A/N: I haven't updated in about a month, and I'm sorry about that. I've been really busy with school, and haven't really got around to updating. Enjoy, rate, review, whatever.
.:::Chapter Three:::.
*Nick's Point of View*
"So, you two youngin's want a bite to eat?" Samuel asked, opening a box as he spoke.
I really hadn't thought too much about being hungry, but my stomach began to growl when I thought about food. I didn't even remember the last time I had ate, but it had been over twenty-four hours, I was sure of it.
"Uhm, yeah, that might be nice," I said. messing with the sleeve of my shirt. The clothes weren't my style, at all, but they would do.
"Awrighty then. I'll open a couple of cans of stuff, and we'll have us a little meal," Sam said, pulling out two cans of some kind of non-perishable foods.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Melony wince, and I felt sorry for the girl. She was in really poor condition, and I knew she had to be extremely sad. In a way, I understood how she felt though. I was dating someone before the pandemic started taking over. She was a bit younger than me, and I really liked her, but she'd been killed not long after the pandemic started. I was the type to hide negative emotions though. No sense in bringing people down.
After we ate, without speaking, I sighed.
"So... What kind of infected have you two encountered?" Janelle asked, eying Melony and me curiously.
Melony looked confused and I arched a brow. "What do you mean, exactly?" I asked.
"Like, special infected, hun. Ya know, tha different ones, that stand out," Janelle shrugged.
"Oh... Well, we saw this really big guy, that walked with his hands, and he roared a lot. He destroyed the building that we were in," I said. "And we've encountered two infected that move really quick, and they pounce on you," I added.
"We like to call the biggin' a tank. He's a sonabitch, ain't he?" Sam grinned. "And the other one. I haven't saw yet," he frowned.
"I think of it as a hunter. With the way it moves and stuff," Melony mumbled. Her eyes were stormy, and moist.
"That's would be about right," I said. I then stood up, walked over to her, and plopped down. "Are you okay?" I asked softly.
She whimpered, but nodded. "I hate this," she mumbled.
I sighed. "I know. It's going to be okay, though. I promise. It's going to be just fine. We've found more people, and we'll make it," I said, in my normal comforting tone.
She nodded, and to my surprise, leaned her head on my shoulder.
"You two would make a darling couple. You look like you both are in high school," Janelle said.
I smirked. "I wish I was still in high school," I mumbled.
"I am in high school. I'm sixteen," Melony mumbled.
"You're not in high school?" Janelle looked at me. "How old are you then?"
"I'm actually twenty-two," I smiled.
Melony looked up at me, studying my features, I assumed. "You really don't look it. I thought you were eighteen or nineteen," she said.
"Nope. I graduated college last month," I answered. It was June, almost July now. I'd just finished college, and was working as a computer programmer, but that job was over now. Now it was my job to try to survive, and help those around me survive.
"Wow. You're datable then. I'm twenty-one," Janelle smirked at me.
"Erm... Heh," I really didn't know how to respond to that. She wasn't my type, at all, and she seemed promiscuous as hell.
"Well, maybe we can work something out where I could at least satisfy you," she winked at me, and I felt my face turn six shades of red.
"Erm, yeah, maybe," I mumbled under my breath.
"You don't seem interested? Why is that?" She asked, bending over, obviously giving me a good view of her chest.
I looked down at the ground though, and shrugged.
"Don't tell me you're like, looking for your girl or something? Or, even better... You're not a virgin are you?" She smirked.
Damn it! I thought to myself. Was it that obvious that I had never slept with anyone? "Yeah, I've never been in bed with anyone," I mumbled, chewing on my lip as I spoke.
"Well, we can definitely make arrangements for that to change, can't we?" Janelle giggled, and then walked back over to the box she was sitting on.
"I...Erm," I was at lost for words, and I glanced at Melony and Sam for some help.
"Well, that youngin' ain't innerested, I sure as hell am," Sam grinned.
Janelle rolled her eyes. "Sorry, you're not my type," she said, in a flat tone.
Sam frowned. "Well, damn. It's fine though. We don't got no time for none of that lovey-dovey stuff anyway. There's monsters out there that we need to kill," Sam said.
"Oh, and I was talking about special infected, wasn't I?" Janelle remembered, and I nodded.
"Well, I've saw a smoker, and a spitter," Janelle smiled.
"Yep. I've saw that damn smoker, but I don't know about the spitter. I've saw a boomer though. Nasty creatures," Sam said.
"Tell us more," Melony mumbled.
"Well, the smoker, he's a sonabitch, too. He has this long, slimy tongue, that doesn't end. He can reach up, wrap it around you, and drag you too him and tear your ass up. When you kill him, blinding, nasty smellin' smoke goes everywhere," Sam said. "And the boomer, he's really fat, and gross. He vomits on you, which attracts common infected, and then whe you shoot him, the vomit goes everywhere!"
"Yeah... The spitter is a female, and she's pregnant or something. Not sure what all she does, but I know she can spit acid, and the stuff hurts if you get it on you," Janelle said.
"Seems like we've got a good bit on our hands to worry about, right?" I asked.
"Yep! We got this though. We'll survive, I'm sure of it," Sam said.
"I think we need to break out the sleeping bags, and get some sleep before we get started on anything, though," Janelle said.
Sam stood up, and pulled out four sleeping bags, and rolled them out on the floor. "Take one, and sleep in it. We do need some sleep," he said.
I nodded, and stood up. I helped Melony up, and we both grabbed a sleeping bag.
Once everyone was laying down, Sam reached up, and turned the overhead light off, and it was dark.
It wasn't really that easy, trying to get to sleep. My mind was restless, and the floor, even with the sleeping bag, wasn't that comfortable. After a few minutes, I heard two light snorings, and I wondered if Melony was still awake.
"Melony?" I whispered, not bothering to open my eyes.
"What?" I heard after a few minutes.
"Seeing if you were awake. Are you going to be okay?" I asked softly.
"Yeah... I think I'll make it," she mumbled.
"Good. Uhm, G'night," I mumbled.
"Night, Nick," she mumbled.
I finally fell into a restless slumber after laying there for a few more minutes.
I awoke to the sound of three people snoring. Groaning, I sat up and glanced around. Sam, Janelle, and Melony were all still sleeping. In the back of my head, I wished that there were windows in the little house, so that I could look outside, and guess what time it was. Of course, there weren't any, because infected could break windows.
Infected. I hated to even think about the creatures. My eyes fell to the guns and ammo that were on a metal table in the corner. We would be leaving out today, to try to find a radio so we could get in touch with the survivors at the base, where the survivors were staying. The thought gave me hope, but the part of my conscience that was negative kept wondering what would happen if the main survivors base had been taken over by infected.
I sighed, not really wanting to think about it, and stood up. As quick as I did, Melony groaned and opened her eyes.
"You're awake?" she mumbled, looking up at me through sleepy eyes.
"Uhm, yeah," I answered, offering her a nervous half-smile.
She sat up then, and then stood up. Her eyes fell to the two sleepers, and she glanced back up at me. "So, you think we should wake them up, or do you think we just need to wait for them to wake up?" she asked.
I shrugged. I really was indifferent. "I think we should go ahead and wake them up," I said, after awhile. "I want to go ahead and get started with this."
Melony nodded quickly, and knelt next to Sam and Janelle. She shook them both until they groaned and woke up.
"What? Time ta get started?" Sam questioned.
"Yeah," Melony said.
Janelle sighed. "I guess we need to have a meal and then go," she said.
And that is what we did. We ate, and then packed some stuff up, before heading out to leave. The air was warm, and damp. I glanced around and figured that it was somewhere between seven and nine in the morning. I had my gun in my hand, and a baseball bat on my belt, as well as ammo, and a health injection. I had a first-aid kit, and a clean up kit on my back. The other three people had the same set up as me.
"Well, team, let's get this show on the road," Sam sighed.
He stepped off the porch, followed by Janelle, and then Melony. I was about to step off, when I felt something wet, and warm wrap around my neck. "Ahg!!!" I gagged, as the thing started dragging me. I tried to stay on my feet, but I hit the ground, the breath that I still had left being knocked out of me.
"Ah, hell," I heard Sam say. Next, guns started firing, and then I was free. I landed hard on the ground, and then began to cough. I couldn't catch my breath, no matter how hard I tried.
"Nick, are you okay?" Melony was knelt beside me first, followed by Janelle and Sam.
I gasped and wheezed, not able to make my voice work. My hands rubbed at my throat, which was sore as hell.
"He'll be fine. Get 'em on his feet," Sam said, standing up.
"But-" Melony was about to protest, but Janelle stopped her.
"Sam's right," She said.
Melony nodded, and the three of them pulled me on to my feet.
I continued to cough for a minute, but eventually got my breathing back to normal. "That wasn't good, at all," I mumbled hoarsely.
"Are you going to be okay?" Melony asked. Her eyes were full of worry.
I smiled as best as I could and nodded. "Let's get going," I said.
We started walking again, all of us keeping an eye out for infected. Every so often, they would try to approach us, only to be killed.
"What the hell is that sound?" I heard Sam demand at one point.
We all stopped and listened. In the distance, I heard a loud weeping, obviously coming from a woman. "Do you think there's another survivor around?" I asked.
"I betcha there is. Let's go find 'er," Sam headed towards the crying, cautiously, and we followed his lead.
We walked behind a small cluster of trees, and sure enough, there was a woman. But, I was pretty sure that she wasn't human. She was dressed in primitive clothing, and her fingers and nails were way longer than that of a normal human. She was sobbing into her hands, but she looked up when we approached her.
I stepped back when she did, and pushed Melony behind me. The woman had dark purple rings around her eyes, and her irises glew a bright color. She screeched, causing all of us to step back, and then jumped on Sam.
He screamed as the witch began to tear him to pieces. I heard a distorted whimper come from Janelle, and I heard Melony squeak. They were taken aback from the scene, so it was up to me to destroy this monster.
I stepped forward, and swung my bat to get her off of Sam, and then began to shoot. The thing screamed again, and then I heard moans coming from every direction.
"Dammit!" I hissed. Sam was on the ground, and gasping, but before I could pull him up, the screeching infected was on me, and clawing the hell out of my chest. The pain was verging on excruciating, but I managed to wrestle the infected off of me, and then shoot her in the head a few times, killing her.
But that meant that I was not prepared for the hoard of infected that were quickly closing in on us. I pushed myself to my feet and then groaned. I was about to pull Sam up when an infected slapped me in the back of the head. I turned around, and shot it, only to turn around to find that a group of infected were on Sam. I sighed, and began to hit them with my gun, not bothering to shoot.
"Nick!!!" I heard Melony squeal, but I didn't even had time to turn around before a hunter pounced on top of me, and began to claw my back. I screamed. It didn't take long for Janelle to shoot the hunter off of me, and then both her and Melony pulled me to my feet.
"Where's Sam?" I asked, as my eyes fell to the spot where Sam had been laying.
"Uhm," Janelle's face held a look of disarray.
I heard Melony whimper, and glanced at her. I followed her gaze to where a group of infected had dragged Sam- or what was left of Sam- to a clearing and were eating him. He was dead.
"Damn," I sighed, as I opened fire.
It was a relief when we cleared all the infected out, but I gulped as I walked over to the remains of my fallen comrade.
"Uhm, this is bad," I knelt next to him, and then sighed.
I heard Melony whimpering, and I stood up, and put an arm around her.
"That makes three of us," Janelle sighed.
"I didn't think he'd be the first one to go. I thought we were all going to make it," Melony whimpered.
"I know. It's hard as hell to deal with this, but hey, we're still alive, and this just shows us that we need to be stronger, and we need to stick together more," I said, in my soothing tone that seemed to work pretty well on Melony.
"And we need to not listen to any weeping. Anything that weeps and covers there face, we kill," Janelle said, patting her gun as if it was her buddy.
I nodded. I knelt once more, and picked up all of Sam's items. "I know this is kind of bad, but we might as well take these and use them for ourselves," I said.
Janelle nodded, though her face was still grim and uncertain.
I thought Melony was going to protest at first, but she didn't.
"Let's go," I sighed, and we began to walk. As we walked, I realized that pain had set in with its full effect on my torso. I winced, but I refused to say anything. There was already a cloud of sorrow over the group, and I didn't want to make it worse.
Apparently, Melony somehow noticed that I was in pain though, because she looked up at me and said, "We have an extra first aid kit, do you think you want to use it?" she asked.
I shook my head, and instead, pulled out the syringe. "I think this will work. What I'm experiencing isn't that bad," I said. I shot the injection into my arm, and automatically felt the relief. I even felt an almost high feeling. "Much better," I sighed.
Melony gave me a concerned look, but she didn't say anything.
"I didn't let you see the notes back there in that little house, but I think there are houses like that set up in a lot of places. We should try to find the next one pretty soon," Janelle said.
I glanced at her and nodded. I was still feeling the effects of the injection, and my mind was fuzzy. "That sounds like a great idea!" I was surprised at how my .voice slurred when I spoke.
"Not good with drugs, are you, Virgin boy?" she smirked at me.
"Nick, are you going to be okay?" Melony seemed really concerned now.
"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" I slurred, and smirked at her. I felt almost okay. The drug made it where I really didn't have the attention span to focus on the fact that there were a bunch of living dead creatures out to kill me.
"You're drugged," Melony frowned.
Janelle laughed. "Nick, you're so amusing," she patted my back. "I should see if you're willing to give yourself to me now," she smirked and spun me around so that I was facing her. She pulled me to her, and then kissed me on the mouth.
I kissed her back, but it wasn't the romantic type of kiss. It was more like a drunken, sloppy kiss.
She giggled, and pressed her chest into me.
"Uh, you two!" Melony squealed, and then I heard gunfire, and my high was gone.
I pushed Janelle away, and pulled out my gun. There weren't as many infected as before, but there were still a bunch of them. I began to shoot and so did Melony and Janelle. We had the infected cleared out in no time, but of course, my high didn't come back, and I was now aware of our situation. I sighed and frowned.
"Want to continue what we were doing?" Janelle asked.
I shook my head. "I'm not drugged anymore. Sorry about that," I frowned.
"Oh, c'mon, you know there's got to be some truth behind the kiss," Janelle said.
"Yeah," I nodded. "The truth is, I would love to be carefree, and makeout, and smile and stuff, but I can't. We're fighting a zombie apocolypse," I spoke with a slightly bitter tone.
"So, you do like me?" Janelle batted her eyelashes.
I saw Melony roll her eyes, which made me chuckle. "Not really. I'd just kill for a makeout session and a little bit of beer right now," I said.
Janelle frowned. "So you just feel like being a manwhore?" she mumbled.
"Uh, basically, but it's not happening right now," I said, and with that, I turned on my heel and began to walk, with both of the girls following me.
"There's a building," Melony said under her breath, as we walked over a hill and saw what was most likely an office building. Beyond that, there was a city.
"Hm. There's a bunch of buildings. I wonder which one contains the safe house?" I pondered.
"I think it's the little room on top of the office thing," Janelle pointed to the roof of the office building.
"And if it's not?" I asked.
"Then we cross that piece of wood to the roof of the other building, and then continue," Janelle pointed to a wooden bridge that connected two of the buildings.
I suddenly recognized the place, and I frowned. "The hospital is still pretty far away, but we can check this building for a radio. I don't think it has a rescue radio though," I said.
"You know this place?" Janelle asked.
"Yup. It's where I used to work," I nodded.
"Wow," Melony mumbled.
"Let's hope I don't see too many familiar faces. I might crack," I mumbled, and started walking towards the building.
"So you think the room on top is the safe area?" Janelle asked.
"Probably. I think I heard a few people talking about how they were going to make it a safe room, or something," I shrugged.