The knife plunged through his head with a sickening crunch. Immediately David's struggles stopped.
Melissa fell backwards to the ground and scrambled away from David's body. "Oh my God." She wanted to scream. "Oh my God, I killed him." She still had the knife in her hand. She glanced down at it, shuddering in disgust. She wanted to throw it as far as she could; she wanted it away from her.
Punk, apparently sensing her intentions, moved towards her, motioning as best he could to indicate that he still needed to be cut free.
Melissa shakily cut the ropes off, trying not to slice up Punk's wrists. As soon as his hands were free, he ripped the gag out of his mouth. "We need to get out of here," he said urgently.
Melissa nodded mutely. She went to set the knife down before Punk caught her wrist. "Keep it. We may need it yet." Melissa nodded with a grimace.
Punk looked over David's dead body, searching for anything else they could use. "Aha!" he murmured as he pulled a handgun out of David's coat pocket. "I wondered if he had taken that."
"Is that yours?" Melissa said hoarsely.
Punk nodded. "He should have one of his own somewhere," he muttered before he found David's pistol in the other pocket. "You want this?" Punk asked.
Melissa shook her head, but Punk pressed the gun into her hand anyways. "It'll be better than using a knife," he told her.
"I don't have anywhere to carry the knife if I'm using the gun," Melissa said, trying to come up with an excuse not to use the gun.
Punk unhooked the sheath from David's belt before handing it to Melissa. "Put that on."
Melissa hooked the sheath on her belt, carefully putting the knife in it. She picked up the handgun, shuddering as she did so. Punk looked at her. "Ready?" he asked her.
She shook her head. How could she be ready after something like that?
Punk looked sympathetic. "I know it's probably tough, but you need to deal with later. We need to get out of here now."
Melissa nodded. "I know," she muttered. She tried to put on a brave face. "Let's go."
Punk looked at her once more before unzipping the tent. It was dark outside; the sun had already set. "Where'd the guard go?" Punk murmured. "There was one here earlier."
The sound of shouting from somewhere else in camp reached their ears. "Zombies in the west quarter!" Gunshots echoed through the trees.
"Shit, now we really need to get out of here," Punk said. He looked down the aisle of tents, trying to figure out which way to go. While he was trying to decide, a zombie came running out from behind a tent to Punk's left.
"Punk!" Melissa screamed in warning.
Punk managed to turn, pulling the trigger on his pistol as he saw the zombie. The report of the gun stunned Melissa's ears as the zombie dropped down, dead. The noise drew in more zombies, as another two appeared; one to the left, and one to the right.
Punk grabbed Melissa's wrist, pulling her along as he ran forward, away from the zombies. They dashed past several of David's men, who paid them no attention as they ran past, away from the sounds of fighting behind them.
Punk led her through camp, dodging past several fallen bodies. As they approached the edge of camp, Melissa came to a halt. "What about the Shield?!" she said in a panic, looking back at the camp, which had been set ablaze sometime while they were running.
Punk glanced back in indecision. "They can take care of themselves," he said. "Let's go. They'll probably meet up with us at the car. Now come on!" He resumed running, leaving Melissa to follow him, but not before she looked back one last time at the burning camp.
She followed Punk out of the trees as they entered a field. She was certain it wasn't the one they'd come through when David had led them to camp earlier that day. They dashed through the tall grass and weeds, dodging past several zombies that stumbled towards them as they were spotted. Melissa followed Punk blindly, wishing the moon would come out from behind the clouds.
She got her wish as the clouds moved away, letting the moon wash the field in silver light. Melissa wanted to scream as she saw that the field was full of zombies. She continued running after Punk, her breath not coming as easily as before.
They ran for what felt like hours, trying to outdistance the zombies. They finally caught a break when they found a deep ditch that the zombies probably wouldn't be able to climb out of. Punk jumped over first, and Melissa trailed after him, barely making the jump. Punk grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet as they continued running.
After a while they slowed, and after looking back to see that they had no followers, they stopped. Melissa collapsed to her knees, trying to catch her breath as she inhaled raggedly. She felt extremely light-headed and her legs were burning.
"Come on," Punk forced out between breaths. He didn't seem to be in as bad a condition as Melissa, but he did sound a bit winded. "We need to find some shelter."
Melissa staggered to her feet. She followed him, thankful he had slowed his pace to a slow jog.
They ran for a little while longer before they found an abandoned two-story farmhouse sitting on a low hill. They made their way up the hill, sighing in relief as they found the house empty of people. Melissa sat down on the dusty couch in the sitting room. She put her head between her knees, still dizzy.
Punk sat down next to her, looking around. "We can stay here for tonight and head back to the car in the morning."
"Okay," Melissa managed to say. "Right now I just need to catch my breath."
"I'll go take a look around," Punk said, sounding like he'd already recovered. "Stay here, alright?"
Melissa nodded, closing her eyes as Punk left her to search the house.
About ten minutes passed before Punk returned. "There are beds upstairs!" Punk said gleefully as he reentered the sitting room they'd first entered.
"Beds?" Melissa said, looking up in surprise. "You're kidding."
"Nope!" Punk said with a grin. "Actual, real-life beds."
"I wonder why all this furniture is still here," Melissa said. "It looks like it's been here for ages."
Punk shrugged. "Maybe the owner died and he didn't have any heirs, so it's been abandoned. Either way, I'm just grateful it's here."
"That's true," Melissa agreed.
"I'll keep first watch," Punk offered as they climbed the stairs.
"Okay," Melissa said gratefully. Punk pointed her towards the spare bedroom. She smiled briefly as she realized that Punk had taken the master bedroom. She flopped down on the dusty bed, not caring when the dust flew up into the air around her. It felt so much better to be lying on a bed instead of a sleeping bag on the floor.
"I'll be in the kitchen downstairs," Punk told her before he left. Melissa nodded, watching him leave the room.
Melissa stayed awake for a little, studying the nondescript room. She didn't think she could sleep after all that had occurred, but before long she felt her eyes closing as she fell asleep.