A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry for taking so long to post! I've been absolutely swamped in schoolwork; I had what's called a "fast-track" class that finishes in six weeks but still goes over all the material for a normal class, so I didn't really have a lot of spare time. Thing is, I don't think I had any. For my classes I would get up at 8 in the morning and work until 1 in the morning, sleep, and start all over. I finished that class, so I have this feeling of absolute relief and it told me to write for you all. XD Hope you enjoy!
Melissa finally finished talking, feeling overwhelmed. It felt like she was reliving the whole thing over whenever she thought about it.
They had all seemed a little shell-shocked that she had killed David, though they had agreed that David had been completely out of his mind, and that it had probably been the only way to save herself and Punk.
It did little to ease Melissa's conscious though, and she almost said as much, though refrained at last minute.
After a moment Melissa asked, "What happened to you?"
Seth spoke. "After David put you in that tent, he escorted the rest of us to another tent. He left us in there for a while before he came back. He had some other men move Punk, Roman, and I to one half, while he stayed with Dean in the other half. He told the other men to make sure we watched. He…" Seth paused, his face unsure. He glanced over at Dean.
Dean scowled. "He beat me to a bloody pulp and made them watch."
Melissa wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she wasn't sure that he would welcome that. "I…I'm sorry Dean."
Dean shrugged, his scowl still prominent. "Don't be. You killed the bastard." Dean didn't seem unhappy with the fact.
"Anyways," Seth started up again. "He did that to Dean, trying to get him to talk. Dean of course didn't say a damn word." He paused again. "David…ended up pulling out a knife. He… cut Dean's arms up with it…"
Melissa shivered as she realized that the knife she had strapped to her hip had Dean's blood on it. She didn't feel altogether comfortable with that.
Seth had continued speaking, not noticing Melissa's inner conflict. "…I couldn't take it anymore. David was getting way too close to Dean's wrists for my liking… and so I told him I would talk."
Melissa thought back to David's words; he said he'd gotten Seth to talk, but he hadn't mentioned that he had only done so through Dean. She felt bad knowing she'd worried about Seth's well-being the whole time, when it was Dean that was injured. She glanced over at him. He wasn't acting like he was injured. He was either really adept at hiding his pain, didn't feel it, or had found himself some high-quality painkillers.
"So I told him we were headed to LA. He left after that," Seth said.
Roman started speaking instead. "We were there for a while, wondering what was going to happen to us. Before long we heard shouting. One of the women came in, and asked us if we could fight. We told her it depended on what she wanted us to fight."
Seth started up again as Roman paused to take a breath. "She told us she didn't care if it was David's men or zombies." He looked troubled. "She said David took her little boy, Lucas. David made her watch when his men killed Lucas."
Melissa shuddered. David had been a monster; if it was possible, more of a monster than the things running around eating people.
"So she let us go," Seth said. "She had brought us all of the stuff they'd taken away from us along with a gun for each of us. When we left the tent, no one seemed to care; they were more worried about the zombies invading camp."
"Probably a case of the more hands the better," Melissa murmured.
"Or the more bait the better," Dean muttered.
Melissa felt inclined to agree; she was reminded of a shirt she'd seen one time that had a zombie picture and said "I don't have to outrun them. I just have to outrun YOU." Many people seemed willing to sacrifice others to escape; she wasn't quite sure what she would do in that situation. She was just glad she hadn't been faced with such a decision.
"In any case, we fought our way past the zombies and out of camp. We ended up right about here and waited for the sun to come up, thinking that if you and Punk had gotten out, you wouldn't have gone far," Seth finished. "That obviously wasn't the case."
"We were almost back though," Melissa noted. "We figured we'd wait by the car in case you were nearby and made it back." She suddenly thought of something. "Wait a minute… please tell me Punk didn't have the car keys."
"Shit, did he?" Seth exclaimed.
There was a soft rattling as Dean pulled something out of his pocket. He dangled it in front of their faces, the metal glinting in the moonlight. He had the keys.
"Thank goodness," Melissa said with a sigh.
"I managed to hide them; I don't know how the hell David's goons didn't find them." Dean put the keys back in his pocket.
"What'd they do, search you?" Melissa asked.
Dean nodded. "Head to toe, top to bottom. Why, did they not search you?"
Melissa shook her head. "I guess they didn't consider me a threat."
Dean snorted. "I would have said the same thing less than a week ago. You obviously proved us all wrong." He peered out around the edge of the bushes again. "All clear," he said, his voice lower now. "We can make a dash across the field to the other side of the hill, and then we should be out of the line of sight. After that it's just a quick walk back to the car."
Everyone else nodded. Dean leaned back out to look again. After a moment, he whispered "Go!" and they carefully left the bushes, looking both ways for zombies. There was a small group meandering in the direction of camp to their right. There were a few scattered zombies to their left, but not enough to cause problems. Melissa followed the trio as they dashed through the grass, trying not to trip on anything hidden. They made it to the other hill with no problems, for which Melissa was grateful. She'd had enough of being scared for a while.
They walked for a little, but it wasn't long until they spotted the car. Melissa was surprised one of David's men hadn't come back and tried to take it. It would have been the equivalent of hitting the apocalypse jackpot, since it was loaded up with so much stuff. Melissa wondered for a moment if none of David's men had made it out alive last night. She shivered.
Roman approached the car first, looking around for an ambush or zombies. Finding none, he opened the back door of the Suburban, looking over the supplies that had stacked in the back.
Dean came up beside him. "Doesn't look like anything's been taken."
Roman nodded in agreement as he set Melissa's backpack down in an open spot.
"If anything, this trip won us some canned food, four guns, and a knife," Dean said thoughtfully.
"Though we did lose Punk and his gun," Melissa pointed out. Her anger at Punk was slowly simmering down; she knew she couldn't hold a grudge, and her resolve to leave Punk behind was quickly fading.
"We could wait for him," Seth said dubiously.
"He's as good as dead out there," Dean said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he ran into a horde of zombies and got eaten."
"The same could have been said of us," Roman said softly. "There were times last night when I thought we were as good as dead."
Melissa spoke up. "Well, if he does survive the zombies tonight, it's not like he doesn't have a place to go. He could stay at the farmhouse and be fine for quite a while; there was a lot of food in there."
"Speaking of, should we go back there and see what we can find?" Seth queried.
"It would be a long detour," Melissa noted. "We'd have to go back to where the highways branched off. The main road to the farmhouse connected to the other highway."
"Do we have enough gas to do that?" Roman asked.
Dean shrugged. "It depends on the terrain and shit like that. I personally think it's best to just keep moving; we shouldn't go out of our way if we don't have to."
"But for food?" Seth mentioned. "I'd almost think it was worth it."
Dean gestured at the back of the car, which was piled high with supplies. "We don't have a lot of room for it. We still have plenty of the MRE's. If we had another car, maybe. But we'd be wasting gas for food we can't even fit in here."
"Should we vote on it?" Melissa asked.
Dean looked amused, but Roman nodded. "It won't hurt to hear what everyone has to think."
Dean shrugged. "Well, you all know my vote. I think we should just keep moving."
"I agree," Roman said. "As inviting as having more food sounds, we'd have to give up something else like the water to take it with us."
Melissa waited to see if Seth was going to speak, but he motioned for her to speak first.
She thought her words out carefully. "I don't think it is worth the risk. We don't know what the road is like, and the potential for the zombies to wander into the road seems to be pretty high; they were moving in that direction. If they end up on the road, we could end up having to go lots of miles away from our original road. We might end up on a road with nothing for miles and run out of gas. Then it won't matter that we got the extra food, because we'd have to leave tons of it behind so we could walk."
Seth shrugged. "I guess I don't have to vote then. Either way, we're not going to the farmhouse."
"Let's go then," Dean said as he closed the back door of the car. "Who wants to drive?"
"I'll do it," Roman offered, catching the keys as Dean tossed them to him.
"I'll ride on the passenger side and take over when you get tired," Seth said.
"Sounds like a plan," Dean said. He suddenly glanced over at Melissa. "You ever plan on driving, or are we your chauffeurs now?"
Melissa shrugged. "I don't know how to drive."
"How old are you?" Dean asked, squinting suspiciously.
"17, almost 18."
"You're almost 18 and you haven't learned to drive yet?" he asked incredulously. He glanced over at Roman and Seth. "Well, looks like we're going to have to teach her."
Roman shrugged. "Okay."
Seth smiled at Melissa. "Don't worry. We won't let Dean teach you."
"Yeah, we don't need another speed demon driving us around," Roman said with a small grin.
Dean yawned. "If I wasn't so damn sore and tired…" He yawned again, not finishing his sentence. "Just get in the damn car," he muttered as Seth and Roman laughed.
Melissa complied, ready to leave. Roman got in the driver's seat, turning on the car. Seth climbed into the passenger seat while Dean got into the seat opposite Melissa.
Dean was out as soon as he buckled his seatbelt, and Melissa wondered when he had last slept, and how badly his unseen injuries were nagging at him.
She stared at her folded hands as Roman pulled back onto the road, trying to imagine where they'd be if they hadn't stopped last night. Punk would still be with us, Melissa thought to herself. Now he's probably dead.
She looked out the window, staring for a moment at the moonlit landscape. Right before they rounded a bend in the hill, she could have sworn she saw a person that looked suspiciously like Punk silhouetted against the moon.