Darkest hour

Chapter 2

I lay still, silently staring at the small body that was my daughter Sophie, filled with shock, sadness and horror. Raven had somehow managed to crawl away from the masked woman and over to Sophie's still body. She lay there on the cold, wet blood stained concrete, holding her dead daughter in her arms tight, screaming and crying uncontrollably.

After a few minutes of this, everyone was standing or laying, all staring at Raven and Sophie. The three unknown attackers aiming their weapons at our group, the only noise from anyone was the breathing from their gas masks and Ravens hysterical sobbing.

The shorter less muscled man, who had much darker skin than Lucas, walked over to the woman and tapped her shoulder making her jump ever so slightly. And he spoke in a quiet slightly high pitched voice.
"Valkyrie we gotta go, the infected are getting dangerously close."
"Alright take care of them and lets get out of here."

After replying Valkyrie, turned toward the bigger man just as an infected child, most of the flesh gone from its small face and arms, came around one of the dumpsters and took a large bite out of the bigger man, in the back of the leg, causing him to scream out in pain. Not even seconds later more infected stumbled around the corner, crowding him and starting to bite the man, ripping large chunks out of him as he screamed trying to get them off and get away.
"Michael no!"
The woman and the other man in her group who was still alive quickly drew their guns and started to fire into the ever widening mob of infected.

While the man and Valkyrie were distracted Lucas and Andy quickly got up, Andy bleeding down his arm from the gunshot. Before anyone could notice, Lucas ran quickly behind the two attackers and pushed them as hard as he could, straight into the undead crowd. Both almost instantly getting bitten, screaming and being dragged deeper and deeper into the crowd.

Andy and Jessica both grabbed me by the arms and dragged me into the van causing even more pain in my ribs and making me to shout out in pain. Lucas came back from the mob and quickly gave orders to Andy and Jessica.
"They are distracted for a minute, get the supplies I'll get raven"
Andy and Jess quickly followed the orders and started to gather up the supplies, loading them into the back of the van.
While they loaded supplies Lucas grabbed Raven under her arms tightly and started to drag her away from Sophie's body towards the car.
"NO LUCAS NO TAKE HER, TAKE HER!!!"

Lucas and Andy pulled Raven into the car and slid the door shut, all the while she was kicking and screaming fighting to get back to Sophie's body. Jessica quickly got in the drivers seat starting up the van. As we drove away, the last look any of our group got of my daughter was when a few of the infected decended on her body and started gnawing on her and ripping apart her little jacket. Nobody could control Raven's screaming now.
"SOPHIE!!!"

We drove nearly two hours through the foggy back roads, deep forests on either side of us, from time to time spotting a lone infected lumbering on the side of the road or through the trees. The whole time nobody said a word, Raven sat perfectly still, silently staring at her hands soaked with Sophie's blood. Andy had helped Damian into the very back of the van where the seats had been taken out for more space, and he tried to help by giving him some weak pills, but they barely had an effect and Damian ended up passing out.

The vans engine suddenly started making a loud screeching noise and smoke started to spew out of under the hood as we came up to a group of broken down cars and a tipped over semi truck, forcing me to slow to a stop and shut off the car.
"Son of a bitch."
I got out and popped open the hood, alot more hot smoke flooding out when I did so.
"Fuck me...dad get out here."
Lucas my dad grabbed his bag of tools and got out of the car coming around to the front with me. He was holding a rag over his mouth and nose and tried swiping away the smoke revealing a small fire spreading around on the engine.

"Damn it, Jess get some water."
I quickly went back to the passenger door and grabbed a water bottle. When I got back to the front of the van, my dad took the bottle and poured it out over the fire putting it out. He started looking around inside until he finally found what was the problem.
"Shit."
"What's wrong dad?"
"Everything, there's a bullet hole through the oil and coolant tanks, the whole engines soaked with the crap. We're gonna have to get a new car, I can't fix this with the tools we have without the engine possibly blowing up."
"I'll tell the others, but we need a way to move Damian with his ribs."

A couple of infected slowly started coming out of the woods walking towards us, their clothes blood soaked, flesh hanging off their faces and parts of their flesh missing from bites.
"Alright but make it fast."
He set down his bag of tools, pulled the machete out of its sheath and went to the infected, dispatching them quickly with a few slashes to their necks removing the heads.

I went to the back door of the van and slid it open. Raven was now in the back of the van with Damian curled up next to him while he slept and Andy hopped down out of the car.
"What's up Jess?"
"We need to get Damian and Raven ready to move in five."
"But he's got broken ribs and he's unconscious..."
"That doesn't fix the engine. Figure something out and grab what you can carry."
He sighed and nodded his head reluctantly.
"Alright."

I went around the back of the van and lifted up the back door where all of our supplies was set around. Andy was back in the front attempting to inform Raven of what was going on, she was still in shock and just nodded as he spoke to her.

As they talked I started pack up our supplies as tight as I could, fitting extra items into pockets and slots, taking out any unnecessary items and replacing them with only the things that we needed, and finally attaching our sleeping bags to the tops of the back packs with some ropes. We all could only carry one of our rifles or shotguns so I left them in the box until everyone could decide which they preferred to take with them.

When I looked up I saw that Andy had convinced Raven to help out in figuring out a way to carry Damian. The best they could do with our supplies was carry him on one of our extra blankets.
"Jess, were ready to go in here, get Lucas."
"Alright, pick him up and lets get moving, Dad we're ready to go."

He came back to the van with a new duffle bag that he found in one of the broken down cars, he stuffed it full of more things he found in the semi and spread around the other cars.
"You guys won't believe this."

He crouched down and set the bag down in front of him, opening it up to reveal all of the items he scavenged. An assortment of canned foods and water, someone's stash of prescription and non prescription meds among other things, and lastly a half full box of 9mm's.
"Holy shit."

Everyone looked in utter surprise to hear Raven and Damian's voices. Raven was helping Damian to sit up, both of them staring at the duffle bag.