The Days Are Tired (Book #1 of the Dark Skies series) - A Zombie story

Chapter 40: Truth

Leo bit down hard on his bottom lip, trying to keep his screams at bay. Instead, he moaned in unfiltered agony. The way his body shook made him look small and fragile. His eyes pleaded for me to help him... to take his pain away.

I knew that eventually I would break down, cry, and lose it. Give in to the insanity that had begun to take over my mind the night of the party. But not then. Not before I helped Leo.

Thinking back to Flin and how he had carried out aid for Cain, I quickly shook off my jacket. I threw myself to his side and grabbed his hurt leg, earning a cry of pain for him. Maneuvering the jacket so that it wrapped around the cut, I quickly tied it off and applied pressure with both hands. I gave Leo a strained smile, hoping that my sorry attempt at packing the wound would somehow slow the flow of blood.

I grabbed onto his hand, trying my best to anchor my floating feelings and give him a bit of comfort. Leo's body shuddered and his eyes were squeezed shut in his attempt to block out the pain.

If I didn't get us out of here soon, Leo would bleed out. Getting out seemed more like an unformed dream at that point.

Jo and the others were going to come looking for Rob, find him dead, and then kill us. It was only a matter of time. So I sat there with Leo, waiting for the inevitable. I waited, waited, and waited some more, but they never came.

They were probably out hunting for other gullible people. My thoughts turned bitter and hollow.

We sat there bunched up together; me applying pressure to Leo's wound and Leo falling into a fitful sleep. I wanted to keep him up, fearful that if he closed his eyes, he'd never open them again. But sleeping was the only pain reliever we had.

Enough time had passed that Leo's blood, which coated my hands, had dried, leaving my skin feeling like half-dried clay. I wiggled my fingers since the caked blood was making them stick together.

The first thing I noticed in my prolonged stupor was the smell of smoke. The faint memory of a childhood cookout (when my family was still whole) flooded my mind. A memory I had long forgotten before that very moment. The sound of gunshots came next. They were sharp, reminding me of the firecrackers kids in my neighborhood would set off a little too close to my house.

Words from that thought stood out. Too close. The gunshots were close!

And underneath the constant crackle of shots was another array of sounds. There was a low humming that seemed to shake my bones and rattle the surrounding air, followed by high-pitched wails. That had to be a mob of people screaming. Moaning. Shouting. But they weren't saying cohesive words.

Then it clicked. That was the voices of at least a dozen or more Reds. The bird-like shrieks gave it away.

There was smoke, gunshots, and a whole bunch of Reds. This could very well explain why Jo and her other sons hadn't come up here to check on Rob. They must have been fighting for their lives.

Leo was still asleep, unaware of the new developments happening outside. Instead of waking him, I stood with a new sense of hope. I started pulling at the chains on my legs, thinking maybe there was a weak spot I had missed. When that failed, I started looking for a tool to help.

The axe!

My shoulders slumped. The weapon remained deeply lodged in Rob's lower back, and the position of his fallen body made the axe too far for me to reach. His booted foot was close enough for me to grab, but my attempts to pull him closer were futile. He was far too heavy like he had ingested thousands of metal weights.

Sitting back by Leo's side, I evaluated our current situation. We were chained inside a room with no means of escape. Bad. In the room, we were safe from the Reds making a ruckus outside (at least for then). Good. What I was really worried about was Jo or her kids coming back up and finding out what I had done to Rob. There would be blood to pay... that much was for sure. Really bad.