The Touch of Infection

Chapter 57: Eye to eye

Carisa stared at him with the question, "What?"

"I'm sorry, forget it." He looked away and concerned himself with the zombies below.

She slowly stepped down a few branches but he made it down before she could reach him, "Can't you stay put? Or are you just going to run away for days like you used to?"

"I'm not running away." He told her, kicking one of the zombies away and grabbing one of the dogs that jumped at him, snapping its neck, "But if you want me up there just say so. Come on admit it."

She continued climbing down without saying a word, while he continued to kill the dogs and zombies alike. Only when she was a couple of branches above him did she sigh, "I don't need you up here... but it would be nice."

He couldn't help the smile rising on his cheeks, "I'll start climbing."  He quickly made it up, standing a branch lower than her, "happy?"

"No. Do you even know where we're going, I thought we were seeing Amite." She looked down at him, seeing the change in expression, "Are we going to Amite's still."

"No, she's... unavailable, to say the least, we're not seeing eye to eye at the moment." He said, "We'll be going back to where we left those people, but I don't want them to see you. So you have to keep a distance, no getting near."

"And what if they see me? What difference would it make?..." her eyes caught something moving in the trees quitting her up, "Didn't you see anything move over there?"

"Where?" He asked, looking at where her gaze was, looking around the area until his eyes landed on the creature moving around, he grabbed her just as he climbed up, "Shit." He said and noticed the things were everywhere.

"What was it?"  She asked trying to find it again.

"Something in the trees, I think their monkeys... I've never heard of the dogs completely succumbing to the disease, much fewer monkeys." He squeezed her tightly against him, "and all around the same area. Getting out will be annoying..." his hand pressed on his hip where the gun was.

His eyes landed on his tail, the cloth wrapped around it had gone completely red, grabbing it and letting the blood drip he smeared the cloth on her, "Alright scents might be off, but surely if they smell my blood, it should technically work in our favor."

"And what if they like eating you too?"She asked, her face in disgust while Marnik continued to smear the red cloth on her, leaving bloodstains, "Maybe those dogs liked the taste of you and want more."

"They won't." He tied the thing to her waist and looked around for the monkeys seeing them slightly back off.

He turned his back on her letting her get on his back, before starting to move, moving through the areas where fewer of them were. His eyes snapping in every direction, "Hold on, we're going down." He slowly stepped down from the branches, until reaching the ground.

Feeling her about to get off he  tightens his grip, "Not yet, if things turn out in less than an hour we can make it out of the zone, I didn't drive us that deep in it." He saw the monkeys slowly move away in the trees. Looking around for any more dogs insight.

"Well, do you at least have a plan on where to stay the night?" She questioned and leaned on his shoulder.

"Kinda."

"Kinda?" She pulled at his ear, "What's the plan, Marnik?"

He winces and glared at her a second, "There's a few houses not far from it... did you eat?"

"No, we've been running all morning." She grabbed his ear again and pulled at it for no reason.

He huffed, "Can you stop?" When feeling her stop he sighed, "Thank you. Now as soon as we make it out of the zone we can stop so you can eat."

"I'm not hungry." Carisa's eyes drifted to the slow-moving zombies not far, "They make me nauseous, it's been a while since I was put like this...Are you hungry?"

"A little." He admitted and stopped in his tracks, "You can get down now."

When she hopped off he took her hand and continued walking calmly with her behind him. Carisa however watched his bloody tail, letting go of his hand and flipping the backpack to pull out an extra shirt she brought with her. Grabbing his tail she wrapped it around and noticed him wince, "Sorry..."

Moving his tail away when she was done, "Thanks." He grabbed her hand again and continued walking.

"Tell me what happened with Amite."

"She wants us to go back." He said, "And she's not sure if things are safe yet, so I said no." He looked back at her, "I'll call her again in a day or two, it'll be fine."

Carisa nodded but looked away, her free hand clutching her shirt, "Aren't you worried, HQ could be compromised... and we left."

Marnik didn't look back at her, "This isn't the place to be deep in conversation, we need to get out. Let's just be quiet and not draw attention to us."