Infected

Chapter 12

I sat up straight, which was a mistake. I felt a sudden pain emerge from my lag as I sat up from the position I was in. The pain was immense and for a second I thought that someone was stabbing me in my sleep. I looked at my leg and saw some red stinking to my pants and leg together. I couldn’t remember exactly what happened and when I tried, my head would start to hurt.

                I tried to dangle my legs over the bed I was in, but when I moved my leg even an inch, it would burn up my leg. Then I remembered I was on a bed! But, what bed would I be in? Where was I? I looked at my surroundings and saw that I was on a twin bed; the room was dark, except from the light emitting from the creak of the door. I heard shuffling on the other side and that’s when I became stiff. I stayed silent so I could hear well. I heard some shuffling of the feet and I immediately thought I was surrounded by infected, that is, until I heard some faint talking. I only got scraps of voices here and there. A few were women and I noticed that I only heard one masculine voice present, with authority of course.

                The women were screaming about something and the man was retorting with his own screams as well. Suddenly all the screaming stopped and for a second I though infected got to them, maybe that was why all the screaming was for. That is, until the door to the small room I was in burst open and in walked Parker, grumbling to himself. “So he awakes.” He muttered while passing me.

                “You’ve been asleep for two days and we thought you’d never wake up.” He said, leaning on the far side of the wall looking at me directly in the eyes. “What happened?” I managed to ask but my voice was rasp that I barely understood myself. I need water and I needed it now. Linda walked in exactly when I ended my statement with a glass full of water. She handed me it and I drank it all in one gulp. It was warm and had a weird taste, but it would due.

                “Thank god you’re awake! I was so scared. I was so useless, I couldn’t do anything…”Linda said quietly, tears forming in her eyes. I couldn’t stand, well sit, there and watch her cry to herself saying it was her fault. I know it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Stupid Paul and his crossbow. I’m glad he got what he deserved.

                “Linda it wasn’t your fault. I didn’t expect you to have expertise in medical stuff when this happened. I’m just glad I’m here is all.” I stated with a grin on my face. I wanted to express to her that it was never her fault and she should know that. It cheered her up because the next thing I know she stopped crying and started smiling.

                Alyson and Briana walked in at that time and looked at me with shocked. “Wow! We never thought you would wake up,” Alyson started, walking towards Parker and standing next to him. I eyed them curiously wondering if something happened between them. “You lost a lot of blood.” She finished, laying herself next to Parker but a good few inches away.

                “Well, here I am! Awake and somewhat in pain.” I chuckled and everyone started laughing with me. I was glad that even though the world was in ruins, I still had time to laugh with new found friends. I looked at each of them, starting from Parker and ending at Linda when I noticed something was off.

                “Where’s Jace?” I questioned, raising an accusing eyebrow at them. The playful banter left from all their faces and everything went eerily quiet. I knew from all their sad expressions that Jace didn’t make it, but, I wanted to hear it from them, to finalize the truth. “He…he didn’t make it, did he?”

                Linda was the one who walked towards me, sat down, and started hugging me. I hugged right back. I know I didn’t know Jace that much, but over the few weeks that we got close, I felt like he was the brother I wanted, but never had.

                “What happened?”

                “He was losing color, eyes turning red and we knew he didn’t have much time left. He wanted us to end it but we all refused,” Linda started to say but couldn’t finish. It must have been hard on her.

                “During the night Parker heard some moaning, he went to investigate and found Jace walking around looking for something. He knew at that moment that Jace was no longer with us. He killed him and threw him out the window.”

                That…was intense I must say. I knew Parker was an extreme man, but to throw him out the window. I couldn’t believe it. “So what do we do now?” I asked, curious of what we were going to do or if we were still going to the bar. “Where are we anyway?” I asked, hoping we weren’t too far from the bridge.

                “We’re in a building where the damn infected can’t catch us. It’s close to the bridge so we won’t have to travel far, plus this building had canned food since it used to be for a food company.” Parker said. I nodded to myself. Now that I knew where we were, I was wonder how we were going to do things since I was in bad shape.

                Again, I asked, “So what do we do now?” Nobody answered me. I looked at Parker because he should have known what we were going to do now. He was the leader of our little group. “We’re still going with our original plan. We have to get to the farm.” Parker stated, addressing the whole group. “What if when we get to the farm, it has infected running around everywhere?” Alyson spoke up. We didn’t have an answer for her. We wouldn’t know what to do if that happened. Where would we go after that? We just can’t keep going in hopes of finding somewhere safe.

                “Then we keep going.” Parker finally said, looking elsewhere but at us. “Well we could keep going for months! I don’t want to be a nomad in this apocalyptic world!” I yelled in frustration. Parker couldn’t do this to us. He wouldn’t. He knows how dangerous it is if we keep moving from place to place. We already lost one person; we don’t need to lose more. “It’s our only choice! What would you have us do! Have us stay at the farm so those damned infected can get us?” Parker yelled right back at me. I didn’t have an answer for him. I knew he was right. If we stayed there, we would die. If we kept moving, we would have a higher chance of finding safety.

                “I’m sorry. I just…the heat of the moment I guess. I wasn’t thinking logically.” I said quietly, knowing he heard me alright. “It’s okay. This new world is getting to all of us.”

                “We could stay here until Austin is all fixed up.” Briana cut in, slicing the silence with her opinion. “You know that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. We’ve got plenty of food and the arrow didn’t do much damage. You should be able to walk within 3 weeks. Tops.” Parker stated, addressing all of us once more. I nodded because that seemed alright with me. We wouldn’t be able to do anything else anyway.

                “Then it’s settled! We’ll stay here until I can walk and then we’re out of here!” I said, happiness taking over my body as we now have a plan that could, once again, save us.

                Authors Message: I’m sorry this is a short chapter. I wish I could have written more but I don’t like changing time in a chapter. Most of my chapters are in one day except earlier when I said like after 4 weeks. That’s going to happen in the next chapter too. I’m going to skip 4 weeks because those 4 weeks are going to be boring. Again, I’m sorry this is such a short chapter.