SurvivorZ: In Cold Blood

17

LAURIE

Laurie was barely conscious of Charlie's arms around her. His soft words whispered in her ear with the gentle murmuring of a running brook. It barely made a dent through the distraction of her aching body.

The bitter cold chewed at her nerves, filling every inch of her with agony. She peered over her boyfriend's slightly trembling shoulder at the others. Everyone either stared sadly at them or studied their own feet.

She couldn't fathom why everyone was watching them strangely. It never once occurred to her that it might have been related to Richard getting hurt yesterday. She looked past them at her brother standing off by himself, staring out a window at the sunrise. He seemed fine to her now.

"Are we sure he won't—?" Eve started to ask. She threw a horrified look at Laurie, and immediately dropped her gaze to the floor.

"He won't," Mike answered in a low voice, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "We made sure of it."

Everyone went silent. Danielle's harsh sobs reached their ears from an adjoining room. The sounds of her grief and her mother's quiet attempts to comfort her only seemed to unnerve the others worse.

"What do we do with..?" Drew uttered. "You know."

"Cremation?" Stan asked.

"Too risky," Graves said. "We've already drawn enough attention to ourselves with all the shooting."

"We should bury him at least," Lily observed. "It doesn't seem right to just leave him in the storage room."

"They probably have a shovel around here somewhere." Jolene suggested. "Y'know, to maintain the grounds."

"We should give him a proper funeral," Robin concurred.

"It's a mistake to stay too long," Erica said. "Kinda surprised a herd hasn't found us already."

Their words held no meaning to Laurie, drifting like ghosts in a fog through her tormented brain. The only thing that didn't feel remotely dreamlike was the intense pain running through her. Charlie's sweet embrace was sheer torture.

"Char...lie." She squirmed away from his touch.

Lupus had always been an unforgiving demon, but she couldn't recall it ever kicking her ass this badly. Razor blades filled her muscles and joints. Her hot face throbbed, the skin feeling stretched, as if trying to peel away from the thunderstorm rattling her skull. Searing pain exhausted her final reserves of strength.

She turned from the others, leaving them to their business, whatever it was. She couldn't cope with anything else right now. Finding a place to lie down before she collapsed was as much as she could handle.

She spotted Richard through the opened passageway to the building's lobby. The wooden bench he sat on looked perfectly inviting in its framed pool of golden sunlight. Smiling, he patted the empty seat next to him.

Donning a pained smile that was almost a grimace, Laurie shambled out of the room to join him. The others watched her go, making no attempt to stop her.

"Poor girl," Lily mumbled.

"Let her grieve. We should take care of this and get back on the road before more trouble finds us," Graves said. "We're on borrowed time here."

Leaving the remainder of their muddled discussion behind, Laurie shuffled her weary bones across the bloodstained tiles of the visitor center. Illuminated by a patch of morning sun gleaming through the windows, her smiling brother patiently waited for her to join him.

"Feeling better?" she asked him.

"Better than you." He waved to the seat. "Take a load off?"

Laurie lowered herself onto the hard bench with a relieved moan. Though far from comfortable, it beat trying to stay on her feet by a country mile.