Rotting Bodies

Chapter One: Gross

    Now is not the time to get an asthma attack. I can feel it coming, and my inhaler has been empty for weeks now. I stop and sit at the base of a tree, taking deep breaths. In, one, two, three, four, out, one, two, three, four. They always start at the worst times. Like when I'm being chased by infected while on a hunt for example.

     "You okay there Nik?" Vanna asks, sitting down next to me. She's pale, and her shoulder length faded purple hair is tied back in a half ponytail, and her hazel eyes look at me in worry. She rubs my back as I struggle to breath.

     "Yeah..." I breathe, "just my asthma." How am I not dead yet? Asthma is not something that could let one survive the apocalypse.

     "I'm sure we've run far enough. Take a break" She gets up and I watch as she walks over to the little stream nearby where she washes the blood off her machete.

     So that's what I do. I sit there and breathe, listening to the unusually quiet forest. Birds and other small game are nowhere to be seen. Our run must have scared off all the animals. Fuck. I was really hoping to get more than a couple rabbits. But no, those things had to chase us away from our usual hunting spot. Damn rotting corpses.

     Finally, after a good twenty minutes, my breathing is completely normal. I stand up and walk over to Vanna, who has finished washing her machete and is now scrubbing the dirt and dried blood off her arms. I'm not dirty enough that I need to wash yet, and I don't do close combat with infected, due to my asthma and that I'm better with a bow, so I've got no blood on my body. That's a relief because I hate how cold and sticky zombie blood is. It's gross, disgusting. Another reason why I use a bow.

     "Are you ready to go?" I ask her.

     She looks up at me. "Yeah, if you're good, sure. Let's go."

     I start walking in what I think is the right direction until she corrects me. From now on I'm just going to follow her. The walk back to the base is relatively quiet. With each step I take I feel the two rabbits that I shot hit my leg in a rhythmic pattern. Step, hit, hit, step, hit, hit. Mera is going to have to be resourceful to make sure that these rabbits last the week. Though, with our arrangement, that won't really even be a problem.

     It's been about an hour and the sun has already started to set. We ran so far off course that it's taking a lot longer to get back. Our friends must be worried. We're not usually out past sundown. It's too dangerous. Light is limited and if you make a torch or light a fire it's like setting off a beacon for the corpses to know where you are. I don't know if they're attracted to the light, or the warmth of the flames though.

    Just as I was starting to doubt Vanna's sense of direction, I saw a familiar paved road and the houses. We just entered the town. For the most part it's safe here, we've fortified the elementary school, high school, gas station, drugstore (and liquor store because MJ and Mills insisted), and grocery store. We built fences and walls around our areas, and we also have a number of houses inside the fenced area.

     The wall comes into sight, and it's not very impressive, just chicken wire, rabbit wire, plywood, and sheet metal all screwed and nailed together. It's not much, and in some places it had to be rebuilt and reinforced due to hoards of infected. There's a door, or really it's a gate, that's locked from the inside. We better hope that Reyna is still on guard and not dozing off, or visiting Ade, or we'll be stuck out here for a while.

     "We're back!" Vanna yells.

     No response.

     "Hello!?" I yell.

     Nothing. I sigh and sit down with my back against the gate. Just as it opens.

     "Ah!"

     Mills looks down at me and laughs. "Dude! You're a fucking dumbass!"

     "Oh shut up. Where's Reyna?" I ask, sitting up and rubbing the back of my head where it hit the pavement. "Ouch."

     "Reyna went to help Mera in the garden because you guys took so long hunting." Mills rolls their eyes. "Seriously, couldn't you have been faster? We thought you died." They were obviously joking.

     "It's not our fault that running mutations found us." Vanna glares at Mills, clearly unappreciating the joke.

     Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention. Mills and Vanna do not get along together. They hate each other. They used to be friends years ago, but after a few weeks of friendship decided that they couldn't stand each other.

     "Help me up." I reach my hand out and grab Mills arm, pulling myself up, almost causing them to fall down. "Thank the gods you're short."

     Mills rolls their eyes and tries to push me back down. They close the gate and lock it and we walk to our main base, the high school. It's in the middle of the fenced area (we like to call the fenced area the Hot Tub, it's an inside joke, long story), and it's the only building we use a generator for. Granted, we only use the dim lights to save gas, and not alert the infected of where we are, just in case they're attracted to the light and not the warmth. The lobby is busy when we get there.

     Mera and MJ are running back and forth, taking baskets of vegetables to the kitchen to start on dinner, and when they see me Mera pulls the rabbits off my belt and runs off. Reyna is in a large open room next to the lobby, that used to be the learning commons, lounging on the couches. I don't blame her for being tired, she hasn't been sleeping well since we had to take Ade to the infirmary, and held a burial for Cam and Gilda. They were in a car accident after getting an old car working and losing control of it. Ade was lucky he managed to crawl out of the wreck, good thing he was in the back seat.

     "Anyway," I look at Mills, "when's dinner?"