The Undead Ruined Me

Chapter 7

Oh god, oh god, what do I do? It's coming this way! Thank god it's a fair few meters back, it gives me some time, but not very long. I still have this asshole below me.

"I have a plan. Don't chicken out Erica, you've got this" I say underneath my breath, trying to convince myself that this is a good idea.

This is a really dumb idea...

Still slowly losing my grip from this tree, I pull all of my strength to the surface. Every muscle in my body pushes as hard as they can. I finally catch grip and count myself in. 1...2...3! I leap from the trunk of the tree to the aimed branch. As I latch onto the obtrusive branch I hear a quite confronting sound, even though I was expecting it anyway.

Cckk kkcc KCK CRACK!

'I told you it was a dumb idea!' I think to myself. 'All you had to do was jump onto the branch, branch will snap, land either back on the tree or simply fall to your death.' Simple right? Nope. When the branch breaks I miss my opportunity to grab onto the tree and just keep falling. For a split second I think that this must be what Alice felt like falling down the rabbit hole. There is only one problem... there's no slow motion in real life.

As the ground gets closer and closer to me, I start to think of a new plan, hopefully it isn't as stupid as the last one. I've got it! Roll into position... I throw the branch a little further out than I'm about to land and start to manoeuvre my body into a diving position. I mean, people do this kind of think all the time in parkour... and movies. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it right now but, oh well, at least I tried.

I tuck in, go for a forward roll and hope for the best. I was never good at gymnastics. My mum always wanted me to get into it so she enrolled me when I was seven. One of the first things I remember about that class was how badly I didn't want to forward roll off a ramp, little did I know that I would be rolling out of a tree sometime in the near future. I close my eyes as I'm just about to hit the ground because I'm not sure this is going to end well. I feel my body turn in a perfect circle. I open my eyes and smile a wide, menacing grin. I did it!

I search frantically for the branch that I literally just risked my life for, pick it up and hold it like a baseball bat, but then I realise something that I hadn't noticed before all of this. I don't know how to kill these damn things. Ms Andrews slid her whole stomach through a fence for Christ sakes, she didn't even yelp or grunt in pain, so what the hell is a stick going to do?

The undead man is hobbling towards me. His mouth is dribbling blood, his eyes are a faint off white and his skin is exhausted of colour. I try to look past all of the blood and skin to see the person he once was, or still is. I don't know how this works yet.

Without all of the blood and his unkempt appearance he has dirty blonde hair that swoops messily over his forehead and a faint amount of blonde stubble. He is wearing a blue flannel shirt, and board shorts so maybe he is a surfer, at least that would explain the hair.

As he nears closer to me I hit the surfer in the side with the branch that I so-stupidly risked my life for, nothing. I then hit him in the side of the head, his feet stumble ever so slightly and his face scrunches up in anger and he begins to charge at me.

I step backwards each step faster than the other, until I start power-walking. I realise how stupid this is when my foot gets caught in the orange safety fence from before, and fall onto my back. The dead surfer guy is still coming towards me and does the exact same thing that I just did. As he falls, my instant reaction is to hold my arms up over my head and close my eyes so I don't see the face of death right in front of me. In the process of doing this, my trusty stick points outwards, stabbing him in the middle of his forehead.

I never thought that a stick could be so dangerous!

I open my eyes slowly and see the dark crimson liquid run down the brown wood. He gargles softly before going limp and allowing me to throw him off my body. I stand up and tug violently at the stick, making sure that it doesn't snap in half. I have to be quick before this monstrous horde catches up and pulls me apart. I briskly compose myself before running ahead to find somewhere to hide from these things.

And here we go again, along the path I go...

It has only been a few hours since I came home from school and found my mother in a panic. I can't wrap my head around all of this, it's too much for me to handle. I feel like I'm slowly getting the life sucked out of me.

At least the moonlight is brightening which is a plus; the clouds are slowly deviating from the moon, making a clearly lit path for me to walk along. I feel safe down this road. There is nothing but the sound of my feet crunching at the rocks covering the asphalt. No grunting. No cars. No life, although I would like to see somebody soon or I'm going to go crazy on my own.

So, I currently have a stick to defend myself, no food, no water, no shelter, no protection and no survival wits to help myself, maybe this isn't going to be as easy as I once thought it would be.

Firstly, I need somewhere to stay for the night, the last thing I need is to collapse in the middle of an abandoned street, on my own with flesh-eating ghouls walking around.

As I walk along looking for something that can cover me over for the night I see a black blob on the grass. I walk over to it curious, yet cautious in case it stands up and wants to eat me. As I come closer to the object I can tell that it isn't the undead. I joust my trusty stick towards the object and poke it gently, then I realise what it is that I see. A blanket! Hallelujah! Something is actually working out for once in this life!

The blanket is old and dusty and feels dirty against my skin, but hey, I'm not complaining. I fold the blanket up small so I can carry it, but if I want to collect all of my survival gear, I need to find a bag or back-pack. Now with my spirits uplifted, no horde in sight and my blanket on hand, everything is looking up, for a while at least.

I keep walking forwards; not focusing on anything but my path, not looking behind me, just straight forwards. Kind of like little red riding hood but replacing the wolf with not-so-dead people, and straying with not straying so, not like little red riding hood at all really, I just need to replace my racing, erratic thoughts with things that make me happy right now, like music.

I love music. I can't sing or play any instruments, I can't dance to a beat, let alone keep one, I'm useless with music, absolutely hopeless! But I've always loved listening to people who actually have talent of a musical kind, and always loved all genres of music. What I am good at is art. My mother taught me how to do basic caricature when I was younger. I love everything about art, cartoons, the ability to perceive reality in a unique way, despite of other people's plea for normality and something as simple as how my pencil glides across the paper, like a skater on ice. Art is my gateway to relaxation. I'm sure there are many people that are focusing on more important things right now like finding food and shelter, me, I want to find a sketch pad and draw up a storm. I'm going to find a sketch pad, or a note pad I won't be picky.

So now I know what I'm looking for; 1. A back pack, 2. Water, food and shelter are all as equally as important as each other, 3. Paper and a pencil. That is my to-do list, and that is what I'm sticking to.

I didn't think that losing all of my family in one day would be forgotten so quickly, in the back of my mind I feel like I'm going to wake up at any moment, mum is going to present me with bacon and eggs at the kitchen table, sending me off to school with a kiss on the forehead and I'm going to engage in another monotonous day inside of prison's gates. What I would give to spend another normal day in the life of school girl Erica, (except for my blanket of course).

Mum, sister, learning, everything handed to me without a worry in the world, who wouldn't give up this life for that.

After all of this time reminiscing back to a whole nine hours ago, I'm beginning to get weary eyed. Without a car or house in sight I sort of want to just curl up into a ball and out of existence, but we all know that luck isn't really on my side these days so I will just keep moving, at least that's what I thought I was going to do. In the near distance beyond the darkness, is that what I think it is? Is it really?

I have now found safety... for a while.