Twenty-One

          “Ignore it.”

            Cole’s words aggravate me. Dozens, if not hundreds of zombie’s decaying fists and bones pound on the Hummer. Each one releases it’s on unique groan or moan, telling us that every one of them is starving, wanting nothing more to eat our flesh.

            We creep slowly down the road, trying to urge the Hummer to go as far as it can without any gas left. The little light blinks and flashes, trying to get our attention as if we aren’t already aware.

            Pretty soon the Hummer is going to halt from lack of gasoline. And when that happens, it will just make it easier for the zombies to have an all-you-can-eat buffet on our guts. But no one seems to be talking; no one seems to be trying to make a plan or even thinking. We’re all silent, all numb; trying to accept what seems unavoidable.

            We’re all going to die.

            But I can’t seem to accept this fact. Before, when I first woke up without my memory, I didn’t really care if I would have died. What did I have if I didn’t have my memory? However now that the memories are unravelling and things are looking up with Fort Saunders just across town, I refuse to go down without a fight.

            “Everyone load your guns.”

            No one moves. Everyone ignores me, as if I’m not even here. I don’t know how everyone – including Jack – can ignore everything that’s going on around us.

            I load the shotgun with bullets kept in the front pocket of my dress and shut it with a clank. Still, no one even turns their gaze.

            Jagger is just holding the steering wheel, not guiding us whatsoever as we roll aimlessly across the pavement. Frustrated with how un-Jagger-like he’s being, I lean across the center console and flick him in the cheek. Immediately, he turns to me with eyes shooting daggers.

             “What?” he shouts.

            I narrow my eyes back, annoyed that he’s not trying to help me find a way out of this mess. “Do you think you could try, I don’t know, steering the car?” He doesn’t speak but his expression softens slightly. “Aim towards the window of that store,” I point to a window in the front of a shop displaying toppled over mannequins. “And make sure you get as much speed as you can to break through it.”

            Speed is going to be the issue seeing as we aren’t even going ten miles per hour.

            “We’re out of gas, Sloane-“

            I cut him off. “Then you better step on the gas.”

            Cole and Jack seem oblivious to our conversation and continue to stare straight ahead, as if nothing is going on around us. Bullet growls in the back seat, lunging slightly at the windows towards the zombies. The infant, curled into Jack’s side is sleeping, or at least trying to and I start to wonder if his past makes zombie groans a good sleep-inducer.

            Jagger slowly turns the Hummer towards the store window and we start our slow movement into the impending crash. We inch along and the speed of the whole thing starts to put me on edge.

            “Get your guns ready,” I repeat from my first words. Jagger does what he’s told and I have to shove Jack’s pistol into his hands to get him to even look at it. His vacant eyes stare down at it like he can’t really see what he’s holding.

            “Cole,” Jagger snaps, grabbing his shoulder and giving him a shake. Cole surprisingly wakes up and turns to him, as if he just woke up from sleeping. “Gun.”

            Cole loads the gun in his lap and nods. “Right.” It clicks a few times as he turns safety off and makes sure it’s loaded. “What’s the plan?”

            I point forward as the storefront is only feet ahead. “Window.”

            “Got it.”

            There’s a loud crack as the front hood of the car smashes into the glass, breaking it on impact. Little sounds of the glass colliding with the floor as we rock and falter over the front bump of the windowsill. Eventually we stop and the zombies continue banging on the back of the Hummer, trying to get in. A few remain in the front inside the store, some half broken from running them over. One lies on the ground, motionless. I can only see its legs from the back seat but my best guess is that its head is under one of the front tires.

            “What now?” Jagger yells over the sound of the zombies groans.

            “Duck your heads, kick out the windshield and make sure you don’t get hit by the shell casings when I shoot."

            Jagger and Cole’s feet kick at the glass a few times, each time harder than the last as they try to get rid of the glass. For the first few times, nothing budges and we’re looking as if it might just crack into bits instead of the desired whole.

            “Near the edges,” Jagger grunts to Cole. Both give the glass a few good pounds before it falters and slides slightly. “Grab it!”

            They both hold the windshield in place before it collapses onto the dashboard. Quickly, together they throw it over the hood and it smashes into a million pieces not only on the concrete, but also the body.

            Instantly the three lucky zombies who we shoved into the store start climbing over the yellow hood, clawing their way in to us. I look down my sight and pick them off one by one, missing only the third one which Cole helps me to finish.

            “We have to act fast,” I tell them as I sling over my backpack. They do the same with their things and get a good grip on their guns. “We want to be out of here before they find a way into the store.”

            Since the front doors are lodged between the wall and glass of the front of the door, our only option is to go out through the windshield. Jagger and Cole easily slide down the front of the hood and stand there, waiting.  I have to hand the sleeping, limp child to Jagger who cradles him in his arms while Cole helps a struggling Bullet climb over the seats. Once the four of them are safely – or at least I hope safely – inside the store, I give Jack a good shake.

            “We got to go,” I tell him. I give his shoulder a squeeze and even though his eyes don’t seem so far away anymore, he still isn’t completely back. “Jack, we’re escaping. We have to hurry. Are you ready?”

            He doesn’t respond so I pick up his hands. Instantly, they slide out of my grasp and land in his lap. He’s deadweight, but somehow he’s still living.

            “Jack,” I repeat, growing angry. We don’t have time to be sitting here. The zombies are growing impatient and soon we’ll be surrounded all over again. “We have to get out of here!”

            Suddenly, he turns to me with glaring eyes. “What’s the point?” I part my lips to answer him, but I can’t find the words. I’m too shocked by how furious he looks, as if I did something to him that he can’t possibly forgive. I’m in shock.

            “What’s the point?” I start, my voice rising an octave. “The point is we’re trying to stay alive and-“

            Jack cuts me off but his voice is low. “We’re all just going to die here anyway.”

            He sounds hopeless and angry. He doesn’t sound like Jack.

            I don’t have time for this.

            Without thinking, I slap him right across his face. His head smacks to the right, away from me with the force. And when he raises his fingers to his cheek, he’s seething.

            “Get the fuck out of this car right now,” I snap, shoving his gun roughly into his chest. I’m not going to leave him here to die. He needs to wake up now.

            Without another word Jack brushes past me and climbs over the dashboard. Tension fills the air between us but I can’t pay attention to it right now because my survival instincts are telling me we’ve already wasted too much time.

            I turn my backpack to face the front as soon as I touch the ground. It’s mostly empty so without thinking of how ridiculous this would be in a normal world, I shove the child, face up of course, into the backpack. Only his head and his arms stick out. He’s wide awake now, looking around with wide eyes.

            Cole stifles a laugh and I decide that he’s completely back to normal now.

            “What?” I ask as Jagger searches for an exit. He moves between us, breaking out eye contact for a moment but then Cole is in front of me, smirking again. “I can’t carry him and shoot a gun at the same time.”

            “Guys!” Jagger calls and the three of us turn towards a back door. We all jog lightly towards it, our footsteps and Bullet’s nails clicking on the ground. When we stop, I see that Jagger has his grip on the handle. “Cole, do you know where we’re going?”

            For a minute, he looks up at the ceiling, thinking. I myself try to think of what direction we’re going in from going out the back door but I can’t figure it out.

            “Yes. We have a ways to go, but it will mostly be through suburbs if we go right.”

            Jagger nods and turns to the rest of us. “Ready?”

            I nod. Jack doesn’t move.

            Slowly, I look up at him but he doesn’t notice. His expression is blank but his jaw is clenched. He looks like he’s aged five years in only a matter of days and somewhere in my chest I feel sorry for everything that’s happened to him.

            Jagger throws open the door and we point our guns, ready to be faced with as many zombies as there was before. Instead, we lower our guns.

            The warm sun looks like it’s getting ready to lower itself from the sky. A few clouds scatter the darkening sky and a few crickets sound in the nearby yellowing grass. The grass is the same in-between colour of living in dead as it is after the snow melts in the spring, revealing it after it’s been hiding.

            I lower my shotgun to my side and take in this very moment and hold it close to my heart. This moment, not only for me but also for everyone else, feels normal.

            “This way,” Cole says quietly, darting past us onto the pavement of the back of the downtown stores. He turns right and starts walking purposefully, turning his gun left and straight ahead to make sure the coast is clear. We all follow him I suit, feeling the waves of nostalgia from this moment as they wash over us.

            I’m not really sure why I feel it. Normal to me is this world now, the place I woke up in. But somewhere, deep inside my brain where I can’t remember, is the real normal that I’m holding onto with both hands.

            We walk past fences, climb over a few and duck behind cars, but not one single zombie comes into sight. My best guess is that because we’re so quiet from not having to shoot any of them, they’re all back at the entrance to the store. I’d bet money that they’re still trying to get in there because they’re convinced we’re stupid enough to stay.

            I bring up the back of the group with Jack in front of me and Cole leading the way. Bullet wavers in the middle, occasionally coming back beside me and then moving up again. Eventually as we reach a road into the housing side of town Jagger lags behind and falls into step with me.

            “How’s your head?”

            I haven’t even thought of the throbbing until now. My adrenaline pushed the pain away and made me forget about hitting it entirely, but now I realize how much of a headache I have. I try to ignore it but without the adrenaline or an Advil, it’s close to impossible.

            “Fine.”

            Jagger notices my harsh tone and moves closer to me so the others can’t hear. “You’re lying.”

            I shrug. I really don’t care.

            “Sloane.” He grabs my arm to bring me to a stop and I fail at trying to shake him off. “What’s wrong?”

            I glare at him and try to pry myself away. Cole and Jack are hovering up ahead, scanning the broke pavement for any threats.

            “Nothing.”

            “I know you well enough to know that something’s up,” he mutters, trying to meet my eyes. I turn my gaze away.

            “Of course you do.”

            Jagger scrunches his face up in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            I finally wretch myself from his grasp and walk away, ignoring him.  I know we need to talk, that I need to tell him that I know but now isn’t the time. To be honest, I don’t know when the right time will be. Maybe never. But I’m not telling him now. I’ll tell him when we’re safe.

            If we’re safe.

            I move into the space beside Cole and we begin walking in the middle of the road again. It’s stupid to be so out in the open but it gives us a better chance to escape without using our guns. I already screwed up last time and no one wants a repeat of that, especially when everyone became hopeless.

            “Emily and I used to come here,” Cole starts, looking up at the sky. He doesn’t look sad, but wistful. He tries to smile a little. “My dad would bring us on trips to the base and we would go sightseeing around town each day.”

            I give him a sad smile but don’t know why he’s telling me this. “That’s nice.”

            He nods and then leans his head closer to my ear. “You came with us sometimes,” he whispers, “not that you remember. Jagger too.”

            My expression hardens and I don’t respond.  It makes me angry that everyone seems to know my past except for me and my hands clench into fists at my sides. I’m sick of this not knowing thing. On one hand, I want everyone to tell me everything they know about me so I can stop playing this guessing game.

            But on the other, maybe I don’t want to remember. This is who I am now. My past won’t change me. So what’s the point in remembering it?

            “We shouldn’t walk through the night,” Jagger says behind me. His voice is monotone, but I can detect the frustration in it. “Cole, do you know anywhere that we can stay to rest?”

            Cole shrugs. “Houses are off limits. Too small, too obvious.”

            “Why don’t we get a car?” I ask.

            “Because it attracts too much attention.”

            “Church,” Jagger suggest.

            Cole shakes his head. “They usually have graveyards. Isn’t that where zombies are born?”

            I can feel Jagger’s eyes on the back of my head but I refuse to turn around. “I don’t think that this zombie warfare is bringing the dead back to life. How did it start, anyways?” I wonder. I wasn’t around for the beginning.

            “Nobody knows,” Jagger murmurs from behind me. His voice is low. “Just one day the zombies turned up and the infection spread among the living.”

            “So the dead are safe?” I ask my question to Cole instead of Jagger.

            Cole’s lips press into a thin line. “I don’t really know. I guess so if there isn’t any holes in front of tombstones.” He pauses in his step and turns around in a small circle. When he notices the cross in the sky, he heads towards that direction to the left. “Church it is!”

            “Church,” Jack laughs darkly.

            Nobody gets the joke so nobody responds. We’re wrapped in silence as we head towards the point in the fading light. We only see a few staggering zombies and quietly avoid them. By now I’ve realized that they go by sound of the living, somehow able to detect the difference between the sounds made by us and the rest of the dead.

            The large wooden doors squeak as Cole rips them open. They’re old and rusty, cracking at the seams of the wood. Inside I can see the dust float in the light from the stained glass windows. It dances around, contributing to the musty smell. The church clearly hasn’t been occupied in a while.

            We walk through the aisle of pews until we reach the front where the sermon would stand. Our footsteps echo throughout the church. A bang sounds from behind me and I jump, causing the toddler on my chest to giggle from the suddenly movement. Spinning towards the way I came, I see that Jagger shut the doors and is piling chairs and other random furniture in front of them. When he sees me staring he only meets my eyes for a brief moment.

            “Trying to be as safe as I can.”

            Cole and Jack dart off to explore the small church and I can hear the footsteps wherever they go. I know they’re safe once I hear Cole’s quiet laugh echo and finally relax. I sink into one of the pews at the front and set my hands down on the wood beside me. Instantly, I retract my hands.

            They’re both covered in multiple layers of dust and I quickly wipe them on my dress. The infant in my lap sneezes.

            Once I’ve removed him from the backpack and set him down on a cleared spot beside me, I lean my head back and close my eyes. My feet ache from all the walking we did and my head throbs. All I want to do is sleep but my stomach turns. The pain is making me nauseous and as everything sinks in, I feel worry seep its way into my bones.

            One moment, I feel like myself and don’t give my past a second thought. But the next I feel like a different person panicking about the loss. What is wrong with me?

            “You should sleep.”

            I peek open my eyes to find Jagger standing in front of me with his arms folded over his chest.

            “But first we should find you a bathroom.”

            He darts off in the direction of one of the distant halls and for whatever reason I follow him. Cole enters the main room as I stand and he agrees to watch the child for me.

            Jagger is already gone by the time I reach the lit hallway. Small, stained glass windows line the left side of the wall, creating squares of light along the floor and other wooden wall. Dust still moves in the air and I blink a few times as it threatens my eyes. The hallway is creepy. I tiptoe through it and once I reach an open door around the corner from me, I jump.

            Jagger is standing there, arms still folded, waiting for me. I cover my heart with my hand and take a deep breath. I’m glad to be out of that hallway.

            Without any warning, he grabs my hips and I resist the urge to pull away. His hands are warm on my sides as he lifts me easily off the ground. He places me on the countertop in the small bathroom and meets my eyes in the dark.

            “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

A/N: I just want to thank everyone who has been reading and voting on this story! It means a lot to me because I never thought it would get this far! It's not at the end just yet but it's coming towards the homestretch and comments right now would mean a lot to me so that I'm motivated to finish it! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and prepare for some drama ahead....