Yo.
Again, sorry. I blame the radiation treatments and the lack of inspiration for anything because of said radiation treatments Regardless. Hope you lot are doing well. And damn, this day just keeps dragging on, doesn't it? 16 August needs to go away now, kthx. Sorry this took so long.
Word count: 3,492
Cheers!
Marx
Chapter Seven
Decisions to Contrary
16 August +00
They left the others to filter back into the school with a quiet call on the radio.
Cunningham took a quick drink of water, wiping his chin even though he had been too careful to spill any of it, and then passed the bottle to Kurt. Kurt didn't even consider not accepting it, happily taking a few short gulps before capping it and handing the bottle back. Only a few short months ago, Kurt would've thrown a fit at the idea of drinking after a stranger, but it was different now. It was a damn miracle that they had water, so he wasn't going to be picky about where it came from. Besides, Cunningham had Kurt's back out there, and vice versa, and besides, there wasn't a worse infection out there than the one bringing the dead back to life.
A few feet away, Marissa and a local named Dan shrugged off their packs, putting the supplies they had gathered from their run into the bags of others before re-shouldering their packs. They both checked their weapons and then nodded simultaneously, and then joined Cunningham and Kurt as they put some distance between the group and themselves. They had finally decided on a group of four, if only for the chance that there were injuries in Yates' group of problems on the way to retrieve them.
Quietly on the radio, Kurt heard Danielle whisper, "We're in position. Get ready to open the door," and Kurt trained one glasz eye toward the door. With bated breath, they watched as the door opened silently and everyone filtered in as quickly as they could manage with all of the loot, waiting to speak until the doors were closed.
Kurt cringed to himself when the doors closed. His father was going to lose his fucking mind when he realised Kurt wasn't among the returnees.
"Alright, let's move," said Cunningham. Marissa, Dan, and Kurt immediately moved, following close behind the leader as he began slinking his way towards the outskirts of town. Yates' group had been aiming for a smaller little general store because of the lack of sufficient manpower in their group, so it was odd that they hadn't come back yet. There was always the chance that they had been late due to being forced to utilise an alternative route, which would make things difficult since Kurt's group of four were taking the most direct path, but the fact that the radio hadn't be used was concerning. If they had been intercepted by the Infected, which was likely considering, that meant that the group was dead or in a position that calling out would've been suicide.
Or it was a mixture of both.
They moved quickly, silently, and efficiently. Kurt was unbelievably grateful for the amount of conditioning that he had forced himself through while waiting for the cast to come off, because he would've been miserable otherwise. They were moving as fast as they could without making an obscene amount of noise, and that was quick enough to make him terrified of breathing even harder than he already was. Occasionally, Cunningham would shoot him a look with his unreadable dark eyes, but Kurt would just smile tightly and continue chasing after him with Marissa and Dan by his side.
They avoided all of the roads, sticking to the tree-lined ditches and the sides of abandoned homes. There were no Infected to be seen, which was probably a bad thing since they had been distracted by something else, but at least it made their travelling easier. They could move pretty quickly when they weren't completely focussed on the noise they were making, though they didn't intentionally start singing to be obnoxious.
He cut that line of thought off immediately. Glee led to friends which lead to Blaine and he didn't need to break down right now. He focussed instead on watching the trees around him, and even occasionally on the tall, almost obscenely attractive black man in front of him, though he made sure his eyes never trailed south. He had a boyfriend that he was faithful to (he's probably dead Kurt get it through your head that he's dead and so is his sister and his brother you fucking idiot – no, shut up that's not true!), and he refused to even look at another man until Blaine was back in his arms and they were as safe as they could be in this violent new world, together.
They made good time as far as Kurt was aware, because he wasn't as familiar with the town as the other three except with the maps they had in the gym. They slowed down when they reached the grocers, eyes narrowed as they made their way hesitantly to the nearest clump of trees. Squatting down into the underbrush, Cunningham whispered, "There's nothing. No Infected, no visible signs of a struggle, nothing."
"I'd say they got lost, but Marry's been livin' in this town for years and it's his cousin's damn shop in the first place," threw in Marissa, frowning heavily and looking twitchy. Hell they were probably all looking that way, as if something was going to jump out at them and tear their heads off. Which, considering the situation, was a realistic situation that they could get themselves into.
"What d'you think then? Should we head in?" asked Kurt, eyes darting back and forth for even the smallest sign of an Infected. It was just wrong that there was nothing, not even the movement of the trees from the wind, and the heavy feeling in his gut grew larger until he had to focus on his breathing to keep from hyperventilating.
Cunningham shook his head. "If there aren't any Infected around the store, then that means that they aren't trapped inside. Either they're dead somewhere around here or they got ambushed on their way here or back to the school." He paused, glancing sharply to his left as if he had heard something, and then whispered after a moment, "Alright, so this is what's going to happen and if anyone argues with me I swear I'll strangle you." Kurt gave Cunningham a weak smile at the direct, but playful jibe towards Kurt's stubbornness, and nodded. "Good. Kurt and Dan, you're both going to head into the store and see if there is anything there worth taking, just in case they didn't even make it here in the first place. If there are any Infected inside, take them out, but if you see more than two or three I want you both to high-tail it out of there and we'll deal with it together. Marissa and I are going to do a light sweep around the building before joining you inside, just to make sure that they aren't in the general area, and then if we don't find anything, we'll comb alternative routes just to see if we can't figure out what's going on. Sound legit?"
Kurt, Dan, and Marissa both nodded, and prepared to move. They both gave Kurt and Dan their empty backpacks and then lightly sprung off, leaving Kurt and his partner to take deep breaths and then sprint the mild distance to the front door of the grocers. He crouched in front of the double doors, blinked, and then pushed open the doors as quietly as he could, Dan following quickly behind.
A terrible stench hit him when he opened the door, but other than the one Infected he could see in his direct line of vision, the store was empty. He advanced quickly and swung his bat, cringing at the sound of the Infected's skull breaking in, and then copied Cunningham earlier by catching the body and helping it down. He couldn't see the entire store after all, and he didn't want to make too much noise just in case there were others out of his line of vision.
He quickly made the rounds while Dan took to guarding the door, eyes darting and ears straining for the slightest sound. He hadn't heard the other two in his party come in the store yet, so the silence was eerie after the sounds of nature outside. He was so used to hearing something besides just his breathing, and the muteness made every hair on his body stand straight on end. He almost relished the sound of his light footsteps as he circled the entirety of the small grocer, because it meant that there was something else here except the dead Infected by the door, Dan in his silent lookout, and the smell of rotting meat and decaying vegetables.
He twitched when he heard movement in the front, but after a quick and wary glance he could only breathe a silent breath of relief to see Marissa and Cunningham closing the door and waving to him with Dan cracking a yellowed smile. He returned to combing the store, not seeing anything worth pillaging except a few boxes of stuffing that were hidden behind a few bottles syrup, which he also put in a backpack. Most of the goods in the store were perishables and therefore inedible after a month and a half of no electricity, so he gave it off as a bad deal, and made his way back to the front of the store towards his three comrades and smiled tightly.
"Nothing but a few little odds and ends, not even enough to fill up one of these things," he mentioned, throwing the remaining backpacks to their owners. They all shouldered their backpacks and adjusted them around their weapons, eventually getting comfortable.
"We didn't see them, but we did see some footsteps headed to and from. It could've been from earlier people ransacking the store but they looked quite fresh. Marissa and I think we should at least check it out, because it's the only lead we've got here," Cunningham said lowly, which Marissa agreed with a murmur. Kurt only nodded in understanding and they readied their weapons before making their way out of the putrid scent of the grocers and into the fresh air outside.
They quickly orientated themselves, following Cunningham silently as he led the way to the tracks. A small voice in the back of Kurt''s mind wondered if the footsteps were from a few of the Infected, but Cunningham and Marissa were right: there were three different pairs of footprints, which matched the number in Yates' party, and they didn't look old nor uneven like the Infected's did as they moved from place to place. There was a chance that it belonged to Yates and his party and that was what they were still doing out here. They had to at least make sure, but if push came to shove (and Kurt couldn't believe that he thought this way), they would abandon the party and head back to the school. The last thing they needed was to lose more manpower than the school currently had protecting it, and Kurt's family would resurrect him only to murder him again if he died out here.
After such a close call with death, and having been given a third chance, he wasn't about to squander it, and he doubted the other three would either.
They bypassed the two Infected that came into proximity, staying downwind to make sure their living scent wasn't easily smelt by the monsters, and only had to lose the trail twice before they made their way to a small trailer park on the outskirts of Ashland City. They were only about two and a half miles away from the school by this point, which was an easy run, but they only had a few hours left of daylight before the area would be clothed in darkness. Kurt refused to be out past that time, partly for his own sake but mostly because he did not want to be strolling around an unfamiliar town at night with a few hundred dead cannibals trying to feast on his entrails.
There were more than few Infected milling about, and though Kurt and his group hadn't been seen, the four of them ducked down into a low-lying mess of bushes and foliage, catching their breath after their hasty movements. Kurt laid the baseball bat down and wiped his sweaty hands on his dirt-stained trousers, breathing evenly through his mouth to take in more oxygen and keep his eyes clear of the putrid scent that was beginning to permeate the still air. His stomach returned to twisting itself into knots, because there were at least three dozen in the trailer park, banging eerily on the sides of the aluminium, and had clearly been attracted by something. Judging by the footprints that had hastily made their way to the outermost trailer and the crowd of Infected surrounding it, Yates' group had probably unwillingly baited them right to the front door.
"Alright," Cunningham whispered, glancing once at Marissa and Dan before rolling his dark eyes onto Kurt's form. "We're still downwind, but we're going to have to get into line of sight in order to follow the trail. They're in that trailer for sure, but since we don't know what kind of shape they're in we can't just distract the Infected and lead them away. We need another plan, so any ideas?"
Kurt shook his head once and hissed, "What else can we do though? They can't be hurt too badly, because there isn't any no blood in the tracks and the footprints are steady. And we sure can't go in there and take them all out without being forced to shoot – we're already dead tired and running off adrenaline instead of food and sleep. The only option is to distract them and then get the others."
"If one of us distracts a horde like that, it'll be a suicide mission," Cunningham shot back quietly, glaring slightly at Kurt as if he knew exactly what was going on in Kurt's mind. Kurt cringed at the ire in Cunningham's low tone and the thunderous expression on his dark face, but the singer knew that it was the only option. There was no way that they would be able to get through a group like that without firing weapons, and if they did that, every Infected in a ten mile radius would be attracted to the sound. If Yates' group was in bad shape, they wouldn't be able to escape with that group in tow while they were surrounded, and all of them would die in the process.
They needed a distraction, and who better than Kurt himself, who was fast and immune? He could get out of there quickly and he roughly knew the way back to the school. If he managed to get lost, he would be more than adept in shuffling around quietly and radioing in until he was safe.
Kurt's stomach curdled in reluctance even as he opened his mouth to argue, but Dan interrupted resolutely, "We leave 'em. We have to leave 'em. We don't have another choice."
Cunningham's eyes narrowed dangerously and growled. "You're suggesting we leave them? For dead? You've got to be fucking joking, Danny."
"It's too dangerous to go in there without guns, but we can't use guns 'cause it'll attract every one of those fuckers in the area. If Yates 'nd his group of fuckin' idiots are even the tiniest bit injured, they'll only slow us down. Besides, they could be Infected themselves, 'nd we don't need that liability. There are kids in that school, my family too, and I ain't gonna take that risk," expressed Dan quietly. Kurt felt sick at the words that had been uttered, but he understood Dan's point of view at the same time. If he had to choose between protecting his family and protecting strangers, Kurt would choose his family every time. There was a chance that Yates' group had gotten infected during their sprint to the trailer, especially with such a group of Infected having followed them. While there wasn't any blood on the ground, it didn't mean that they hadn't gotten bitten.
"We're not leaving them, period," verbalised Marissa, eyes deadly serious, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes that Kurt couldn't read. Maybe she agreed with Dan, but her morals were making her reluctant to admit to it. God knew that Kurt felt the same.
Marissa's refusal clearly infuriated Dan. "Oh, so what makes these people better than the countless other homes we've passed with survivors, hmm?" he asked, practically inaudible as he glared at Cunningham.
Kurt broke in with a hiss, "Because we don't know for sure if there are people in those houses we've passed. And we never said that we weren't going to try and rescue others, but Yates and his group are our people now and their families are in that school too. There's a large chance that they're capable of escaping but simply can't because of the horde. We can't just pass that up. At the rate that trailer's being knocked about, they're going to get in or overturn it soon, and it'd be murder if we left them here." Kurt huffed in malice at Dan's idea and set his glare once again on Cunningham. His voice was pure venom when he uttered in a non-nonsense tone, "I am going to cause a distraction, and hopefully a good chunk of those Infected will follow me. I'm going to run back towards the store and then I am going straight for the school when I lose them to meet you at our rendezvous. The two of you are going to get those people out and get back to the school too, and you aren't going to argue with me."
Marissa took in a deep breath and then nodded tightly, already turning away and focussing fully on the Infected, whereas Dan grunted in the back of his throat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Cunningham himself stared at Kurt for a long moment, frowning heavily and eyes piercing, before he sighed quietly in defeat. "I would like to mention that I am not at all comfortable with this," the handsome soldier said, but Kurt just smiled shakily and shrugged his shoulders.
"Me neither," admitted Kurt quietly, "but they're not as fast as I am. I'll be able to get away, I know it."
The frown on Cunningham's face darkened, eyes narrowing in thought, and then he said, "Alright, but I'm not letting you do this by yourself. You aren't trained for this. Marissa and Dan will be fine on their own, and we'll lead the Infected away. No one gets left behind. I know this town better than you anyway and I don't want to risk you getting lost."
"I have a map and I'm not stupid," grumbled Kurt.
Cunningham's eyes glanced at the Infected for a second before he gave a weak smile that looked out of place considering the situation. "Oh, I'm aware, kid," he said, nearly teasingly as he poked fun at Kurt's age, "but that doesn't mean that would never make a mistake while running for your life. And besides, who would just leisurely take a few minutes to study their map while on the run from blood-thirsty cannibals, eh?"
Kurt exhaled a silent snort, biting his lip to keep any sound from getting out. He shook himself lightly and then nodded once in agreement, lightly placing the bat on the ground to wipe his sweaty hands on his jeans.
"And this is what we were going to do at the school in the first place," added Cunningham with the air of a man who was trying to build up the nerve to do something dangerous. Which, ironically, was exactly the stake. "Let's just consider this a long-overdue practise."
Kurt shook his head in amused exasperation and said lowly, "Alright, let's do this thing then. Give us a bit of time to get out of here and then make a run for it."
"Got it," said Marissa, and Dan simply huffed in acknowledgement.
Cunningham added quietly, "If any of them are infected, still go about proper procedure. You take them to the school, and then you quarantine them, just like we've been doing. We're not leaving anyone behind, even if they're a potential liability. But..." Cunningham trailed off, eyes still flicking around the landscape for potential threats and possibly for their escape route, before he finally continued, "If they're incapable of getting back without someone getting hurt or worse, you know what to do. Make sure you don't leave them out here to become one of those things."
The four of them were silent for a long moment, processing that, before there was a murmur of acceptance.
Kurt picked back up his bat and mentally steeled himself for what could possibly be the run of his life.
