Blend (on hold)

Chapter fourteen - uprooting

"My leg hurts."
"Stop being so whiney"
The daily morning conversation: Danni complains about something. I joke insult her. Victoria yells at us all to get up. Cooper doesn't get up, so Victoria yells at him some more. Conner and Danni tell each other jokes like they have been friends since elementary school. I throw something at Kaitlyn. Cooper sleeps some more. Finally, Victoria will slap Cooper so he wakes up. We all laugh at him.
So here it starts again.
We have been here for a probably about a week now, not quite sure. I keep saying that we should move on, and so does Danni, even with her leg and all, but no one agrees. We like to tell stories at night, each night it is a different scenario about what kind of stuff could happen in the future. We will all sit in a circle, and we will take turns on who tells the story. Some nights we laugh and every once and awhile we are all crying. One time, Conor's story was "we all die." And we all laughed and threw things at him telling him he was such a pessimist. Truthfully though, we have no idea what is going to happen. Kaitlyn promised that we will start walking eventually, but she didn't say when, so Danni and I, who are just ready to get going, are constantly on our toes.
"What time is it?" Cooper groans.
"Time to wake up."

One after the other we all pounce on him. He is so cute when he is tired; like a cat almost. The way he stretches and groans.
Ugh, what am I saying? I can't be worrying about my stupid love life now anyways.
Kaitlyn, then out of the blue says, "Ok, we can start walking tomorrow G and D"
Victoria gives her a weird look, they clearly hadn't talked this over.
"YES! FINALLY!" Danni screams
"Be quiet you idiot." Conner says to her and clamps a hand over her mouth.
Danni brushes his hand away and hits him.
I'm so happy I could die.
Danni and Conor are laughing together, Danni's hands on his shoulders, his on her hips. Kaitlyn comes up behind me and puts her arms around my neck. We start to sway to the music in our heads.
"They're in love aren't they?"
"Not yet, but they will be."
I turn around to face her, so it looks like we are slow dancing. I place my palms on her stomach, a sign to stop moving.
"Are we really going to start walking tomorrow?"
She sighs slightly and glances slightly over at Victoria, who is sitting crossed legged in the corner of the room, sharpening a piece of wood into a sort of spear.
"Yes." She pauses. "If she doesn't want to leave she doesn't have to, but she's the one sacrificing herself, not us." Her eyes rest on Victoria for a moment longer.
I lean into her. We linger in the slight embrace, her chin on the top of my head, my face against her chest, for a few seconds.
"You okay?" She asks quietly.
I nod, my chest creating folds in her shirt.
"Ya, I'm alright."
I hear footsteps, quick ones. I stand up a little and look over, Cooper comes running up and once he sees me, wrapped in Kaitlyn's arms, freezes. His eyes widen a little and his jaw drops. Kaitlyn looks up and notices too. We immediately pull away from each other and I unconsciously brush my hands over my clothes.
Cooper stutters a little and then says, "There are, like, four or five zombies pacing outside of the door. What should we do?"
I see panic in his eyes, but I have no idea what to say, how do I explain a raid to the three people who've never had to live through one. Everyone just stares at Cooper dumbfounded. Except for Victoria, she scans the room with taunting eyes, waiting for someone to say something. We all know that we can't leave now looking like this because they'll catch us, but it is deadly to just wait in here.
Danni's already moving. She grabs my bicep and drags me across the room. I know what's about to happen and so does she. Everyone is looking at us. I reach into my pocket and grab out my knife.
"Where did you get that?" Victoria demands.
"I always have it with me." I say without looking at her. I put the blade to my palm and look into Danni's eyes. She grabs my forearm, and I can feel my vein pulsing against her palm. I slightly lower the blade into my callused and scarred heart line. My face scrunches, but it doesn't really hurt that much. My eyes never leave Danni's.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Kaitlyn and Victoria say in sync.
I don't reply. I look down at the blood pooling in my hand. Danni holds out her hand and I squeeze some into her cupped hands. Cooper realizes what is happening and shuffles over and I do the same for him. Danni starts rubbing the blood on her face and arms.
I look around the room, the blood in my hand starting to drop to the floor.
"What are you waiting for?" I ask them.
Kaitlyn gets the idea and comes shuffling over. She cups her hands in front of me and she squirms a little bit as it collects on her skin. She gives me a curious look like 'what should I be doing with this' and I just nod my head towards Danni and Cooper. She follows, hesitantly, in their lead. Conor follows. Victoria, however, stays seated on the floor.
"I'm not doing that."
"Do you want to survive or not?" Danni asks seriously, her voice piercing the air.
Victoria silently gets up and stalkily walks over to me. I grab her wrists with my open hand and squeeze droplets into her forced hands. The moment I release her she pulls away and glares at me.
I begin to work on getting myself ready. Dani walks over and teases my hair for me. I reciprocate the act.
"We don't have any-" Cooper starts
I know he's about to say zombie blood.
"We'll have to do." Danni says, busy collecting food into her pockets. She tosses me some and I do the same. Danni grabs her gun from the corner of the room. I grab the bat and turn it over to Cooper, who grabs the handle. He looks into my eyes and I feel immediately calmer, like whatever happens, we'll be in it together. I look over at the three new family members. They look lost and just generally confused.
"Stay quiet, hunched over, and slow." I say, pointing to them, "You're a zombie."
Danni, Cooper, and I head out.
I guess we're headed out walking, whether Victoria likes it or not.

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The sun feels good on my crusty skin. It's warm, but not hot. I steal a small glance over at Danni. She's limping more than usual, poor girl, her leg probably hurts so much. Conor is breathing slightly on my neck, and it's getting quite annoying, but I can't say anything which sucks. Victoria is hanging back behind us; I keep seeing Kaitlyn look back, which is kind of risky, but I guess for her she really doesn't want to lose her friend, I would be doing the same if it was Danni behind us.
In reality, we only walk probably thirty to forty miles a day, at max. Today will probably only be twenty since we started so late.
The road has cracks in it, weeds breaking through the asphalt. Town-line boards and speed limit signs have vines growing in them and every few, one lays scraped and shattered in the middle of the street.
I've always wondered what a post-apocalyptic would look like, and to be honest, this is probably the image I thought about the most. Everything just looks generally... uninhabited, unkept, unclean, overgrown. The hot, grey, road burns my feet as I scrape my heels across the ground. Zombies line the street, huddled together in little packs. Some stragglers stumble across the street, one even falls flat on their face. And then doesn't get back up.
I hate rotting flesh.