Dead Rising: The Run Aways

Chapter Two

My eyes fling open. I grunt. I’m soaked in my own sweat. I sit up and start tousling my hair, trying to keep it from sticking to my head. In the end, I accept defeat. I start braiding it like my old friend Abby taught me a couple years back. I take off one of the many rubber bands I keep around my wrist, and tie it securely around the ends of the braid.

“That feels so much better.”  I sigh. “Hey Grace do you want-“

And that’s when I notice she’s gone.

I immediately run out of the tent. My breathing is uneven and it feels like someone is stabbing me right in the chest over and over and over again. “Grace! Grace! This isn’t funny! Come out!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

I jog over to the tree where the bag lays against it and rummage through it, retrieving my pocket knife.

Then, I run.

At some point, my mind stops and I’m lead by my ears.

There’s a sound of footsteps.

They’re ahead.

I stop in my tracks.

“Grace?” I say a little quieter. “Please tell me it’s you.”

My heart is beating a mile a minute. I have my knife in hand, ready to use it. My palms are sweating and I clench my teeth together, praying it’s not who I think it is.

Then, Grace pops out. She’s drenched from head to toe. A huge sigh escapes my mouth. I put the knife back into my pocket where it’ll be staying from now on.

“I was playing in the water.” She says simply, grinning from ear to ear as if what she did wasn’t wrong at all.

I walk over to her, grab her arm and sternly say, “Don’t you ever do that again. I thought they got you or that you were bitten!”

Grace laughs, and my skin crawls because she thinks this is funny.

“Why would you think that?”

“I didn’t know what to think! I automatically thought the worst. You had me in full sister mode.”

Then, we both laugh.

We start walking back to the site.

“There are little minnows in the stream. I tried to catch them, but they were too fast.”

I smirk. “Grace, minnows aren’t large enough to even be eaten anyway.”

“But I’m just so hungry.”

“Well, we’ll have some more berries when we get back to camp.”

There’s a rustle in the trees above us and a few leaves fall from above.

I look up, but the sun’s rays are blocking my view. I put my hand over my eyes and shield them from it.

“What was that?” Grace says, also looking above, trying to see what it is I’m looking at.

“It’s.. a squirrel.” I say shocked.

Grace starts jumping up and down. “Where? Where? I wanna see!”

I put my finger over my lips, signaling her to be quiet, and I point where the squirrel sits calmly on a low branch.

I whisper to her, “Don’t move. Better yet, just close your eyes alright?”

She does just that.

Still eyeing the squirrel, I put my hand in my pocket and feel for the knife. I slip it out and open it up, exposing the sharp blade that glistens in the sunlight.

With slow movements, I raise up the knife, and aim for the animal.

I throw it, and miss.

The squirrel jumps, unharmed.

“Fuck.” I curse under my breath.

“Are you-“

            “Shh.” I tell her.

            I find the squirrel again, on a neighboring tree. It’s up higher now, almost to where I can’t even see it. But, I aim and throw the knife again.

            Bullseye.

            The squirrel falls to the ground, the knife is lodged in it’s stomach.

            It’s not dead yet.

            “I’m sorry little buddy.” I say right before I stomp as hard as I can on the knife, sending it deeper into the animal.

            Grace comes walking from behind me and sees what I did and she screams.

            “What did you do Dylan?” She cries.

            “I just got us dinner. So please, stop crying.”

            I pick up the animal corpse and take out the knife. Then, I wipe the knife clean and stick it back in my pocket.

            Grace’s eyes were starting to become red and bulgy from all the crying.

“I’m not eating that.” She says through sniffles as we’re walking back to camp.

“It’s either eat this or eat berries again. Which would you prefer? Besides, I’m sure it tastes like chicken.” I smile.

“Yeah, we’ll see.” She grunts.

We get back, and I cut off the squirrel’s head. I make faces as I start gutting it, pulling out all it’s organs one by one. I put them in a pile beside me.

“Alright Grace, let’s eat. We can’t really cook it because we have no matches to make a fire. We’ll just have to pull through it.”

Grace takes one look at the piece of meat I cut for her and scrunches her nose.

“Yeah, it’s not the most appetizing thing in the world, but it’s good for us. Here,” I say, handing it to her. “We’ll take our first bite of squirrel together.”

She takes it and assembles position; I do the same.

“1..2..3.”

We both take a bite out of it. I should have taken off the fur. I didn’t think about that. With the fur, it makes it feel like I’m eating a peach, except the inside is leathery.

“See not too bad right?”

Grace nods in agreement and continues eating it.

“We should make a trip back to town tomorrow. We need to get some more supplies.” I tell her through bites.

“Can I stay here? Please?” She begs.

Actually, it makes more sense to leave her here. There’s more of a threat back in town. The CDC men are probably lurking everywhere. I’d rather be the one to get caught.

“You can stay if and only if you stay at camp. Don’t leave for anything. Swear?” I say, sticking out my pinky.

She sighs, knots her tiny pinky around my pinky, and says, “Swear.”