Chapter Six: Slaughter
Slaughter: the killing of a large number of people or animals in a cruel or violent way.
Day 16
"Come on, come on!" Daze whispered in a strained voice, holding the door open as one by one her latest companions exited the motel room. She looked back into the room, fear striking her as she heard the dead scratching at the door and ramming into it. Pete passed her, Jonah in his arms, and Daisy left herself, quietly closing the door behind her.
Daisy looked around, seeing just a few of the dead scattered along the back street and feeling grateful that they had gathered just at the front of the motel. The dead in the street looked up at Daisy and the family, heads sharply tilting and jaws snapping, rising to amble towards them. Maryanne, Pete and their kids were huddled to the right of Daisy, who looked around in search of some escape from the few dead that had remained in the street.
"Go, through that alley." Daisy urged, pointing towards a thin alley that separated two stores across the street. They began to walk hurriedly across the street, making a wide berth around what remained of the corpse that feebly reached out to grab at them. Daisy brought up the rear with her shovel in hand, looking down at the pitiful dead man with narrowed eyes.
In the quiet of the night, Daisy could hear was the harsh growling that seemed to echo all around them, and even stronger was Daisy's own heartbeat in her chest. There was the tapping of shoes on pavement below their feet, coming to a stop in front of Daisy. The stop was so abrupt, that she ran into the back of Pete who stood in front of her.
"What—why'd you stop? Keep going!" Daisy insisted, rising onto the tip of her toes in an effort to see around Pete who was close to a head and a half taller than herself.
"They're here too!" Maryanne squeaked, terrified and pale faced.
"Fuck." Daisy muttered. Her eyes darted around trying to find some escape. She pushed past Pete and his family, looking around to see that there was indeed a hoard of the dead a few yards ahead of them on the road. Undoubtedly hearing their exchange, the closest dead had turned jerkily around, limping towards their prey. Daisy backtracked, pushing the family back towards the other side of the alley.
They all ran back out of the mouth of the alley, Daisy in front leading them along the sidewalk beside the road, past the crowd of the dead that had gathered there in the short minutes they were off the street. The growls sounded closer and closer, the whimpers of Jonah even closer by Daisy's ear.
There was a squeal and a thud, Daisy heard one of her group fall. Sharp screams sounded from behind her and she looked, seeing Maryanne lying on the ground, the dead already mouth-deep in her sternum.
"Fuck, Maeve, c'mon!" Daisy whispered harshly towards the young girl who was standing still, screaming for her mother. Daisy held her arms back behind her, pushing Pete back, who had Jonah held in his arms.
"Mom, please!" Maeve screamed, voice quickly going hoarse. She dropped to her knees and gripped her hair in her hands. The screams continued, drawing the dead away from her mother, but towards Maeve. She looked at them with tear-stained cheeks and a shocked, hopeless expression on her face.
"Maeve, get the fuck up!" Daisy yelled with a heavy voice, reaching towards her. Maeve just looked back to her with that same hopeless face, mouth twisting as the dead began to bite chunks out of her throat. Blood spilled from her lips and her eyes rolled back in pain, screams becoming louder still and resonating around the alley with the growling rumble of the dead crowd.
"Maeve. Maryanne." Pete mumbled weakly, holding Jonah's crying face against his chest. He looks up towards Daisy and narrows his eyes. "We're not going." He said abruptly.
"Woah, woah! What the fuck? We gotta get outta here, Pete."
"No. You gotta get yourself out of here." Pete said strongly, contrasting greatly against his usual quiet stutter. He walked forward, head tilting towards his teenage daughter's body lying broken and bloody on the pavement below him, the dead above her chewing loudly into tough ligaments and teeth scraping against sharp bone. He placed Jonah on the ground, the little boy holding himself with his arms and crying out loudly for his father.
"Oh, God." Daisy murmured, stepping forward, hand reached out to grab at Jonah. Pete knelt down to caress his daughter's still, bloody face, and the dead leapt towards Pete and Jonah, both crying out in terror. Daisy lunged towards Jonah, who was closer, and she grabbed him underneath his arms, holding him to her chest, hand against the back of his head.
Daisy turned her back on the dying Pete and ran away from the dead crowd, and from Pete who was yelling behind his teeth, likely being torn apart like his wife and daughter before him. Jonah's whimpering became louder.
"Ssh, it's okay, buddy." Daisy muttered lowly in his ear, ducking down the next side street away from the mumblings of the crowd of the dead.
Day 17
They had holed up in the kitchen of a somewhat dank and dingy restaurant, Daisy curled around a shivering little Jonah, huddled under a few scavenged tablecloths for warmth. Her eyes drifted open and she looked around their sleeping place, the stagnant air assaulting her senses after such excitement from the night before. Daisy's arms stretched in the air and she sat up, slightly disturbing a sleeping Jonah who murmured in discomfort.
She looked down at a sleeping Jonah with a smile, the innocence of the kid overpowering the horror that she had felt the night before. Despite her previous immersion into this post-apocalyptic terror of a world, she had not seen anything quite as terrible as the slaughter of Jonah's entire family. First his mother, then his sister and his father were killed in quick succession. His father essentially committing suicide, leaving Jonah, not even five years old, alone and helpless with a stranger. Daisy's smile turned to dust, as such thoughts were likely to do. But that wasn't the whole of it.
"Fuck." Daisy whimpered, she fell backwards onto her back again, hands coming up to smash against her forehead and grip at her hairline, then sliding down to cover her eyes. "Fuck." She whined, fingers sliding open to peek one eye out of the gap. Daisy was looking towards Jonah who, at a closer glance, had a bright, angry red scratch marring his tiny arm.
One of her hands came down from her face and she picked up his frail, thin arm lightly, turning it back and forth with dread in her eyes. He stirred even more, sleepy eyes blinking open. Jonah's face crumpled as he undoubtedly remembered the fate of his family, at least as much as his five-year-old brain could process.
"Hey, Jonesy Bones. Morning!" Daisy said lightly, trying to delay any emotional outbursts. He looked at her confused at her tone, saying nothing. "So, now that we're all awake…we're gonna get outta this dump!" She said, looking around at the dirty kitchen they had slept in.
"That okay with you?" She asked Jonah, who nodded his head slightly. "Great! C'mon." Daisy stood and held her hand out to him, helping him up from the ground and keeping hold.
She led him out by his hand, the trusty shovel in the other, and they exited the front of the restaurant. Looking out the window, Daisy had seen that none of the dead were lingering on the streets. Walking along the sidewalk, Daisy's eyes darted back to Jonah's arm, red and purple scratch standing out against his pale skin. She pursed her lips and trudged on.
"Where're we goin'?" Jonah muttered softly from behind Daisy, she looked at him in surprise.
"Well, buddy…I think we're gonna find ourselves a car…and then, maybe ditch this town, huh? How 'bout it?" Daisy prompted, sighing when she looked back to see him silently nod again.
So, Daisy scanned the streets for anything that resembled a working car, thinking of what her next action might be. She wasn't entirely sure if a scratch from one of those bastards would be fatal to Jonah, but her recent luck dictated that it certainly couldn't be any good.
Day 20
Soon after leaving the restaurant, Jonah had started to become feverish and weak, sweating profusely in the back seat of the pickup she had commandeered. As such, Daisy had thought that she should stop in the next town that they reached, which ended up being the illustrious town of King County, Georgia. Tires screeched as she had searched the town for a hospital, praising some higher power when it had only taken an hour to reach Harrison Memorial.
Now, Daisy was waiting beside Jonah who she had tucked into one of the hospital beds. She had barricaded the door of Jonah's room, weary of the many fresh bodies lined up wrapped in sheets outside of the entrance to the hospital. But now she was just sitting, one hand rustling the packet of a Twinkie that she had found untouched on the reception desk.
Daisy reached over from the chair that she was sitting in and brushed back the hair on Jonah's sweaty forehead. He whimpered and his limbs strained underneath the thin hospital blanket.
"Hey, kid. You're alright." Daisy hushed him gently, eyes growing sad at the looming fate of Jonah. It seemed to her that the scratch of one of the dead did just as much damage as a bite. The scratch on Jonah's was even more inflamed, puffy red and purple bruises dotting his normally pink skin, weeping yellow and pink sores lining the scratch itself. Daisy had wrapped it tightly in a bandage, flustered and upset in her lack of real medical knowledge. But the blood and the pus had oozed out and stained the bandage yellow.
Daisy was at a loss. It looked as though Jonah was sleeping now, but he had been constantly tossing and turning in pain, sluggish in his fever. She looked away in guilt, standing up to throw the Twinkie packet in the trash can in the corner of the room. The slight smile that the fevered Jonah had given her at the offer to split the Twinkie had made her happy in this trying time.
She sat back down in her chair beside his bed, and brought her legs up to wrap her arms around. It was easy for Daisy to forget that she was just twenty-three in this new world. With the five-year old boy that had been thrust into her care slowly dying before her, Daisy felt hundreds of years older than she had not even a month before.
Daisy looked up at Jonah, seeing that he was now looking at her with dazed eyes. She leant in closer, hand coming up to catch his arm that had reached out wildly towards her.
"Mommy?" Jonah whispered hoarsely, Daisy's eyes widening in shock and her face crumpled in sadness.
"Mmm, yeah, Jonah?" She managed.
"Can I hab'a peanu'…sand'ich?" He stuttered.
"Sure, kid." Daisy said softly and flatly, as she tended to do in an effort to suppress strong emotion.
"Bu' firs' cuddles?"
"Fuck." Daisy whispered under her breath, too quiet for Jonah to hear. This was just too much for even her hard heart to bear. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, dropping after a moment. She stood. "Sure, Jonesy."
Daisy slid herself onto the bed beside Jonah, careful of his bandaged arm, and put an arm under his head, cuddling him to her chest. She looked down at him snuggled into her with a tired smile, and closed her eyes. Her heart jumped in her chest and her throat tightened, eyes closing over sudden tears.