Almost 8 months since this last updated yeha
Oh my gosh I'm so sorry for the long wait.
I actually had this finished awhile ago, but my laptop battery (which belonged to a rather new laptop) gave out, and we had to order a new one, and then I just kind of
forgOT BUt anyway, I know this is short, but I figured an update was needed.
The day wore on. The heat growing slightly, but cooling as the sun began to set. The screams of the strange infected were only heard a few distant times as he made his rounds through the abandoned town. Becoming visible only once as he tore through the streets in what I could only see as pure horror on his face.
Coach and Ellis had moved to the front of our line, with me tailing, and I silently began to wonder just how much ground we were making to the river. We were still a few days travel away, but I didn't feel like my arms and legs could carry me that far.
The broken roads dug into my palms, and the over grown weeds pulled at everyone as we passed, stinging as their sharp leaves and barbs scratched our skin.
Atlanta had been relatively clean, and even our little off-the-road neighborhood was closely looked after. Weeds were something I wasn't too happy to walk through, but our current pace didn't allow for me to carefully step over. Not at my height.
"Bill, I can smell your beard from here." Francis made the off-hand comment, looking over his shoulder at the town that disappearing from view. "The heat is spoiling your hair."
"Quiet, Francis." Bill murmured, but brushed his fingers through the white hair anyway. "You aren't smelling to daisy-fresh yourself."
Francis snorted, holding his hand above his eyes to look over his shoulder. The town was in the distance, a small black blur.
I quickened my pace, coming to a slow trot and falling beside Ellis, who had taken off his hat and was fanning his face and neck. He looked down at me for a moment, giving a short smile and replacing his hat. The hat was beginning to look a bit sad. Dirty, worn, and just a bit gross to be sitting on his head, as if it would make him stop wearing it.
We walked in silence, fanning out along the burning road that was gradually beginning to cool as the sunlight faded. Once the town had disappeared from sight, it seemed as if no others existed. Grass and road were the only things stretching in either direction, and sleeping in the open, despite no sign of infection, was an uncomfortable thought.
Finally, once the sky had grown black and we were stumbling in the dark, Coach stopped and turned. "I think it'd be best if we just call it'a night." A head of us, he pointed to a dip on the side of the road. A small hole in the yellow grass that would serve passably as a place to sleep.
It was a tight fit, and with the complaints of Francis saying Nick's legs were touching him, all nine human bodies had been curled inside the dip well enough to be hidden from sight of the road, albeit, uncomfortably.
The night wore on quietly, and no one spoke. Despite the sun having gone down, the air was still thick and humid, the ground the only cool thing against my body, and for some time, I wished that I still had my jacket.
I was awoken from a light doze by the thick hand coach gripping my shoulder, pulling me off of the ground and pulling me to lean against the slope of the hole, where the grass had grown longer. He held a hand up to my mouth as I made a protesting snort, and pointed with his thumb down the road.
Headlights. Bright yellow headlights.
Nick, on my opposite side, scoffed. "Military." He muttered, and sure enough as the lights came closer, I could see the camouflage coloring on the trucks and small jeeps.
As they drove past, we ducked under the grass, like rabbits hiding from a fox. The sound of the heavy tires was almost foreign, I hadn't heard it in so long.
When I dared to look up again, the vehicles had slowed, the farthest one in the back coming to a complete stop. A man in a military style uniform jumped out quickly, waving to the trucks in front. He was running towards something that had fallen out, and I had to squint in order to see it clearly.
A small body, battered and bloodied, was lying in the road, apparently having fallen from a truck more towards the middle of the group. Tire marks were visible on an arm, clearly having been run over by the truck that had stopped. He lifted the body, tossing it on his shoulder and jogged back to the truck in the center.
He flopped the dead body into the truck bed, like a sack of flour, and closed the tail gate which must have fallen open. Before it had closed, I could catch a glimpse of the pile of dead bodies in the back, illuminated by the headlights of the last truck, which the man ran to get back into.
"They've got a truck full of dead people..." Louis whispered, and I could feel my skin crawl as the truck continued. I looked after them, in the direction of the empty town, and I began to wonder;
Why had that town been so empty?
So, hopefully, I'll be a bit more regular about my updates.
I hope you enjoyed :D