I Start To Run
Today's song is I Start To Run, by White Denim. This chapter is for Michelle, I hope you enjoy it.
Bella followed Jacob deeper into the desert on their dirt bikes as they skirted the stumbling horde of undead. It wasn't hard to determine from what direction they had come as their path was plainly worn into the arid landscape. While they rode, Bella tried to come up with a way to silently cull the horde without attracting too much attention.
After reaching the back of the horde of undead, Bella motioned for Jake to pullover and take off his helmet. "What's up Bells?" He asked after removing his helmet and resting it atop his handlebars.
"They're definitely here from some point to the south. We could follow their trail further back to try to find where they came from for sure but what's the point really?" She asked with a shrug. "The last of us to come up from the south were my family and I and that was quite a while ago. I honestly doubt they would have been able to track us this well, the road winds around a lot on the way here and besides like I said, it's been weeks. Judging from their clothes and the general mismatch I'd say they're a bug out group gone bad and I'd guess someone or somethin' else stirred them up and led them out here which is far more of a worry right now."
Jake nodded his head in agreement and wiped some sweat from his brow with a tattered handkerchief he pulled out of the back pocket of his worn out jeans. "Agreed. So, whadda ya think we should do now that they're here? I mean, it's not like we can just leave them and hope none of us ever stumble across one of them. If they come across the guys when they're workin' in the fields or somethin'- we just can't take the chance."
Bella bit her lip as she gave the matter some thought. "I think we should try to take them out one at a time by going at them from behind," she suggested. "When we get close enough we can just put a bullet through their brains from close range. I can't come up with any better way off the top of my head since we don't really have any better weapons at the moment. The sound is going to suck but I doubt it's going to be any worse than us riding around on these bikes, they're not exactly stealthy," she pointed out.
Jacob frowned unhappy with the direction this plan was apparently headed. "So what, you wanna just start from the back and work our way forward or go in from the sides just shooting and hoping we hit them in the head? Sounds risky," he said with a shake of his head while he once again dabbed at his sweat drenched forehead. "Maybe if we dodge in, pick one off and dive out of the way they'll start to spread apart trying to get to us," he suggested but Bella shook her head in disagreement.
"That's too slow. I agree they need to spread apart but I think we should give them something to chase, that way they split apart more quickly and we can just pluck them off one at a time."
Jacob narrowed his dark eyes and pursed his lips unhappily. "Bells, I'm really not liking this plan," he admitted, "especially since I know you're going to want to be the one with the gun."
Bella chuckled, startling the large man. "Are you nuts?" She laughed as she pulled her helmet back on and flipped up the visor so he could hear her. "I'm way too likely to fall off of my bike if I'm driving and trying to shoot at the same time. No way. You're going to be the one with the gun. I'm going to be the bait." She flipped her visor back down without waiting for a response.
"Oh goo-wait what?" Jacob sputtered as he watched Bella rev the engine of her bike before kicking off and heading for the back of the horde. "Oh shit," he swore as he too pulled on his helmet and sped off after the zeds, "that bitch is gonna get her ass literally chewed off," he muttered darkly to himself as he followed Bella's trail.
As the pair sped off after their quarry, Bella tried to pay attention to any changes in the group's behavior. She knew that understanding the enemy was incredibly important and she wasn't willing to let this chance to study a group of zeds from relative safety go to waste.
As she came up closer to the horde she observed them come to a near halt as a collective group before turning their heads towards her direction in near unison, it was creepy. She knew she was coming in from downwind of the group so they couldn't be using their sense of smell or sight since she wasn't actually in their line of vision which led her to theorize that their sense of hearing was still very much intact although she couldn't rule out any of their other senses just yet.
Slowing her bike, she allowed herself to get almost within an arm's reach of the nearest zed which whipped the horde into a mad frenzy as they began jostling forward to try to get a hand on the fresh meat. Never stopping, Bella began slowly driving away from the mesa and further out into the desert while the line of rabid undead followed her.
From behind, Jacob began to drop one zed after the other by driving as near as he dared before opening fire on his target. His job was made especially difficult by driving over such rugged terrain while trying to aim and at the same time avoid hitting Bella with any stray bullets.
Bella continued her wild goose chase through the desert focused on the terrain and location of the zeds behind her but not much else. It wasn't until her bike gave a sputtering gasp that she realized she was nearly out of gas. Panicking slightly she turned her head and began wildly searching around for the mesa only to discover that it had faded into the distance.
Although they were strung out over a large distance, she was still being trailed by a number of zeds and Jake was nowhere to be found. Apparently her plan to spread out the zeds had worked a little too well and now she found herself in a precarious situation.
Holding the handlebars steady she reached out and brought the small CB receiver up to her mouth and fought to remain calm as she depressed the small black button. "Little Swan to Wolf, do you read me Wolf? Over."
Her call was met only by silence so she tried again before giving up on Jacob and decided to give calling the pueblo a call. "Mayday. Little Swan to Mother Ship do you read me? Over." Once again she was met only by static. She tried making contact three more times with no success before she gave up and slammed the receiver back down. Either something was disrupting her signal or her radio was broken either way she was effectively on her own for the time being.
Knowing she would never be able to make it back to the mesa on an empty tank, she began scanning the area around her for somewhere to make a stand. Switching gears she sped off as quickly as she was able toward an outcropping of rocks. Her only hope was to put as much distance between herself and the zeds as she was able so that she could prepare for their assault. She hoped she would be able to lose them entirely but more realistically she hoped to be able to hold them off until Jacob found her.
She was almost to the outcropping when her bike gave one last push before it died entirely. As it rolled to a stop she swore loudly and hopped off before letting it crash to the desert floor. Dragging it along with her would only slow her down. Making sure she hadn't dropped anything she set off on foot running as fast as she was able toward the spot in the distance.
Without the dirt bike she realized that what seemed like a short distance was actually much farther than she had originally though. Panting heavily, she made it to the outcropping of rocks just as the first of the zeds came back into view with another few hot on its heels.
Cursing her pathetic running abilities she watched the zed stumble doggedly toward her. Thankfully the theory about them gaining speed was incorrect but they certainly weren't as slow as she had hoped.
"Mother nutter," she swore and threw her head back. "This is not real life I swear, it's not. Was I some kind of psychopathic serial killer in a past life or something 'cause really, this is just unfair," she shouted towards the blue sky overhead. Receiving no answer, she watched the zed's progress for a moment before turning and scrambling up the outcropping.
From up top she might be able to hold them off for at least as long as her ammunition held out but she didn't delude herself into thinking she would last much longer than that. The outcropping wasn't so high that the zeds couldn't get to her and once she was in place there would be almost no chance of escape should they get up there with her. It was a less than ideal position to be in but the barren landscape in her immediate vicinity gave her little choice.
Unwilling to just sit and wait for the fight to begin, Bella began scouring around trying to find anything that could potentially improve her chances of survival but all she came up with was her helmet and a few sizeable rocks. She had fifteen bullets in her magazine but she knew that to take down a zed a perfect headshot was necessary and even though she was good, she wasn't that good especially not with just a handgun.
As the first of the zeds came within firing range Bella held her shot, she didn't want to waste precious ammo unless she was certain she could get a decent shot off. Finally when the zed was about ten feet away from the bottom of the outcropping and Bella could hear the disgusting rasping noise it made she took aim and squeezed the trigger only for the zed to stumble over a crack in the ground and take the bullet in its shoulder instead which didn't deter it at all.
Taking a deep breath, Bella breathed out steadily before once again taking aim and this time catching the zed right in the forehead, the force of the blow knocking it back slightly before it crumpled bonelessly onto the sand.
Unfortunately, the entire event hadn't given the other zeds any pause as they continued to press on toward their quarry. If anything they appeared more riled up than before as they seemed to be picking up speed. By now there were half a dozen zeds approaching and Bella was really beginning to sweat as there was no sign of Jacob at all.
Taking aim once again, Bella tried to remain calm as over and over again she was forced to use her precious bullets as the zeds pressed relentlessly forward. Even with her intense concentration a good number of her shots missed their intended targets. Most of them made contact with body mass but even well placed shots occasionally didn't destroy the brain completely and she was forced to expend another shot to keep her pursuers down.
In an ideal world she would have been able to hit them once from a distance and again from closer range to be certain they wouldn't be getting back up but her world was far from perfect. As zed number six came within range with number seven not far behind it became apparent just how very not perfect her world really was. Her shot grazed the zed's temple ripping away a good deal of its putrid flesh but when she took aim and squeezed the trigger once again a small clicking sound met her ears.
"Oh my god," she whimpered as the zed continued to move unhindered toward her position. Casting her eyes around Bella took in her weapon choices. She had an empty gun, a motorcycle helmet, and a few rocks all good weapons if she had been dealing with a regular human. Hell if she's been dealing with a normal she'd have been able to bludgeon them to death no problem but she wasn't dealing with humans, not anymore. Instead she was stuck facing off with the undead and getting within such close proximity opened up the very real possibility of being bitten.
"Crap, crap, crap," she muttered to herself as she grabbed the rock at her feet. She was out of options but she'd be damned if she was going down without at least putting up one hell of a fight.
Rather than try to do something stupid like throwing her rock at the zed's head, Bella waited for it to try to climb up to her before leaning over and commencing beating it over the head. Deciding very quickly that the rock was too unwieldy and hard to hold onto as her hands became coated in gore, she dropped her weapon and pulled out the empty gun, at least it had a handle she could hold onto.
Bending back down she began hammering away at the zed's head, trying to smash its temple while avoiding its clawing hands and gnashing teeth. As gore splattered everywhere, Bella wondered, not for the first time, if simply ingesting some of the zombie's infected fluids could turn someone. Wishing she had though to don the helmet she continued to swing mercilessly at the zed until she felt its skull give way with a sickening crack and with one last smack its temple burst open releasing decaying brain matter as the zed dropped to the ground.
Bella had no time to celebrate her victory though as the other zed had managed to reach her while she was occupied and was currently clambering over the remains of its brethren as it began climbing up towards her.
This particular zed was especially disturbing. While all of the others had been adults from various walks of life this one had been a young girl, probably about twelve or thirteen when she was bitten. She wore a t-shirt that looked like it had once been bright, happy neon yellow, and on the front were written the words 'Wild Thing' in big bubbly letters colored in with zebra stripes. Her shoes had either been lost or rotted away some time ago but somehow what was left of her hair was still pulled back in a pair of twin French braids.
Bella blanched in horror as the zed climbed unsteadily towards her, a rasping noise coming out of the gaping hole in the girl's throat. "Christ," Bella whispered as the thing continued to climb closer. "If I survive I swear I'm never going to be able to close my eyes ever again."
Trying her best to keep her desire to simultaneously cry and wet her pants in check, Bella wiped her gun off on her pants before grabbing her discarded helmet and shoving it down on her head. It might impede her vision but she wasn't going to take any unnecessary chances with the whole, ingesting zombie juice thing. As soon as the zed reached the top of the out cropping, Bella squared her shoulders and ran full tilt into it like she had watched football players do on television.
Her plan worked, she knocked the zed back down off of the outcropping but what she hadn't taken into consideration was that the football players she had seen had two things going for them that she didn't. One, they had more ground to continue running forward after colliding with an opponent and two, their opponents usually weren't intent on grabbing onto them and eating them. So even though Bella connected with the zed and sent her flying she soon found herself lying face down in the dirt on the bottom of the outcropping with the zed pinned beneath her.
Scrambling backwards, Bella tried to escape from the dead girl's grasp but it was no use, she was caught fast. In the fall she had lost her gun leaving her with nothing which to defend herself. Surging forward, the zed tried to take a bite out of Bella but she managed to hold the girl's head back with her free arm as the zed's teeth snapped precariously close to her exposed flesh.
Not knowing what else to do, Bella brought her jean clad legs up to try to gain some leverage but still the zed beneath her continued to hang on, her skeletal hands nearly piercing the skin on the trapped woman's arm while its teeth snapped madly, eager to rip the skin from her bones.
With a grunt, Bella used all the strength she had to wretch herself free from the zed's grasp and get her feet back under her but once again she misjudged the amount of force necessary and while she did manage to free herself, she also managed to lose her footing entirely. As she stumbled unsteadily backwards, her absence gave the zed time to sit up and began clambering back to its feet.
Now in a blind panic, the brunette did the only thing she could think of and delivered a swift kick to the dead girl's skull. A satisfying crunch met her ears as the zeds nose exploded in a mess of shattered pieces and seeing no other option Bella began kicking out again and again, delivering blow after punishing blow to the zed's skull.
The zed's brain had long been destroyed when Bella finally came back to her senses and stopped stomping on the wet pile of tattered flesh and hair. Realizing what she had done, she jumped back and skittered away, horrified by the carnage surrounding her. It was one thing to kill a nasty old zombie lady with well anything, but kicking a zombie child's head in was just a whole level of wrong that she didn't even want to dive into.
Stumbling away from the mass of carnage surrounding the outcropping where she had made her stand, Bella finally did what she had wanted to do for some time and after vomiting several times she let herself cry. Wrapping her arms tightly around herself, she cried for the little girl who would never get to grow up, she cried for the people she had heard begging for help and ultimately dying over the radio, she cried for the people who she had lost, and she cried for herself.
There was nothing about this new world that was fair. If there were then children like Jack would not be living in hiding, terrified of the day when they were ripped from their mother's arms and consumed by the undead. If it were fair then people like her wouldn't be forced to defend themselves and the ones they loved from those blood thirsty monsters knowing someday they wouldn't be enough, someday they would lose.
Another heartbroken sob burst free just as Bella saw a new figure stumble into view. Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her ruined shirt, she clambered unsteadily to her feet, ready to defend herself once again.
"Bella?" a familiar voice called as the figure came closer. "Bella is that you?"
"Ed-Edward," she called back, her voice strangled.
At the sound of her voice, the figure began sprinting towards her. "Oh my god Bella," he said as he skidded to a stop in front of her and surveyed the damage surrounding them. "Fuck. Are you alright? You haven't been bitten have you? Bella, answer me," he demanded seriously. "Have you been bitten?"
She shook her head trying to wipe away some of the evidence of her earlier breakdown. "I- I'm okay. I didn't, they didn't get me," she assured him as he grabbed her arms and pushed up her sleeves checking for any sign of bite marks.
"Your neck," he demanded, "let me see your neck."
Wearily she complied as she stared blankly over his shoulder as Emmett's Jeep rolled into view. "How did you find me?" she asked as he continued checking her over.
He glanced up at her, his green eyes connecting with her brown. "It wasn't hard," he dropped his eyes and resumed checking her over, "we just followed the tracks. When we found your bike a ways back we feared the worst but there was no sign of a struggle just a fuck ton of footprints so we followed them and they led us to you."
Rosalie jumped out of the large Jeep as soon as it came to a halt and wasted no time in punching Bella square in the face, shocking Edward into stunned silence and leaving Bella reeling. "That's for scaring the shit out of me you stupid fucking bitch!" she shouted angrily before she began to cry. "You're so fucking stupid Bella!" she sobbed. "Why would you think taking out a horde of zombies on your own was a good fucking idea huh? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Clutching at her face, Bella struggled to make sense of what was happening while Rosalie continued to berate her between sobs. "I said thirty fucking minutes! Do you know how long it's been?" Bella shook her head. "Yeah well me either but it's been hours! Fucking hours Bella! Not thirty goddamn minutes!"
Suddenly Rosalie surged forward once again and although Edward moved to block her, she ducked around him and wrapped her arms tightly around the bewildered Bella. "Don't ever fucking do that to me again," she wailed burying her head in Bella's dirty brown locks.
Unsure of what to do, Bella simply brought one of her arms up around Rosalie's back and began rubbing soothing circles on the other woman's back while still clutching at her quickly swelling eye. She wasn't really sure how to respond to this sort of breakdown but she had seen this sort of response on television so she decided to go with it.
Apparently deciding that the entire situation was spiraling madly out of control, Edward stepped in and began trying to pry Rosalie off of Bella before she strangled the smaller woman to death. "Come on Rosalie let go," he urged using a tone he might on an unstable mental patient, "that's it," he encouraged, "good, good. Now let's get back in the fucking Jeep before any more of these nasty flesh eating freaks find us."
Once she was free of Rosalie's choke hold Bella managed to take a few steps towards the waiting vehicle before her legs gave out entirely and she collapsed heavily back onto the corpse strewn ground. "Oh fuck," Edward swore under his breath, "what now? Goddamn it Bella. Bella!" he shouted trying to get her to focus on him. "Mother fuck, she's in shock. Shit. Rosalie, goddamn it Rosalie!" he snapped as he hoisted Bella up and swung her into his arms. "Quit your bitching and help me out here would you? Bella is in shock."
Sniffling slightly, Rosalie climbed back down from her seat and shuffled over to help Edward get Bella situated in the back of the car before once again climbing back in herself, this time in the back seat with Bella's head cradled in her lap. Meanwhile, Edward hopped in the driver's side and shifted into drive before peeling out and driving quickly back towards their mesa, their small piece of safety high in the New Mexico sky.