Walkers

Lost in Thought

          The little girl gurgles and groans on top of me, reaching out to my face with her bloody fingers.  I can't even scream.  The horror of her mangled face and the screeching pain in my ankle paralyzes me.  The stench of blood and death fills my nose as I hold her up from my body.  Finally, Kevin and dad make it to me and Kevin lifts the little girl off me and throws her to the side while dad pulls me closer to him.  In dads arms, I cry softly, not even caring if Kevin sees me.  Kevin fights her off by pushing her every time she staggers back.  He picks up a rock and bashes her in the head so hard, she falls to the ground and doesn't get back up. 

          Kevin stands still, and drops the rock at his feet.  He turns around with a blank face.  I look around in the yard and mom is standing there, eyes wider then an owl at night.  She doesn't move, she doesn't know what to do.  My mind goes back to my ankle and I squeal in dads arms.  Kevin hears my screams and comes over to where I am.  He looks at me.

"I'm going to check if it's broken okay?  It might hurt bad." he says with a worried look.

          I nod in agreement.  Kevin takes my ankle in his hands in the most gentle way I've ever seen and turns it to the side.  I wince as he does that. 

"Well, the good news is, it's not broken.  If it was broken, you would have felt a lot more pain when I did that."  Kevin says.

"Oh thank God", dad says in relief.

          Mom finally comes over and kneels by my side.

"Are you okay, Kylie?"

"Yeah" I murmur. 

"I think there's some medical wrap in the car, I'll go run and get some and we can leave" Kevin says.

          Mom runs back into her house to gather some of the stuff she wants to bring with her.  Dad strokes his hands through my hair, without saying anything, I think he was too shocked about almost losing me to even say anything.  I feel a drop of water on my forehead and look up, but it's not rain, dad's crying.  Dad is a very emotional man.

"Dad, what's the matter" I say worried.

          He doesn't answer for a few seconds.

"I thought I lost you.  When I heard you scream, I didn't know what happened and I thought of the worst.  I thought I lost you Kylie.... I thought I lost you" dad goes down to a whisper with more tears slowly streaming down his cheeks.

"I'm here, I'm here" I whisper while holding his arm tighter. 

          Kevin makes it back with the medical wrap and slowly and carefully wraps it around my ankle, trying his best not to hurt me.  I watch him, and he's the most gentle person I've ever met.  He looks so focused and worried as he wraps my ankle.  He's done.

"Alright, finished" he says.

"Thanks Kevin" I say.

          He smiles at me.  He comes up to my shoulder and takes me by the arm while dad takes the other.  They slowly lift me up and put my arms around their shoulders and let me limp with them to the car.  As we're walking, we hear a gurgle and stop.  Kevin and dad look behind us and the woman from the porch that the little girl was eating was alive, she was probably her mother.  She doesn't notice us.

"Come on" Kevin whispers.

          They help me limp to the car and put me in the back seat.  Mom comes out with a suitcase and puts her things in the back with ours. She doesn't say anything, she's probably in shock, trying to process what she just witnessed.  Mom gets in the passenger seat while dad hops in the drivers seat and Kevin sits next to me in the back.  I feel his eyes on me.  Dad starts the car.  The engine is loud.  Dad sits for a moment to take a deep breath, then a loud thump rattles the car.  It startles Kevin, dad and I, but mom doesn't even flinch.  She just stares as the woman from the porch bangs on the window next to dad with her red hands, leaving hand prints of red velvet marks on the car window.  Dad pulls out of the driveway and I watch as the woman stumbles after us, but she's too slow, maybe that's an advantage with these, things.

          We don't say anything in the car.  Dad said before that we might be heading to Mexico, try to cross the border, things may be better near the coast. I look out the window at the passing trees and every once in a while a rushing car goes by.  I wonder who they are, where they're going.  I wonder if they're going where we're going.  I wonder what they've seen, what they've lost, what they have with them.  I feel something close to my ear.

"Whatcha doing?"

          It's Kevin.

"Just thinking" I smile and stretch.

"About what?" he asks.

"Just everything" I murmur.

"Well, as long as we're together, everything's gonna be okay" he says while brushing some loose hair behind my ear.

          I force a smile, I doubt it honestly.  I don't know what it meant but it still made me think.  Usually I would be thinking "Omg what does that mean?" but my mind was elsewhere and it didn't really hit me like it usually would.  Kevin saw that I didn't want to be bothered really and he went back to looking out his window. 

          I look down at my ankle and it feels a little bit better because I haven't been moving it, but it's a bit swollen.  I look up into the sky and see dark clouds coming from the distance.  A strike of lightning followed by a low rumble of thunder moves throughout the sky.  I've always liked watching thunderstorms.  The way the lighting travels down to the ground in the blink of an eye, and the soothing sound of thunder as it never makes the same sound twice. 

          I doze off.

          I wake up by the feeling of the car coming to a stop.  I squint around my surroundings and see gas pumps.  I sit up and look to see if mom, dad and Kevin are still in the car.  Dad is putting gas into the car, Kevin is probably in the gas station store looking for more supplies, but mom is still in the car, looking out the window blankly.

"Mom?" I ask.

"Yeah, Kylie?" she replies.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes Kylie, I'm just thinking, but I don't want to talk" she says seriously.

          I obey her request.  I don't want to make her mad.  Dad comes back in the car.

"Okay, the tank is full.  Kevin's inside using the bathroom and looking for anything we could use.  The place is abandon." he says.

"How much longer till we get to the border?" I ask dad.

"We're about 150 miles from it" he replies.

          I sigh.  Kevin comes back out.

"I got another package of water, some apples, oranges, some twinkies, mmm my favorite, and since you guys have a movie player in the car, I got some movies to pass the time" he says excitingly.

          He looks at me with warm eyes.  I love how he tries to cheer us up, especially me.  I knew that he would be so sweet. He's not like those boys that only care about girls and sex and care nothing about school. Kevin, he was totally different.  He was an honest, whole hearted boy surrounded by the wrong types of people.

          But all those people were probably gone.