Last Dawn of a Horde

Chapter Seven: The Plan Reprise ~2 John

~John~

    “You got lost by the woods?” I asked.

    He nodded, as he punched Jimmy playfully on his scar. “Yeah, and I get dozed for a bit, kept seeing faces everywhere. They didn’t harm, and my eyes were fuzzy I didn’t recognize them. But they were whispering at me, like leading me.”

    Jimmy’s eyes widened, as if he came into sudden realization. “Why didn’t you respond to Sophie’s call, anyway?”

    James removed his arm from me, and his two hands pulled the bags under his eyes downwards, like he was scaring Jimmy or something like that. It made his eyes almost drop from their sockets.

    “I thought you were smarter than me?” James joked. “Well, I simply didn’t hear it, because my head’s like—full of my brain juice, and everything I hear sounded like a grumble.”

    “You got the pressure difference effect on your ears,” Stella shouted from her watch. She was standing next to Jules, and she smiled at us.

    “You only called me once, didn’t you?” James asked Jimmy, but he looked down, didn’t know what to say next. “Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with you. You didn’t call me over and over until my ears are free from dirt.”

    Jimmy stood up. “Well, you win. But at least, John knew now how the story goes. But to remind you, it didn’t happen as fast as you tell. We encountered zombies more than a dozen and Sophie and I flung everything we have at them: hurl every stone we can carry, and then we were about to—“

    He stopped; Leo pressed his whole hand on his mouth, his fingernails gleaming with pink nail polish. “Stop it, will you? Now, let’s go over there, and I heard you can tie knots of boy scout sorts. Let’s go and you have a lot to tie!”

    Leo blew a kiss to James, and my friend swooped it away. He smiled at me. “I am really lucky, aren’t I?”

    I stand up, and said, “Why don’t we go to the rooftops to…watch how some things go. Interesting?”

    James said, “Sure.”

    The cold wind welcomed us. This time choppers flew around without searchlights. Jules had warned me about them, and I remembered exactly what he told me.

    “We’re only teenagers, and they are experienced killers; we are a hundred, but they’re so many they can attack and kill all of us anytime they want. Stay safe.”

    So what if we’re just teens. A lot of us are just fifteen and sixteen, but we killed zombies more than the police did. Or what so I know.

    We stayed under the small base made of corrugated roof pieces and tall bamboos by Adrian, Perry, and Ronald. It was placed so low that we almost crawled to stay under it, and it was so near to the trapdoor leading inside in case policemen airborne sees the chance to shoot us.

    James had brought with us a bowl of hot soup made by the girls. He looked at it like he will finish it for three hours. I badly wanted to talk to him, and explain some things when we got separated. Now I find it foolish for me to let him or the others risk themselves.

    “Well, you didn’t want to have Rich dead, right, esprein?” James said, beginning our talk.

    I inhaled cold air. Peaceful air. “He didn’t even tell us he had some kind of heart failure or something. I even wished I didn’t have that idea of getting out of a hole he can never fit in.”

    He tapped my back. “It’s alright. Hey, I’ve heard Jules was their leader when we’re still not around.”

    “Yeah.” I nod. “He’s a good leader, too.”