Dead But Not Gone

Nightmares

Derek

I walked out of the room and asked around the building to see if anybody saw Maria. After multiple people saying no, I was about to give up. Then, I caught a glimpse of her in the armory and basically ran over to her.

"Maria, hey you have a second?" I asked without warning her about my presence.

She quickly turned around and rolled her eyes. "Jesus fucking Christ Derek. Announce yourself next time. What do you want?"

"A little birdie told me that you scheduled a meeting with somebody named Rodney and well, that's not a good idea."

"Derek what the fuck are you talking about?" Maria scowled.

"Uh...er..um..that wasn't true?" I stuttered.

"We know about Machton. I know what the people there do. Why do you think we made a community basically overseas? Sure, we may not be super far from them but we're far enough. So please tell me why the fuck would I schedule a meeting with the asshole that took everything away from me?"

I felt like an asshole. I put my hand behind my head and looked to the side embarrassingly.

"I'm sorry Maria. The same thing happened to us a while back. We lost a lot of good people and it was insensitive for me to assume that. So I'm sorry."

Maria's hostile expression softened and she let out a sigh. "It's fine Derek. If you do wanna know, I've set up a trade with a new community not far away from here. They've dubbed themselves 'The Revolution' and we're meeting with them in two days."

"That sounds great. Hey look, I gotta run. I'm glad we got this settled. I'll see you on the next supply briefing?"

Maria nodded and I turned away. I walked out of the building and looked to my left to see Xander and Stella laughing about something. I continued moving past other tents until I got to mine. I entered and laid on my improvised sleeping bag. I closed my eyes and decided to take a nap.

"No!" I shouted as the man shot Xander in the stomach from up close. I went to run towards Xander but was stopped by a newly turned biter. It was Alessandra. I screamed and pushed her away. She fell to the ground but quickly recovered and attacked me once more. Hazel's head was being carried by Rodney and Stella was getting her guts eaten by a group of biters. Alessandra bit into my neck and I screamed in pain. I couldn't fight back. I allowed her to feast on my neck until I faded into the pits of darkness.

I woke up suddenly and panted for air. I touched my body to make sure I was still okay. When I was done, I crawled out of my tent. It was night time and the usual busy camp grounds now only had a couple of people walking through the dirt filled ground. I stood up and shook my head to snap out of my dizzy state. I then made my way to the medical tent and saw that Hazel was sleeping on the chair. Star laid on the bed with her back facing me and I decided to leave them alone.

"There you are." TJ said from behind me.

I turned around and shook TJ's hand. He told me that Xander wanted to set up a game of Uno to end the night and I agreed so I could get my mind off of the nightmare I had. I took a seat beside Xander and he handed me my hand of cards.

"Yo Derek," Xander said to me, "what's wrong?"

I snapped out of my daze and replied, "Oh nothing. Lets get this game started."

"I'm not stupid. We've been friends long enough for me to figure out when something's wrong with ya. What's up?"

"Ugh...I keep having these weird nightmares. Everyone dies in different ways and it always ends with me getting bitten by one of my friends that turn. It's fucking my head up, Xander. It doesn't happen often but when it does, it all seems so...real." I explained softly.

"You're going coocoo buddy. Better lay off the wiz touch." AJ said jokingly.

"Don't worry about it Derek. All the traumatic shit that's happened gives you all the right to get those fucked up dreams." Xander assured me, ignoring AJ's statement.

I didn't reply but instead started the game. I wanted to forget about it.

After our game, I met up with Alessandra in my tent. We got comfortable and cuddled. I kissed the top of her head and held her tight.

"Everything okay?" She asked, looking up at me with her light brown eyes.

"Yeah," I lied, "I'm just glad we're making this work."

Alessandra smiled, kissed me, then closed her eyes. I stood awake for a while and thought about Maria's words. "The Revolution" was coming in two days and I was worried about another betrayal. I sighed softly and shifted to a more comfortable position. Then, my drowsiness got the best of me and I joined Aless in her slumber.

Danny

We had the people on board on their knees with guns pointed to the back of their heads. Rodney examined the row of shaking people and an evil smug appeared on his face. He held a metal iron rod in one hand and practiced swings on the air.

"This ship is fucking huge." Rodney spread his arms out for more effect. "We really should've gotten here sooner."

I gripped the handle of my AK-47 and had the barrel pointed to the back of a black man's head. Rodney continued to practice his swings and made sound effects while doing it.

"Yo Patchy!" Rodney called to me. "Why don't we have some fun? Let's play rock, paper, scissors with all 10 of these helpless little fucks and if we win, we kill them! Get your blind ass over here!"

I walked over to him and he put his arm around my shoulder. He assigned me to a blonde Asian woman and whispered "No survivors" in my ear. He then assigned the rest of our crew to certain individuals. Rodney stood in front of a teenage kid and rested the tip of the rod on his own shoulder.

"All right. On the count of three, we'll start. If you lose, you die. If you win, we'll spare you. We all know how to play this game so let's cut to the chase. 1...2...3. Go!"

The Asian girl and I started to cycle through the gestures until Rodney said stop. I had Scissors and she had paper. She started crying and my heart shattered. Rodney noticed that I didn't instantly kill her and had one of our guys watch the teen while he walked up to me.

"Do I have to take away your arm now Danny?"

I shook my head no and he continued, "You won. Kill her."

The woman put her head down and cried harder. I put the barrel of the gun on her head and pulled the trigger. She dropped to the side as her blood painted the metal ship interior. More bullets followed. There were only 4 survivors left.

"Alright, round 2. Get ready!" Rodney stated.

The survivors, which included the teen, shut their eyes as Rodney started the countdown. I watched silently as more bullets erupted. The teen was all that was left and he won for the second time in a row against Rodney.

"Can I- can I go?" The teen pleaded softly.

"You're good kid. I respect that. Too bad that's not how shit works around here."

"What? But- but you said-"

The teen was cut off mid sentence as Rodney slammed the metal into the side of his skull. The teen yelped in pain as he fell over. He was still alive but just barely. The other guys and I watched in horror as Rodney continued attacking the boy. He finished him off with a stomp to the head. The boy's head was cracked in two and his teeth were scattered all over the metal floor.

"Whew, so that's settled. Sorry for the mess boys but we gotta do what we gotta do. Patchy, take control of the ship and be a real pirate. Our next stop: Blinkseville."

Without saying a word, I obeyed his orders.