"THE PLAGUE "

Making Distance

I wake up and look out the window of the car we spent the night in. Its late in the mornining and russ is still asleep. I sit in the passenger seat and stretch with a yawn. Rus turns over in his seat.

"Russ..." I say shaking his shoulder.

"Hmm..?" He replies.

"it's morning," I say.

"Yeah..ok just one sec.." He mumbles with his eyes still closed.  I lis back down in my seat. After a few minutes Russ finally gets up. He breathes in deeply then then looks down at my leg.

"How's that doing ," he asks.

"It hurts but I'll live," I answer.

"Ok, well in that case we should get going, if your up for it."

"Yeah," I reply,"let's go."

We climb out of the little brown car. I lean against the door not be able to walk.

"To bad we couldn't find the key," Russ says coming over to help.

"Yeah, that would have made this a lot easier," I reply.

"ha, yeah, but no one said life was easy," he says with a smile.

I put my arm over his shoulder, like we did yesterday, then we start stumbling back down the road.

We walk for at least two hours. Small talk is the only thing that has kept our minds off the world around us.

"So your dad's in the military," I say to Russ.

"Yeah, he's in the Marines," Russ replies looking down slightly.

"I really hope they get involved soon," I say.

"Who?" Russ asks.

"The military," I say.

"Yeah," he replies," maybe they already have,but you know somewhere else."

"Yeah," I agree. After that the rest of the walk is mostly in silence.

As we're walking Russ stops in our tracks.

"What?" I whisper.

"Thought I heard something," he says looking of into the woods.

"Look," I say pointing up the road. There was more traffic but all the cars looked empty and you could see stragglers walking around.

"Great," Russ says. At that moment one of them walks out of the woods. See both jump back simultaneously. I reach into his back pack and pull out his hammer then hand it to him. Russ smack it in the scull quickly and hard. The creeper falls to its knees with the hammer varied in it for head. Another one jumps out from behind attacking Russ and knocking me a few feet a way.

Russ attempts to keep the monster off of him but it begins to over power.

"Justin!" Russ yells while struggling. I crawl closer unable to stand up. I notice Russ's gun had fall in out of his pocket. I quickly grab it.

"Russ!" I yell to alert him. He looks over at me then pushes the creeper's head closer so I can get a clear shot. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. With a bang the creeper collapse onto the pavement.

Russ, who is now covered in blood , backs away from the body breathing heavily. We look at each other then start laughing. Russ starts to look of down the road. His eyes widen. I turn around in that direction. The gun sound of the gun shot attracted the others. They start to walk this way growling and snarling. Russ gets up and comes over to help me up.

"C'mon,Justin," he says," help me out a little here."  I use my good leg to push while Russ pulls.

We start to run down the road.

"It's a good thing they're slow," I say.

"But not slow enough," Russ replies. We end up cutting off into the woods then keep going unroll we're far enough away. I look back at the road which is now hidden by trees.

"Are we good?" Russ asks slowing down.

"Yeah I think so,"I reply. We sit down on a log to rest. 

"Well..that was fun," I say sarcastically.

"Tell me about it," Russ says rubbing his for head.

"We need to get some were safe," I say.

"I don't know," Russ counters," I'm not shure we're we could go."

I hear Riesling in the weeds behind me. Russ and I both turn around. He searches his back pack for the hammer, but it's nog there.

A creeper walks out and I pull out the gun.

"Justin, don't..." Russ starts to say but is cut of when the creeper falls to the ground.

We both stare in in surprise . There's a silver hatchet buried in it's brain. A girl steps out of the bushes crouches down, then pries it out. She stands up and looks at us. I then realize it's the girl from the bus.

"Thanks," I say. She looks at us startled.

"Oh my God, people," she says excitedly,"you guys are actually alive!"

"Barely," Russ replies.

"I'm Justin and that's Russ," I say.

"Hi, I'm Atlas," she says with a smile.

"How long have you been alone?" Russ asks with a smile.

"about a day.." she answers.

"You can travel with us.." I offer.

"Thank you , but I was trying to get to my Aunt's house," she replies,"it's not far from here. You should come to."

"I don't..." I start to say.

"That'd be great," Russ interrupts," we need to fix this guy's leg."

He says gesturing towards me.

"What's wrong with..." Atlas starts to say but her eyes start to widen.

"That looks bad. It's not a bite is it?" She says.

"No," I explain," just a wreck."

She looks hard at my face then exclaims,"hey, your the kid from the bus!"

"That's me."

"I thought you were dead," she says sadly.

"He might be if we don't get it cleaned up," Russ replies.

"Thier house should be that way," she says pointing.

With that they both support me and we start walking once more.