The Dead Zone

Chapter 4

"So what's with the motel," I asked almost glaring at the somewhat terrified girl. I knew we'd have to get answers soon or risk the horde picking up some kind of scent. We were lucky enough they didn't find us the first time. It seemed that since it was a pretty big group, their own smell covered ours up. Convenience and luck that I wouldn't test again. Tracy didn't seem to want to speak and Terri was starting to look of nervously toward the direction the pack went. "Terri you handle this, I'll head around and keep watch." At that I walked of fast enough to avoid that conversation. She was smaller than Tracy, but Terri was a lot more of a threat to her than a corpse. As I crouched down and crept along the bend behind cars I found the horde far out enough to assume they weren't coming back. I pulled out some binoculars we found in Georgia to keep better watch on them to see if the changed directions. They were heading the way we came at their slow but meaningful pace. It was almost relaxing had the hair not have been raising on the back of my neck. The pack of corpses had one very dangerous member to the group I hadn't noticed from the beginning. One of the dead heads was holding a grenade minus the pin. He was holding the clip onto in a pained grip but he was a walking time bomb. It wasn't rare to see corpse holding a gun or something. But occasionally you'd find dangerous things on them or in them. I'd once found one with an assault rifle one time in a horde. I didn't take the chance to grab it. Wasn't worth the risk after all. But this situation was a whole different level of bad. I decided to head back after about fifteen minutes of watching them shamble off in the distance. When I got back Terri was reclining behind the car while Tracy was cowering beside her. "Uhhhh", I started. "There's a community there, about twenty people." Terri said almost reading my mind. "Well yeah there's that," I started, "but is she okay?" At that Terri laughed and Tracy flinched. She looked like she had been crying. I felt pretty bad but we needed info. "Whelp" she said standing up promptly, practically scaring Tracy senseless. "Better greet the locals with our new friend huh?" I had a bad feeling that got worse when I noticed her shivering. I grabbed Tracy's arm making her jump and I swear she would've bolted if she hadn't seen I was just checking up on her. I had guessed right and I didn't like the revelation. Terri was more willing to use her extra abilities and didn't have the same issues with it as me. I was angry that she'd use them like this and I was planning to confront her on it later. When I looked back at Tracy she was beginning to regain composure and she seemed less afraid of me. We had reached the overturned cars when Tracy suddenly pulled me over to the left side. Terri noticed I was holding her hand and her face notably showed distaste. I didn't acknowledge it and just followed Tracy's guiding hand. At the left side end of the car barricade there were two car doors that seemed to be welded together as a makeshift door with more aluminum siding were the windows were. Tracy let go of my hand and knocked on the siding in a rhythmic way and after a few moments there was a lot of shuffling and suddenly a tired faced old man moved the makeshift door enough to look at us. "Well I'll be. Now I've seen everything." He pulled open the door and motioned for us to go in. At first I felt strangely embarrassed because everyone was staring at us inside. Then angry when the guns were to me and Terri's heads. "Who are you two?" barked a gruff voice. If anything I should've seen this coming, I responded to his question by saying we meant no harm, which didn't do much to make him change the position of his weapon. "Cut it out Burt!" yelled out a voice next to me. Tracy was suddenly a lot more assertive and composed than she was outside. "But......"
"but nothing!" She shouted cutting him off. She nervously glanced at me in a way that said "we're even." She then grabbed Terri and me, yelling out "I'll handle this Jack!"making me nervous of attracting unnecessary attention to their little camp, especially considering the undead bomb out there. The old black man looked back at us with a small grin. He then looked started following us into the motel while Burt, a beefy biker looking man and another slim man stood there holding there guns dumbstruck. After going into the main entrance, Jack shut the door and leaned against it while we were dragged into the former managers office.