The Walking Dead
Chapter Four
(The Lost Soldier)
God was the enigma, the mystery that haunted man since the beginning of time, and Morgan had lost his faith years before the zombie holocaust. When it came to the concept of a supernatural entity that resided over all of mankind, Ruth and Shauna were stones, unmovable stones, mountains. He thought back to the Amish compound, and realized that they all should have died, but they didn't. When he retrieved the two young girls from behind the barn, he knew they were there. Something pulled him in the right direction, but he didn't believe it to be God. He knew they would be safe because he didn't hesitate, or at least that was what he thought.
The sun beat against the minivan with the strength of a hammer, and it reddened Ruth's and Tina's face to the point of pain. Shauna crawled in the back for a tube of sunscreen. "Apply this on your skin."
"What is it?" Ruth asked.
"It'll protect you from the sun," she said with a concerned voice, "You too, Duane."
Ruth's sunburn alarmed Morgan, and she complained that she felt a little under the weather. He didn't know if she suffered from dehydration or what, but he parked outside a small town called Grand, Indiana. It was a stretch of land that looked like human life never set foot on it, and the grass was high. Shauna stood on the outside of the minivan while Morgan searched the area for any signs of walkers, and didn't find anything. When he returned, Shauna and the rest of the gang had already set up the camp. They were all applying sunscreen and bug propellant to their bodies, and Ruth looked sick.
"Is she bitten?" Morgan asked.
"No," Shauna snapped. Grabbing a bottle of water, she told Ruth to drink it slowly, and she did. "She's just a little dehydrated."
Something was strange, then. It was obvious that when it came to Ruth Shauna didn't hesitate to ensure her safety. She was a mother figure to all the kids, but she had her favorite, and that was Ruth. When Ruth felt sick back at the convenient store, Shauna ensured her safety the entire time. Tina offered to help, but that wasn't what Shauna wanted.
"You favor her," Morgan said.
She grimaced. "It's what God wants."
"What does that even mean?" He asked.
"The new world starts in her womb," she said.
"She's pregnant?"
"At least two months," she said, "She's the future."
It burned his ears to hear that Ruth was with a child because the road ahead wasn't going to be an easy one, especially with a group of kids. Shauna gave Tina a handgun, showed her how to fire it, and then the young girl placed it in her pants, but Ruth took a vow never to hold any weapon. When he looked over at Shauna, she stood between the minivan and a large tree, and asked, "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Morgan asked.
She stepped closer to the edge of the tree-line, and a female walker stepped out of the tree-line. Startled, Shauna pulled out her handgun, and Morgan screamed, "Wait?"
"Don't shoot?" The woman screamed.
The right side of her face had burns that stretched from the tip of her forehead to her cheek, and her clothes were tattered and soiled. She smelled badly, as bad as the walkers, like hell, but she talked.
"Are you bitten?" Morgan asked.
"No," she said, "But I'm covered in walkers' blood. I've walked among them."
He laughed at her blood covered face, but then asked, "Did any follow you?"
"Don't think so," she said, "The closes town is about four miles from here."
"'Bout how many walkers?" He asked.
"At least fifteen hundred. Might be more."
Shauna and Teresa washed off at the pond at the bottom of the hill, and Ruth lay under a huge oak tree in the shade. The girls had taken clothes from the last store that the young soldier could wear. Tina kept giving Ruth cool water to keep her hydrated. Morgan and Duane walked around the perimeter several times to ensure the zombies hadn't made their way to the area, and Teresa's existence disturbed Morgan, or it might have been Shauna's premonition about Teresa that disturbed him, or worse, a message from God through Shauna that disturbed him. In any case, the whole idea of God sending them north west disturbed Morgan, and he found everything a little confusing. He had no explanation about how Shauna knew the existence of Teresa, and that she'd have a burn on her face from an attack in Iraq.
Enough pain in a person's life numbs them, and Morgan could see the numbness in the young soldier's face. Her scarred right cheek was noticeable, but bearable, and with her long hair covering the right side of her face most of the time, the scars weren't always noticeable. He talked to her a little about her heritage; and she was born in the slums of India, adopted by Americans at the age of two in nineteen eighty-seven. The burning tarp incident that happened during a fire fight in Iraq happened in two thousand and three, and the doctors had planned on plastic surgery right before the world went sour, and the dead started walking the streets.
"I don't agree with what you do," Ruth mumbled.
"That's not nice," Tina said.
"What do you think I do?" Teresa asked.
"Kill people," she said, "You're a killer."
Teresa laughed. "No. I'm a supply clerk. That's it. My convoy came under attack when I was delivering supplies."
"But you carry guns?"
"Protection," she said, "Peter carried a sword."
Shauna walked over to Ruth, felt her head with the back of her palm, and then said, "Her fever is gone."
"Okay," Morgan said, "It's getting dark, and I'm tired."
"Me too," Shauna said.
"We need to settle down for the night, but we need to take shifts walking the perimeter."
"Duane, ten to twelve. Teresa, twelve to two. Shauna, two to four, and I'll take the four to six."
"What about me and Tina?" Ruth asked.
"You're with a child," Shauna said, "You need your rest."
The dew was thick. The fog was thicker. The morning air had a nip in it that Morgan hated as he walked the perimeter. It was four-thirty in the morning, and Morgan and Tina walked the boundary. The young Amish girl insisted that she help with all the chores, including that of a roaming guard. She had her pistol stuck into her pants on safe, and everything seemed quiet in the area. The team kept walking, and the smell of the deceased smacked Morgan in the face. That smell meant death; death meant walkers; dead walkers meant it was time to leave. He felt alarmed. The high weeds shuffled because of the walkers that pushed through the brush.
"Run!" He screamed.
"Huh?"
"Run, Tina. The walkers are everywhere."
She sped down the hill to the camp, and Morgan slowly backed up as the walkers pushed towards his location. When he saw the greenish brown eyes of the first zombie, he put a round in its head, and then took off down the hill. The entire country side came to life as if the zombies were always there.
When he arrived at the camp area, Shauna, Duane, Tina, and Teresa was back to back ready to take on any of the walkers that made it to the camp, and Ruth was already in the van.
"Get in the van," he screamed, "There're too many of them."
"What about the stuff?" Duane asked.
"Leave it," he said, "We'll find more stuff."
He flew down the road only to come to a wall of walkers in the middle of the street. He stopped the car, looked left, right, and then he backed up the minivan until he ended up back where he started. He could hear Ruth whimpering in the back.
"Damn!" He screamed, "They're everywhere."
"We'll shoot our way out of here if we have to," Shauna screamed.
"I'm with you," Teresa said.
"Hold on," Morgan said as he veered the minivan up the hill, over some rough terrain, and back up on the road. The car hit the bottom twice, and the force of the thump tore off the rear bumper. Once he hopped onto the road, he looked in his rear-view mirror to see a swarm of walkers behind him, and then a zombie jumped onto his front window from out of nowhere. He swerved into the side guard rail, and came to a sudden stop. The walker slid off the hood, onto the street, and then Ruth screamed, "Run him over."
He floored the gas pedal, smashed the walker's head, and kept driving down the street. Once he got to a clear stretched of highway, he pulled over to the side of the road to check out the minivan. The rough terrain had ripped off the bumper, and the muffler was a little loose. The rear left wheel was very low, so he looked it over, and filled it up with a can of the liquid maintenance. It was only a matter of time before he'd lose that wheel, and he'd have to change it within the next five hundred miles.
"Is it going to hold?" Shauna asked as she stood to the rear of the vehicle.
"For a while," he said.