The Girl He Forgot (Book 2)

Chapter 14 - Say Something Now

I'd sat there, curled up at the foot of the door until outside grew dark. I'd crawled to bed and stared at the shadows on my ceiling through eyes clouded by tears. My mind refused me sleep, my thoughts dwelled incessantly on the dead and feared relentlessly for the future of the living. It was a new kind of mental torture and come morning it had deprived me of sleep and possibly sent me slightly loopy too.

I grew inexplicably more frustrated with each inch the sun rose above the treetops outside my window. I felt like I was going crazy being alone with my thoughts. I had to do something, anything that forced me to focus on something else. Something that centred me, grounded me again, stopped me from feeling like I didn't exist. Drawing wasn't going to cut it, nor was gardening or watching the gates.

I had to get out, I just had to.

I threw on some sturdier apparel, slung my belt around my waist and ran out of the back door. Before I knew it, I was climbing the wall; Alexandria shrank below me and the vast, dense forest loomed above as I hit the ground on the other side.

I ran.

I ran as if I were being chased, as if I could escape my grief. My tears soon ceased, the cool air whipping my cheeks turning the remaining salty tracks cold and dry.

With my knife in hand, I weaved through the trees, letting the adrenaline drown out the sorrow and the worry. I surrendered myself to that terrible thrill of being outside of the walls. I wasn't thinking rationally anymore; I was too tired, too exhausted to consider consequences. And though my own pulse thrummed through my head, my ears became almost perfectly attuned to the sounds around me. The crunching of the forest floor beneath my feet, my sharp and steady breaths as I sprinted through the trees and the gargles of the walkers lurking among them.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end it was the most welcoming sensation. It was a reaction that told me I couldn't possibly be thinking about anything else but the immediate danger I was in. My own survival was now the most important thing in the world, and everything was so wonderfully simple again.

A heard was close by, for sure; it was only small, five our six perhaps. The pungent smell of them travelled downwind but I did not run in the opposite direction as I usually would. Instead, I hunted them down. It wasn't difficult, they weren't quiet, they didn't exactly care to stay hidden... no... all they cared about was were the next meal came from. For all I knew it could be me; was I hunting them or were they hunting me? I suppose the answer to that would be whomever was left standing by the end.

I didn't care to stay hidden myself. I charged into the melee of walking corpses. The stench of their decay engulfed me instantly. They barely had time to react, to sniff the air for the sweet smell of my flesh, to chomp their teeth in hungry anticipation.

I swung my kitchen knife into the skull of a particularly rotten one and it went down with a hollow thud.

The other three began to advance on me. I pushed one away and to the ground, my hands sunk into its frail rib cage and a putrid ichor gushed out. I grimaced but tried not to let the sight of the rotten blood slicked between my fingers distract me from killing the zombie approaching me from behind.

I whirled round and jammed my knife into its eye socket. This one was fresher than the others, its eyeball popped when my knife pierced it. I barely flinched when a spec of it landed on my cheek. The walker dropped to the ground and took my knife with it.

"Fuck" I hissed, grabbing my athame instead.

I lunged for the next walker before it could get too close to me. The steel of my athame ground, rather satisfyingly, through its skull before piercing its brain. I watched as it crumpled at my feet, taking care to yank my blade out of its skull before it took it with it.