It was dark when I woke up, and I was sure that when I'd gone to sleep it was still quite early in the afternoon. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and looked to the bedroom door, which was open. I couldn't remember if I'd closed it or not, so I didn't think much of it. I left the room and bumped into Hunter in the hallway.
"Why didn't you wake me?" I yawned and stretched my arms out.
"Cyrus told me that you said you want more sleep. I was just going to wake you up now," he said. I shrugged my shoulders and we walked down the stairs together. Cyrus was waiting at the bottom, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.
"Come on then, time to get moving." Cyrus linked his arm with mine. I didn't whether or not to pull away, but he looked so cheerful that I just couldn't. Hunter looked left out so I hooked my arm with his and all three of us left the house and continued walking down street, joined together.
I'd thought it had been cold during the day, but at night it was positively freezing. I felt most sorry for Cyrus, who had a short sleeved t-shirt on whereas Hunter and I both had jackets. I knew that the jacket I was wearing belonged to him, it was way too big for me and Hunter, and I had to assume that they didn't take it from someone else. I wondered about giving it to him, but then I would have been cold, so I didn't.
Cyrus stood rather close to me, while Hunter kept his distance, like usual. It was strange how quickly I was growing fond of them, but I suppose the alternative would have been being terrified of them. We had unlinked arms by then, and I noticed that Hunter kept glancing over at me and Cyrus.
"Hunter, are you okay?" I asked softly. He seemed caught off guard by my question.
"Sure, what makes you think I'm not?" he gabbled. I smiled, and so did he, nervously.
"Do you two sleep?" I changed the subject.
"Yeah, we both had a couple of hours when you were sleeping," Cyrus said and stretched one of his arms out.
"What about dreaming? I had a really weird dream, I was swimming around in coffee and I was being chased by a shark made of tinfoil. In order to kill it I had to get a tub of boiling hot custard from the bottom of the cup and tip it over the shark, but then it suddenly turned into my ex-boyfriend Noah. So I poured more custard over him." I gestured enthusiastically. Cyrus looked at me weirdly, but Hunter laughed.
"Your ex, huh? What was he like?" Cyrus asked, raising an eyebrow.
"He was alright at first, with a few little quirks. Like he wanted me to text him every hour so he could know I was okay. Then I realised that he was trying to control my life, and I wouldn't play along with him so he broke up with me and stole my cat," I said. Hunter snorted with laughter, and then looked to me, smiling when I did.
"Any others?" Cyrus inquired casually.
"No, not really." I sighed. I heard my name being called, and I only saw who it was when they suddenly threw their arms around my neck.
"Rose, it really is you," Noah said, and stroked my hair. I mouthed the word "help" to Cyrus, who pulled Noah away from me.
"And what do you want, Noah?" Cyrus smirked at the look of confusion on Noah's face.
"I came here for my girlfriend. To rescue her. Oh Rose, I was worried you'd be infected when I found you, but you're not. You're still just as beautiful." Noah caressed my face. I swatted his hand away but he just smiled fondly at me.
"I don't need rescuing," I said, "wait, how did you find me?"
Noah held up his phone, on the screen was a map and he pointed to the red blip and said, "The tracking device, of course."
"Okay psycho, you be on your way now, she doesn't want you around." Cyrus took the phone out of his hands.
"Why don't you mind your business and run along now, huh zombie?" Noah put his hands on his hips. Cyrus crushed the phone in his hand and dropped it on the floor.
"I'm not a zombie." Cyrus clenched his fists.
"Well you're not human, are you?" Noah stepped closer.
"Guys, stop it." I tried to interrupt, but they ignored me. Noah reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol. I was surprised when Hunter pounced onto Noah, pinning him to the ground and knocking the gun out of his hand.
"Get off me!" Noah yelled. I could hear another yelling as well. Hunter hauled Noah off the floor and pushed him further into the road, right into the path of an infected that charged into him and carried him away. It crashed into the first building in its way and smashed Noah against the wall. Hunter and Cyrus both grabbed one of my hands and we ran. I looked over my shoulder to see that Noah was still being slammed into the wall, so much that there was a large dent in it.
"What was that?" I asked, panting once we'd stopped running.
"A Charger. I heard it yelling, and we had to get rid of him," Hunter said.
"I don't normally say this, but thanks Hunter. You actually saved me." Cyrus clapped Hunter on the back. Hunter smiled, and then they turned to me and paused.
"Thank you, both of you. I really didn't think he'd just appear like that. I don't even know how he managed to place a tracking device on me." I forced a smile on my face and trying to hide the fact that I was shaking from how scared I was during that.
"You're welcome. You've got a rubbish taste in guys, if you don't mind me saying," Cyrus said.
"Are you calling yourself rubbish?" I joked. Cyrus laughed, and Hunter looked up at him, somewhat jealous.
This chapter would've been out sooner, but I had two exams during the week, and I was getting my hunter cosplay ready for a convention I'm going to Saturday.
I hope you like it, and tell me what you think of it.