Meet Me

Chapter 11 - Brother

"I desire the things which will destroy me in the end – Sylvia Plath

Owen and I climbed up a tree that we thought was the tallest in the patch of forest we were in. Owen climbed it first, he sat on the first branch, then helped me up onto the first one with him. My arms and legs ached from running, but I didn’t care because I was safe up in a tree. Owen then continued to climb the tree. “How far are you going to climb?” I asked, catching my breath, whilst standing on the second branch.   

  “To the third branch.” He replied, helping me up onto the second branch of our journey up the tree. He heaved and grunted with the effort. We could hear yells of the men and gunshots. My guess was that they were shooting the zombies. That was what they did best after all. It was right next to murdering runaways.

After Owen helped me up to the third branch, I saw him up close for the first time since he had witnessed Luisa dying around ten minutes ago. In that ten minutes though, there had defiantly been a switch in Owens brain. He wasn’t as vulnerable as he was ten minutes ago and he was even helping me climb a tree. He wouldn’t have done that before, he would’ve thought he wouldn’t have enough strength. I knew he had it in him all along though, because I had it in me and we were siblings. Siblings stay together.

After just listening for a few minutes, we daren’t move a muscle. That was because right underneath us were Connor, Kyle and five other men. It was raining hard, so I didn’t know why they had bothered coming after us. Owen looked as if he wanted to kill them and I didn’t blame him. I wanted to kill them too. I didn’t care if they killed me or not, but I cared if they killed Owen. I hushed Owen as quietly as I could, then stayed quiet myself. I listened to the conversation that was going on. It was much harder than you would think, because the rain was coming down as if the sky were crying over the worst thing ever. I wiped my eyes, hoping my own tears weren’t visible anymore. From what I could hear, I heard them saying that they needed to find them – us – as soon as humanly possible.

 I wished I could’ve shouted something clever right when I heard that, but these people had killed Luisa, what was going to stop them from killing Owen or me or both of us. “You go that way, we’ll go this way."  Connor said, pointing to Kyle and another one of the men then the rest of his group. The men nodded and then they all split off into different directions. The last thing I heard was “We have to find them! Or the girl – Kate – at the least! She is promising! We don’t need the boy.” As soon as they were out of sight, Owen let out a breath and so did I.         

  “Scared?” Owen asked. I shook my head, but the truth was I was scared for him. We don’t need the boy stuck in my head. Kyle wouldn’t let them kill Owen would he? If we were going to be found, I wished it would be just Kyle that found us. I could reason with Kyle and persuade him to keep Owen alive. I don’t know why I thought we would get caught, because if I had anything to do with it we wouldn’t be caught. “Shall we get down or do you think it’s safer up here?” And just like that, Owen became vulnerable again.                                       

  “We’ll stay up here tonight. They didn’t see us just then, what’s to make them see us the next time? We should stay a little dry up here too. As soon as the rain passes in the morning, we’ll get down and go away as far as we can go away. I promise. My promises barely meant anything anymore, but it made Owen feel safer – he had told me.                  

  “Okay. Night, sis.” His voice cracked slightly and I didn’t reply, because mine would too.

We were both acting as if we hadn’t just left our best friend, dead, for zombies to eat. When this had happened, and all throughout, I promised her I wouldn’t let them even touch her. Now, she was being eaten by them I was so sure of it. Zombies don’t just feed on live humans, from my observations, they like to eat dead bodies too. I had promised her and I had broken my promise. It had been so long and we had been through so much that I couldn’t remember what she looked like happy. I hadn’t seen her happy in years. The last time was… I don’t even remember that.  I glanced at Owen and saw that he had fallen asleep. I wouldn’t be able to sleep with the guilt weighing me down. The rain sounded like thousands of heavy hooves pounding on the dampened ground.