Infected

Chapter 12

"Penny!?" Emma yelled and rushed outside. We follow the source of her screams. We find her getting pulled out the trench by James. The rest of the men and Te'Aysha were there too. We hear muffled growls from inside of the trench. We help Penny out of the trench and an infected is trapped in the trench trying to grab her foot as she is pulled out.
Emma rushes to Penny and grabs her up and starts rocking her back and forth, "Are you okay? Did you get bitten?" Emma asked frantically.
Penny is shaking all over furiously and slowly shakes her head. Her eyes are wide with terror.
"What the hell happened?" Emma asked James furiously.
"We were on the other side. We didn't even know she was out here. We heard her scream when you did."
Emma looks at Penny, "I told you to come out here to help someone. Why were you over here all alone?"
Penny hesitates and says in a quiet voice, " I was trying to walk on the the edge of the trench without falling in... And that grabbed me and pulled me in with it." She starts to cry.
"Don't you ever get near that trench again. That was very dumb of you to do!" Emma lectures and kisses Penny's forehead.
"Okay, mom." Penny's voice hiccups from crying so hard.
"Okay, let's get inside." Emma says helping Penny to her feet. Penny stood up slowly with her knees shaking and followed Emma into the cabin.
I walked over to Charlie who was looking down in the trench at the infected. I looked down at it too. It was a woman at one time. If her flesh wasn't falling off and she didn't look so dead, she might have been pretty.
"What do we do with her?" I asked. Charlie picks up his shovel and shoves it through the top of her head and yanks it back out. I flinch at the blood coming out with it. The body falls awkwardly into the trench ground. Charlie looks at me and I can't stop looking at the body. It could have got Penny, just like that.
"Come with me." Charlie says. It takes me a few seconds to stop staring at the body and follow him. He leaps over the trench and turns to me and puts his arms out to help support me to jump over the trench. I follow him as he walks out into the woods. Where is he taking me? He stops when we are out of sight if the cabin. He crosses his arms and looks at me.
"What?" I say.
"Do you have any idea of how to kill those things?" He asked.
"Well, when the time comes, I'm sure I could do it." I mumble. I don't have a clue of how to do it. Even if I did, I don't think that I could make myself kill one. Even though they are technically dead.
He shakes his head. He knows I don't know how to. "I'm going to teach you."
"Okay." I say nervously. This won't end well.
"You have your knife with you, right?" He asked.
"Yeah." I pull it out of my boot.
He demonstrates to me how to handle the blade properly. I copy him perfectly.
"That's good." He compliments. He walks about ten feet away from me an stands in front of a tree with a thick trunk. He picks up a leaf from the ground that is larger than his hand. He pins it to the trunk of the tree using his knife.
He points to the leaf, "this is your infected's head. You're target. If you don't hit it in the head, it doesn't die." I nod my head understandingly. He steps away from the tree and gives me a nod to try and impale the leaf. I take a breath and I run at the tree. I hesitate when I get to it, trying to make sure that I hit it just right. I lunge my knife into the tree. I missed the leaf by only three inches. I turn to Charlie and smile proudly at him. I was shocked when he started shaking his head.
"That's not going to save your life." He says pointing at the knife.
I look at the knife and then back at him, "it was pretty close." I said defensively.
"Close, but it wouldn't have saved you. You would have probably gotten bitten. Also, you can't hesitate. You have no time to waste. An infected isn't going to stand there and let you kill it. It wants to kill you." He explained carefully.
"Alright, I'll get it this time." I said wiggling the knife out of the tree. I walk back to where I started from before and try again. And again. And again. I practiced for another hour and got pretty decent at stabbing in the correct place without hesitation.
"Great. You can kill a stationary object. Now to the next level." Charlie says.
"Which is?" I asked.
"A real infected." He answers. That was a joke, right?
"I don't know that I'm ready for that yet." I said insure.
"You don't really have a choice. An infected isn't going to give you any mercy whether you're capable of killing it or not." Then he yells pretty loudly, "wouldn't you agree?"
"Charlie! Don't yell! You're going to have an infected over here!" I say worriedly. I scanned the trees around us to see if there were any coming.
"That's kind of the idea." He yells.
"Charlie! I'm not ready for this!" I say panicked.
"You have to do this. You're going to die if you don't learn how to do this." He explains. As if right on cue, an infected stumbles in our direction.
"Go ahead." Charlie coaxes me.
I start to shake like a always do when I see an infected. I tighten my grip on my knife and I study the upcoming infected.
I can do this. I can do this.
I run right at the infected, my adrenaline pumping so hard through my veins. This didn't feel real. I felt like I was in a dream. I watched my own hand take my knife and drive right into the infected's eye. It drops to the ground. I killed my first infected.
I turn to Charlie. "I did it." I say shocked.
He nodded his head and smiled, "yeah, you did it." he smile leaves in a flash, "Neyomi! Look out!"
I whip my head around and there's another infected only a yard away from me. I hadn't even heard it come up from behind me. I aimed for this ones eye too, however I end up stabbing it through the forehead. Whatever, I still killed it. I can do this. I can actually defend myself.
"Well done." Charlie says. I turn around to face him. He wraps his arms around me and hugs me. Again, his hug took me by surprise, but I hugged him back.
When he pulled away he was smiling, "I believe in you." He said looking into my eyes.
"You made me believe in me too." I say and giggle. His eyes travel down slowly and stop on my lips.