New Eden- The New Eden series book#1 (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 14 "the black guy dies first."

Day 5

"You look like crap, man." Brandon commented as he dragged the metal leg of a tripod on the ledge of the roof. He raised the instrument to his face to inspect it's sharpness.
I ignored Brandon. I wasn't in the mood to talk. Not after last night. Samantha's death was hitting my harder than I expected. I hadn't slept. Couldn't. Every time my eyelids closed for more than a millisecond I imagined her bloody corpse.  

  So no, I couldn't sleep. I'd spent the hours of the night into early morning planning. Playing out strategies step by step. I know its stupid to make a statement like this, especially concerning our predicament, but I didn't want anyone else to die.

  So instead of trying to sleep or weep over Samantha, I had spent hours working on my plan.
That's why I was on the roof now. The biting chill of the morning breeze kept me awake and sharp.
 
Whickham and the others who were going downstairs were up here discussing the plan. We were also on look out for the helicopter. 

  I stared out over the roof and in the town. There were areas where I could clearly see rooftops and some clear spaces. Those areas would be mostly concrete, I reasoned.
Other parts were completely buried under grass and vines.

  I turned my eyes toward the land around the school. The grass had grown tall. About five feet high. Patches of concrete stood out stark against the super green backdrop. The car park was clear, I noted. About a dozen or so cars were still parked there. And I saw the school bus.

An idea popped into my head, linking with my already existing plan.

"Hey!" The sudden call drew my attention. 

Some kid who was on look-out duty waved Brandon over. I went over too.
"Is that one of the flowers?" The kid asked pointing to a spot at the front of the school.

  I squinted into the direction. Standing almost level with the talk grass I saw a growth of flowers. I would've answered the boy saying yes, that those were the infectious flowers, but I stared a moment longer.

  The flowers did indeed look similar, exact even, to the yellow ones we'd seen out back. But these were red. So deep was the color that it almost looked like blood.
Elton's description of the plant resurfaced. Blood-sprouts. I shivered a bit. That was a chilling name. But the cold air was starting to get to me too.

"No." I answered.

"The ones we saw were yellow," Brandon added. "But stay away from those too. Anything colorful in nature tends to be bad news, yeah?" 

  I glanced at him. He only now states this? After someone had died! I felt a flickering of anger against Brandon, but quickly went away when we heard the sound of distant, but clear gunfire.
We all jolted to attention. 

  The sound came again, off to the left! Short, rapid bursts of gunfire. I'm no gun expert but that sounded like an assault rifle. Was it the military? Or some random person with some heavy firepower?
There!

  I strained my eyes but only made out the tall grass waving at me.

"Come on!" Whickham called to us. He ran inside.

"Is that them?" I asked as we moved into the hallways.

"Most likely," Brandon answered. "But we didn't see the helicopter. It could be other people."

"Who cares 'migo." Steffan came up from behind swinging his bag over his shoulder. If its just some militia-type fanatics, then they're more than welcome to join us, once they bring along some ak-47s and what not, y'know." He grinned widely showing his excitement.