Chapter 17

Brooke had never been an artist. Yes, she admired the beauty of complex machines and well programmed software. How tiny bits and pieces were forming a big logical construction of efficiency and work relief. But arts…? Arts were nothing more like meshed up piles of brainfarts. Neither logic nor useful. A waste of time in her eyes and not worth her attention.

But as she witnessed how the back of Juliet's skull literally exploded from the .45 projectile and the girl's brain and blood got splattered on the pavement, it was some sort of sick art that let everybody look at it. And while Brooke just stared at this scene with awe, the others acted differently.

Taylor puked right where she stood. Justin fainted. Victoria turned away. Frank's jaw dropped. Warren stayed emotionless. Alyssa scrunched up her nose. And Max screamed.

"NOOOO!"

What followed after that was pure madness.

Max right away jumped at Kate, tossing her to the ground and then punching her in the face, several times. Frank was the first to regain his bearings and tried to drag Max away from the other girl.

"Murderer!" exclaimed the freckled girl furiously, fighting against the older man's tight grasp.

One after another the others finally managed to get rid of their petrification as well. And while one part of the group took care of Kate, Brooke and Alyssa were immediately there to aid Max.

"Max, calm down!" said Brooke in order to pacify her friend, sadly without any success. Evident, as Max drew her gun.

"I'm…gonna…kill ya!"

This was enough!

With all her power, Brooke ripped the gun out of her friend's hand, smacked her in the face and forced her to look into her eyes.

"Calm…the fuck…down, Max! You're not helpin' anyone with this shit, just attracting fucking Screamers!"

For a moment, the whole situation seemed to be relaxing more and more, until Max, still being agitated, squirmed out of Brookes grasp, turned on her heels and ran away into the woods.

"Let her blow off some steam!" mentioned Frank as the Asian girl wanted to follow her. "If there'd be Screamers around, they'd already be chewing on our asses."

With a heavy sigh, Brooke let her sight wander over this more than suboptimal situation.

Juliet was dead for sure, her lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. Kate had fallen back into her state from before, quiet and staring into empty space, her face now bloodied and bruised. And Max…well, Max was just gone for the moment.

"We should bury her!" suggested Alyssa, eying the body. "She died for us and doesn't deserve anythin' less."

"Yeah," concurred Brooke with a heavy sigh, gazing one last time in the direction where Max had vanished into the underwood, before following the goth-girl to get some shovels.

"A real shame," mentioned Frank as he carried the dead girl to the spot where the two teenagers had started to dig a hole. "She had balls of steal. Was a survivor. Not like those pussies over there."

All three of them threw a short glimpse to the rest of the group, sighing once again loudly as they witnessed how Taylor and Warren tried to drag a still unconscious Justin into the RV while Victoria was busy with her nails and giving aloof comments and Kate… Well, Kate was still complete out of it.

"What shall we do with her?" then added Brooke, bopping with her head in Victoria's direction as they kept on digging.

"I could make her my sex-slave!" was Alyssa's suggestion, which earned a lot of frowning by the other two. "What? She may be a lazy bitch, but she's still hot."

"And you definitely need a good fuck!"

Hearing such teenage-talk let Frank roll with his eyes as he did the last two stitches with the shovel, before tossing it away and getting busy laying Juliet's body into its fresh grave.

"I say, we leave her here. One useless mouth less to feed and we avoid any future conflicts that might get us all killed, one day!"

His proposal was harsh and somewhat cruel, but also made a lot more sense to Brooke. The old world was dead. Having enough food and water would sooner or later become an issue. Two-thousand calories per day needed a mature human to stay fit and healthy under normal circumstances. Maybe you could reduce it to 1,500, but everything under it would end up in malnutrition, which would also weaken them. So, getting rid of Victoria would gain everyone of them additional 250 calories per person per day.

'A tempting thought!'

Brooke was just about to seriously discuss this matter as a Screamer's scream ripped through the silence and let them all freeze in their spots.

"Max!" gasped Brooke and didn't waste any second to drop everything and sprint into the direction her freckled crush had vanished to, picking up her gun that was lying on the ATV on the way.

More screams echoed from the same direction, letting Brooke increasing her pace even more. Twigs and thorns from the underwood were ripping her leggings and scratching her pale skin. In the distance some sorts of buildings appeared between the tree trunks, but there was still no sign of Max.

'Maybe she found shelter in one of those buildings?'

Soon, the raven-haired nerdy girl realized that those buildings were simply trailers, standing on a trailer park. She wanted just head for it as she saw a pack of Screamers, all bunched up in a pile, shredding something into bits and pieces.

The whole center of the trailer park was painted in blood, intestines and chunks of flesh lying around everywhere.

Brooke immediately stooped running, her legs failing to hold her weight as she had to witness this massacre. Not far away from this orgy of gluttony, was Max's entirely blood-spotted, ripped hoodie lying on the ground.

"No…" she whispered with a trembling voice, big tears running down her cheeks. In merely seconds her life was about to lose its sense. She even wanted to get up and unload the entire magazine into this pile of Screamers just to attack them afterwards with her bare hands and kill as many of them until they would rip her into pieces as well…If it hadn't been for a pair of hands that grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her to the feet and dragged her away.

"It's over, Brooke!" echoed Alyssa's heavy voice as she flung one arm around her crying friend. But the Asian girl felt just numb and lost, not able to appreciate her friend's soothing gestures.

A million thoughts were rushing through her mind. Everything that had happened this day. Max's and Juliet's death. Her fight for survival. Victoria's betrayal…

'VICTORIA!'

Brooke freed herself from Alyssa's embrace and started to sprint again, through the thicket and right towards her group, where she spotted Victoria Chase and headed towards her right away. With a loud groan she grabbed the tall blonde by her collar and smashed her against the wall of the RV.

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" she yelled right into her face, her teary eyes burning with hate as she pressed the muzzle of the pistol against her temple. The other – except of Kate and Frank – protested, but got shrugged off by the furious girl in an instant.

Her life being threatened, the former arrogant girl lost all her cheekiness, her lips trembling and tears emerging from her eyes.

"B-Brooke…please…" she whimpered, begging for mercy. But Brooke's gaze was merciless and showed not a bit of compassion.

"Did you show mercy when you left me for dead?" she replied with gritted teeth. "Did you shed even one tear for Juliet?"

"I'm sorry…"

"YOU'RE SORRY?!"

"Hey, she said she's sorry, okay!" Taylor tried to intervene, but flinched back as she had to face Brooke's angry glare.

"You're really defending HER?" the Asian girl scoffed. "When did she ever help you? When did she ever help anyone? All she does is thinking about herself!"

Her finger started to squeeze the trigger, slowly. Very slowly. And of course, Victoria noticed it from the corner of her out of fear dilated eyes, sweat running down her forehead.

Everyone around them expected that this was it. That Victoria was a goner. Until Frank Bowers intervened, saying "Okay, that's enough. Don't burden you conscience with that fuckin' cunt, kid! She ain't worth it!"

A loud sigh of relief went through the group, only to end in a common gasp as Frank announced "Instead, we're gonna leave her here with one day's ration and a bottle of water."

Another discussion broke lose, whether or not this was the right punishment or simply too harsh.

But, to everyone's surprise, it was Brooke who was strictly against this idea.

"No!" she said loud enough so that everyone could hear it, now gazing deeply at the terrified blonde again. "She stays with us. And from now on, she has to earn every bite of food, every piece of clothe and every drop of gas that's necessary to move her ugly ass over the country. She'll do what we say, when we say it. Got that?"

To underline her demands, the smaller Asian girls pressed the muzzle even stronger against the other young woman's head, hissing quietly in her ear "Now you owe me one! Don't ever forget about it…bitch!"

All Victoria was able to do, was to nod frantically and to break down in tears after Brooke had released her.

Every member of the group only kept staring at Brooke, may it be out of awe or just fear…it didn't matter.

Normally, she used to be a loner, only talking with those people she deemed to be worthy and ignoring those she didn't, getting snarky to those who used to annoy her. But that all had changed now. She was in the middle of everything. People were now looking up to her. She was calling the shots now…and it terrified the crap out of her.

Gulping down the need to just yell at everyone and run away, Brooke said "Let's move!", picked up her swords from the road and went inside the RV. There, she locked herself in the toilet and started to cry.