Chapter 13 "Fingers"

Day 31

It had been a week since the group found Nashville burned to cinders, walkers riddling the streets. The group had been on the road a lot, trying to find a permanent, steady shelter. So far, they had found very little, other than some supplies and a ton of walkers. They had found many new, great weapons, and even an old map that came in very useful. After inspecting it many times, Patricia discovered that they weren't far from a national park in Missouri, the Mark Twain National Forest. There were many residences there, and it was a pretty open area where things could be pretty easily managed, very similar to Hershel's farm. Getting there was proving to be quite difficult, however, as they constantly kept reading the map wrong, or the paths would be blocked off by massive pile ups of cars or crashes of trains or tankers, or bridges would be out and they would have to take a detour.

Today, they were in a small town in south-eastern Missouri called Hayti. They were set up in a barn that they had set tents u around and used the RVs as a barricade. However, one of the RVs was currently gone, as a few members were on a run. Robert, Xavier, Seth, Maggie, and Otis had went out to scavenge for food and supplies when they stumbled upon an armory in a police department that had been untouched. In it was an armada of weapons: nightsticks, bats, an array of guns and ammunition, bullet-proof vests, pepper spray, whistles, and a few riot shields, but for some reason all of the riot gear was gone. Xavier assumed that the people who worked here took it out, responding to a mass emergency and not knowing they were walking into a party of reanimated corpses.

Beth had noticed how strong those around her were, or were becoming, and she didn't want to fall behind, or to be a liability, and she knew she could. She asked to be trained with the new weapons so that she would become less of a liability to the group, and no one was going to argue with her. Having more capable people is not a thing to be upset about.

Seth, Xavier, and Sierra handled weapons training, transporting the group of learners to the abandoned police department to practice on dummies and use the firing range. Robert, Lyrik, Patricia, Beth, and Amanda were the trainees. Robert had gotten pretty good at shooting and using his machete, but he wasn't going to miss any opportunities to get better. Amanda was a pretty good shot, but she never really had many chances to use any weapons, and she didn't want to lose what little skill she had. Lyrik, Patricia, and Beth, however, had hardly even held a weapon, let alone used it.

"Wait, so, where do I look?" Lyrik asked Seth who was helping her shoot. To her left, Robert was firing off shots, getting a few headshots. He had improved greatly since he first started. Amanda was on Lyrik's right side, struggling nearly as much as Lyrik was. She used to be better, but that was when she was about ten and her dad would take her out to the woods to shoot at squirrels.

"Where you plan to shoot, duh," Seth said to her.

"Oh my god, no, but like, how do I aim? Like, where do I look?"

"Okay, well, focus on the gun. The 'proper' way to do it is to look at the gun and not what you're aiming at. That little notch in the middle indicates any aim shift."

"Aim shift?"

"Uh, it's like, if the notch is higher than the two there, that means the bullet goes higher. If it's a bit to the left, the bullet shoots a bit to the left. See, with this one, the notch is a bit above them when you look at it like this. So, aim slightly lower than what you're trying to hit."

"Okay," Lyrik said, taking aim. She put her finger around the trigger and shot, a loud bang firing through the room. She jumped back, not expecting the gun to fire so easily, as the bullet went straight through the cut-out's shoulder. Realizing what she had done, she jumped up and down giddily. She grabbed Seth's hands and continued bouncing, happily yelling "I did it! I did it, I did it, I did it!"

Seth smiled at her, amused by her childishness. "Did you aim for the shoulder?" he asked.

"No," she said, still smiling. "But I hit it!"

Seth half-frowned at her. "Lyrik," he said, sighing. "Good job hitting it, but that's not something to celebrate about just yet. If you were trying to defend yourself against a walker and you got it in the neck, would you be celebrating about that like you just did? Just that you hit it."

Lyrik gave him a dirty look, feeling robbed of her joy. "Excuse me, sir, but that's not what's going on right now. Of course I wouldn't celebrate like that out there. But we're in a nice, safe place in this moment, and I'm happy that I'm making progress in shooting. Jesus," she said, rolling her eyes. She put her gun back up before Seth could reply and shot, hitting the cut-out right in the left eye. She looked back to Seth sassily, her face telling him to suck it. He half-smiled at her, embarrassed and blushing, feeling like a total jerk.

Xavier was currently helping Patricia and Beth with hitting walkers with knives and other melee weapons. Sierra was taking a break in the corner of the room cleaning her too-large machine gun. They were in a room that looked like a training room for a martial arts room, large dummies spaced evenly apart from one another.

"I know you girls know how to cook," he said, "but that's not what these knives are for. This is much different. Ideally, you're going to want your blades - or any sharp weapons, I guess - to be as sharp as you can get them. Any chance you get, sharpen them. Keep them clean, too, just in case you need to use them for something else that they'd need to be sanitary for, such as cutting food, or killing an animal to eat. You don't want to waste food by slicing walker guts into it like that, do you? Anyways, sorry. Show me what you've got."

"What a monologue," Sierra said as Patricia and Beth ungracefully began weaving through the dummies, attacking them like children playing with toy swords.

Xavier shook his head, appearing frustrated, but actually struggling to keep from laughing. "Stop!" he yelled, startling the two. Slightly startled, Beth tripped and fell forward, dropping her knife. The knife, sharp as a butcher's cleaver, fell to the floor and cut off the pinky and ring finger on her left hand at the knuckles. She screamed in pain and confusion, not understanding what had just happened, blood gushing all over her as she instinctively clutched it, staining her dull yellow shirt, squirting onto her neck and chin.

Everyone in the room audibly gasped as they realized what was happening. Patricia ran to her and grabbed Beth's hand. "Xavier," she yelled, ripping off a large part of her dress and wrapping it onto Beth's hand, "get over here and put pressure on this! Sierra, help me find something to get these fingers into." She handed the hand off to Xavier and grabbed up the fingers, running to the door where her bag was. In it was a little bit of alcohol. She looked back and said shakily, "It'll be okay, Beth, you just hold tight."

Sierra had ran out of the room and to the firing range. "Seth! Get everyone out here and help me find something cold! Ice, cold water, anything! Beth cut off some of her fingers! Hurry!"

Everyone quickly holstered their guns and threw their loose ammo into the gun bag by the door. They searched the department, looking for a working tap or a fridge. They had spent about three minutes searching before Lyrik had found a fridge, but there was just some rotten lunch in a paper bag with the name James written on it and a few cans of cream soda. After, the group came to the conclusion that there was nothing here they could use and Patricia ordered everyone to get in the RV they had brought to quickly get them back to the group so that she and Hershel could reattach the fingers.

Beth was slouching on her side in the couch, hyperventilating and panicking. "Do you think she'll make it?" Lyrik asked.

"Well, she'll obviously make it," Patricia said condescendingly. "The question is whether or not her fingers will make it. If we had something to keep them cold, so long as we got back to Hershel within twelve hours, we'd be good. But we don't have that luxury, so all we can do is hope."

Xavier was quickly driving along the road through the small town, trying to get back to their camp set up in a barn outside of town. However, they were halted. A large mass of walkers was coming their way, and if they stayed where they were, their RV might be trampled right over. "Does anyone know another way to the barn?" Xavier asked, swinging the RV around sharply.

"I dunno," Seth said, "why? What are you doing, dude?!"

"Well, not to alarm anyone, but there's a huge herd between us and the road to the barn, and it's coming our way. For now, I'd be more worried about the people we left at the camp."

Sierra seemed very anxious, and worriedly said, "That herd could have swept over the barn and either killed them or separated them. If we're lucky, that herd came from another direction."

Robert dumbfoundedly looked to them. "Herd? What's that supposed to mean?"

Xavier half-frowned to Robert. "It's when a bunch of walkers converge. They have, like, a hive mind. They move as one. When one hears a gunshot, all of them follow. It's devastating."

Everyone in the group looked on worriedly and prayed that everything would be okay.

Beth screamed in agony, reminding everyone of the dire situation. Patricia bent on her knees, doing her best to reduce Beth's pain and keep her calm. Amanda looked down at the wet paper towel she was told to hold and unwrapped it slightly to look at the fingers. They were beginning to turn purple, and Amanda held her breath, waiting for Patricia to leave Beth's side, so that Beth wouldn't panic any more than she has.

Sitting next to Xavier in the passenger seat, Robert was trying to direct him with their map. "Turn left down 4th Street! It'll put us on a path to a highway and we can swing back around to the barn."

They kept driving and turned onto the highway that Robert had pointed out, but were met with the herd. It was much larger than they had expected. "Get down!" Xavier said, turning off the RV and ducking into the floorboard.

"What?!" Robert said, following Xavier's lead.

"We don't have a choice," Xavier whispered. "Everyone get your weapons at the ready. Beth, I'm sorry about this. If you have to scream, grab a pillow."

Everyone ducked down low, closing curtains and staying low under windows that it was too late to close. If they were lucky, they hadn't been spotted.

Soon, they could be heard. The moans and bumps of the undead were horrifying. Their groans were awful, and they could be felt falling against the RV or scratching on it occasionally. Some of the survivors inside held their breath, some of them cried, others braced themselves, clutching their knives and guns.

It felt like a year of tense silence, but after about two hours, the noises died down, signalling that the herd had nearly passed. In that silence, Amanda had witnessed the fingers turn darker and begin to smell. When the herd had finally thinned, Amanda signalled Patricia over and subtly showed her the fingers. Patricia looked devastated, and looked to Beth, who had fallen asleep. Patricia shook her head, clarifying that the fingers would not be able to be reattached. She took them and put them on a cabinet across from the couch and went back to keep an eye on Beth. When Xavier was certain that they could move once more, he started up the RV and made a U-turn, headed back into town for the quicker way to the barn.

They arrived to see that the camp was completely untouched, everyone doing their normal business as though everything was fine. Everyone in the RV breathed a collective sigh of relief that the herd had come from another direction. Patricia and Lyrik ran to Hershel, who had just come out of the barn looking very confused, with a drowsy Beth. They laid her down on a hay bale with a sheet over it, Patricia explaining the whole time what had happened. She shoved out her fist, a paper towel in it. Hershel, looking shocked and worried, hesitantly took the paper towel and unrolled it, met with two fingers turning an unnatural color. Beth was thankfully asleep again when he had to say, "There's no way we can reattach these."

"Well, you need to help her no matter what!" Patricia said to Hershel. "Sew her up, clean the wounds as best you can, do anything and everything!"

Hershel nodded, quickly getting to work. Thankfully, Beth was out cold, so she wasn't awake to feel the pain or scream. He worked tirelessly and dutifully with the help of Patricia and Lyrik, with Robert, Sierra, Xavier, Jessie, Maggie, and Amanda watching closely, hoping to learn tips and things about how to handle situations like this.

An hour of tense waiting later and Hershel announced to the group the progress that had been made. "The fingers were sewed up well," Hershel said. "I'm sure she'll make a full recovery. Well, as full as you could expect," he told the group. Of course, anything could happen, he thought to himself. It always seems to, these days.