The Price of Humanity

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Two

Maria moves me towards the fence, hinting to me to move quickly. Before climbing up I look over at Zane and Adam fighting off the seemingly constant stream of men.

They're doing well, only taking a few minor hits, they seem to be winning - taking down the men quicker than they're coming.

Some of the women have joined them, attacking the men with whatever weapons they seem to have gathered.

I jump and pull myself up to sit on the top of the fence, helping Maria over. When she hops down on the other side she starts taking out the walkers closest to the fence - hitting them straight in the head with her crowbar.

Yes, she now has taken the crowbar. She's pretty handy with it too. She can't have been in that compound for the entirety of the last year with fighting skills like that.

Adam quickly hops over the fence, before any of the other girls, and takes up a stance next to Maria. He begins fighting and I unfreeze, hopping down too and taking out my knife.

The three of us start killing walker's left and right, I quickly push the knife into the heads of the corpses. I struggle with the knife since it's shorter than my katana, but I manage to keep the walkers at a reasonable distance from the group.

However it does mean that I have to get closer to the walkers than I usually ever are. Coming face to face with them is bad enough, being right up close is grotesque.

We clear enough space for the other's to climb over the fence, holding about a two metre radius around the place where the women are now climbing over the fence as quickly as they can.

The ones with weapons come over he fence first, helping us to expand out and attack as many walkers as we can.

Once all the women are out, Zane hops over the fence, keeping the rest of the walkers behind us at bay. We keep those with weapons on the outside and those without on the inside where they can be defended.

We gradually make our way down the street in as tight a formation as possible. We move as fast as we dare in order not attract too much attention to ourselves.

Although most of the walkers were killed by the men on top of the fence, it's still a horde and there's still a lot of them to battle.

The noises surrounding me blur out the shouting ones from behind us, I just keep fighting and moving towards the bakery door.

The shouting first registers with me when we reach the side door of the bakery. I open it, moving Mia and the other children inside as quickly as possible before they can come to any harm. Adam head inside to, making sure his sister and the other children are okay while the others and myself fight off the rest of the walkers.

I register the gunshots next, they didn't register immediately, since I'm so used to the sound of gun fire by now.

But when the women around me start screaming in pain I snap to attention. They were there, on the walls, guns raised and shooting at us. Backup had finally arrived for the men Adam and Zane took out.

I start pushing whoever I can into the bakery, forcing them into safety while I try to defend off the walker's too.

They're getting too close. Guns were a serious thing to mess around with – they could cause some serious damage, but a bite from a corpse? That was always lethal.

You could survive a gunshot wound if it hit you in the right place but no matter where, how, or how deep you were but by a corpse. You were always going to die.

Therefore, I focus my attention on the walkers, pushing them back while the others make their way inside as fast as they possibly can. We couldn't do anything about the men on the fence since we only had melee weapons so I try and take out the walkers close to us and simultaneously push the women inside to safety.

But, getting twenty women into one side door wasn't a quick task – believe me.

"Get inside." Maria shouts from the door. I was so preoccupied with the walkers that I didn't even realise most of the women were inside and safe.

I say most because some were lying on the floor – dead, or close to it.

I couldn't help them however because as soon as they had fallen the walkers had caught on to their vulnerability and were already starting to chew at whatever they could.

Zane starts pushing me inside, having caught up from the back of the group. I push him off me but continue moving quickly towards the door, Zane taking care of any walkers that get too close.

I wasn't that far from the door, only a few steps of so, it only took me a few seconds to get to the entrance, but those few seconds were obviously enough for a bullet to sink into my skin.

I now know that it's a weird thing, being shot, especially when you have the responsibility of making sure others are safe. I felt the bullet go into my leg, I felt the skin tear and break, but I didn't register the pain. I guess the adrenaline running through me from our escape had distracted me enough to walk through the door.

However, when Zane walked in and the door shut, the silence fell in the room, the adrenaline fell and then I felt the pain. I felt every bit of pressure I was putting on it from standing and I fell to the floor immediately.

I start screaming out, loudly too. The loudest I've ever screamed in my entire life. Through the screams, I start sobbing too, feeling the tears fall down my face.

It's like the entire situation of being shot had been delayed and I was just feeling it now, and it was terrible.

I feel strong arms lift me up onto a table of sorts and I let out another cry of pain when my leg is lowered onto the table. Fast hands set to work on my leg, poking and prodding while another set clasps my hands tightly whispering to me.

I don't get to hear what they say however, because I pass out from the pain.