Chapter 9: Don't Tell
~Jason~
"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Keith and I entered a blindfolded piggyback ride compe-"
"Ellis?" Nick interrupted.
"What?"
"Shut the hell up."
I could figure out where Ellis was going with his story, since I was piggyback riding him and I couldn't see, but I think that he was blindfolded in his story. Too bad Nick interrupted, I wanted to hear the story, but I didn't want to give Nick more reasons to be pissed off. He smelled like a sewer, and I guessed he wasn't happy about it.
We had barely gotten to the next safe room in one piece, which was a home just outside of the small town of swamp people. "They're all zombies..." Zoey muttered. Nick snickered, shooting some of the infected out the window. "Poor bastards," he whispered, blowing one their heads off. I was genuinely concerned that Nick was crazy.
"No point waiting here," Louis said, grabbing his shotgun, "we should head out before it gets late."
"I agree," Ellis said, reloading his hunting rifle as I jumped off him. "This place ain't built for 9."
Katelyn, who was still shaky from the car accident (And the bite. I'm not sure if anyone else knows about it) picked me up, placing me on her shoulders as she grabbed her two pistols from the table. She'd stop and feel the slide every time we were leaving a safe room, so I reached out to touch it as well. There were engravings along the side of it.
"This was my dad's before he gave it to me when the infection hit,"she said to me, and everyone gasped. She wouldn't respond to anything anyone else said that whole day, but now she was talking to me like we were already in the middle of a conversation. "We thought I got infected when I started showing symptoms, and he left this for me to defend myself until I turned." Ellis seemed to be the most surprised. He's an easy guy to talk to. "Luckily, I just had a bad cold, but... when I set out to find him again..." She hung her head, keeping tears back, and everyone understood.
Even Nick was sympathetic, getting eye level and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry about your dad," he said softly, and for once, it sounded like he meant it. Katelyn sniffed, hugging the conman. "Thanks, Suit," she said, and Nick just smiled. "I think I can live with that name."
"You still smell like shit."
"Don't push your luck," Nick responded, getting a laugh out of most of us.
~Katelyn~
It's been more than an hour, right? The Green Flu took how long... goddamnit why didn't I pay attention to the writing from other Survivors?!
Jason did a good job cutting up my leg, but I knew he bit me, too. I felt his teeth sink into my leg before the car completely flipped... This is what Zoey was talking about...
Oh god, what am I doing? I sound like the Church Guy that Louis told me about. I'm fine! It's been over an hour, I must be immune...
Right?
"You guys stay here, I'm going to go on ahead and check it out," Francis said, and began to scout out the area before we could throw our opinion in. While he was gone, I could hear my stomach growling. Damn, when was the last time we ate?
"Ellis, you have that beef jerky, right?" I asked the mechanic, and he nodded. I remember seeing him eating a handful of it on the way to this safe house.
"Sure do, you want a little?" he asked, and I nodded as he handed me the bag. I wolfed most of it down, but I was still hungry.
Damnit, Kate, stop! You're just bored, you aren't hungry anymore!
On the other hand, I still felt like I was starving. I handed the half-empty bag of jerky back to Ellis, and searched through my pack for something. I was barely thinking as I grabbed the first thing I knew was food and pulled it out.
It was a bunch of lollipops wrapped together by a rubber band. I used these to escape Witches (I still don't get the name) without trouble, but right now they looked delicious.
Wait, don't devour it all, you'll get sick, I told myself, grabbing three from the bunch and unwrapping one. I began to lick at it, and sugar never tasted this good to me. Starvation must do crazy things to taste buds.
Several minutes later, we heard three taps on the door, then one, then three more. Francis. Nick opened the door to let the biker in, who was covered in bile and blood. That must have been from those Boomers they talked about. Puking, fat zombies that EXPLODED. Must of been what was in Jason's hair.
"I think the path is clear enough," he said, clearly annoyed by the stomach fluids on him. "Sure you don't want a bath?" I joked, pointing towards the swampy waters next to the safe house. Before Francis could retort, Coach ended it by stepping outside with an auto shotgun of his own, motioning for us to follow.
I walked with Jason on my shoulder, who was surprisingly light, when I heard something nearby. It sounded like a static radio, but I wasn't sure. What would a radio be doing in the middle of a swamp town?
Jason seemed like he heard it, too, but none of the others did. "You guys hear that?" I asked, and the Survivors looked at me, confused. "Hear what?" Ellis asked, looking around.
"I can hear a radio, or static or something- you really can't hear it?" I asked. None of them said they heard it, and were looking at me like I had two heads (And with all of these crazy Specials, I wouldn't be surprised to see a two-headed zombie). I thought I was going crazy when it got louder, and eventually I saw a body hanging on a tree. "Hey, over there!" I said, running to it. The rest of the group was surprised I was right about the sound.
It was a dead pilot, hanging by his parachute on the trees. His walkie talkie was left on, nothing but static coming out of it. "...can hear this, come t' tha plantation house, I'll pick ye up th're..." I heard, the rest static. "Sounds like a local broadcast," Rochelle said, and the rest of us agreed. "I guess we should keep going."
~Jason~
I could hear and sense the infected before anyone else could see them, so I was able to navigate us away from them to keep quiet and preserve ammo. Katelyn seemed to be avoiding infected without my help, so I let her lead eventually. "You sure you've never lived down here before?" Nick asked, "you seem to know exactly where to go."
"No, I was just always good traveling in the wild," Katelyn said, slowing down as we saw more piles of zombies with bullet holes in them. "I was more of a Boy Scout than my brother," she joked. The plantation house must be close," she said, stepping over one oddly angled body as it stared blankly into space, an angered face imbedded onto it.
Finally, after what felt like forever, we reached the plantation house, only to have Katelyn start to lose balance until she collapsed onto the ground. I jumped off before she hit the ground, and stepped back as she began to vomit. Luckily, it looked like normal vomit and not like the bloody, black... stuff that infected victims vomited up. But she still didn't get back up, and eventually passed out. Katelyn, what the hell?!
"Kate, wake up!" Ellis yelled, running over to her side. I limped to her other side to nudge her. "At least she's breathin'," Ellis said, "not sure what th' hell just happened..."
"If anyone c'n hear this, please pick up!" A voice bellowed from a radio, and Nick ran to it to respond. "Ye- Yeah! We're here!"
"Hello there, I need t' know where yeh are so I can pick ya up as soon as I can," the radio crackled out.
"Uh, we're at a large plantation house, can't miss it," Nick replied, and it took a while before the man responded. "Alright, y'heard my other broadcast I assume. I'll be ther' in a few minutes, just hold out 'till I get there," the man said, clicking off on his side.
"Ok guys, this should be easy," Nick said as the cries of an incoming horde rang out. "I swear to God, they can smell hope..." Ellis whispered, picking up Katelyn. "Nono, I'm... I'm ok," she muttered, pushing Ellis away. "Y'sure? You fell purty hard," he replied, and Kate nodded.
"Molotovs and shit in the house!" Francis yelled, and we ran inside to defend ourselves while the infected charged uselessly at us. None of them bothered with me, and I used that to my advantage as I tore through them.
"Pipebomb out!" Zoey yelled, and I jumped away as she hurled it deep into the woods so the zombies wouldn't trample me.
Huh... funny how I'd be saying 'zombie'... I pretty much am one.
"Machine gun!" Rochelle called out as she ran towards it, and the beast of a gun ripped into the horde, along with taking down a giant none of us noticed. "I've heard of lucky shots, but that tops the list," Coach muttered, looking at the dead mass of flesh and muscle. The machine gun practically shot its head off with one hit, and it collapsed almost immediately before it could even let out a roar.
"Break's over, Coach, get your snacks and go!" Nick yelled, pointing to the incoming boat. "Le's go!" the driver yelled out through the speakers, and we all made a mad dash for it. Katelyn hopped on first, helping the rest of us in the boat as another massive horde came.
Too bad, they missed us by mere seconds.
"Good job guys," Coach breathed out, sitting down next to the side of the boat, "anyone hurt?"
"I think we're all fine," Katelyn said. She looked like she was ready for round two. "That parking shit must've helped you out a bunch, right?" Nick asked. Katelyn spent a lot of time sniping Special ones from the roof of the mansion or at the front blasting heads off with her shotgun. Surprisingly I only remembered a few infected going for her, it was like the other humans were zombie bait. "Parkour," Kate corrected, loading new shells into her shotgun.
Ellis passed the gun bag around for us to put our weapons in (Except me, of course), before stretching as he laid down. "I'm gonna take a li'l nap, if y'all don't mind," he yawned, out cold in seconds. "When was the last time that boy slept," Coach sighed, and Katelyn laughed. "He's been running on pure adrenaline for way too long."
"How about you?" Francis asked, oddly taking notice in Kate's condition. "You were sick on the ground one second, next your jumping off walls to land on a zombie's head."
Katelyn just shrugged as she sat down next to me. "How about you, J?" she asked, and I smiled in response. Not once was I attacked, not even by the choking ones, or Smokers or whatever. Why were they called Smokers, anyway? When I think of a smoker I think of Bill, not a zombie with tongues sticking out of its head.
"Kate, I wanna check out your leg," Zoey said, and I tensed up, "it's bleeding again."
"Oh," Katelyn said, clearly surprised. Her leg must of had a lot of stress from jumping, it was bleeding slightly. Kate wiped it with some medical cloth from her bag while Zoey rewrapped it in gauze.
"How about your ankle?" Zoey asked me, taping the end of the bandages with some kind of medical tape. I just remembered Ellis saying it was broken, and took notice of it. It hurt a little, but didn't seem broken anymore. "Shit, it healed fast," Zoey said, looking at it. "Fast," I mouthed back, trying to get the word right. If I spoke, it'd probably sound like a growl or whine, so this was as close as I'd get for now.
After Zoey left me be, I sniffed the air, and noticed something out of the normal scents. Kate smelled... different. I remember Bill smelling like this, and Ellis and Louis somewhat, but it was really strong with Kate. Like... an infected, but at the same time human.
I ignored it however after I couldn't think of a reason why. I looked around at the orange-tinted world one last time before drifting off.