Dark Running

Chapter 9

Beca's P.O.V.

I start to stroke Chloe's hair and look to my right to find Stacie looking back at me. She nods toward Chloe. "Is she asleep?"

I look down at Chloe carefully as not to wake her and see that her eyes are closed. She has a small, content smile on her face and her breath has evened out. Watching her is almost relaxing until I remember we are in a fucking zombie apocalypse.

I run my eyes over her features. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows, down to her long perfect eyelashes, then to her cute little nose that she scrunches up when she laughs, over her cheekbones, and then finally her soft lips. I smile, knowing that she's so content in her sleep. I then frown, knowing that her slumber won't last forever, and she'll eventually have to come back down to Earth and back into this fucked up reality. I remember that Stacie is waiting for an answer, so I look back and nod my head, indicating that Chloe is in fact, asleep. I look at Aubrey on Stacie's shoulder and find the same look of relaxation on her face, knowing that she's asleep.

I hear Stacie take a deep breath before she hesitantly mumbles out, "They're here, aren't they?"

My breath hitched in my throat at her question. That was unexpected, I think.

I listen for any sounds outside the door for a few minutes, before answering. "Yeah, well, at least they were here. I dunno if they still are or not. The door is too thick to hear any groaning or anything quiet. Same on this end, unless someone screams bloody murder, they don't know we are here."

Stacie contemplated what I said for a couple of seconds before nodding, her expression, well, expressionless.

We were both silent for a little while before I took a breath and stuttered, "I'm scared, Stace." She whips her head at me and looks at be with an expression I can't read. She's silent for a moment, so I continue. "I know I act like a hardass, and that I don't care that the world is turning to shit, and killing people, but, Stace, I'm fucking scared."

My eyes start to blur a bit with unspilled tears, and I wipe my eyes, urging them to go away. When I can see more clearly, I see that Stacie's expression has changed from an unidentifiable one to a knowing one. She looks at me, not with pity, but with compassion and sympathy.

"I'm scared too, Becs. I try not to be for Aubrey, and I know you try for Chloe, but I-I think they both know." Stacie looks at her girlfriend, and mumbles, "They can see right through us." She looks up at the ceiling before haltingly asking me a question I wasn't ready to face. "H-How do you kill them?"

I think to myself for a minute, trying to gauge Stacie's thoughts. I stare into the side of her face, knowing she won't look me in the eyes right now, afraid of what she might see in them. I think of the people I've killed. In reality, I've only killed Fred, but I know her questions mean more. She's asking me how I can be so 'okay' with the death of my friends, even going so far as to stab Denise in the end, making sure she's brain dead.

I get my thoughts in order before answering her loaded question. "I do it without thinking twice. I don't think about it, because when I was in that bus, when Jesse died, I knew right then that no one should become one of those things. No one deserves that. I make myself believe that by killing them, I'm helping them."

Stacie doesn't even miss a beat with her next question. "If killing them is helping them, what about Fred?"

I look over at her trying to figure out where she's going with this. "What about him?"

Anger flashed in Stacie's eyes, her voice cold with the next sentence. "He fucking killed Denise, and he was doing drugs . He deserved to become one of them ."