Gift: A Story Of Love, Hope And Zombies (Work In Progress)

4. Rated M for I'm Sorry For What I'm About To Do

Jessica's fingers drummed against the gun perched on her hip. It's an unconscious action, like her hand wanting to be prepared for anything, even if she doesn't realize it.

Her other hand rested onto the plastic handle of a grocery cart. The cart was stuffed with cheetos, cereal, cans of soup, all the un-perishable foods she could find. While they did have a garden back at Kansas, it certainly didn't provide all the food they needed, so they had to go on these runs.

That day the team consisted of Jessica, Aravis and Jaque. The three were a good enough team. Communication skills were good amongst them, and every one knew they could count on them to get things done.

Today, Jessica got the food while Jacque and Aravis looked for weapons, ammo, and toilet paper. Basically anything else they might need. Jessica was done with her part of the run, so all she could do was wait for the others to meet up with her whenever they too finished.

In search for something to do, she removed her attention from her gun and reached into the cart, pulling out a can of green beans, carefully examining the paper wrapping. Apparently the main ingredient in the can off green beans was in fact, green beans. Fascinating.

Jessica released her other hand from the cart handle so she could lean against the cart on her arms, still closely examining the calorie count of the very intriguing can. She hummed quietly, the tune suspiciously sounding like something a moody teenager might rub his nipples and start moaning with delight to. Jacque and Aravis were taking a while. Hopefully they'd be back soon. Jessica was over this dusty old store and was ready to go back home.

A hand brushed against her back. Jessica jolted in a moment of shock but quickly sighed in relief. "Took you guys long enough. I was just about ready to lea-" Jessica's sigh quickly turned to a sharp inhale. As she turned around, she did not find her sister, or her friend, as she had been expecting.

Jessica had seen zombies before, but never this close. She had never gotten the opportunity to see just how empty and sunken-in their eyes were. She had never seen just how many maggots crawled out of their cold, colorless skin. She had never seen how dark and rotting their teeth were, stained red with the blood of previous victims.

Jessica had known what it was like to fear zombies before, or at least she thought she had.

She had never been so paralyzed with fear that she found herself incapable of moving in any logical way. She had never felt the sheer horror of realizing that this zombie was not alone, and watching herself get swarmed. She had never felt so scared that when she did try to move, she collapsed to the ground.

Jessica had never known what it felt like as teeth and fingers dug into your leg, pulling at in a way that did a little more than sting. She had never screamed so hard that her vocal cords felt like they might explode, until she couldn't scream anymore. Jessica hadn't seen her bone like that before.

This day was certainly a day for firsts.

Aravis ran faster than she ever had before, following the sound of intense screaming. Just before turning around a corner, she heard it. The gunshot. Aravis didn't let it startle her and kept on running. She whipped around the corner to find Jessica, sitting in a pool of blood.

With no time to spare, she heaved Jessica up into her arms, carrying her to the nearest empty shopping cart, dispite Jessie's painful wails of protest. The moment Jessica was in the cart, Aravis took off, pushing the cart towards Kansas as fast as she could. Run. Run. Run.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Jessica managed to scream through her pain. Aravis did not wait.

"Where is my sister?"

No response. Aravis kept running.

"Aravis! Where is my sister?!" No response.

And then Jessica realized what had happened. The gunshot, the one that got the zombies attention and led them away from her. The one that had saved her life, that was her. That was Jaque.

Jessica screamed and screamed and screamed.

"Please turn around! That's my sister back there! She's all I have left. Please, we have to save her!"

Aravis didn't turn around. She wanted to. She wanted to so bad, but she had promised.

She kept running.

Rain makes things wet. When things are wet, they are often prone to faster decomposition. Jessica didn't know for sure if it worked the same way with rotting bodies, but she liked to think it did, so she liked the rain.

As the wooden marker over her sisters grave gradually wore down in the weather, so did the zombies. Those horrible fleshies. Sometimes Jessica insisted running the sprinklers on end so that the water could contribute to their faster destruction. Everyone told her it was pointless, it wasn't going to really do anything, and she knew that, but what else could she do?