Monsters Among Men || Calum Hood

Chapter Two: Next

I remember when we met them.

Boys that used to walk the same halls that we did, but never became more until that day.

Apparently, Michael and I had first period together, but he was too busy sitting in the back and I was too busy paying attention for our worlds to ever collide.

According to Ashton, we rode the same bus everyday, but he was always buried in his music and I was always buried in a book, so fate decided to wait a little longer.

But Luke. I remembered Luke. He was the boy that comforted me after my father died. When I stormed out of the lunchroom to the library with tears running down my cheeks. He was there to help reshelve library books, but ended up lending a shoulder instead. We never spoke after that day, but fleeting glances were shot when the other wasn't looking.

The only reason I felt we could trust them was because of Luke.

~~~

They were outnumbered.

Three to seven.

They didn't stand a chance.

Calum and I hid behind a broken car as we watched.

We weren't going to help them. We never helped other people. Not after the first time when the man repayed us with stolen supplies and a gun to my head.

Their faces were hidden by those of the undead. Calum wanted to leave but something inside me said to stay, so we did.

It wasn't until I saw the blond boy get knocked down to the ground when I knew the reason why.

My feet moved before my mind like they always did and I was running toward him with my baseball bat at my side.

One swing was all it took. One swing to save a life.

Calum was beside me in an instant, slicing what was left of their brains as I bludgeoned their decayed skulls. In less than a minute, they all lied dead on the ground.

Michael sat with terrified tears running down his cheeks and Ashton struggled to catch his breath and Luke sat up in a daze, but they were alright and an unbreakable bond was formed.

Fate brought us together that day. It's only fitting that it would tear us apart.

Michael was the first to die.

He was too gentle for this world, too caring. Soft souls like him could never survive in the harsh wasteland our world had become.

It was a trap.

A shitty trap meant to prey on people like him.

How was he supposed to know that a little girl curled up on the side of the road was a death sentence.

We told him to stick to the shadows; we couldn't risk helping her, but he refused to listen. A shot rang out before he made it across the street and we could only watch helplessly from the sidelines as his body was dragged away for the clothes he wore and the canned peaches in his backpack.

Ashton was the second to die.

He died a hero's death.

We were running for our lives in a small alleyway. We didn't realize until it was too late that we had run into a dead end. Calum spotted the ladder and reached it first, then Luke, but there wasn't enough time for Ash and I to make it up the ladder safely. They were only a couple feet away.

It was a decision made in a split second.

All I remember is being pushed toward the ladder and his last words, "Go! I'll hold them off just go!", and crying as we looked down at his ravaged corpse.

Luke was the last one to die.

It was a mistake.

Our eyes and ears weren't alert enough and the damned thing came out of no where.

One bite was all it took. One bite to end a life.

My bat swung and it was dead but it was too late.

He didn't cry, but I did.

We stood in silence for minutes that stretched out like years.

Luke's voice cut through the quiet like a knife, asking me to do it, to kill him. He wanted me to do it. He was bleeding and broken and going to turn and who was I to say no to the boy with kind eyes even when staring death straight in the face?

So I did it.

With shaking hands and uneven breaths, I placed my pistol right between his beautiful blues and I pulled the fucking trigger.

"I'm sorry."

But sorry couldn't bring him back; sorry couldn't keep those kind fucking eyes out of my nightmares; sorry couldn't fix the world.

I spent every day after that hoping I was next, because if Calum died before me there would be nothing left to live for.

I fought every day not for my life, but for his.

Because life without Calum wouldn't be life, only emptiness.