They Walk

Chapter Fifty Four

The dead man unlatches himself when he gets shot in the head, and falls back off of Hunter.

He curls onto his side, and I know it won’t be long now for the other dead to make their way to him, since he’s bleeding harder now. Gabe is still standing in the same position with the gun raised, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off of Hunter. Not caring about the dead approaching from my back, I force my shaky legs to run to where Gabe is.

Even as I slip on the wet ground, I don’t stop until I’m standing next to him.

He doesn’t look up as I reach him, and it makes me worry. What if I was one of the dead? He would be already on the ground by now, and I would have lost him forever. At our feet I can hear Hunter crying over the sound of the rain and the dead, but I don’t pay him any attention as he thanks us.

Instead, facing Gabe, I lightly touch his arm that is holding the gun.

He flinches as if I hurt him and I notice the way his arm quivers and the gun starts to shake in his hand. My heart breaks for him, and I know what’s running through his head, it’s going through mine too. Hunter was bitten and will soon be turning, and with the dead coming we can’t afford to leave him at our backs alive.

It might seem cold, but this is something I have to make myself live with now.

If it was me, I would want to die before I turned. My stomach rolls at the thought of trying to attack someone I love, and I don’t want that. I don’t know about Hunter, but he should get the same sympathy I suppose, regardless of his actions. Of course, he might not see it that way, not everyone does.

“He’s going to turn like the others isn’t he?” Gabe whispers so low, that I almost don’t hear him at first.

Looking at Gabe fully now, I see how much more hurt he is than I first thought. His bottom lip is split and is dripping blood down his chin, and has a cut over his right eyebrow. One of his eyes is almost so swollen, that he can’t keep it open fully. I notice then, that he is leaning over a bit, like he can’t stand so straight because he hurts.

I feel rage burn inside me, and all at once any sympathy I felt for Hunter gets washed away with the rain.

With the hand that I placed on Gabe’s, I slowly lower it so that he is not aiming at Hunter now. Gabe glances at me and I can see his eyes widening, and I know what he must be thinking. That I’m going to let Hunter live, but that’s not true. Dragging my hand down his arm, I cover his hand with mine, so that we both hold the gun. I hold Gabe’s gaze for another moment, and I can see that it’s dawning on him what I plan to do.

He nods at me like he approves, and I grip the gun tighter as he pulls his hand away.

He steps almost behind me so that he’s out of the way, but can still watch. I let his presence comfort me, and take away anything that could make me hesitate. I turn back to Hunter, who is now curled into a fetal position and is rocking back and forth making these mewling noises over and over.

I take a step towards him, and his head shoots up so that he is looking at me now.

“Please don’t, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean too.”

I almost want to laugh at him, how can he be this weak thing after what he was doing not that long ago?

This only fuels my fire though, and I know I can’t let him go. With the rain weighing me down, I take another step closer to him and raise the gun with one hand. I leave my other hand at my side, and let the ax rest on the ground.

“Did I ever tell you about my ex-boyfriend Hunter?” I say, as I make my voice sound as empty as I feel.

He looks confused for a second, not understanding what I’m getting at and he looks from me to Gabe.

Finally resting on me, he slowly shakes his head no.

I now aim the gun right at him, and he flinches as if I already shot him. “No? Well, you should know that I killed him.”

As his eyes go even wider in alarm, I squeeze the guns trigger.

He falls back onto the wet pavement with a pop from the gun. He’s still now.

Not shooting a gun in a while, I didn’t realize that there would be a kick to it and luckily I was holding it so hard that my hand hurts. Even with my aim on Hunter, it still went a little wide but still caught him in the head. I was aiming for right between the eyes, but I’m just glad I don’t have to shoot him twice. With my arm still raised, I can feel myself shaking and I wonder why.

Is it bothering me that I killed him, and should it?

I guess I should feel something, mostly because it would probably make me worse than him if it didn’t. I feel something in my eyes, and my vision blurs and that’s when I realize that I’m crying. I can feel Gabe from behind me come closer and oh so slowly, he puts his arms around me.

He helps me lower the gun with his hands on mine, and once he does I spin in his arms, and hold him as tight as I can. He holds me equally as tight, and distantly I can hear him saying something to me, but it’s lost beyond the roaring of my ears. I can guess what he’s saying though, probably something like everything is going to be alright, but how can it? After what I just did we can’t even wait to have a moment to deal, because we have more of the dead still coming for us.

My head is pounding vigorously now and I don’t know how much longer I can stay on my feet. I still cling to Gabe though, even more if possible, and let the rain wash away my guilt. I’m about to tell Gabe that we’re about to have company, when we hear a loud booming that sounds like fireworks from around the front of the Library.

We pull apart and look in the direction, just in time to see the dead that were approaching burst apart in pieces. Amongst the steam in the rain, I know it was a grenade when we see Noah running in our direction firing into the dead left standing with the Uzi. Except he’s not alone, trailing behind him are a small group of people with makeshift weapons.

Two in particular catches my eye.

“…Mommy.” I hear myself whisper.

The ax in my arms suddenly becomes weightless and I let it fall from my numb fingers.

It’s barely hitting the wet ground and I’m already running full out.

I crash into my mother and am just wrapping my arms around her, and my father is at her side and hugging me at the same time. I take in their appearance like I’ve never seen them before, or like it been a while, and I guess it has. My mom’s long dark hair is pulled up in a messy bun, and her dark eyes are bright with unshed tears. My dad is still bald as ever, and like always it makes his light eyes stand out. They are both in dingy clothes like my own, and are covered in dried blood, like my own. Even if they look as bad as I do, it’s still so good to see them.

That I know they don’t care that when I hug them I get fresh blood all over them.

The others of their group are still hitting and shooting at the dead that won’t go away, and as Noah shoots the Uzi he makes his way towards a shocked Gabe. I half turn away and see him dragging the machine gun and the ax after him, and not really paying attention to what’s going on. His eyes are on my parent’s faces, and then they shift to mine, and ghost of a smile appears on his face.

And I know we’ll be okay.

Everything that happens next, all happens in a blur, and I have to ask Gabe in the morning if it was real. Noah had found my parents along with six others, three guys and three girls, hiding at the theater, and came after us after finding them. He didn’t know what Hunter was planning to do he had said that Hunter made up some excuse to get away. Not that it matters now anyway. Since it was dark, we didn’t want to get caught outside any longer than we had to, so Gabe suggested we all stay in the Library for the night. Somehow I managed to walk into the library and not fall on my face, it helped though that my parents never let go of me.

At some point the others are introduced, and we are met with an unusual crowd.

There are two girls that are polar opposites one light and the other dark. There is a woman that was a professor here, and she is middle aged with greying hair. Two of the guys are regular looking with light hair and eyes, but the other guy is rather bulky with dark features. They all pretty much kept to themselves and I ended up sitting against a bookshelf with my mom and dad with Gabe.

He and I together, told them everything that happened to us and where Dan is.

I find out that shortly after they left an art exhibit in the city, things were already bad out. The came back home though, but ended getting caught here at the school. At some point between the tears and the hugs, I end up falling asleep in Gabe’s arms.