had to practically shake the couch, and then she just cracked an eye open.” Gabe interrupts.

He turns to me with smile and places his arm around my shoulder, which I gratefully lean into.

“
Right...” Claire says as she winks at me.

I roll my eyes, my definitely try to not look right at her. I know I don’t have anything to be embarrassed by, but still, they don’t know that. Sam is still leaning around grinning at us, like he’s going to catch us in the act and say ‘gotcha’ or something. Of course, when Gabe turns to glare at him, he quickly turns around. This sends me and Claire into silent snickers, that we not no subtly try to hide. The good mood of the car doesn’t last though, because Noah is pulling us onto another road, and its houses lining the street the whole way down.

“
Prepare yourselves guys, I don’t think it’s going to be great to look at” Noah says softly, not taking his eyes off the road before him.

I sit back up in my seat, and let Gabe’s hand fall off my shoulders. I have to be strong at what we’ll find, even if I don’t want to face what is out there. It’s our reality now, and it’s best not to forget it. We’re not even a block down the road, when I realize that it’s pretty much a worse version of the homes we’ve seen before, but what gets me is the quiet.

T used to be a busy community with people probably outside all the time.

Now it’s turned into a hollow shell of its past life

There are more empty abandoned cars here, and come of them have movement in them as we pass. One is particular has the driver’s door open as we pass, and I can see people leaning out of it. Well what I thought were people is actually one of the dead tearing into someone that is already close to dead, and they don’t even make a sound as we pass. We all shift closer into the backseat together.

It doesn’t stop the cold that travels through my veins.

The houses get worse the father we got too, even though they are all not touched by fire that got so many we’ve seen before. No, these are worse by way we know that no one had a chance to try and get away from it all. Doors are open, windows are broken, blood is everywhere, and bodies line the streets. There start to be more dead here too, but that isn’t the scary part, it’s that they almost appear alive. Like the mailman we pass on our left, he is still carrying his mailbag and even has a package in his hands. I’d think he was really alive, that is until we drive by and I see that his throat has a chunk missing and he is covered in blood. On the opposite side of the street down farther, we see a woman walking in our direction and is wearing an empty child jumper. It hangs limply off to the side on her, and her chest is a bloody mess.

I have to close my eyes, and concentrate to breath past the bile rising in my throat.

“
Oh that is not right at all.” Claire says in disgust and horror.

I open my eyes thinking she is talking about the woman with the carrier, but she is eyes something else and I can’t help but see what it is. On our right between two houses is a child’s swing set, but it’s on its side and s bent and covered in dried blood like there was a struggle. In the distance behind it, I can see small shadows moving around in the back yard. I quickly tear my eyes away before I get a look at what can only be the dead children that were on the play-set before they died.

“
Look up there. I think I’m going to be sick.” Sam grunts out, but points up ahead.

In curiosity we all lean around to get a look at what he is talking about, and I think he is right about the getting sick assumption. Off the side of the road is a group of dogs still on leashes, tearing into a body that has long been dead. I think that maybe they are still alive and must be scavenging for food, but when we pass them I notice that some of them have big bites taken out of their sides.

That doesn’t exactly sit well with me either.

It can only mean that the dead aren’t only eating the living but also the dead now. Even as we pass all of this that makes us want to hurl, I have to wonder where all the rest of the dead are at. I mean there are a lot here, just not enough to make us get out and start shooting. I have a bad feeling about where they might be, and it makes me grab my ax at my feet and lift it onto my lap.

Before we can even say anything about it, the street changes from homes to businesses, and we’re thrust into chaos again. There are more dead here, and as we pass a dark pharmacy, we can see at least twenty of them banging at the store front trying to get inside. Noah doesn’t slow us down, and I don’t think he even looks in that direction. I want to say that maybe there are people inside and we should help, but I know no one would agree and maybe even I don’t. It would only waste the bullets we have, and it’s not a fact that people are alive in there. The thought makes me sick to my stomach, but I try to ignore it. I know we are getting closer to the Collisee, when more and more emergency vehicles line the street than regular cars.

They are all empty and some are even flipped over with the dead moving around inside.

We finally turn onto Birch Street where the Collisee is, and I swear my heart stops beating in my chest. I’m not alone with that feeling either, because Noah slams on the brakes and makes the tires squeal as we come to a halt.

“
Holy shit balls, this is so not good.” Noah says a little too loud for my roaring ears.

“
I second that notion. You think it’s too late to turn around?” Sam says quietly.

“
Ugh yeah, I think they heard the tires Noah.” Claire says in a squeaky voice.

Gabe shifts closer to me and grabs my arm in a tight grip, but I don’t pull away though, since I need him to anchor me here and not out there. What is out there is pretty much our worst nightmare, and I don’t know how we can actually go through them all. The building we need is set back from the street and is very massive is size, but it sits in a parking lot that is about the size of a large malls. And in said parking lot, is over a hundred of the dead that I was wondering where they were at earlier. Looks like we’ve found them, but one question remains.

Is there anyone alive beyond them and is it bad that some of them are watching us now?

Chapter Forty

While we all try to remember to breathe, we can’t but help to stare all around at the dead around us. They are all surrounding abandoned ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, military vehicles, and even blood drive vans. If I squint through the masses, I can almost see that most of the vehicles are still running and that there are dead still bodies hanging out of some of the doors. Just like the army base we went to, this place has bodies littering the ground, and the mobile dead walk and stand on them as they shuffle around. Beyond them covering the front of the building, there is a thick clear tarp lining the entrance. It flaps in the light breeze, and it causes the dead to shutter.