They Walk

Chapter Fifty Three

From the hit, I get bumped to the side a bit. Before I can regain my balance, he’s already reached me and pushing me into the room. It’s small and dark, I don’t even see anything until Hunter shoves me back and I hit the side of a desk. All the air gets rushed out of my lungs from the impact. I scan my surrounding s for something to use as a weapon or something, but he’s already approaching me again. He steps right up into me.

I have to lean back against the side of the desk to keep him at arm’s length.

“Hunter, why are you doing this? If something happened, we can talk about this.” I say is a rush.

“Stupid girls, always thinking you can talk you way out of things.” He says between gritted teeth, as he leans into me so that his face is inches from mine.

I try to scoot back as far as I can, but there is only so far I can get away. He was on me so fast; I haven’t even been able to process what the hell is going on. I try to think back if he was bitten at all, in the time from the Collisee to here and I can’t remember if he had. He’s acting like, like someone else that attacked me, but it’s almost off somehow. He’s been acting strange since we first met him.

Can a bite take days to infect?

I don’t think it does, at least in my experience it always worked so fast.

“Hunter, come on, be reasonable. I know we don’t know each other well, but you’re a good person. You don’t have to do this, just let me go.”

He lifts his hands, and grips my throat and begins to squeeze, softly at first before adding a little more pressure.

“You don’t know me as well as you think Maggie. Remember my ex-girlfriend?” He says inches for my face, that I can feel his breath.

I try to turn my head away from him, but his grip is too tight and I’m starting to have hard time breathing. I raise my hands now and hit at him, anyplace I can reach, but it doesn’t have any effect. So I try to pry is hands off me, as he squeezes tighter.

“She was just like you at first, always teasing me, but never giving in. You’re more stupid than her though, thinking you can show me up with your boyfriend.”

I try to scream now, but the air is trapped in my throat so it comes out as a wheeze.

Feeling my head get fuzzy, I know I won’t last much longer if he keeps choking me. Using all the strength I can, I wiggle around and try to kick at him, as I claw at his face. He yells, but inches so close to me, that I can’t move my legs anymore. His cheeks are bleeding from my scratches.

He releases one hand and pulls pack and slaps me.

My head gets tossed to the side, and he’s already chocking me with both hands, before I realize that my cheek is stinking from being hit. He squeezes me with such force now, that my head is pounding and I can’t get enough air.

The room is starting to get darker, and my hands fall limply to my sides.

“She thought she could fight me off too, but I told you we had a back break up right?” He leans close to me again, and he laughs in my face. “It must have slipped my mind to say that I was the one to end things, and by things, I mean her life.”

What he’s saying isn’t making any sense, but then my ears are ringing now, so I can’t really hear anything anyway. He grips me tighter and shakes me, as if trying to keep me awake. Opening my eyes, I didn’t even know I closed them.

I’m so tired, and I can’t breathe, I just want to sleep now.

He shakes me again, and black spots dance behind my eyes and are starting to close in around me. I don’t even feel any pain now except for the way my lungs are burning for air. I’m about to close my eyes and give up, when one of the black spots turn into a shadow. Then the shadow takes the form of a person, and creeps up behind Hunter. My first thought is that the dead have finally broken inside through the door, but as the shadow gets closer.

I see that it’s Gabe.

I want to smile and cry that he’s alright, but before I can do anything, he slams into Hunter. He knocks him off me. Instantly, I fall to the ground and gasp in the biggest breath I have ever taken. My lungs burn as I breathe in and out and I can’t stop the coughing fit that pours out of me. On my hands and knees coughing, I look up to see that Gabe has Hunter on the ground and is hitting him.

I only have a moment to rejoice in the fact that he is getting what he deserves, when Hunter blocks a hit and shoves Gabe off him. I try to yell for Gabe, but my voice just comes out in another coughing fit, that leaves me curling into myself gasping. When he gets his balance back, Hunter is already on his feet and rushes at him with a yell.

Gabe is ready though and as Hunter is almost to him he punches him.

When Hunter turns from the hit, Gabe slams into him and knocks him into the wall. Before he can hit him again though, Hunter knees him and shoves him back now. They circle each other like sharks, and I try to call out to them to stop fighting, but I can’t even catch my breath yet. Hunter kicks out at him, but Gabe blocks him easily. As Hunter is about to strike out at him again, Gabe rushes at him before I can call out to him to not too. When they collide, they fall back into the wall, except it’s not the wall at all.

It’s a window.

From the speed in which they are falling, they crash right through it and fade from my line of sight.

Not caring that my throat is still burning, I scream with all I can, and I scramble to my shaky legs.

On my feet now, the world tilts and spins so much that I almost fall to the floor. But I force myself to the broken window, and practically fall into the frame so that I can peer out of it. Outside, it’s completely dark now and it’s raining so hard that I have a hard time seeing where they are. They had fallen out into an alley of sorts, but it is much larger, with a couple feet between the next buildings. Squinting, I see movement, and I see that they are still fighting, even if they are both bleeding freely now.

Beyond them in the darkness, I see more movement and I know they won’t be alone for much longer.

I scream for Gabe again and start to go out the window, before remembering the ax.

I spin around and quickly scan the room, until I see it at the door on the floor, where I dropped it. I rush over to it, and ignore the way my body feels shaky when I bend over to pick it up. I even ignore the way my head spins, when I turn back for the window. When I reach the window sill again, I see the guys fighting and the movements beyond them are turning into person sized shadows, and know that I don’t have any time to waste.

Grasping the ledge with my free hand, I place my leg over the side.

I jump out not caring about getting cut on the glass.

I land on my feet easily and don’t even stop to gain my balance. I just dart toward the shadows that are getting closer to the guys. As I pass them, I try to not notice how Hunter just hit Gabe and made him fall to the ground. One of the dead is closest than the others and I rush at a dead blonde girl and swing the ax out at her without thinking.

My head is throbbing now with every step I take, but I refuse to let it distract me.

If I live through the dead that are rounding the side of the building, then I deal with my pain then. The dead girl I swing at must have dies days ago, because her flesh is so soft that when I hit at her neck, her head cuts off instead of her falling to the ground. I don’t have time to be shocked and amazed though, because there is another dead guy wearing glasses that is running towards me.

I spin around to raise the ax and face him head on.

But I get so dizzy when I start to turn that I feel myself beginning to fall to the ground.

By the time I land, I don’t even have time to register the fact that I feel claustrophobic on the ground with the rain falling on me, when the dead guy is falling on top of me. Snapping his jaw near my throat, I recover enough to get the ax between us. Used to being trapped this way by now, I easily pushes him off, plus he’s smaller than another person I doesn’t like to think about. As he stumbles back, I quickly get to my feet, and he lunges again.

I’m ready though and I swing at him and catch the side of his head knocking his glasses off.

He falls to the ground now still clawing at my legs as he does, and I deftly pull the ax from his head. I have to struggle a little bit, his flesh isn’t as soft as the girls, but once free I bring the ax down into his neck. From one hit, his movement still.

Breathing hard and trying to not noticing the shaking, I glance around for Gabe.

I force my attention away from the dead bodies that are pooling together around the side of the building, and instead I search to the sounds of a fight. They don’t seem to be as into the fight as they were before, both are slowing down and limping. Even in the rain, I can see that they are both covered in blood.

I thank the Heavens that I managed to keep the dead from Gabe at least.

In the opposite direction from them I can see shadows coming closer, and I can’t tell if it is deader or not. I’m about to call out to them to watch out, when Gabe moves in and punches Hunter hard enough to distract him, while he shoves him to the ground.

The world slows down to me then, and I see everything as if it’s in high definition clarity.

As Hunter falls to the ground, his head flies back and smacks the pavement with a resounding bang. From the impact he coughs, and turns to the side and spits out blood from his mouth. Even from all the way across the way, I can see the shadows near them almost take a collective breath before they rush to Hunter. One gets to him first, and it’s an older fat man that is dragging cords of his intestines behind him like a security blanket.

He falls onto Hunter from behind his head and latches onto his left collar bone.

He screams as the man tears into him, but he doesn’t try to fight him off and is staring up at something. Following his line of sight, I find Gabe, and realize that he is just standing there watching him with a cold expression on his face.

I’m frozen in place and don’t know if I should do something. I mean yeah, this jerk was just trying to kill me a couple minutes ago, but no one should be eaten to death. I still can’t bring myself to leave my spot though, and I know I should do something; the dead at my back will be close soon too.

But as I watch, Gabe slowly lifts his gun, like he doesn’t really want to.

He aims it over Hunter’s shoulder, and shoots the dead man that is biting him in the head.