They Walk (51 page)

Then other sounds beside Gabe rise up around me.

“
Gabe…we can’t…stay here…it’s not…” My brother’s voice comes through my mind muddled, less clear than Gabe’s.

This could be from the constant gunfire all around me now. It’s not alone either. The sound of flesh striking flesh is a constant echo in the air and so are the growls. I wish I could avoid hearing those ever again, but in a way it’s kind of a comfort. If the growls are the dead and the dead are where this other version of me is, and then is that me the real one?

I don’t get the chance to debate the logistics of my mental stability for long, because I suddenly feel something other than Gabe’s hands on the other version of me sitting down. It’s a wetness sliding down my cheeks. Call it experience or female instinct, but I doubt this is contributed to tears. For one, the wetness is practically hot and secondly it oozes in a slow going thickness.

Gabe’s hands slide in the wetness. “No Maggie, not yet…please. Damn it.”

“
Gabe, what is that?” Dan’s voice is closer now, but still fuzzy sounding. “Is that…blood? Shit. Enough of this, we have to move NOW!”

“
Shut it Daniel, just keep them away from us, can you do that please?” Gabe’s hands tighten on me, it’s a little terrifying. “I don’t want to move her and make it worse. Damn it, why is this happening. Maggie? Can you move? Please talk to me...”

A though rips through me then. I think I might be dying.

My whimper becomes louder and it’s not long before I hear myself struggle with the words I want so badly to scream.

“
Don’t…here…please…leave…wait.”

Gabe gasps and moves in so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face.

“
Maggie? I’m not leaving you. Never.” He pauses. “Dan is right though, we have to move. Can you move you think?”

“
Dying…can’t…wall…far…hurts...tired.”

“
No, you’re not going to die, not today, not any time soon. We just have to get out of here. I know your tired, just stay awake long enough for me to get you safe.”

More whimpers slide past my lips as I try to tell him about the wall. He takes this as confirmation because his hands slide down my cheeks and move like he is going to pick me up. He doesn’t get the chance though. He’s gone is a blink and then so am I.

I feel my body in two places at once for a moment before I’m slammed fully back into the body of me on the road. This causes me to stumble to the ground roughly on my knees. I don’t feel any pain as the blow sends vibrations up my legs. I see the same rushing chaos all around, which still seems to be ignoring me, before my eyes close. My body quivers, then falls face first onto the road slamming my cheeks to the pavement. It should cause immense pain to rise up in my already pain filled head, but it doesn’t.

I sigh, too exhausted to wonder if I’m really losing my mind. Instead, I allow myself to really believe that I might be truly dying. Why else would I be seeing whatever it is that I’m seeing and feeling? I should be terrified, I should sad, I should be…

…
back in the in the car again.

A struggle of wet mushy sounds of blade cutting through soft flesh and meat joins in on the constant stream of gunshots everywhere. It makes me want to gag or go back to being alone maybe. I’m still sitting in the car from before, but now my body is turned so that I’m half in and half out, there are hands on me. They are soft and hesitant, and not Gabe’s.

I start to slip off the seat, but the hands straighten me out. “Crap, sorry Maggie. Gabe will be right back; he’s helping Dan right quick.”

Maria?

My whimpering picks up where it left off or maybe just gets louder to me, as I try to thank her for helping me. She seems to understand because she leans in for a hug, but then she stiffens. Her hands tighten on me, enlisting pain where she touches. Her scream makes me jump. Then she is gone. I worry for a whole minute if whatever make her leave will come back to finish me off. Soon there are hands on me again, this time I know its Gabe, and he lifts me easily up in his arms.

I’m gone before my head rest against his chest.

Things get a little wonky at this point. I’m neither here nor there, meaning the car or the road. It’s like I’m hovering in limbo between the two. Glimpses from both realities play before my eyes like a bad cable connection. The only thing that remains strong and constant is the pain in my head. The pounding is so severe that I wouldn’t be surprised if it just suddenly exploded. Heck, it might stop hurting if it did.

I slip from Gabe’s arms and am placed on the cold quivering ground. The air is filled with explosions and heavy smoke, while gunfire and screams rise up to meet it all. Movement is all around, but my body won’t cooperate with the need to NOT get eaten to death. Before I can worry too much, limbo pulls me back. I do feel a hesitant touch on my limp arms trying to drag me as I go through. For a brief moment I really hope it’s someone living.

Lying alone on the road again, the bomb that turned into a bright light is getting closer and closer to me. I’m having a hard time keeping up with what is going on two both of my bodies. The light from above my body on the road surrounds me now, and is so bright that I have to close my eyes from the glare of it. When I finally open my eyes again, I find that I am no longer on the road surrounded by all the dead. They seem to remain apart from the bubble of the stillness around me though. That’s when a flash of a memory forms behind my open eyes.

It plays before me like something I should have known all along.

I have the sensations of movements and muddled sounds again. Nothing makes sense, beside the fact that I am being carried, but I’m not sure by whom. As I fade away this time, I can hear Gabe yelling for me to come back to him. I really want to, I do, but I haven’t the strength anymore.

I feel my eyes fill with tears, as the pain in my body begins to fade and all that I’m left with is numbness. This doesn’t seem real, as say the other me who is a vicious zombie killing warrior. I’d almost give anything to go back to that. I get my wish when my vision goes grey and fills up with a light that seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Everything around me starts to disappear.

Light rises all around filling my vision. The brightness of it is so severe that my eyes close without even having to try. Giant vibrations beneath me causes an echoing ripple through my body, it takes my breath away. Light filters through my closed eyelids and I worry that this is finally it. I’m going to die. It hits me like a blow to the gut, but oddly enough, I’m not afraid. There is comfort where fear should be, numbness where pain should be. A sigh as soft as a feathers tough slips though my lips, then there is only the mind numbing darkness of nothing.

I’m gone.

Chapter Eighty Seven

I’m a drift and have been for what feels like forever, lost in the dark abyss of the uncertainty of life and death. I have no feeling of pain, touch, or even fear and oddly I’m okay with that. It’s safe here in the dark. I’m alone in it yes, but at least I’m not afraid of dying. After being suspended this way for a while, the feeling of anything is a shock to my system. My mind and body is pulled back to itself, I cling to the dark not ready to leave. But don’t really have a choice, I never did.

My eyes open with a gasp. Shudders ripple down the length of me. Pain ruptures through my skull causing my eyes to water. Blurrily, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. As I do, little things pick at me about where I could possibly be. For one thing, it’s painfully noisy. How I was sleeping I have no clue. For another, I’m clearly not alone. At first this makes me terrified, but when I realize I’m not being eaten, I begin to relax as much as I can.

It seems that I’m in a medical ward or something. I lean towards the or something because it’s clearly outside and not in a hospital, but definitely medically related. I blame this theory on the fact that I’m lying down in a clean bed with needles hooked in both my arms, and the air supplying mask that is a little too snug over my nose and mouth. Unless of course dead things became smatter over my nap, yeah, I don’t think so either. Mine isn’t the only bed in here either, there are at least a dozen or more occupied ones, and even more empty. Each bed appears to be separated by thick clear plastic curtains, with only a little breathing room in between.

The reason I’m guessing this place is outside rather than in? Well, there are no walls to speak off, at all. Okay that’s not completely true, there are tent like walls. The sound everywhere is ridiculous. I wonder if it’s what woke me up, but I know it’s not. The people that are obviously with me, given that they are sitting close to my bed within my curtain space, are still asleep. All four of them if you can believe it, and I’m starting to think maybe my pounding headache is what woke me.

I wonder what a girl has to do to get some pain pills around here, if they’re available anyways.

As much as I want to sit up and call out to the cutie on my right, I feel so exhausted still. A sigh fogs up my oxygen mask causing me to cough. The noise startles my visitors enough that they start to stir into waking. One by one they sit up straighter and open their eyes. And one by one they notice that I too am awake. Shocked silence plays over all of their expressions. It almost makes me want to laugh at the sight. The tears in their eyes are what stop me from saying or doing anything.

The image of them is eerily too familiar and with me waking after being hurt again. My eyes were starting to clear up a little, but now are overrun with free flowing tears. Gabe rushes even closer to the side of my bed. His chair scratches across the ground in his hurry. The sound of it snaps the others out of their shock and they too get closer to me. My tears flow faster and seep into my face mask. It fogs up even worse than before. This time a coughing fit over takes me. The tears flow faster.

I see a helpless pattern forming.

Taking pity on me, Gabe reaches out for my mask. “May I?”

I nod. He gently removes it. I can breathe easily again. Of course without the distraction, my headache comes back, but really I couldn’t really care. Not when I’m surrounded by everyone that I thought I’d never see again. Gabe reaches out a hand to cup my free cheek and I lean into him before he gets close. I breathe him in. Not just the freshly clean scent of him either, just him by himself, here with me. Worry knots up wrinkles between his eyes, but it makes him even more beautiful to me. I watch as his eyes water, making mine flow faster.

“
Wow, I wondered if I’d ever see the two of you this way again.” Dan’s voice turns my head to find him on the other side of the bed, he’s smiling. “It’s as sickening and disturbing as I remember.”

He’s as clean as Gabe is and just as openly worried about me. It makes me afraid of what happened after I passed out. Obviously it’s not good, if their faces are any indication. Plus, there is the fact that my head hurts and that I’m so weak I can’t even form words. I can see though and what I see are my other two visitors. Maria and Michael cling to their chairs near the foot of my bed, both quiet in their observations of me. It’s clear they are equally worried, but I also see relief. It makes me feel relieved too.

Dan leans in close, “How are you feeling kiddo? That was some nap you took, I’m so jealous.”

As if in response, the pain in my head reaches my pressure point, making me cringe and cry out.

Moving as one entity, they all flock closer like worried mothers. My eyes slam shut. Gabe’s hand slips from my face, a whimper escapes my lips.

The curtain moves, making my eyes travel to Gabe holding it. “Hey! Can we get some freaking help over here please? She’s finally up and in pain.”

Dan laughs quietly, he doesn’t look up though. His eyes tap mine in a pain filled bubble.

A soft admonishing voice calls out to Gabe, who simply shrugs back at them. The voice comes again. It must appease him, because Gabe comes back to my side. Not long after he gets comfortable and takes my hand in his, someone pushes into the tight space of my “room”. It’s a woman, a cute and young one. Too young a clearly be a doctor. I must make a face because she smiles brightly at me, making tension in the others ease up.

“
Your awake I see, that’s good, makes my job better when patients survive.” She pauses to look at the clipboard in her hands, and then glances back at me. “I hear you’re in some pain then? I think I can help you out with that, but could you tell me how bad it is first?”

I nod, open my mouth, and…nothing. I seem to be outdone by dry mouth. A cough escapes me again. The woman waves at Dan, who actually blushes by the way, and he reaches for something behind my line of sight. He comes back with a cup of water. Grateful, I sip from it when he lifts it to my lips. It soothes the scratchiness of my throat and even eases some of the pain in my head. The woman watches me intently as I make a mess of myself with the water. No one says anything about it.

“
What…” I start, but pause when my voice sounds like someone took a shredder to it.

The woman pushes Gabe out of the way so she can be beside me. I notice there is something that looks like a syringe in her hands now and I hope it’s for me. “You want to know what happened. I
was
hoping you knew already, but I have no problem clearing the cobwebs for you. Do you remember anything before passing out?”