Will To Live (5 page)

"Nope, but we weren't going to lose them. And, who knows? Maybe they're just survivors needing help, Nick. Not everyone is bad." I tell him, though I'm trying to convince myself of this, as well.

He nods once. "Maybe."

“
But,” I say as I look back at the man who passed the six foot mark a long time ago, “stay alert.”
 

I watch as the couple meet at the back of their car, tightly grasp each others hands, then wait for us to make a move. Letting out a long breath, I ask Nick if he's ready. He grunts and nods, then we both exit the truck. Vicki gets out of the backseat on the driver's side and stays just behind me. She whispers that she'll watch our backs, and we nod to let her know we heard her.

Nick and I meet in front of the truck and come to a stop several feet in front of the other couple. None of us say anything at first, each waiting for the other to start.

Finally, the other woman smiles hesitantly, then begins to speak. "Hi, I'm Amy, and this is Eric. We're sorry we followed you, but we need help. We―"

A shrill scream of pain cuts her off, and Nick and I swing our guns up in the direction of their heads as our bodies tighten and shift, ready to fight. Amy and Eric's own bodies tighten, then Eric grabs Amy into his arms and thrusts her behind him. He holds up one hand in an attempt to calm us down.

"It's okay. It's alright. That's just our friend, Fiona. She's hurt. That's why we need your help."

Nick and I don't relax, not even for a second.

I ask suspiciously, "Exactly
how
is she hurt? What's wrong with her?"
 

Eric lowers his hand, and it doesn't take long before I see the moment Eric realizes exactly what we're worried about. He rushes to reassure us, "Oh. No! No, no. She hasn't been bit, she's been shot. Please, if you can help her, we will be more than grateful and will pay you back in any way we can."

I look back and forth between him and Amy several times, then finally at Nick, who shrugs.
I motion with my gun for them to lead us to the car, then Nick and I follow, with Vicki bringing up the rear.
Just before Amy reaches for the door handle, Vicki hisses for us to turn around. The four of us do as she demands, and instantly see a group of about twenty zombies heading our way, two of them Runners.

Nick tells Vicki to get behind us and she quickly obeys. I hear Amy gasp, so I swing my head in her direction, but she's moved back behind Eric. Taking a quick look around to make sure we have no surprise zombies about to attack in any other direction, I focus my attention back to the zombies quickly converging on us. Nick and I easily take down the two runners, then we walk ahead to meet the slower moving zombies so as not to bring the fight so close to the unarmed living behind us.

We're doing pretty good, just Nick and I.

Really.
 

Until I step on the side of a fist-sized rock lying on the sidewalk with my walking cast. Then I go down, slamming my knees into the cement.

I watch in horror as my gun spins down the sidewalk. The noise of the metal as it skids across the pebbled surface seems to become louder the further it gets out from my reach, before coming to a stop halfway in the road.

By this time, the zombies are only a few feet in front of us, and Nick is doing his best to shoot them all on his own, but there are just too many undead. Even if he did have enough ammo, he still can't shoot each one fast enough before they're on top of him.

God knows, he's trying though.

I'm just turning my body over to scramble on hands and knees to get my gun, when I hear Nick's screams. Screams filled with terror. Vicki's own screams soon join his.

I whip my head back to Nick and am horrified at the scene playing out before me. The zombies have reached him and are tearing at his clothes, ripping his skin with their nails as they grab and pull. Their dry, gray, wrinkled mouths stretch wide, and their blood-stained teeth gnash together as they anticipate the warm flesh and blood that represents all that Nick needs to live.

I forget about the gun –
little good it will do Nick now –
and scoot on my ass toward him and the undead. I scream at Nick to get down, and as he lets himself drop to his back on the ground, I kick at the zombies' kneecaps – bringing some down to the ground, and knocking some back a few feet. Nick sees what I'm doing and starts kicking them, as well. One of the undead has come around from behind the others and is making his way to the side of Nick's head. But I see him and spin on my butt until my legs are over Nick's head.
 

At first, Nick fights me, not knowing a zombie is about to latch onto his face. But when the rancid mouth comes down onto the walking cast instead of his nose, Nick stops fighting me. When the undead lifts its head just before coming back down for another try, I slam the bottom of my boot into its face and gag when its nose explodes. Greenish-red goo thick as jelly globs out of the hole in its face and onto my cast. Every instinct I have wants me to jerk away from the contact of the rank-smelling globs, but fortunately, my brain sees the danger of letting that crap fall straight onto Nick's bare face and I manage to keep my leg where it is.

Taking my other foot, I push the zombie back with a forceful kick and Nick flings himself to the opposite side of me before the zombie comes back for more. When it does, I trap its neck between my cast-covered leg and my good leg, then snap its neck in one fast smooth move. While its neck may be broken, the zombie's still not
truly
dead. So I take my booted foot and slam the heel down repeatedly, until the brain matter inside its head is now a jellied mess covering the ground. Satisfied that this one's biting days are over, I spin back around to help Nick with the rest.
 

Our legs and arms are tiring fast and I'm scared,
really
scared that we won't be able to kill them all. Destroying a brain isn't all that easy, with just your hands and feet. Nick and I are lying side-by-side on our backs, using the last strength of our legs just to keep them away, unable to do more than that at this point. I look at Nick just as he turns his head to me. Our eyes lock and we recognize the exhaustion, the fear, and the regret in each others eyes.
 

His regrets are probably much different from mine, but they're just as important to him as mine is to me.
 

I watch as a tear makes a trail from the corner of Nick's eye and down through the dust on his temple, before it sinks into his dirty, sweat-soaked hair. I reach out and grab his hand.

As we hold on tightly to each other, we keep kicking, but the kicks are barely making the zombies take a step back. We're almost dead and there's nothing we can do about it.

My legs are shaking from fatigue and pain, my back is scratched by the rough surface of the sidewalk where my shirt has ridden up. A rock has punctured through the skin in the middle of my back, digging deeper with each movement. I ignore all of that and close my eyes tight, terrified of that first bite I know is coming soon.

But suddenly I hear a whoosh, then a sharp crack. I keep my eyes and mouth firmly closed because I have zombie bits raining down on me, but as soon as I can, I open my eyes to see a metal rod smash into the side of another zombie's head. I squeeze my eyes closed again as the rotten pieces of what I now know is from a zombie's skull fall onto me, but this one was directly over me so I also get the pleasure of feeling thick wet globs land on me too. It takes everything I have to keep from gasping, screaming, and gagging.

I had almost forgotten about Eric and the girls –
Ha, screw almost, I
had
forgotten about them! –
and as relieved as I am, I'm also feeling a little pissed off that it took Eric so damn long to come and help us. But maybe he had a good reason. Maybe it wasn't as long as it seemed to me.
 

Deciding it doesn't even matter, as long as Nick and I get out of this alive, we find the strength to renew our efforts at kicking them away. When the last one has it's head firmly bashed in, Nick and I both collapse, breathing hard and feeling the pain we couldn't afford to feel before. Gasping for air, I open my eyes and look above me to thank Eric. But then my breath is gone again when I see, not
Eric
standing there with a tire iron, but
Vicki
!
 

It takes a minute before my brain starts functioning again, but when it finally does, I roll over to my side and push myself up with shaky arms. Managing only a sitting position, I stare up in shock at her, then I look over at Nick. He seems to be in just as much shock as I am.

"Vicki? What the hell?" Nick asks.

Vicki shrugs and drops her arms in exhaustion, "I was the star hitter on my softball team before my teammates decided they'd like to eat me. No one else was doing anything to help, and I damn sure wasn't going to just stand there and let them kill you two. Besides, if Nick is going to die, it's going to be with
me
by his side, and it will be
my
hand he's holding!"
 

She laughs to let us know she's joking, but I can't help but wonder just how serious she really is about that.

Even so, my long time irritation with her immediately turns to respect. Now that I know she can be useful, and
can
protect herself, and others – she is less of a worry and more of a warrior. I think that was my problem the whole time. I was scared of not being able to protect her. I needed to know she could protect herself too. And if I were honest, even with all her faults, I adore her, and I truly expected her to be dead long before now. I guess I needed to keep her at a distance, so her death wouldn't hurt so much. But deep down I know, even if she hadn't turned into some warrior princess, it still would have hurt like hell to lose her.
 

Nick and I, along with Vicki's help, assist each other to our feet. My legs are shaking from the hell I just put them through, and judging by the wobble of Nick's legs, I assume he's feeling it too. Nick and I both wrap our arms around Vicki, showing her how much we appreciate what she did for us. Then I lift my head, ready to kill the other two people myself, for just standing by and watching, instead of helping us.

But they
couldn't
have helped us. They're too busy killing zombies, zombies that had come out of the alley next to their car. There are six now, but I see the arm of another emerge from between the buildings, so who knows how many are still coming.
 

"Nick! You two go help them. I'm going to reload our guns, then I'll be right there."

I snatch up our guns from the ground and take off for our truck while the teens start out at a run to help Eric and Amy. I reload the two guns, and slip another four handguns inside my fatigues. Then I limp over to the group as fast as I can, hand Nick his gun, and we both start taking them down.

In just the amount of time it took me to deal with the guns, the street has filled with zombies, all coming from the alley. Right now, I would guess there are about thirty in the street. I push forward enough to be able to look inside the alley, and my head begins to spin when I see that the alley is completely full of the undead bastards. Then there's the mass of undead not yet
in
the alley on the other side. There seems to be no end to the rotten bastards.
 

This isn't going to work!

My brain feels as if it's unable to function anymore, it's definitely not coming up with anything good as fast as I need it to, but then it finally does comes through for me once again – and just in time.

"Eric, Amy, and Vicki – in the truck. Now!" I scream at them.

Vicki immediately runs to the truck, but Eric and Amy waste time – time we don't have – arguing with me about leaving their friend in the car.

"Go now or
die
!" I'm done arguing with them. I tell Nick to go now too, then I follow. As I settle behind the steering wheel and start the truck, I watch as Amy and Eric finally make their choice and race to the truck. When they get in and slam the door, I put the truck in gear, jump the curb and pull the truck right up against the passenger side of the car.
 

I can finally see the woman inside. Fiona is terrified, her mouth wide open with screams that none of us can hear. I share some of her fear, knowing what she must be feeling – thinking we had abandoned her to be killed in the most horrible of ways.

I push every emotion aside and focus on what I need to do. I roll the back passenger window down and order Eric and Nick to bust the other car's window. Once they do, they help the woman inside our truck.

I'll be honest, I don't really want to take her with us. How do I know that she only has a gunshot wound? How do I know it
isn't
a zombie bite? Why should I trust these people?
 

I don't have time to look her over now, but how can I just leave her here to die if she really hasn't been bit?

I meet Nick's eyes in the rearview mirror and he gives me a quick nod, his expression serious. I look back and see his gun sitting next to his right leg, ready to shoot if need be, then I hear him demand her to show him where she'd been shot. She pulls her blood-covered shirt off of her right shoulder and we both can clearly see that it is indeed a gunshot wound.

Nick leans over the front seat, close to my ear and whispers that
all
of them need to be checked as soon as possible, and that we should do so from now on with anyone new. I nod and focus back on the zombies who are more determined than ever to get inside.
 

The truck is surrounded by the undead, several zombie-layers thick with more on their way. There's no way I can push through them without damaging the truck. Throwing the truck in park, I mentally choose the ones who will be fighting with me, and who will be staying in the truck.