These Different Times (Nick Clark FF)

34.

We spent the night huddled against a rusting van in the middle of the freezing desert. 

The sound of growling was the thing that roused me from sleep and at first, I thought it was just the infected so I just nuzzled further into Nick's shoulder, knowing that they wouldn't touch us. 

Then I realised that it wasn't. The growling sounded different and I slowly opened my eyes. 

"Oh my God," I breathed, staring at the growling dogs, "Nick." He didn't stir, even at the sound of the barking until I hit his arm, "Nick!" 

His eyes opened, widening at the sight of the animals in front of us. "Holy shit," his arm spread out in front of me, "Don't move."

One of them barked, snapping it's teeth at us and I gripped the fabric of his shirt tightly in my hand, "What're we gonna do?" 

"You're gonna climb up onto the van." he whispered, being sure not to move his head. 

"No," I whimpered. There were very few times in my life when I had been terrified of dogs and this was definitely one of them. 

"Yes," he said fiercely, not looking at me. 

"They'll go for me." 

He shook his head, "No they won't. They'll go for me." 

I opened my mouth to ask what he was talking about but he muttered a quiet go and was pulling me up from the ground. 

One of the dogs were on him quicker than I could blink, sinking its teeth into his leg and I whimpered when he cried out in pain but I managed to scramble up onto the roof, tears blurring my vision as I turned to try and help him up, "Nick!" 

He picked up a rock and smacked the dog that had a grip on his leg twice, making it let him go and he quickly tried to pull himself up beside me, groaning when another of the animals caught onto his other pant leg. 

"I've got you," I whispered, gripping the back of his shirt to tug him up beside me. 

He let out a gasp as he lay down on the hot metal, his face screwed up in pain and I crouched down beside him, my hands hovering uselessly over his injury. 

"Jesus that hurts," he hissed as I gently prodded it, catching my wrist, "Don't."

"We...we need something to stop the bleeding," I whispered, ignoring the dogs as they tried to leap up beside us, "I need to stop the bleeding." 

He watched as I tore at my shirt, managing to rip a long section off of the bottom, which I began wrapping around the top of his lower leg. 

"Ah!" he yelped as I pulled it tight before tying a knot. 

"It's not the best thing," I whispered, wiping some of his blood onto my jeans, "But it'll have to do."

He propped himself up on his elbows to look at my handiwork, nodding to himself, "It'll help."
I fell down beside him, using my hair tie to pull the strands back from my face as I looked at the dogs, "What now?" 

"Now?" he muttered, "I have no idea."

**

Over the time we had both been sitting there, the dogs still barking incessantly in the background, I had made the decision to take off my shirt, leaving me in what used to be a white bra. Now it was stained with red and brown.

Nick smirked as I had pulled off the shirt, "If those dogs weren't watching and I wasn't y'know, bleeding to death and all, I'd definitely be all over you." 

"You're not bleeding to death," I scoffed, "At worst, I might have to cut off your leg but other than that, you should be fine."

It was then that I noticed that the dogs attention was no longer on us, no. They were too busy looking at something else. 

"Yes," I whispered, spotting a large horde heading towards us.

The dogs bark as they run toward them and Nick turned to look at the unfolding events.
I rest my head on his back as they attacked, not wanting to see what I knew was going to happen. 

There was no way they were going to be able to take on all those walkers. No chance. 

After the inevitable happened, we faced a bigger problem. The herd was no moving toward us and we had both had fresh blood all over our clothes.

We couldn't use our plan this time. 

It happened just when they started swarming the van, a horn sounded in the distance, making the infected turn around and head the opposite way.

Once they were a decent distance, Nick slowly eased himself off the roof and crawled towards the dog carcasses. 

"What are you doing?" I asked, "Nick, that's disgusting!"

He was picking at whatever was left and I timidly made my way over to him. 

"Eat," was all he said, giving me a stern look when I shook my head, "Taylor, eat."

I took the small chunk that he was holding out to me, "But-"

"Taylor."

Hesitantly, I raised it to my mouth then decided to just get it over with and eat it, not realising just how hungry I was until I got a taste. 

The two of us must have looked like savages. 

We both looked up when we heard growling and this time, it was just one infected and my eyes zoned in on the belt that was around its waist. 

So after wiping my hands on a small patch of grass beside me, I got up. 

"What are you doing?" Nick asked, following me with his eyes as I approached the thing.
It was crawling towards me, the growls intensifying when it smelt that I was indeed alive.

"The belt," I answered, looking over my shoulder at him, "It'll work better than the shirt."

When it got close enough, I raised my foot and brought it down on its head a couple of times, making sure that the brain was destroyed before I moved to pull the belt off. 

He winced when I pulled the tourniquet around his leg but straightaway, I could see that it was holding better than the stupid shirt.

"We need to cover ourselves again," Nick mumbled, "They could smell us." 

I nodded and got up again to drag the body over to us, "Stay there. I've got it." 

I covered him up before doing myself. I had unfortunately gotten used to the smell of the blood and I was able to place it on without gagging. 

"Are you going to be able to walk?" I asked as I helped him up. 

"I'll be fine." 

"If you need to stop, you need to tell me. Okay? Promise me, Nick." 

"I promise, Taylor." he muttered, "Okay?"

"Don't snap at me," I said quietly, "I'm just trying to get you to wherever we're going in one piece."

"Hey," he whispered and I looked at him, "I'm sorry. Y'know I can be a dick when I'm in pain." 

"Yeah," I gave him a weak smile, "Shall we go?"

"Not till you give me a kiss."

Rolling my eyes, I leant over and granted his wish, "There."