“Cash, you don’t need to see that. I’ll take care of it.”
I kept walking. The girl wasn’t far away, just out of the line of sight from the truck. She was covered in dried blood and bruises, making it impossible to tell her age, but she looked young. Probably hadn’t even graduated from high school yet. Could’ve been one of Jase’s classmates, even. Her nose was broken and one arm was bent at an unnatural angle. All the skin had been scraped from her knees.
She was nearly naked, her skin sallow. The wind flapped the tatters of clothing left on her. Her poor body looked like she’d been abused and broken since the virus outbreak started. She belonged in a hospital. Now, without doctors and medical technology, there was nothing that could be done. She lay there, one eye swollen shut, staring into nothingness. It was a blank stare. I thought she’d already died, but then she blinked.
I realized that it was only her spirit that had already died.
A tear trickled down her cheek. I came down on a knee and wiped the tear away with my thumb. I found it hard to breathe, like a fist had wrapped around my heart.
She tried to speak. Her pale, broken lips moved but no sound came out.
I pointed the pistol at her temple. “I’m sorry.” They were the only words I could manage to get out without choking.
She closed her eye and gave a weak smile.
I held the .22 as close as I could get it without touching and pulled the trigger. The blast made me jump, and I let out a sob.
I came back to my feet, staring at the girl, her destroyed features now relaxed.
Finally, she’d found peace.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
I knew Clutch stood at my back. I had a protector, something this girl had never had. The first raindrops landed on her, creating shiny trails through the blood and grime. I turned my face to the sky to let the cool rain wash away my tears. But the rain could wash away neither the sins nor the memories of what had taken place here today.
HUNGER
The Third Circle of Hell
Chapter VI
“I agree,” Clutch said as we shoveled mud into the hole where Jase’s parents now rested. “Zed sludge is the foulest odor in the world.”
I would’ve chuckled except I was still too focused on breathing through my mouth, my bandana doing little to block the stench. The mud stuck to our shovels, making the process tedious, but we both agreed that Jase needed to know that his parents had received a proper burial.
“I’ll finish up here. You want to finish loading the truck?” Clutch asked.
“Gladly,” I said and jogged away before Clutch could change his mind. I sucked in fresh air, though hints of decay still saturated the air.
Jase had made one hell of a mess in the living room. Frank’s wife hadn’t been too nasty, just a zed corpse with a headshot in the earliest stages of bloating. But Frank could’ve been an extra in a horror film. His head had been nothing but pulp, and from his chest up, he’d been covered in dried blood and sticky brown goo. The blood, if I had to guess, was canine.
Propped outside the front door sat bags and boxes filled with everything we’d found useful in the house. I grabbed the other two rifles Jase had told Clutch about and slid them behind the front seat before loading the remaining food from the cabinets and supplies into the back of Clutch’s black pickup truck.
This morning, Jase had also asked for us to grab his Xbox, and Clutch snorted out a “hell, no” before going off about how we were about to find ourselves in the dark ages. I grabbed the Xbox, anyway.
By the time I’d loaded the last bag, Clutch was headed my way.
He tugged down his bandana and didn’t look happy. “Ready to hit the next stop?”
I swallowed and gave a tight nod.