What Walks Among Us (book one)

Showers&Storms

I grabbed a stack of quarters from the dispenser's little bank and walked over to Cody with a cheeky grin. He was bent over the coin machine that fed the water, trying to trick it.

"Cody."

"No," he said, grunting as he tried to do something to the poor machine without breaking it, "I don't think candy is going to help me out, but thanks for offering," he murmured without bothering to look up.

For a second I was about to correct him, and be the bigger person. But some small part of me wanted to both be funny, and show him that he shouldn't underestimate me. I ignored the fact that I wasn't actually trying to get to the money out of the candy machine when I broke into it while I shrugged softly.

"Okay," I said, offhandedly as I turned and walked away, "your loss."

I heard a soft scoff behind me as I walked to the stall next to the one that both he and the candy machine occupied. I quickly found what I was looking for and fed the machine, there was a second before I realized that I had to actually turn the water on before a slight sputter of water came out. My entire happy attitude was instantly lost as the sputtering died off and I was left with a tiny puddle of warm water.

I tried to look into the hose thing, and no sooner did I put my face in front of the nozzle, water came spraying out, nailing me right in the forehead. I dropped the hose and started wiping at my eyes, managing to make the mud and blood mix worse, and it scared me. Not being able to see when something could jump out at me at any second.

"How in the hell did you make it work?" I heard Cody demand as he walked around the corner, "Kodi?" he said, probably noticing me as I frantically tried to wipe the dirt/blood mix off of my face so I could see.

There was a pause and then I heard him come closer, picking up the hose and switching its settings to a softer spray, "Kodi?" he said, his hands coming to my shoulders, "Hey, calm down," He said in a soothing voice, "I'm going to get this off of your face, okay? Don't move, and don't open your eyes until I say so, alright?"

I'm not sure how I managed, but I closed my mouth and nodded, the cold water fell over my face and while I really wanted to reach up and smack his hand away to do it myself, I knew that he would be able to get everything out of my eyes without getting it in my eyes in during the process. I felt a light cloth on my face and I held perfectly still while he worked away everything off of my face.

It didn't take as long as I expected, and he was holding my chin between his thumb and pointer finger in effort to make sure I didn't move the wrong way.

"Okay, open up your eyes," he said, wiping the cloth under my right eye one last time before backing up. I was shivering, and the water was turned off to save it, as I had only paid for five minutes.

I blew out a breath as I was able to look around without being blinded, "Thanks, Cody," I said, quietly.

"You're welcome," he said, watching me with a weird expression.

I was about to say something else when I noticed that he no longer was wearing a shirt, and it left me a little bit distracted. I was saved though, as Sam and Trish walked over.

"Cody," Sam said, "what happened to telling us the water was on?"

I wasn't sure who Sam was actually talking to but it was Cody who replied, "Sorry, Kodi needed a bit of help getting it to work, and when it did start working she got sprayed in the face. She couldn't see so I helped her clear her face," he paused, his eyes finally moving off of me, taking a weight I didn't understand with them, "she also was the one to get them to work."

With that he moved around Trish and walked back to his original stall, and I heard him grabbing some coins from the candy machine. I moved my eyes to the ground and picked up the sprayer, finding the on switch again.

Wordlessly I started spraying myself off. Sam and Trish left to go find their own stalls, and before Sam went to the one on the other side of me, he left a small pile of coins with me. It took me about ten dollars before I and my clothes were completely clean, and I was freezing by the end of it. The sun had set and the night was turning out to be a windy one. I found some clean, dry clothes out of my bag and pulled them on. The whole time that I was in nothing but my undergarments, I could only hope that no one tried to come chat with me. That and no zombies suddenly showed up... that would have sucked.

After we all finished cleaning off, Sam said that it was best that we all get some rest before trying to fix up one of the cars.

We locked up the store and occupied the corner in the back, opposite to where the stray zombie had been killed. Luckily this little mart hadn't been completely ransacked and there was quite a lot of things we could use. Including fuzzy warm hoodies, and not to mention the cheap throw blankets that we made a sort of nest out of.

That night we feasted on canned soup and warm sodas, while letting our wet clothes hang on some of the shelves to hopefully dry. Everyone was cold, but felt much better after a shower, and even Cody was in a good mood as he ate his lemonheads when he thought no one was looking.

I was the first to crawl into our next, and I fell asleep to Sam saying that he would go ahead and take first watch. After that I was out like a light.

***

Cody moved over, charging a zombie to the ground as it tried to sneak up behind Sam. Trish was fighting another on the counter and I had just woken up, feeling a body on top of me. I didn't understand at first, and then it tried to bite me. I quickly grabbed my dagger from under my pillow and killed it, pushing it to the side and sitting up to assess the situation.

The doors were open, and Mabel stood in them. Thunder rolled across the sky and lightning lit up the ground behind her, making her silhouette light up like a bad horror film.

I got to my feet and took a step towards her, only to watch in horror as three shots rang out behind her, her body jerked forward and blood covered her chest, she looked down at the crimson stain before looking back at me, her hair as red as the stain on her shirt and her eyes were filled with tears.

How she even found us, was the last thing on my mind as another roll of thunder shook the whole place. Rain pounded outside and I heard Trish scream something, sounding funny and far off. I felt hands on my back, and I quickly turned, kicking out and landing my foot into the zombies chest, making it fall back into a display. I didn't stop to kill it though, and maybe I should have but I was too busy worried about Mabel.

I turned back to her and ran, she fell forward and I barely managed to catch her and set her nicely on the ground, turning her over so I could see her face.

A voice yelled at me again, and I felt the zombies closing in on me, pinning my arms to my side so I couldn't help Mabel, or defend myself. Mabel's lifeless body fell limp to the floor and I screamed, only then did Mabel's dead eyes pop open, as she yelled my name.* *

"Kodi? Wake up," a voice said, their arms tightly holding me so that I couldn't move.

A loud crack ricocheted through the room and I was awake instantly.

"Shhh," Sam said, holding me to his chest, "It's just a bad dream," He murmured. I looked outside, to the storm and sighed, leaning against him as I closed my eyes. If only it were just one big nightmare.