Chapter 7: Family Vacation

Thwunk!

The arrow hit its mark with a satisfying sound. As if there was any doubt that it would.

Merida smirked, making her way through the trees and branches. With a tug, she yanked her arrow out of the trunk, bringing the dead squirrel with it. With another tug, the squirrel came off the end of the arrow, skull shattered, head lolling.

Merida wiped her arrow on her pants and sheathed it back into her quiver. She then pulled out her knife and a plastic shopping bag and squatted at the base of her tree and set to work skinning and gutting her kill.

The DunBrochs had been on the road for nearly a month now. Their plan of survival so far had been to migrate from house to house. To find an abandoned house that had yet to be raided or destroyed and to hunker down inside. The routine was the same. clear out the house of any sickos or corpses. Make sure the door had a working lock. Board up the house, block out the windows and nail shut every door save the front door and the back door for a quick escape. Then, stay in the house, raiding the pantries and store rooms until the food was almost gone. Once they only had a few days worth of food left, they'd leave to find their next retrieve.

They'd managed to find a neighborhood. It hadn't been too far from their home in the woods. They were still near the heart of Ohio. The neighborhood was middle class, pretty well-to-do. Completely abandoned and an absolute gold-mine. All it had were a few sickos here and there, but nothing they couldn't handle between Merida and her Dah'd. They'd been hoping from house to house, clearing out the neighborhood street by street.

The nights were probably the hardest. Elinor would tuck the boys in. Sing them some stupid song that she had used to sing to Merida when she was younger to make them go to sleep. Then the shifts would start in. Merida, Elinor, Furgus. That was the order every night. Whoever was on duty kept watch. Either on the roof of the house or by the front door, they'd keep an eye out for the sickos. The goal was not to pick them off. That would draw too much attention to their hide-out. Besides, they'd stay away so long as the DunBrochs kept quiet. (They'd found out son enough that noises attracted the sickos, pulling them in like dogs working on instincts.) The goal was to make sure they stayed scant. Make sure a group or hoard of them wasn't near by.

Once or twice they'd caught a whole bunch of them on the move together, and they'd had to grab the boys and sneak out the back door. They made it to the other side of the neighborhood, managing to find another house to camp out in before sunrise.

Merida had managed to skin the squirrel and string its hide onto her belt. She'd cut up the meat of tiny critter into squares and piled it into the plastic bag, which she'd also strung along her belt. She'd been preparing to move on when she heard a twig snap.

She froze, senses on high alert as she peeled her eyes for anything moving through the forest. She could smell it before she could hear it. The smell hit her like a brick to the face.

It was ghastly. This sickeningly sweat smell of rotting meat and deteriorating flesh.

The news reports had said that the sickos weren't technically dead. They weren't officially zombies. Merida had said that was bullshit. Because there was no way something that wasn't dead could smell this bad. It was like week-old road kill, only worse. It was like someone had slitted a rats belly, stuffed it full of rotten eggs, covered it in sticky syrup and left it to bake in the sun amidst a compost heap. It was repulsive.

Then she heard it. A shambling mess of limbs being dragged across the grass and leaves and through the brush and trees. That was another thing she didn't get. If they weren't zombies, why the bloody hell did they walk like them? The raspy breathing told her that it was getting closer. Merida's heart beat hitched up a notch.

Very, very quietly, Merida pulled an arrow from her quiver and strung it in her bow. She turned towards the direction the sound and smell was coming from. It wasn't long until it came into view. The sicko. It was pale. Like it'd been drained of its blood. It's skin paper thin and sagging. To Merida, it looked like it used to be a kid. Some teen with bright clothes and earbuds still dangling from its ears.

It was a girl. Must've been around sixteen when she turned. Merida couldn't be sure. It was always hard to tell with these things, with their skin sagging and pealing and rotting. She was someone's daughter at some point. Just like Merida was. She had been someone's sister, best friend, girlfriend. And now she was this. This dead thing that only killed and ate. This dead thing that was missing and arm and half a face, the half-visible jaw working at empty air as it caught on to Merida's scent, its decomposing noes sniffing at the air.

The girl could've only been a year or two younger than Merida. Merida couldn't tell if she'd been bitten or caught the virus early on like most everyone else. It didn't really matter now, anyways. All that mattered was this girl was a sick animal that would kill whenever she got the chance. And Merida knew that if she wasn't careful, she'd end up just like her.

Merida waited, her breath bated until she had a clear shot. And then, the sicko turned, eyes an unnatural, dead blue turning to land on her like some demented spotlight.

Thwunk!

Another bullseye.

"Merida!"

She rolled her eyes and threw the bag of squirrel meat onto the table near the front door of the house they'd "commandeered" before disarming herself. She knew this'd be coming. She swung her bow off of her shoulder and set about to unbuckling her quiver.

"Where on Earth have you been?!" Her mother hollered, storming out of the kitchen to come face to face with her daughter, face livid. Merida didn't see her brothers or Dah'd in the entryway or the connecting living room. She figured they must be somewhere out back, learning to fight with a broadsword, or taking target practice, or something as equally exciting. Her father had always had a hobby of medieval weaponry and fighting. Mum had never quite approved, but it looked like all her nagging had been for not considering how useful skills like those had turned out.

"Out, Mum!" Merida said, as irritated as her mother, putting emphasis on the word "out" to let her know that she didn't have to tell her mother every time she left the bloody house. She wasn't twelve anymore. Merida glanced up from her unbuckling to find eyes that burned into her. She gave a sigh before giving a more suitable answer. "Lookin' fer food."

"We have food," her mother responded, not missing a beat.

"Then lookin' fer some sport!" Merida yelled, her temper spilling over as she slung off her quiver and slammed it down onto the table. She snatched up the squirrel meat and stormed past her mother towards the kitchen. Elinor was less than a step behind her.

"Merida, you've been gone for hours! You cannot leave our sight, do you understand me?"

"Yeh can't cage meh! I am not an animal!" Merida spun around to face her mother, fiery curls flying, the effect only adding to her anger. Elinor was unfazed.

"Well those things out there are." she said, pointing towards the front door. "And they will tear you apart—"

"Yeh think Aye don' know that?!"

"Then why do you go out there? Why do you leave if you know you could be killed?"

"Because Aye can't take it anymore, Mum!" Merida screamed, throwing the bag in her hands in frustration. It flew to explode on the kitchen wall, sending squares of meat all over the tiled kitchen floor. Elinor was stunned into silence, for once giving her daughter a moment's time to speak.

"Yeh keep telling the boys i's a 'vacation.' Yeh keep sayin' 'oh, i's jus' a wee trip.' But i's not!" Merida continued, throwing her hands about, pacing in the tiny kitchen. "All i's been is us! Just us! Aye've no peace, no tyme fer meself. Aye've no freedom!"

Merida put emphasis on the last word, the desperation in her want of it making her voice break.

"Yeh won' let me bee! I can't take being locked up wit yeh anymore! I need to get ou' thear or else Aye'll go mad!"

"Are you willing to pay the price your freedom will cost—?"

"Arghh!"

Elinor had recovered quickly, starting in on her reprimand once more. Merida shoved past her, making her way towards the hallway that would lead to her room, and hopefully an escape. Elinor ignored her daughter protests, following her through the house.

"If you die out there, your father and I—"

"Mum!"

"would be devastated. You to stay where we can protect you—"

Merida spun around in the doorway of the room she'd claimed as hers.

"Aye. Can. Protect. Maiself," she said pointedly, her voice low as she did her best to reign in her anger.

Her mother wasn't convinced.

"What if something happens to you out there?!"

"Then it does!" Merida exploded once more, slamming the palm of her hand against the door frame.

"Then it happens an' Aye'm dead or turned intah a sicko!" she continued before her mother could start up again. "But wha'ever it is, i's better than bein' locked up in wha'ever house we find next! I's better than this! I's better than spendin' any more tyme with you!"

And with that, Merida slammed the door shut in her mother's stunned face.

She clenched her hands, her shoulders shook. She was just so angry. Why wouldn't her mother just listen to her? Why couldn't she leaver her alone for five bloody minutes? Her angry boiled over. A high pitched scream erupted from her as she moved to topple over a bookcase that had been left in the room by whatever sorry sod that had lived there first. Books went flying, pages scattering, stories strewn throughout the room. Merida ran her fingers through her hair, the knots and tangles stopping them before long, leaving her to pull at her hair in frustration as she threw herself on the bed and let out another scream into the pillow.

Elinor listened to her daughter's tantrum form the other side of the door, frozen in a stunned silence by what her daughter had said. She turned around letting her back fall against the door was her knees went weak. She covered her mouth with her hand as tears threatened at the edge of her vision as her daughter's words rang in her ears..

"I's better than spendin' any more tyme with you!"