The Last Plague

Chapter Forty-Two: Trees

We walked into the woods, their dark shadows cast an eerie dark about the place. Sticks cracked underneath our feet, startling me with every step. I couldn't hear anything besides the faint breathing and footsteps. The trees seemed to be looking down on us, just waiting to pounce on us. They seemed to be waiting for something or hiding something. I couldn't help myself to think there were creatures in the trees, waiting to pounce down on us.

The thought terrified me. A creature jumping out of the tree could kill me from the force of it. I continued walking through the woods, glancing behind me to make sure everyone was still there. The eerie shadows chilled me. We continued walking without another word. Everyone had the same look of fear painted on their faces.

The thought of turning back still seemed logical. I hated the woods; it gave me a chilled feeling. I started walking slower to allow the others to catch up to me; I was leading in front of them. We all started walking in a line deeper into the woods. It began to grow darker, I could tell it was becoming night.

"We should stop, build a campfire," I told them, already breaking off some sticks around me.

Nobody responded, dilling the woods with more silence. Everyone started breaking off sticks around me, piling them in the center. Grayson had brought matches in his bag and lit those. I grabbed some fallen leaves around me and built a fire. We cleared an area around the fire and sat down after pulling some logs up. We all sat there without saying anything. Grayson pulled out some hotdogs and we roasted them above the fire.

"I feel like a kid," Grayson said, finally breaking the silence. "I haven't roasted hotdogs in, well, longer than I can remember," he said with a slight laugh.

"Where did you get these anyway?" Trina asked him, already eating hers.

"I have my ways," Grayson responded back to her.

We all sat around the fire, eating our hotdogs. We talked for a while and then started to calm down. After we built the fire a little taller, we made small beds. We start falling asleep.

Aiden broke the silence with his faint mumbles after sleeping for about thirty minutes. "They're here, they're here," he started repeating.

I was going to try to silence him, but I noticed everyone else was already awake. I noticed Aiden was sitting on a log we pulled up. He continued to mumble while he sat there, creepily staring into the fire. His eyes seemed to be burning from the reflection of the fire.

"What's here?" Trina asked him. "There are no zombies near us, you can calm down."

Grayson looked at him annoyed. "It's okay," he said, yawning. "There aren't any zombies around here. You can go back to sleep, we'll start moving in the morning," he said as he rolled away from us on his side.

A faint moan came from the distance. It seemed to catch Grayson's attention. He sat up and stared in front of him.

"They're here, they're here," Aiden started repeating again. It only added to the creepiness of the situation.

Grayson started backing up toward the fire. "It only sounds like there's one. I can kill—"

His voice was cut off by more moans from the other side.

Grayson mumbled something under his breath before talking. "How many do you think there are?" Grayson asked, he seemed to be talking to Aiden.

"How many are there, how many are there?" Aiden started repeating to himself. "Too many, there are too many." He started saying, causing a chill to run down my spine.

A sudden layer of leaves fell down from above us. Trina looked up at the sky quickly. Grayson was still looking around him. Aiden was still muttering incomprehensible statements under to himself. The stress of the situation was overwhelming.

I started hearing moans from the trees. Their moans still sounded like a drowning child every time. The collection of them was still indescribable. Aiden stopped talking to himself while he looked around him. Trina and Grayson back closer to the fire. I was already near it grabbing a log. I started seeing a shadow behind Grayson. The faint shadow of a creature began to glow behind him. The top half of a human, the bottom half of a slug. A shriek broke out of the moans in the distance. It sounded like there were hundreds of creatures around us.

"Does anyone have ideas?" Trina asked, backing into a circle we were naturally forming.

"No," Grayson said, his voice panicked.

"There are too many, there are too many," Aiden started repeating louder.

"I don't think we'll get out of this, but I have an idea." I started saying.

"What is it? Quickly, tell us, we don't have all day." Grayson shouted at me over the moans.

"We make a break for it. Everyone, grab a log and run through one spot. We'll try to burn them while we run." I shouted as quickly as I could.

"Sounds like we don't have a choice. Let's go that way, come on." Grayson said, pointing in front of him. He started running up there.

I began to follow him and grabbed Trina's shoulder. I noticed Aiden was still sitting there on the log muttering to himself. I ran to grab him but noticed a creature in the tree above him. I grabbed his shoulder and tugged him towards me. He looked up at me with a sly smile, then pulled his arm away from me. The creature fell out of the tree and landed on top of him. He grabbed a log from the fire and lit the creatures.

"Burn, burn," he started chanting to himself.

Grayson and Trina stood near me urging me to go. The creature Aiden lit on fire was burning though. Its slime had caught fire and was burning. It let out a wailing shriek and started scraping the air. Its slime soon dissolved into the dirt beneath it.

"Guys, light the slime on fire!" I shouted at them.

I grabbed my torch and ran in front of them; lighting a creature's slime up. It lit in seconds, and it caught on several other creature's slime too. Trina and Grayson didn't wait long before they knew what to do. They gripped their logs tighter and lit several creature's slime near them. I ran back to Aiden and gave him a torch. He just stared at it in awe.

"Fire, fire," he started chanting to himself.

I ran around him and lit up several creatures. They all let out a final shriek when they died, causing my ears to explode with pain. The moans of others were everywhere; coming from nearby creatures and from creatures in the distance.

The flames on the log began to die out. I ran back over to the fire and switched out logs. It was night and my vision was growing spotty. The constant swinging of the torch mixed with the blackness of night dazed me. I could hear Trina and Grayson screaming at the creatures. Their logs swung through the air at lighting any creatures nearby.

Most of the creatures had caught on fire and were burning. Their skin going from a faded green to a charred black. Their lifeless faces were covered in ashes from the fire. The thought that they were once people with lives angered me. I hated how they had to die, how they went through the painful process of becoming one of them. Finding out you were bitten would be horrifying enough; going through the process, that sounded terrible.

At least you are immune. The thought popped into my head. At first, I found relief in it, but then I felt like it was selfish. I didn't know why I was immune, I just was. I looked around me, still swinging my torch. My vision was becoming foggier and foggier. My eyes started stinging from the fire. Then I smelled smoke.

"We have to go!" I heard Trina yell over the fading moans.

I started coughing at the amount of smoke. It stung against my eyes even more. I tried looking around me, but everything was tinted gray. The spots in my eyes made it more difficult to see. I began to grow tired from the amount of smoke I was inhaling.

"Come on, we have to go," Trina's voice broke through the smoke.

I felt something grab my arm and pull me towards the voice. I began to feel darkness overcome me. I started to pass out from the smoke.