Finding Home | #Wattys2016

Chapter Eight: Reunited

Chapter Eight: Reunited

Harper and Elyza shared a look before they both bolted down the hallway towards the direction the shot had come from. Harper's stance shifted as she withdrew her handgun from its holster at her waist and held it up. It vaguely reminded Elyza of the times she watched crime shows and the cops swept through a potentially dangerous house.

Without a gun of her own, Elyza quickly yanked the ever-present knife out of her pocket and flicked it open. She attempted to hold it in a way it would be most effective, but she wasn't exactly sure how to go about doing that. She was almost certain she looked like a complete idiot next to Harper.

She didn't have much time to think about that before they fell upon a grim scene. A body lay bleeding out on the ground. It was pale with its arms splayed out in a way that showed the person was struggling before death. The dead person was male, with filmy blue eyes and a bloody abdomen. The face was unrecognizable due to a large bullet wound that entered through the mouth and flew through the back of the skull.

The sight sent Elyza's stomach clenching and she had to turn away, barely able to contain the bile that threatened to make an appearance if she kept looking. Her eyes landed on a hunched over figure against the far wall as she sucked in her breath.

Harper was unhelpfully feeling for a pulse on the neck of the clearly deceased man. Elyza grabbed her attention and pointed to the person.

"Hello?" Harper called, grasping her gun with both hands again. She flicked her head behind her, giving Elyza a pointed too. Stay behind me, it said, but Elyza didn't listen. She stayed put as Harper edged her way forward, "Hey, are you okay?" the soldier reached her hand out and touched the heaving shoulders of the man before her.

He jerked and turned around. His face was nearly as pale as the corpse on the ground, but his eyes were wild and full of fear. They were dark, a steep contrast from his fair skin. "Is it—is it dead?" He asked desperately, clutching at his arm and looking around desperately. "He attacked me, I knew he was sick...but I didn't think...I never would have..." he was gasping and hyperventilating.

"Hey," Elyza rushed forward and rested a hand on his shoulder until he looked at her, "breathe." She said firmly. "It'll be okay. You did what you had to do to survive. That's all we ever do these days. Try to calm down and tell us what happened." She kept her eyes firmly on the distraught man before her, unable to look anywhere else for fear of getting sick.

Harper stood back silently, glancing around as he began to speak. "His name is—was Richard Ellison, he was a friend of mine. I was coming down to see him, he hadn't been feeling well. He was getting a cold or something. But when I got down here and opened the door he like...attacked me. He was rabid and crazy, I tried to reason with him and I tried to fight him off. But he, well, he bit me." He frowned, as if realizing the ridiculousness of what he was saying as he said it. "I know things are...falling apart on land, but I've never seen it before. Was he infected?"

Elyza glanced at Harper, trying to process what had happened. The guy on the ground had the same eyes as the ones she had seen while on land. From Elyza's perspective the filmy blue eyes were a sign of the infection, what she'd heard so far sounded like the Ellison guy had been infected.

"I think so..." she replied slowly, after it looked like Harper wasn't going to say anything. "You said he bit you? Can I see?" she held her hand out, resting her finger tips on the hand covering the wound.

Ellison nodded and removed his shaking, bloodied hand. Elyza tilted his arm towards the light so she could see it better. He was shivering, but with what, Elyza wasn't completely sure. Adrenaline? Fear?