Chapter 3
The sleep was cold and uncomfortable, it felt like the sun didn't shine anymore because it didn't have a reason too; Aurora lay awake looking at the ceiling of the dark room while the others slept silently around her, she played with her hair the way she did when she was worried or nervous, she wondered if she would get to the same kind of place her four saviours were at about this whole zombie thing.
The random bangs from outside caused her to jump every time they were made and her heart couldn't settle from its hyped thumps, she quietly sat up and looked at the four people around her asleep and they actually looked at peace; she silently got to her feet and walked out of the room silently shutting the door silently.
"…Why did this have to happen…?" She asked herself while her left hand still held onto the door handle loosely.
She let out a sigh before slowly letting the door handle slide from under her hand, this was now entering her second day travelling with the group and she had already wondered for a slightest second what would have happened if she hadn't left with them; the loud bang on the metal door quickly drew her mind away from that and towards the large metal door, which was the only thing setting them and her apart. She let loose another sigh and slowly walked down the hallway hearing the door thump as an un-dead hand bang itself against it; she veered to the right suddenly to enter the room near the metal door, she pushed open the door receiving a creek in return causing her to shiver.
The room had a misty aura to it and even though it was day time outside, it felt like the middle of the night; She slowly walked into the room feeling the cold air engulf her skin into goose bumps, she ran her hand against the wooden wall to the right side of the room until her index finger dipped slightly to the rest of her hand; she stopped walking straight away and slowly pulled away her hand to see the small wooden hole in the wall, she breathed deeply.
"Oh god… they didn't finish."
She wanted to run into the room and shake the others awake but when the cold dead eye fell on her through the hole she couldn't move, her mind raced like it normally did when she was panicked or nervous and it went over all her possibilities of what to do; the loud roar that came from this thing quickly snapped everything out of her mind and she watched the eye disappear.
Her body was shaking in pure fear while her feet stayed planted to where they were, her heart pounded harder then before which she didn't think was possible, then it happened; the un-dead that had its eye on her punched a hole in the wooden wall that was protecting her from the outside, her breathing seemed to stop as the arm receded out of the large hole it had just made, then just as quickly a large slimy tongue flew into the room and wrapped itself around her right arm before pulling her forward roughly.
She let out a terrify scream while it pulled her through the wall harshly, the wall hurt more then she thought as she was smashed through it. "Ellis!" She screamed as loudly as she could while being dragged out into the harsh outside world, 'infected' followed after her with mouths gaping while the smoker dragged her along the dirt ground, her mind flickered to her gun which was being held in her pants waist line and her hand instantly went for it, her left hand wasn't her main hand which caused her to panic a little. "Ellis!" She screamed again holding the gun up as best she could while being dragged along the ground.
"Holy shit we got a break through!" Coach's loud voice rang through her ears causing her to let out a light laugh of relief but only briefly.
She roughly pulled the trigger on one of the infected coming at her at a dangerous rate, it hit its shoulder causing it to stumble backwards slightly before picking up speed once more; she shot again this time hitting it in the forehead causing it to instantly fall to the floor. "Help me!"
Coach set up his shot through his scope quickly looking around for the smoker, his eyes landed on it and he quickly pulled the trigger executing a perfect head shot getting a large puff of green smoke in reply, Aurora screamed feeling herself stop dragging and become over run with infected getting on her. "Careful not to hit her!" Rochelle called out while running towards the area.
A zombie took her right leg into his hand before bringing his sharp yellow teeth down onto her calf; she let out a loud scream arching her back at the pain; Ellis quickly shoulder tackled the zombie before pulling the baseball bat off his back and forcefully swinging it into it's head. "You right Roar?"
Aurora held onto her leg in pain causing her breathing to increase. "Oh god it hurts!"
"The bites are bitches! Who has a medi pack?" Rochelle asked throwing her axe into the side of an infecteds' head hearing the skull crack before kicking it with her foot to pull her axe back out of its skull.
"There weren't any in this one nor last one, she's got to wait till next safe house and pray they have one." Nick answered her question while reloading his gun in a hurry.
"Here Roar take these!" Ellis said sweetly bending down and handing her some pain pills. "Gives us an hour to get there before you start hurtin' again!"
Aurora groaned but took the bottle and popped the lid off before taking the last three and shoving them into her mouth. "C'mon lets go dammet!" Coach called out making his way towards the edge of the town shooting infected as he did so.
Ellis helped Aurora too her feet gently before pulling out his pistol with his right hand and wrapping his left arm around her to help her walk until the pain pills could take proper affect. "I was hopin' for breakfast." Ellis sighed out while helping her to run to the others.
"Me too!" Coach growled shooting another infected right between the eyes. "Alright let's put on our game faces, people!"
A blobbing like sound was heard causing them all to stop where they were. "Fatty!" Nick called out reloading his gun.
"Don't let him throw up o-" Before Rochelle could finish talking to Aurora the hefty infected ran at them and instantly threw up on the group, Coach instantly shot three times to where the boomer had run at them.
"Oh that's just disgusting." Aurora whined feeling the sticky substance all over her body.
"Ahhh, this is some nasty shit." Nick comment quickly wiping it off his face, the loud roars filled their ears and the four knew a horde was coming. "This is why we've got guns!"
"Hey... Kill all sons-a-bitches, right?" Rochelle asked glancing towards Ellis while he was getting the vomit off his face; he turned and nodded with a smirk on his face.
The mob of infected ran at them in bulk with hungry eyes and open mouths, Aurora gasped at the amount running towards them while shakily taking her gun into her hands, the others weren't so panicked as they started shooting at the front line of infected mowing them down with ease, Aurora pointed her magnum pistol at the horde and began shooting with great accuracy. "Nice shooting, Rora!"
Aurora looked at him and couldn't help the smile that crossed her face when her eyes landed on him, she felt a tug on her arm then a sharp pain; she turned her gun to look to her left before pulling the trigger to head-shot the dark haired male infected which attached itself to her arm. It fell immediately and blood quickly poured from her wrist she cursed silently to herself before ripping the bottom of her shirt off and quickly tying it tightly around the wound in attempts to stop the blood, a female infected crashed itself into the group throwing its sharp nails around like crazy scratching each of them slightly. "Arrrrgh. JESUS CHRIST!" Rochelle cursed lifting her axe over her head before roughly swinging it down onto the infecteds head giving off a blood churning crack.
They had successfully killed the last of the horde that had come at them leaving them with hundreds of corpses basically at their feet and blood everywhere. "And THAT is how you do it!" Nick said smugly placing his blood covered bat back onto his back before glancing at each one of the survivors, his eyes landed on Aurora and a scowl came onto his face immediately that is until he saw the cloth tied around her wrist and the blood still pouring out of it. "Shit, you are messed up - If you don't get yourself healed up, that's it."
The others turned to look at her while she held tightly onto her wrist; Ellis took her hand into his before ripping the sleeve off his shirt and tying the material around her wrist properly. "Where's the next town from here darlin'?"
The pain killers had kicked in and Aurora grinned at him feeling the release of pain. "There is one more town that is close to this one, then its large open spaces... I like open spaces…"
"Pain pills are workin'." Coach chuckled lightly but was getting concerned that the blood was still falling heavily from her wrist. "C'mon lets go."
Coach waved over the group as he quickly made his way back into the forests that surrounded that these tiny towns, there were three towns linked by dirt paths in the forests that Aurora told Coach to follow; he led the others while his gun at the ready… He hated traveling during the day… Ellis helped Aurora walk while Rochelle and Nick watched their asses. "You're super cute you know." Aurora grinned at him looking up at him while he held onto her.
"You aint' bad yourself darlin'" Ellis chuckled lightly back to her smiling, he turned slightly to look into her eyes.
"Stop the flirting and start the moving." Nick growled at the two young ones while keeping his gun ready, he looked at the large blood spots that were over the ground due to Aurora's leg and wrist; he glanced back at the town they were leaving and noticed the blood left a clear path for the infected to follow. "She's loosing a lot of blood."
Aurora glanced back at him while sluggishly moving with Ellis. "Don't think it'd bother you if I died." She shrugged effortlessly.
Nick grunted in reply. "Yeah you're right… I got something to ask though; I thought New Orleans was the last place to get out of here."
Her eyes glazed for a moment which caused Ellis to shake her roughly, she shook her head before turning her gaze on him. "Kyle said they were getting hit hard, blowing up the bridge… they were setting up these last two bases to try and regain the country… The last news paper I read, on the front page third paragraph down, five words in said it had spread to other countries and that they were working on finding a cure. Can you cure un-dead? Because in the book that I read on page three hundred and sixty-three-"
Coach shot his weapon causing them all too quickly draw theirs, an infected collapsed to the ground in the distance. "Are we gonna put up tents and shit, or keep movin'?"
They then moved on in silence towards the next town, stragglers were around but easily shot down by the five of them which didn't attract hordes, it took forty-eight minutes of walking to reach the next town connected to the two other towns and this one was much lager then the other two; they quickly ran over a large square shaped brick building and hid behind it to determine the situation. "How you holding up, girl?" Rochelle asked looking over towards the pale girl; she looked drawn out and almost as bad as the infected.
"I'm okay… this town is much bigger then mine, I think they made their safety house at the other end of the town but… guys? This town went down a week before ours and they had a lot of people living here, no one was immune."
"How many is a lot?" Nick asked from his crotched position next to Rochelle.
"Three thousand…"
"Damn that's a lot of things to shoot!" Ellis grinned at his fellow survivors receiving a roll of the eyes from Rochelle.
"I am right behind ya." Rochelle spoke up making Aurora turn to face her.
"Alright…"
Aurora struggled to her feet and quietly moved to the front of the group, her mind flashed back to a map of the town she had once seen and she mapped out where to go in her head. "It is at the end of the town, furthest right possible."
"Okay we ready." Nick spoke running his hand along with gun with a smirk. Aurora held her gun tightly and led them out from behind the cover; she lifted her arm and shot at the infected that struggled down the street, its head exploded in a simple shot. "Impressive." Nick scoffed.
They ran down one of the back streets as countless infected staggered around them, some had limbs missing others had blood pouring from their mouths and some just looked really tired. They ran out onto the main street and Aurora froze at what was in front of her, it was large and abnormal but then again nothing was normal about what was happen; the bulky thing had many common infected around it in almost a protective way. "Holy shit! TANK,TANK,TANK!" Ellis yelled placing his index finger on the trigger of his silenced submachine gun and pressing on it hard.
"Shoot the shit out of that thing!" Rochelle added running forward slightly while shooting her own gun at it.
The tank roared and picked up a large chunk of earth straight out of the ground, Aurora stood almost amazed at what it did until Nick roughly took a hold of her arm and ran out of the way of the flying earth, he dove out of the way taking Aurora with him as the earth smashed behind them, Ellis Coach and Rochelle kept shooting at the tank while Nick sat up and growled at her; something wrapped around Nick's waist and instantly pulled him backwards, Aurora jumped to her feet and ran after him pulling up her gun. "Shoot the tongue! Shoot the tongue!"
She set up her shot and shot the long slimy tongue causing it to snap off and release Nick; he growled quickly pulling it off from around him before throwing it onto the floor catching a breather. Shooting still filled their ears as the other three continued to shoot at the tank, Nick got to his feet to run and help them until the tongue quickly wrapped around his legs and pulled him once more, smashing him to the ground in return. "Aw shit!" He cursed being dragged backwards.
Aurora ran after him once again looking around quickly for the actual smoker, they were getting further and further away from the others as she finally spotted the special infected; she pulled up her gun and aimed carefully before roughly pulling the trigger three times in a round. "You okay?" She asked swiftly bending down to help him up.
"Yeah." He grunted in reply pulling the remaining tongue off him, the green smoke that was left behind cause him to cough and splatter, he looked at the girl in front of him with a frown, he went to open his mouth but a loud siren quickly interrupted him.
"Get under cover!" Coach's loud voice boomed loud enough for even Nick and Aurora to hear.
Nick growled and grabbed onto Aurora's arm pulling her down the alleyway they had found their way into, the siren was ringing loudly through their ears as Nick took a sharp left into an abandon house and all the way down the houses' hallway, he quickly pushed open the door, threw Aurora in the room before getting in himself and slamming the door shut pushing anything large that was in the room up against the door; he looked down at Aurora who was on the floor barely moving as she held onto her bleeding wrist. "Ah shit, come on, come on." He said bending down to look at her.
She let out a scream while her body shook, Nick pulled off the two bit of cloth covering her wrist too see that it was still bleeding and the skin was being infected, he moved her leg to look at the back of her calf to see all the skin along the back of her leg gray-ish and infected. "Oh god it hurts!" She cried out holding onto herself tightly.
"Pain pills wore off, I know it hurts but you need to shut up, there is no protection here for us and we have twenty-four hours to get to the others otherwise we are on our own! So you have to be quiet!" Nick snapped at her, she stared at him for a moment but nodded in agreement.
The noises from outside made them both pause in breathing, planes flew over the town dropping bombs as infected ran wild growling and screeching, Aurora held her hand over her mouth so she wouldn't give off little noises of pain while Nick stood in front of the door with his bat raised ready to strike if they broke through. A good five minutes passed and then they couldn't hear them as loudly anymore and the planes had stopped, Nick looked at the girl on the floor and sigh. "Why do you hate me so much?" She asked softly laying her head on a stuffed toy that was on the floor.
Nick pulled a face for a moment. "Your brother, he is your twin correct?"
Aurora blinked. "Yes he is how did you know?"
"He was that C.E.D.A shit that told me to get to the top of the building because his helicopter was full, back in Savannah… you look the same but prettier than him; I guess you just pissed me off by association." He replied sighing once more pushing his back up against the wall.
"So it's not really me?"
"I suppose not. Not yet anyway."
"Oh… okay… So are you going to stay hostile towards me because my brother was a douche?"
"Maybe."
"You know that's not really fair, it's like me hating you purely because your hair is brown."
"I know that wouldn't be true because I've seen you look at Ellis."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing."
"It's the end of the world and I'm thinking about a boy…"
"It's not the end of the world, I haven't come this far to die."
"I'm stupid aren't I?"
"Clearly, but don't worry so is he."
Aurora smile for a moment looking at him, her body froze up and she groaned quietly in pain her vision blurred for a moment, then nothing.
"Wake up!" Nick yelled shaking her; she slowly opened her eyes and looked at the young man shaking her. "Thank god, you've been out for a few hours."
"I feel like I was hit by a truck." She sighed sitting up letting out a moan of pain while doing so.
"We need to get to the safe house other wise we are on our own." Nick grumbled picking up his gun from its rested position against the wall. "Can you walk?"
Aurora attempted to get up but pain shot through her and she fell back to the floor with a yelp. "No…"
"Shit." Nick sighed running his hand through his short hair.
"If you carry me I can shoot." She said suddenly looking up at him from the floor. "I've read everything about guns and I can work out the exact position to shot to get the best result."
"That's right you're a genius aren't you." Nick grunted looking down at her.
She shook her head. "I can remember things well and its like re-reading things for me I am not smart."
"Whatever." He sighed walking towards her, in one swift motion he bent down and lifted her up in his arms, he handed her his gun while he held onto her. "Ellis better thank me for this."
Aurora rolled her crystal blue eyes but in an instant he had kicked down the barrier on the window and jumped through it carrying her, she reloaded both pistols she was holding and took a deep breath. "Alright we are going straight." She said trying her hardest to ignore the bite on her left wrist which was slowly destroying her arm.
Nick ran through the alleyway, he shouted when he saw an infected and she would turn to shoot it and she would shout out where to go, they were a perfect team and her shooting was something he was defiantly impressed with she would be able to head shot most of them first go. He stopped once they got to the last area which was covered by walls of houses squished together, it was all open space to the safe house door to which they could see from where they were, he placed her onto the ground just next to him and looked at the sealed door. "They made it… Look I'm going to give you this shot, it'll make you be able to move for about thirty seconds, you need to get them to open the door."
"What are you going to do?" Aurora asked staring at him slightly wide eyed.
"Watch your back until the doors are open." He replied bluntly, he dug into his suit pocket before pulling out a small syringe.
Aurora took a deep breath but then nodded, he pulled the cap off the needle part and quickly jabbed it into her thigh getting a yelp in return. "That hurt." She growled but jumped to her feet anyway.
"Go I got your back!" Nick spoke loading his gun.
Aurora ran as fast as she could across the open area, the infected that were banging on the door turned to look at her as she quickly pulled out her gun and shot both of them shakily, she heard gun shots behind her but crashed into the metal door anyway. "Guys! Open please!" She called out banging on the metal door as hard as she could.
Nick set up his shots perfectly only missing a couple of head-shots, he watched Aurora bang on the door like no tomorrow and couldn't get why they weren't opening the door. "Scream for Ellis!" He yelled from a distance.
"Ellis!" She screamed banging on the door so hard her fists started to bleed, the door flew open and she crashed to the safe house floor with a groan. "Nick, they opened the door." She groaned out from the floor.
"Nick, come on!" Coach's loud voice boomed across to the man who nodded and ran towards him like lightning.
"Thought you guys were dead." Rochelle said quietly letting out a sigh of relief as soon as Nick had jumped into the safe house over Aurora who was on the floor; she slammed the door shut and resealed it.
"She almost did die." Nick puffed out sliding down the wall into a sitting position. "She's not so bad though."
Ellis, Coach and Rochelle bent down to the injured girl instantly to see if she was okay. "I've never seen a bite untreated for so long until now." Rochelle gasped looking at the one that had over taken her leg.
"I don't mean to be rude when I say this but, try actually having it!" She growled from her position face planted on the cold hard floor.
Ellis gently turned her over onto her back, she frowned at the movement but didn't object at all, he took her wrist into his hand too look at it. "Darlin' that don't look good."
"Coach, get the med pack." Rochelle spoke looking up towards the rounded man who nodded before making his way back down the hallway. "Ellis, sweetie can you carry her into the back room?"
Ellis gently put his arms underneath her before lifting her body up of the ground, she gave quiet groans as he moved her, Rochelle looked at the blood that now staining the floor she had been lying on and turned to Nick. "How long has she been bleeding?"
"The whole time, she was out for a good five hours, that's what took us so long." Nick replied from his squatted position on the floor, he looked up at the dark beauty with a huff.
She sent him a sweet smile. "I'm glad you didn't leave her."
Nick scoffed. "Why would I? That would mean having Ellis on my back."
She let out a laugh and placed out her hand for him, he took it as she helped him up off the floor. "He does seem to be taken with her doesn't he?"
"Least he can talk to this one." He sighed in reply making his way down the hallways with her.
Ellis placed her down onto the bed that was in a small box like room, she sighed watching him take a seat next to her. "This whole thing kinda' sucks hey…"
Ellis chuckled. "Apocalypse, my ass! We're livin' in the best shooting range of ALL TIME!"
Aurora let out a laugh before hissing in pain, Coach quickly entered the room with the medi pack and began healing her. "Hey… Those infected that were with the tank… where they protecting the tank?"
Ellis and Coach looked up at her simultaneously. "Seemed like it." Coach finally replied going back to fixing her up.
"Why'?" Ellis asked with his accent coming out strong.
She smiled at how cute his accent was before clearing her throat and looking away. "It's just… these ones were running away from the planes bombing… not to mention the tank… the town that went down around the same time as mine they worked together to get me out of the house…" Her eyes went blank for a moment as both men looked at her intently. "Sunday seventeenth of August, page three, paragraph one, first words 'they are becoming smarter, they seem to be working together to get what they want, they know they are hungry and we are what they need.'… I think… I think the longer they are infected the smarter they become…Guys we better hope this safety zone we are going too is the right one because if it isn't… we have to go back the way we came…"
"Which would be really bad right?" Ellis asked looking between Aurora and Coach.
"Ellis… it would be suicide."
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