What Walks Among Us (book one)

Bad Listener

Cody looked at me and scowled, "No," he said, not elaborating.

I groaned, we had been having this argument for the past hour, and while Sam and Trish walked a little bit ahead, I knew they had been listening for the most part. Cody didn't want to be called Connor, while I insisted it was a lovely name. He wouldn't say anything further on the subject, other than I wasn't allowed.

He looked a little irritated, like maybe he regretted telling me this about himself, and for that reason alone I dropped it ... for now.

We were about five miles out of a town, Sam had clued me in that we were going in the opposite direction of where I had used to live, which didn't really matter in my mind because I had no clue where that was exactly.. I guess it was directly behind me.

The landscape along the way hadn't really hinted at the shape of the world around us, not really. But as we got away from the trees and onto the highway, it was a never ending line of cars. Some of them still had bodies in them, while some were wrecked. Most though, just looked abandoned for one reason or another.

When I asked Sam why we didn't just take a car, he told me that the roads this way weren't clear, and seeing it in person, I understood why we couldn't just try and go around the obstacles. Cody fell back as I let go of the argument, and I sped up a little to walk alongside Sam. He looked over at me and grinned.

"He means well, you'll just have to be patient with him."

I sighed and stuffed my hands in my pockets, "It's hard. But I know you guys have been being patient with me, so I'm trying," I said, keeping my eyes on the ground.

There was a mutual silence between us and then Sam was shoving me into the ground, harder than I would have considered playful. I caught myself on my hands and knees but then he was pushing me again, softer this time. I looked over at him, ready to hit him or something, when I noticed the corpse just ahead. It wasn't alone either, it had four or five not far behind it.

My palms stung from the impact, and I didn't have much time to complain when Sam whispered an apology as he helped me to hide under a truck. My palms stung and while it didn't break the skin, it still made me mad that he had shoved me. When I thought that he was going to crawl under the truck with me, he looked at me very seriously and said, "Don't move, Kodi."

Then he was up and pulling out his knife, while I saw Cody pull out his gun that had a silencer on it, as to not make a ton of noise. It took me a few seconds to realize that they were fighting, while I had been pushed down and hidden, literally. What got me moving into action though, wasn't the first zombie that hit the ground, or even the second. It was Trish's face when she looked at me like I was no more than a puppet.

A little girl who couldn't even stand up and help the team fight.

I rolled out from under the truck, popping up on the other side of it. Two of the zombies had walked on this side instead of where my three companions were fighting. I tried not to look to much at them, as I didn't feel like knowing anything about the people I was killing.

They weren't people anymore.

I pulled out my dagger as the first one came at me, the second not far behind. I kicked my foot out, coming in contact with the zombies fleshy stomach, and kicked it back, knocking it and the second one to the ground. I grabbed the front of the first one's shirt and pulled it up a little, my knife sinking into it's eye socket, one of the easier places to penetrate, especially if it was newer.

The knife sunk in past the handle, and the zombie fell down before I could attempt to retrieve the knife. I looked up, noticing the second zombie charging, and at the same time I registered that I may have mis-counted how many zombies were in the hoard. What seemed like a few was now turning out to be maybe fifteen or twenty.

I scrambled up into the bed of the truck that I was standing next to , and pulled out my bow and arrows, picking them off one by one. Hitting a target in a shed was much easier than hitting a zombie in the face while it tried to eat my own face. After a moment of fumbling and a few misses, I got into the motion, and was picking them off a bit easier.

There were seven dead on my side, and I knew that behind me the others were still fighting. As I turned to aid them, I found myself face to face with a zombie that looked as if it had been drug behind a racecar for a few laps. It reached out for me, and I hit it back with my bow. It stumbled a little bit but came back with more force, grabbing my bow and throwing it into the bed of the truck.

I swallowed and turned to climb up onto the roof of the truck, the zombie grabbed onto my shoulder and yanked me back. I swung around, and punched it into the face, which was gross to say the least. Its cheek gave away without much resistance and it only looked scarier. I saw out of weapons, as my knife was gone and my bow was behind the corpse. As the zombie tackled me to the bed of the truck, it over top of me, I didn't have time to wonder who would win the fight.

I had a hand wrapped around its throat, keeping its teeth away while my other hand searched the truck desperately for anything that would help. My hand wrapped around some sort of tool and I swung my arm out, the wrench hit the zombies skull, making it concave and the zombie fell forward as dead weight. I grunted and pushed it off me, wrench still in hand.

I got to my feet, noticing that my companions were in similar states. Cody needed to reload, but didn't have the time, and Sam, was working with his knife, while Trish looked like she was ready to be taken over as a zombie came up behind her.

I snatched up my bow and quickly loaded it. My heart pounded in my ear as I realized I was about to take a risky shot. If I missed I would hit Trish, if I got it on the mark, I would hit the zombie and I would save her. I didn't let myself think as I let go of the string, and I didn't even look to make sure I had hit the mark as I climbed up onto the roof, getting a better vantage point. I shot a few of the zombies that were getting ready to help their buddies try to take over both Cody and Sam.

I shot a few of the zombies near the back of the group, and then searched the grounds for more. After I did a full circle I realized that there were no more. Cody took the last one down and scrubbed a hand across his cheek looking tired. His eyes lifted to meet mine and he looked confused at first, but his jaw tightened. Something flashed in his eyes that I didn't recognize, and then his eyes softened into something that resembled pride.

Sam looked up at me from the ground, and his eyes widened, "Kodi! What the hell you were told to stay!" he said, his voice sounding more panicked than anything I had ever seen before. He was covered in zombie gore and blood, he had lost his grab bag in the shuffle, and I noticed his shirt had some pieces taken out of it.

"Well," I said, "good thing I didn't listen."

Trish looked at me with some sort of respect, her hair was matted and she was breathing heavily, hands on her hips. She had blood up to her elbows, and splattered across her clothes. It was funny, I didn't feel anything when I saw the respect.

Her opinion of me didn't matter.

Sam opened his mouth to comment on it, but thought better of it as he closed his mouth and shook his head, "Sorry for pushing you, you're on this trip, I need to treat you like part of the team."

His words made me wonder what he was treating me like when he shoved me into hiding, but I didn't get to ponder it long, as Cody cleared his throat and addressed us all.

"Let's get our weapons and stuff back, and find somewhere to clean off and take a little rest."

No one argued, and we all set forth to retrieve arrows and knives.