I awoke to the feel of Cooper's rough tongue against my face, one of his paws planted on my left thigh. Grunting quietly, I pushed away his snout, wiping the moisture away from my cheeks. I felt a little disoriented before I remembered where I was.
He tilted his head as if to tell me something, his blue eyes piercing.
"...anymore mouths to feed, Sage! We need to worry about ourselves!" The sound of an unfamiliar deep voice startled me, the anger in the voice palpable.
I peered out the window to see that the car had stopped, but Sage was no longer in it. We appeared to have stopped at a farm, large fields stretching each way I looked. I couldn't tell what was growing; it just looked like a sea of brown and green to me. Off in the distance, a heavy cover of trees swayed in the wind.
"Shut the hell up, you'll bring every corpse within a 10 mile radius here with your belly aching," I recognized Sage's annoyed voice and twisted around to look through the back window.
The food was all gone, but the back was still open. Sage stood leaning against the back of the car, her back to me next to a man. He looked to be only a little older than her with pale reddish gold hair cut short and coffee brown skin, but his eyes were a mean brown. He wasn't fully muscled but he wasn't over weight either, more lean than anything. He seemed dirtier than her as well, his grey wife beater stained and his tattered jeans hanging low on his hips.
He looked pissed. "Don't tell me to-"
"Shut up," She interrupted, turning to glare at him icily. "We have plenty of food between what I've collected and the crops that we're growing. She's just a kid, can't be more than 16 or 17. I wasn't about to leave her there to die. If you've got a problem with that, then I don't give a fuck and you aren't a Kinsley."
I couldn't help but cheer silently, watching as he narrowed his eyes at her.
"Fine. But you're responsible for her." He stormed off and Cooper growled, startling me. I had forgotten he was there.
Without even turning around, she said, "Come on, after you have a shower I'll give you something to eat and we can discuss your stay."
My feet protested as I stepped out into the hard ground, Cooper following suit. His soft fur brushed against my leg as he trotted towards the door, tail swishing.
"Who was the guy you were arguing with?" I prodded as I hobbled to the door, trying to keep my weight on my toes. She placed a firm hand on my shoulder, steadying me.
"Just an ass that's staying here as well. Ignore him, I do." I nodded, quieting for a moment to survey the pain radiating from my feet to my legs.
Keeping her hand in place, she lead me through the house. Everywhere I looked, there were all sorts of weapons; hunting knives ranging from all small to gruesome, all sorts of guns that I couldn't even begin to identify, arrows, everything.
"How did you get all this stuff in such a short time?"
She didn't answer, stopping us in front of a closed wooden door.
"Bathroom is in there. After you're done I'll come back and re-bandage you. Shower, or whatever." Handing me a bundle of clothing and a bar of soap, she moved back down the hall.
I nodded, entering the room before pushing the door shut behind me. I leaned against it, breathing as quiet as I could, the weight of everything that had happened like lead within my body. Before I knew it, tears streamed down my face and I cried in silent agony.
What had happened to my parents? What would happen to me, now that I was with these strangers? Sage seemed nice enough, but her brother certainly didn't want me here. What would I do if she kicked me out?
YOU ARE READING
Infected
Horror"It doesn't matter who we were before all this. All that matters now is surviving." It started with a new virus. No one was quite sure where exactly it had come from, but there wasn't time to try to figure it out either. It ravaged the world, sweepi...
