They Walk (6 page)

“
It’s pretty obvious what happened.” States Gabe, “But it seems too impossible to believe.”

We’re all staring at him, and I for one don’t want to say out loud what I know he’s thinking. It can’t be real, stuff this crazy only happens in horror movies. And besides I’m far too plain to be cast as the big chested bimbo that always runs upstairs to get away. My friends and I are too normal to be fighting for our lives from monsters.

I lean back on the couch, and snuggle deeper into the crook of Matts shoulder. He leans over and kisses my temple. He’s been awake for a little while, and he can’t seem to stop giving me guilty looks. I stopped being mad at him when I saw his arm. I know he did what he did, in hopes of keeping us safe. Not everyone can be a hero and try to save those around them.

He doesn’t seem to be in that much pain, but that could be from the aspirin that Maria was passing out earlier. Beside us is Austin, he only just woke up a few minutes ago when his dog jumped onto his lap. They both seem to be dossing off now though, which is good. The make shift bandage on his shoulder has already been changed three times. It just seems like the bleeding isn’t stopping and he keeps getting whiter and whiter.

The thing that must be on all our minds is if we don’t get out of here. He might not make it.

“
What do we do now though?” whisper’s Claire.

I glance at her and feel just as lost as she looks. She’s sitting on the floor across from me in front of the unlit fireplace. She’s sitting close to Brian, who has his arm around her. Beside them is the girl in the chair, whose name I found out is Lucy. Her boyfriend Peter is still beside her on the floor, they both are dossing off at the moment. Between them and the couch is Alex and Sam, they must not be friends because they don’t look at one another or maybe I’m reading into things. On my other side sitting on the loveseat is Dan with a sleeping Maria beside him. Next to her sits a nervous looking Emily. And directly in front of me, sitting next to Claire near the fireplace is Gabe. He keeps staring at his now clean hands, which are still holding the fire poker. I don’t think he put it down once, not that I blame him.

Dan’s voice brings me out of my reverie.

“
We should make sure those things don’t get inside for one.” He glances to the window closest to him. “They don’t seem to know how to open the door, but they are trying to push through the windows.”

The noise I was trying to ignore comes rushing back to my ears, and I inwardly cringe. The scratching at the glass keeps getting worse, and I wish and loath that the sun will be up soon. By the noise, there must be a lot of them out there. I can actually hear the floor boards of the porch groaning, or maybe it’s them. I suddenly don’t feel safe in the living room anymore, and there are far too many windows in here.

Apparently I’m not the only one to think this though, since I don’t get the chance to say it.

“
These windows won’t hold forever. We should try to block them the best we can.” Gabe says.

“
Even if we can get them blocked, I don’t think we should stay down here.” Brian States.

“
Yeah well, it won’t matter where we are. Those things are going to get in eventually. But your right, not being right next to them is probably a good idea.” Gabe replies.

“
Has anyone called for help? Like 911 or the cops, or something?” Mumbles Sam. He’s so nervous talking to everyone that his face gets red, and he doesn’t look up.

“
I tried before anyone went outside in the first place.” Emily says. “I just keep getting a busy signal. I tried my house too, but no one’s answering.”

“
Well that can’t be a good sign.” Sam says with wide eyes.

“
We should worry about the windows for now, and figure out the rest of that out later.” Gabe says as he stands up.

I lean into Matt for another second, and close my eyes. I can’t help feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better, and I want to treasure being safe in his arms. He holds me tighter, even though I know it has to hurt him. I raise my head up a little, so that I can look at him. His face is close to mine and his once bright blue eyes now look light and hollow. He’s beginning to get as pale as Austin, even though we managed to slow the bleeding on his arm.

As everyone that is awake and not hurt get up to find things to use for the windows, I lean into Matt for a quick kiss. I keep it light, not wanting to hurt him, and he sighs into me. I pull back and sit up, and try to seem reassuring. He closes his eyes and rests back into the couch, and I worry about him not for the first time.

Standing up, I find Gabe watching me from across the room.

With everything that’s happened I haven’t had the time to try and figure him out. And his weird lingering glances aren’t helping anything either. He looks away first though and helps Dan pull the love seat up to the front window. It won’t do much, but it will momentarily slow anything that comes in. It’s a small comfort, but it’ll have to do.

I make my way toward the porch door and help Claire and Brian move the kitchen table in front of it. We move the round table right up to the sliding glass door, and put two chairs in front of it so it doesn’t tip over. On either side, we put two more chairs up. Brian goes off to help Dan and Gabe, who are having trouble moving a bookcase that was in another room in here.

“
So how are you holding up?” Claire asks as she picks up a stool from the island in the kitchen beside us.

“
Better than Matt, I think he’s worse than what he’s letting on.” I say as I grab one of the stools and walk it to the window with Claire. “What about you?”

She stops in front of the window, and sighs. She turns to me with a small smile though.

“
Grateful for Brian, he’s so strong. It feels like he sucks all the terror out of me, and I know I don’t have to be afraid as long as he’s around.”

I can’t help but return her smile. Given the circumstance, we should all try to make the best of the situation. And Claire is. I’ve just never seen her this way before. Not to mention the way she wielded the knife earlier out on the deck. I always assumed I was the stronger of the two, but I realize that I was wrong. I ran away from the fight, and she stood up to it. In this moment I’m so proud of her, if not a little jealous, and I’d give anything to feel as sure as she does.

“
He has to be doing something, you were all supergirl earlier.”

“
I know, right!” She blushes though, and I don’t think she’s ever like a guy more than right now.

We finish bringing the four other stools over to the window next to the porch door. Satisfied, we spilt up to find some bigger furniture to place in front of the next window. The others have spilt up and are moving things in their own sections of the large living room and foyer. I wander past the kitchen towards the stairs, near a closet there is a desk. It’s averaged sized and figure I could lift it on my own. I learn pretty fast that I was wrong. It’s made out of a heavy wood, and can barely lift one side, let along drag it anywhere. Starting to sweat from the struggle, I close my eyes and lift with all my strength. I’m about to give up and ask for help, when the desk lifts up at the other end. I can now easily lift my end.

I open my eyes and am surprised to see Gabe holding the other end.

“
Where do you want it?” He says, as he stares down at the desk.

“
There’s a gap in the windows near the porch door. It’ll fit there.” I say.

He doesn’t say anything else as we move it to the kitchen. As soon as it’s in front of the window, he’s already backing away.

“
Gabe wait,” He stops and stares at me with a blank expression. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Nodding, he turns to walk away again.

I don’t know why he’s acting all weird, but he needs to hear what I have to say. I quickly step over to him and reach for his arm. My fingers barely graze his arm when he flinches and turns back to me. I drop my hand away, feeling as if they were burned. Even though I know they weren’t, it just feels like a shock that he flinched.

“
What?” He’s glaring now, and I can’t help feeling hurt.

“
I just meant thank you for earlier, not for the desk. I mean, yes thank you for that too, but more for earlier.” I know I’m rambling now, but I just can’t stop. “I mean it, thank you. You didn’t have to come back to help me.”

He shrugs, “Matt would have helped you if he could have, but he was a little busy. How is he by the way?”

“
I’m not sure to be honest, he got bit pretty badly. I’m worried he lost too much blood.”

Gabe steps closer to me, and reaches his hand out. Before he touches my arm, I notice out of the corner of my eyes that Sam and Alex are getting Matt and Austin up. Near them, Dan and Brian hover and they must be waiting to move the couch. I turn away from Gabe and start to go help Matt.

“
Thank you again Gabe, it means a lot.” I say over my shoulder.

As I walk away, I hear him walk back into the wall. He lets out a deep breath, and I force myself not to look back at him. I feel so confused over the way he’s being. One minute he was kind of being rude, and then he seemed like he was about to try and comfort me. I don’t know what to think about that. I won’t lie and pretend I don’t have the same conflicting thoughts about him.

It seems like such a dumb thing to worry about, but I think I hurt him when I walked away.

Chapter Eleven

By the time the sun the sun is coming up, we’re all settled upstairs is Austin’s room. The window’s downstairs are blocked the best way we knew how, meaning most furniture is pushed against them. But it’s better than nothing, in my opinion. At least there will be some sort of obstacle for those things to get by first. Being on the second floor, almost gives us the illusion that nothing is wrong. For one thing, it’s quieter.

We can’t hear the scratching and banging on the windows.

We all pretty much found a wall to lean against, and try to stay calm. Except for Austin of course who is passed out on his own bed. The girl Lucy is laying across the bottom of it, no one wanted to see her lying on the floor. Even Austin agreed who woke up enough to grumble a reply about it. Her boyfriend Peter won’t leave her side and is perched at the end of the bed.

The room is pretty good sized, and I’m almost jealous about it. The bed is along the wall to the right of the door, and takes the whole space being a queen. Straight ahead is a bay window, with a padded seat. To the left of the window, is a built in entertainment center slash bookcase. It has a large plasma TV and a lot of video game equipment. There are drawers lining the bottom of it, making me believe that’s his dresser. To the right of the window, are the closet door and a small desk. It’s pretty bare except for an expensive looking computer.

It makes my laptop look chincy in comparison.

I’m sitting on the floor next to Matt, who is resting on the window seat, next to him is Alex. I suppose we’re trying to help out all of us that are hurt, even if we don’t really know how. The best we figure is they need rest, or try to keep up their strength. Beside me on the floor are Claire and Brian, and I notice that he’s been checking out the TV the last couple minutes. Sam is sitting near Brian with his knees drawn up to his chest, and he hasn’t lost the deer in headlights look. Near the door on the other side of the bookcase, is Gabe. He’s been pretty quiet since we came upstairs, and I can tell he’s trying not to look at me. Or maybe I’m being paranoid, and that’s what I’m doing. On the other side of Alex, near the closet are Dan and Maria. She’s asleep in his lap and beside her is Emily.

Now that we finished downstairs, we don’t really have another plan or ideas about what to do next. I do know that we all keep checking our cellphones, and none of us are able to reach anyone. It’s really unnerving that no one answers, but we do get the occasional busy signal. But that doesn’t make us feel any better.

I’m about to dose off, leaning against Matt, when Brian stands up and faces the TV.

“
What about the news?” He says as he turns back to face the room. “I mean just because no one is answering the phones, there might be something about it on TV, right?”

“
It can’t hurt to try. Reporters have a habit of getting in the thick of things.” Dan says.

We all kind of nod in agreement, and Brian turns back to the TV. It’s kind of an elaborate plasma brand, and it takes him a second to find the power button. After he does though, he still pauses with his hand raised. As if overcoming his hesitation, he pushes it. The TV clicks on with a whooshing sound, and we all lean forward in anticipation.

Or at least I do.

The screen is dark for a moment, and all I can hear is static. Then suddenly it’s alive with color, and it takes me a minute to see what’s on the screen. It’s one of those emergency broadcast messages you know the ones that come on when you are usually watching a movie, when there is never a real emergency. Except I know that this one is clearly not a test, given what is running around outside. There is no sound, just the occasional bleeping noise. Along the bottom of the screen, the same message keeps repeating across.

It says,

“
Androscoggin County residents are to seek immediate shelter. A rapidly spreading contagion is infecting the dead, whom are rising. Emergency evacuation is in progress, and troops are on their way. An emergency service shelter is being devised, and residents are advised to stay indoors until further notice. Beware of your surroundings. Be alert. The dead are fast and highly dangerous.”