Aer II

12

    'James has a point,' Nix sits on his sleeping bag, there's at least three dozen people in the shed, all gathered around, talking to one another 'they may have a good set up and an island surrounded by water seems like a safe haven from the horde'.

'He's smart,' she says 'you know my brother's name was James'.
'He didn't make it?'.
'Gunshot wound got infected,' she says 'I found the bunker the same day'.
'That's tough,' he says 'I didn't have any family to loose so it was grand, apart from obviously my parents'.
'Grand?' She frowns.
'Yeah, I like you and all, I just don't want to talk about it'.
'That's grand,' she smiles, he smiles back.

'What's your plan for the girl?' Daisy asks.
'Kill her,' he laughs at his own obvious answer as he gets into his sleeping bag.
'Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious,' she says 'but she's obviously not in the town hall now so what do we do?'.

'Go back to the petrol station, look for any clues, there's a church not far from it, that's the only building and it's secure,' he says 'I just think there may be more than her, so we gotta be careful, it's a lot of open ground, no cover'.

'That sounds good to me,' Daisy gets comfortable in her sleeping bag.
'Thanks I do try'.
'Well you're doing a good job,' she smiles 'goodnight'.
'Sleep tight, don't let the Freaks bite'.
Daisy laughs before closing her eyes.

   The two of them are up early the next morning, as is everyone else, it's as if nobody could sleep between the thoughts of the horde and the girl hunting them. Nobody's safe from her and they all know it.

'You got everything?' Daisy asks as she puts on a tank top, it's another close day but it's raining heavily, which is an advantage to them because visibility will be low.
'Hope so,' he says as he throws his bag over his shoulder.

    The gates open for them, the road is already beginning to flood, the muck is soft under their feet, staining the ends of their pants.
'Petrol station isn't far,' Nix says.
'Good, I fucking hate the rain'.
'So do the Freaks, thank God,' he says.

The petrol station is rundown, cracks fill the walls and the paints all chipped. There's one abandoned, rusty car but nothing else.

   Nix slowly opens the back door, listening carefully but there's no signs of life. The chair Ciaran was in is still there, a pool of dried up blood on the floor. Hatred fills Daisy's body as she stares down at it, that girl has killed everyone, they only killed two people, she's taken it too far. And now she's going to pay for it.

'Hey, hey, hey look at this,' Nix brings in a backpack and a journal 'they obviously left in a rush, stupid bitch left everything'.

  Daisy rummages through her backpack, she finds the Polaroid camera and a picture of Nix with one of the dogs at the camp, she finds a picture of herself at the campfire holding a bottle of vodka, if only they could go back to then.

'She's a lesbian,' Nix smirks as he reads through her journal.
'And how is that going to help us kill her?'.

'Her name's Eilish,' he reads and flicks through a few more pages 'she's currently camped out in the church, as I said she would be, with another boy named, Ethan. Seems like they got a lot of information out of Ciaran'.
   'Like what?'.

  'What me and you look like, he didn't give names, she tried to draw us but she didn't do a good job, I'm much better looking than that'.
'No you're not,' she smiles.
'Okay,' he rolls his eyes 'anyway she knows about the new base camp at the factory but Ciaran told her we were at the watchtower, he didn't know when we would make it to the base camp then she killed him, so their plan is to wait out in the church until everything settles down'.
   'The church it is'.
He clips her backpack onto his 'more supplies for us'.

'Before we leave,' Daisy holds him back 'I just want to say thanks for being by my side'.

'My life was pretty boring until you showed up,' he says 'we had a good reason to do what we done, from the sounds of her diary she met Sam when he was on the run, she probably doesn't know what he done, if she'd given us the chance to talk then she might've found out but she missed out on that'.

'She would've found out she killed all of those people for a murderer,' Daisy says.
'We done the right thing,' he says.
  'I know'.
'We'll be grand,' he shrugs 'fuck it'.
'Be grand,' she laughs.