Breath Of Death

Patience.

     To my surprise I was still alive when I woke up. My hands were tied behind my back though and I was buckled into the seat of a truck. My head was throbbing and I couldn't remember what happened prior. At least until the image of Tristan stabbing and drugging me came to mind. I whipped my head to the left to see him with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging on the door. He was focused on driving. 
   I looked forward and watched as we passed a sign that read; 'Germantown Nashville'. Nashville Tennessee. We traveled from Maryland to Tennessee. My heart sank when I realized that I was being dragged even further from Javier and Blessing. Further away from Serene and even my mom. Before I could even get a word out, I realized that I had something wrapped around my mouth.
   That was the last straw for me so I screamed and started to kick anything my legs could reach. I tried to wiggle myself out of the seatbelt but I failed terribly.
"Calm down! I don't have many more of these!" He yelled as he reached into his bag for another injection.
   I screamed even louder and kicked his hand, then his bag making everything spill out.
"Fucking stop!" He yelled as he tried to grab an injection from the floor.
   As he was trying to do that, I looked up at the road and saw like 5 infected. We were about to be a bowling ball to pins of zombies.
"Tristan!" I tried screaming.
   He sat up and snatched the steering wheel whipping the truck into the ditch of the road. He tried to swerve us out of the ditch but ended up flipping the truck instead.
   It all happened so fast that it was hard to process what exactly happened. It was also hard because the impact knocked me right out. When I did wake up, I was hanging upside down stuck. Hands still tied. Mouth still covered. I felt like the air was knocked right out of me.
   I turned my head to my left and saw Tristan. He was knocked out cold or dead. I couldn't tell but he wasn't moving. I thought to myself now is my time to escape from him but I couldn't figure out how to get myself out.
"Tristan." I muffled.
"Tristan!" Nothing.
   Leaves ruffled and sticks cracked around us. I looked to my right and saw feet. They shuffled slowly telling me exactly what it was. Infected. Soon they're gonna be trying to get in here to get us. I pushed my hands as far back as I could into the crack of the seat in desperation to find something in it. To my luck, there was. A screwdriver.
   Tristan had zip tied my hands together so I managed to pry the screwdriver against it in order to break it. It hurt like a motherfucker but I was determined. Then it snapped and the screwdriver ended up scratching my back. I yelped in pain. Once my hands were free, I ripped the cloth off of my head and unbuckled myself as fast as I could. My knees fell onto the broken glass on the headboard. I winced in pain but quickly scattered to find the screwdriver I had.
   An infected dropped down and stuck its arm out into Tristan's window. I stabbed its hand into the ground and kicked its head back. I watched as  its arm stayed and it's body fell back. It's arm laid flat on the ground separated from the zombie. I almost threw up right there but I held my composure and redirected my focus back onto Tristan. I checked his pulse for a moment and it was still beating.
   I noticed his gun stayed behind the seat so I grabbed it and crawled my way out of the truck. As much as I didn't want to make much noise, I knew I didn't need all of these infected around us. So I shot them all. They didn't try to attack me so it was easy. Then I went back to Tristan.
   He laid there peacefully and I felt a slight pity for him. Even though he was trying to kidnap me, a part of me knew I couldn't leave him there. He was a child just like me before everything. I knew Serene would've helped him. So I helped him by unbuckling his seatbelt and letting him fall onto me pushing me harder onto the glass below. I had to kick his door open because it was pried shut but once I did, I dragged him out. He weighed a lot more than I did so I struggled a bit.
   I laid him out on the ground and went back to the truck to grab our bags. I looked in his and found a canteen. I cut a piece of shirt I was wearing and let it soak up some water. Then I put it on his head and tried to feed some into his mouth. I examined him for anything serious but couldn't see anything. He had some cuts and bruises but not bad enough to where they couldn't heal with time. The thought of him being in a coma from a head injury crossed my mind but I tried not to think like that.
I kept him and his gun close to me for a couple hours to make sure no more infected came for us. I thought about dragging him further into the woods in case if people came but I knew I couldn't carry him that far. I looked through his bag and found the injections and I almost broke them immediately but then it dawned on me that I might need them in the future so I kept them in my bag.
I made sure to keep checking Tristan's pulse to make sure he was alive and it felt normal. Every time I looked at him, though, I couldn't help but imagine what he was like before all of this. Happy I bet. It made me sad to think of what all he's lost. He was alone just like me when I met him.
There were a couple of moments where it looked like he stopped breathing so I would hold my head onto his chest to see if his heart was beating. The thought of not hearing it terrified me but it never stopped thankfully.