They Called It The Apocalpse

Chapter 11

When the sun rose the next morning, all three of them were asleep, Cassie had her face buried in Jason's chest, he had his arms around her and Tate was wrapped up tightly in the blanket. Cassie opened her eyes first, blinking at the harsh sun that shone directly into her eyes then wriggled her way out of Jason's grasp. This woke him and he drew a hand to his dry throat, rubbing it several times as he swallowed. Cassie's head felt heavy and unbalanced but she tried to ignore it, getting to her feet and swaying from side to side. "It's morning." She mumbled, taking a step towards Tate, "We should get going." She bent down and tapped his leg several times, he woke up and turned his head in her direction, staring at her through squinted eyelids then sat up. "Morning already?" He asked, staring up into the sky then shielding his eyes. "Yep." Jason replied as he got to his feet and put on his backpack, he adjusted the straps several times then waited with Cassie for Tate to stand. She swayed even more, tipping sideways into Jason and grabbing ahold of him for balance. "Are you ok?" Jason asked, concern lacing his voice. "Yeah, yeah, fine." She mumbled then turned, stumbling down the mountain as Tate shrugged out of the blanket, got to his feet. Jason followed Cassie and Tate ran after them to catch up, screwing the blanket into a ball and tucking it under his arm.

They eventually made it to the bottom of the mountain, levelling out into a field filled with flowers, the road seemed to stop and narrow into a human footpath through the long grass and Jason, who had pushed to the front of the group held up a hand to gesture to the others to stop. He scanned the grass, it seemed to be knee height with an abundance of vines and strange purple flowers laced through it. Slowly he inched forwards into the path, keeping his hand hovered over his gun as he moved. He made it through a few meters then turned back and signalled for the others to follow. They crept forwards after him, Cassie in between the two boys and Tate gripping his gun as they tracked after Jason.

They walked for about a mile through the grass with no signs of trouble, nothing moved, the flowers didn't poison anyone or wrap round them like in the movies. Everything was perfectly fine until they reached the next field, a maze of corn, long looming plants that bent over the top of them and shook in the wind. "You know, I really hate whoever planted these." Jason remarked as he pushed a rotting plant out of the way of their path, it was narrow and shaded and created a highly dangerous tunnel that none of them could see above. Cassie stepped carefully over a corn cob, narrowly avoiding it and pointing back so that Tate could see it. Instead of avoiding stepping on it he picked it up, peeling back the green leaves and exposing the yellow corn beneath, he smiled then took a bite, corn spilling from the sides of his mouth as he chewed. "Damn, this corns good!" He exclaimed as he took another huge bite. Jason turned back and stared at him, he was making too much noise and if there were any joyous in the corn then they were going to hear them. Tate took another bite, crunching loudly into the cob. Jason's head turned sharply as he heard a noise, a rustling coming towards them through the maise. He gestured to Tate to stop as he smiled and took another huge bite. Jason stormed towards him, pushing past Cassie and slapping the corn out of his hand. Tate opened his full mouth to say something but Jason held his finger up over his mouth to signal silence. The rustling in the plants got closer and closer until it stopped. They stood completely still, scanning the plants around them with their eyes only. Cassie screamed and Jason whirled round to see a joyous tackle her sideways into the corn. She hit the floor hard, knocking the breath out of her as the creature clawed at her, she was on her back, fighting the creature as it clawed at her. Jason and Tate's faces appeared in the hole in the corn that her fall had made and she reached a hand out towards them then shot backwards, the creature having hooked its claws onto her clothes was rapidly dragging her through the maise. She screamed, reaching up and pulling at its paper-like skin. Her legs writhed as she was taken and tears brimmed her eyes.

Jason turned in panic and looked at Tate, who was bunching his hair up in his hands and looking at the ground. The rustling sound seemed to surround them as Jason spun from one wall of corn to the other and back. Cassie screamed and a flock of birds took off far into the field. He grabbed Tate's arms, shaking him violently then pointing behind him. "We have to find Cassie, you go that way, I'll go this way!" With that he disappeared into the corn leaving Tate stood on the path. He heard Jason calling her name through the corn then turned and called her name himself as he trampled into the long plants. "Cassie?" He yelled, pushing a stem aside and stepping over a fallen one, "Cassie, is that you?" He called as something rustled ahead of him, he emerged into a circular clearing about the size of a person where Cassie grappled with the creature on top of her, she was shaking as she fought it off and tears ran down her face, she was gritting her teeth together hard and blood sprayed from between them into the face of the monster each time she grunted with the effort of fighting it. Tate felt himself getting angry, he couldn't let the joyous kill one of the only people who had ever been nice to him. He lunged forwards, crying out in rage as he tackled the joyous sideways onto the floor. It let go of Cassie, rolling underneath him and clawing up at him. It gnashed its teeth as Tate felt around on the ground for any sort of a weapon. His hands found a rock and wrapped firmly around it, he brought it down on the face of the joyous, smashing a thick yellow and red hole where it nose was then brought it down again and again. Grunting with the effort he smashed the rock against its face until it was nothing more than a pile of mush then he rolled sideways off of the creature and lay on the floor panting. He suddenly remembered Cassie and crawled over to her, regarding the spray of blood across her chin cautiously. "Are you ok?" He asked, nodding to her mouth and she nodded, wiping it with her sleeve. "I must've bit my tongue." She whispered, her voice was weak and shaky. "Did you-" he started but she interrupted him.
"No, I didn't get bit." She turned to look at him from where she was bent over on her hands and knees as if she'd been throwing up, "Why didn't you use your gun?" Sweat plastered her straggled hair to her forehead.
"Forgot I had it I guess." He looked down at his hands to find them covered in blood then screwed up his face and wiped them down on his shirt. The corn around them began to rustle and Jason emerged into the clearing, each of them gave a collective sigh of relief. "I thought they'd got you too when you went silent." He explained through big puffs of air, he bent over, placing his hands on his knees and breathed, "I ran over as fast as I could." There was a moment of silence as Cassie again swiped at the blood on her chin, wiping it off completely then gingerly got to her feet. Tate followed, standing up and wiping the dirt off of his clothes. "Alright, let's get out of here, I'm not liking the idea of a repeat of that." Cassie mumbled and Jason nodded then held back the corn for them to go through onto the path again.
"Me neither." He mumbled as he followed them back to the path.

They stumbled through the corn, listening carefully for anymore signs of life. The maise shook from time to time with the force of the wind but no joyous appeared. Tate plucked a few corn cobs from the plants as they passed through, sliding them into the stash he was holding under his arm. Eventually he figured out that he could store more corn by making a bag out of the blanket, he stopped, bending down and spreading out the bag on the floor. He deposited his collection of food into the centre then drew up the edges and tied them in a knot. When he looked up Jason and Cassie were gone, he stretched onto his tip toes and shielded his eyes from the sun, trying to look up ahead but he couldn't see any signs of them. He slung his parcel over his shoulder and started jogging. Believing himself to almost have caught up he slowed to a walk then his soul almost left his body as Jason jumped out of the corn beside him. He stumbled sideways as Jason laughed, heading towards the other corn. "Don't do that man, you almost gave me a-" Cassie jumped out behind him and he screeched, misplacing his foot and falling backwards. They both laughed as he got to his feet and brushing himself down. "That was not funny, anything could've happened." He grumbled as he brushed the dust from his clothes. Jason rolled his eyes and looked at Cassie mischievously as Tate passed and lead them further along the path.

Cassie found herself at the back of the pack, limping slowly along as the boys talked. "So is that your new bag?" Jason teased, poking at Tate's makeshift corn carrier, "It's about time you carried something." He smiled over his shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah." Tate grumbled back as he shifted the corn further up his shoulder.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Jason asked, falling back behind him at a steady pace.
"How would I know?" Tate asked sarcastically as he plucked another corn from a nearby plant and slipped it into his bag.
"If we can start a fire, we can make popcorn." Tate stopped and turned back to stare excitedly at Jason.
"You can make popcorn out of this stuff!" He exclaimed, checking Jason's expression for any signs of a lie.
"Yeah, we just have to dry it out then it should pop up fine." Tate's face lit up hopefully then he turned and sprinted ahead, he came to a stop when Jason didn't follow him then waved back to both of them. "Well, come on then! We've got some corn to pop!" With that he turned and jogged ahead. Jason laughed then turned back to talk to Cassie. "You think he really didn't know that popcorn comes from corn kernels?" He asked and she smiled, "You never know, perhaps he was raised in a cave." They chuckled together and Jason turned back to the path ahead.
"Yeah, that would make a lot of sense." He laughed.

When they finally came out of the corn field onto another road, Jason had already fished out the map, he'd seen it several meters away and was already running an invisible line along the corn field. He found the road then traced it as Tate and Cassie crowded round to see. He tapped a town then looked further up the road, it ran beside the fields and a dark forest. His eyes then shot up, trying to gage where about in the day they were. "Alright," he looked between his two companions then pointed to where they were on the map, "This road should take us to a town, then from there we should be able to continue following it up to the rest place. I think we can make it to the town today but I may be wrong, it depends on just how long this road really is. Tate turned and looked up the road then back at Jason. "And if we don't make it to the town today?" He asked, patiently watching Jason.
"Then we camp out in the woods." He nodded to the ominous trees opposite them then pushed between them, folding the map as he did and started up the road. They walked until it fell dark, stars twinkling overhead and a cool breeze blowing in from the right. "I hate to say it but we're going to have to stop." Jason announced, looking over at the woods.
"Aw man." Tate complained, sighing in disappointment, "I was looking forward to having a bed."
"You'll have the next best thing." Cassie replied optimistically.
"What's that?" Tate whined.
"Dirt." And with that she head over into the trees.