Chapter Sixteen

Hiding. Yes, hiding. Hiding is the best strategy. Have to hide. Have to keep hidden. I didn't hide from that first one, no… no I didn't. I should have.

It wasn't even five minutes from when I set foot out of my house that I found my first infected, and he was just as ready to kill me as I was afraid the infected would still be. Man, can they run like hell, too. I hesitated for only a small moment, before firing at him. My aim wasn't as fantastic as it had been the other day; I merely got him in the shoulder. The infected man wasn't fazed at all by it. His arm merely started flapping in the breeze as he continued to run at me like meat hanging on a hook. I stammered for a moment. I suppose my naivety assumed this was a video game, and every infected would go down in a shot. I fired again at him. This one pierced his gut. Blood immediately came gushing out, and the man realized he was done for (assuming any infected other than I have any bit of self-awareness to speak of). He looked down at his fatal wound and stumbled to the ground, before bleeding to death. I had no time to pause at the kill. I knew this. I still know this. There could be another one coming. No, there certainly is another one coming. Find a hiding spot. Find cover. Gain the upper hand before the fight even begins. That's what I have to do.

So that's why I'm hiding now, crouched behind a red pick-up truck, one of those trucks so ridiculously large you wonder why anyone living in a city would need one. It's parked in a driveway just two houses away from Herr Lane. These once-busier roads are the tricky parts, here. From my house to Warwick Park I have to cross two streets undoubtedly flooded with vehicles, and therefore flooded with infected: Herr Lane and Westport Road. The rest of the way there is through subdivisions and apartment complexes, where the infected are sparser and the places to hide more frequent.

I peek out from around the truck. I spy four, maybe five infected at least. No good. Way too many. I've shot twice thus far, and each of these magazines holds twenty bullets. Three bullets to each infected sounds nice, but more'll come, for sure. If I get caught needing to reload with infected on my ass, I'm screwed. I can't do that quickly with these goofed up hands. Besides, it's not worth it if I can get away without a fight elsewhere. This street's too close to the elementary school. It's probably jam-packed with people that were trying to get their kids out of school. I'll go a few blocks south, yeah. That should work. I peek out again. I should be too far away from them to notice. I can see them fine, though. I'm not taking any chances. After all, my eyesight stayed relatively the same (ignoring creepy night vision), so why shouldn't there's? I creep away from the main road a few houses further for good measure before sneaking into a yard to cross over to the next block.

There's an infected girl in a backyard I sneak into. Alerted to my presence, she makes a strange animal-like yelp and comes at me. I'm losing it, I didn't even notice her until I was in the yard. I fire a round, and it buries into her neck. Her head quickly loses its attachment to the rest of her body after that and plops onto the ground next to me. I back away out of reflex. "That's so fucking gross…" I whisper. Then I remember – no time to reflect, I have to act. I have to move. Someone will have heard that gunshot. They'll come to this position, so I need to be elsewhere. Quickly. I run to the front yard. Another infected. He loses both his arms to my rifle, and falls. I perform a quick scan of the area. I don't see any others. Thank goodness. Have to keep moving.

Two more blocks and I'm at the long driveway to the nursing home. Herr Lane looks relatively clear of infected from here. I can spot two. There are only two cars in sight. If I make a mad dash for the subdivision on the opposite side of the road I should be able to get away with fighting only a few infected before I can find a place to lose whoever's left. Yeah… yeah, okay. I'm ready I can do this.

Before I take a step to begin a sprint towards the road, I notice by my feet a metal toolbox. I was about to trip over the damn thing. What on earth is this doing here? I notice my current place of cover is one of those large boxes that house all the brakers and switches or whatever they're called that provide electricity for large buildings. At my feet is a sprawled assortment of tools spilled from the toolbox, along with the corpse of an uninfected man in a uniform for the electric company. I guess he was about to fix something here when the infection hit.

An idea springs to my mind. Why fight infected when I can distract them? Using my free hand, I grab the toolbox and, with all my strength, heave it far away from my intended path across the street. Grabbing my gun again I begin my dash. Either I'm a genius or a fool. I'll find out in a couple seconds.

Those seconds pass, and the toolbox crashes to the ground in a loud clang of metal. The infected hear it (kinda hard not to) and divert all their attention to the cacophony. I, on the other hand, am already on the other side of the street.

I glance back for a split-second. Two are after me. Shit, shit, shit. No... wait. Don't shoot them yet. Get farther into the subdivision. Away from the main road. I keep running. I can hear them behind me. Did they gain a number? I can't tell. No time to look. Need to find a place… find a place to trap them… where…? Yes! Here we go! I run in between two brick houses, where an alley of grass and weeds no more than two meters wide creates the perfect opportunity for me to funnel them together.

In position, I swivel around. 15 bullets left before reloading. More than enough to get the job done. The first one arrives. A woman in business attire with hands caked in dried blood. She gets two shots in her. The second immediately follows, an old man without a shirt on. He gets a bullet to his belly, opening it up for all his infected entrails to spill out. My senses were right. A third had joined them. I didn't even take the time to remember what this one looked like before firing three bullets into them.

Okay… okay… I did this. I did this! Can't stop, though. Can't stop. Have to find a safe place to hide, have to-

I turn around to scurry into the backyards and a young infected man is directly in front of me.

I scream.

How did he get…

His arm is already lifted, to swing at me. In reflex, I put my rifle in front of me to block the attack. His fist connects with the gun and easily knocks it out of my loose grip. I stumble for a just a moment. He's already got the next attack ready. I can see it all. Time is slowing, in the moment. He is covered in dirt and blood. His clothes are torn. His eyes are glowing with an unending amount of rage flowing from their sockets. This is no longer a person. This is no longer even the remnants of what was once a person. This is nothing but a construct, a tool of anger. Anger directed at me… at me… he's going to… at me, kill… me…

I spear him. I don't know if it was from a thought, or an instinct, or what, but I drove my hand straight through his torso. There was no resistance. It was like piercing a tissue, or a bubble. He's dead. Before I can even realize what I've done, he's dead. Leaning over me, nearly sliced in two, the dead creature's blood is flowing out to stain me in red.

Then, I come to my senses. My hand is still in his body. With a fearful shriek, I tear it out from him and scurry away before the body falls onto me. My breathing is jagged and erratic. "I just… I just… his blood on… I… didn't…" I can't form words; my mind is blank, overloaded. I look at my hands. They are soaked with fresh blood, still running down my arms and body. I tear them away from my sight. I can't look at this! Inside… I need to be inside! I grab my rifle and tear towards the nearest house.

The house is devoid of any shambling infected, or even any old corpses. As soon as I'm sure I've lost anything left of the horde outside, I fall to my knees and catch my breath. I can feel my heart threatening to burst from my chest. I sit in a hallway. An open closet reveals a stack of towels. Without thinking, I reach in and tear them from their shelves and scour the blood off my hands and arms. My mind is still a blank thing, operating on its own. I need all of this gone, I can think later. I barely even notice myself cutting my arms in various places in my attempt to get all the greasy red liquid off of me.

Ten minutes later, and I've calmed down… sort of. Why didn't I notice he was there, behind me? I sigh, heavily. I stand up, and get my things ready to continue on towards my current destination. I don't get to rest. Not yet. Not for some time. Before exiting the building, I murmur in the dank darkness of the house "It's because you left me, isn't it?"