Lungs full of air warm bodies fan fiction

Chapter 12

The day was hot, the ground was dry and the road was desolate.

The three of us walked for a little over two hours before reaching somewhere with signs of life. or death, which ever way you want to put it. there was a few empty shops with smashed in windows, blood stained floors and scraps of wooden board. as we ventured further into the city, ultimately the obvious happened. the problems got more obvious. at the three hour mark we stopped.

"this suns so hot. god it makes everything smell ten times worse." Nora wiped the sweat from her eyebrows and Julie chugged back some water. I sat down on what appeared to be an over turned shopping trolley, I think.

"So where a-re we going exactly?"

"About another mile or so I'm that direction." Julie answered pointing north.

we got up and continued on. Things just got worse. no longer was it bordered windows, it was no windows at all. no longer was it blood stained floors. it was entire body parts rotting away. the stench was stomach churning. barely two weeks ago that smell would have had a very different meaning. I felt sicker by the second. we ventured a little further and then Julie stopped us, gun poised. Nora did the same.

"what is it Jules, you hear something?" Nora was whispering, I grabbed my pistol though I doubted it would be much help.

"no. no I was listening, were going in there. I just wanted quiet. you know just to make sure."

Nora nodded in reply and we made our way to the front entry of a rather large building in front of us. as with all the places around here windows were smashed and the doors were hanging off of there rotten down hinges. the only difference was the obvious lack of blood and gunk.

we walked slowly and quietly into the building. guns raised and silent foot falls.

"stay close R. you might be immune, but you can still get hurt." Julie looked determined. it reminded me of when we first met. the determination to keep her self alive. Nora rounded a corner.

"clear her guys. how's your side?"

"yeah were good. no movement, lets get working."  the girls lowered there guns, slung there back packs off there shoulders and started looking around the shelves.

"R, if you see anything good grab it okay. were mainly on specifics so things like, antibiotics  or high energy foods. though foods not to important, you know the city grows most of its own." Julie was scanning the shelves with a persistence. I joined in.

after an hour we had are backpacks pretty much full of all sorts from the shop. three pairs of glasses with un-cracked lenses, 11 small boxes of pain killers and 4 pairs of dirty espadrilles were the best picks of the day. we grabbed are load  and hit the road back again. we walked back in the direction of the city for a few miles, when we reached the edge of the dead city Julie stopped us.

" wait!" she called, turned and headed towards a large churchlike building.

"ohh, Jules. come on! we don't have time for this today!" Nora sighed in defeat and followed Julie inside.

"What's she doing?" I asked a clearly agitated Nora as we walked in through the battered doors, guns raised.

"its the library R, there's only two in a twenty mile radius of the whole of our city." Julie had lowered her gun and was staring a the books.

"a couple years back I made myself a promise that every time I was shipped out here as long as I could  id get one new book. so far I have twenty two." she smiled at me and turned back to the books. she scanned them all slowly, carefully. examining there titles.

"Jules, what are they called? what do th-they say?" she smiled again more brightly, as she ran her hands over the spines of the books she called there names.

"great expectations, beautiful creatures, the lovely bones, the time machine, the war of the worlds, Jane eyre. ohh that's a good one, its one of my favourites. its a beautiful book, well ahead of its time."

she handed it to me and I stared hard at the squiggles on the cover. the lines began to come together slowly in my head as concentrated. 

"ch-chartel b-b-brontee" I looked up at Julie she was nodding her head smiling wider and wider.

"charlotte bronte, you were so close. how did you do that?"

"guess things are staring to come back even more." I smiled back at her and she grabbed another hard cover book from the shelf.

"what this book called?" Julie held it in front of my face, I squinted hard and spoke what I think I saw.

"too k-kill a m-mo-kin-gg b-bi-rd." Julie shoved the book in my hands and swung her arms around my neck.

"yes! to kill a mocking bird. harper lee." she planted a kiss firmly on my lips and dumped another armful of books onto me, naming them as she went.

"wuthering heights, a hitch hikers guide to the galaxy , catch 22, the complete works of Shakespeare, the works of edgar allen poe."

"JULIE, R, WILL YOU PLEASE HURRY UP, I WANT TO BE HOME BEFORE ITS FRIGIN DARK!" Nora stood with her hands clenched on her gun, with her jaw set.

with a look that could make Julies father shrink to three inches, we headed out of the library and back towards the concrete city, Nora can pretend literature bores her all she wants, but it wasn't hard to notice a worn copy of  what I think was called 'a tal of twoo cittys ' but spelt ' a tale of two cities' poking out of her back pack.