Chapter Seven: Screams
I was running. The road stretched on and on before me, but for as fast as I was moving, I felt nothing but dread at what waited for me at the end. I could hear the screams the moment I had reached the street and I had known it was coming from my house. I knew. I leapt into action before I could even think about what I was doing. My family was in there waiting for me to come back with more food and those were their screams that were echoing down the empty street.
I saw the front door was wide open and my heart fell. My father was also so careful about locking everything up tight. The screams were all could hear as my pulse quickened painfully. I bounded into the house, the bag of canned food left discarded on the porch as I grappled for the knife that I kept tucked into my boot.
"Dad?" I yelled out, not caring how loud I was. If anything, the sound might draw them towards me instead, "Sam?"
The desperation was almost too much for me to handle, but I pushed myself to climb the stairs towards the screams that were becoming weaker by the second. I had to jump over the scattered picture frames and books that had been knocked to the ground in the attack. Broken glass cracked under my feet as I ran to my little brother's room by instinct.
"Eliza, go!" my father shouted.
A walker had him pinned to the floor, its rotting skin scratched and torn as it continued its assault relentlessly. I rushed over and kicked it in the side as hard as I could before pinning it to the floor. My dagger dug deep into its eye socket and it finally stopped moving. I rushed to my father's side and fell to the ground beside him. Blood soaked through the fabric of my jeans, but all I could focus on was the bites all over his body. That thing had torn into his shoulders and arms, ripping chunks jaggedly all over.
"No, no, no," I wailed, putting my hands over what I could to try to stop the bleeding. Once someone was bitten, the infection was inevitable but I couldn't bring myself to let him bleed to death in front of me.
"Eliza," he said, voice weak, "Stop."
He reached up to still my hand. I looked at him, unable to stop the panic from enveloping me. He was fading fast, the infection already causing him to sweat feverishly and shiver.
"You need to leave. Please, go and find somewhere safe. You must hurry. There will be more coming after all that noise," he instructed.
"I can't. Sam can't travel, I can't leave him here and I can't carry him on my own," I cried, absolutely hopeless.
"Eliza," he said again, "Go."
I finally noticed the look on his face. It was more than just pain or fear; it was grief. A sudden dread filled me again as I looked at the rest of the room. My little brother had been in his bed when the walkers attacked. My father couldn't fend them all off before they got to Sam. He was already gone. The sight was too much for me to handle and I felt like I might retch. The grief was overwhelming.
I looked back down to my father, but was met with lifeless eyes. A sob broke through again and I rocked back and forth on the floor in sheer horror. I was alone now. Everything that had mattered to me had been taken away and I hadn't even been here to save them. I hadn't been here to even go with them.
Movement stirred out of the corner of my eye. Hope welled up inside of me until I heard the low growl. Oh Sam, no. Please, no.
I grabbed the dagger out of the walker on the floor and quickly shoved it into the base of Sam's skull, catching his body before it fell to the floor. I gently laid him down next to my father. The knife found its mark in the base of his skull next.
Afterwards, I threw the weapon against the wall and screamed. I couldn't stop screaming.
I screamed until my throat was raw and the sound no longer human. Darkness clouded my vision, but the screams continued. Hands reached under me and pulled me up and carried me off into the empty darkness.
I'm sorry this one is so short, but I wanted to make sure I got another update out before I lost momentum in updating again. I hope this wasn't too terrible. I do have a plan for this story, I promise! Its just a matter of getting it out to you guys. Thank you for the reviews! I got some really helpful advice that I'm going to try to keep the writer's block at bay and the updates coming.
