America in catastrophe

Intro

I've been dead all my life. It's only now that I've finally started living.

The dirt road under my boots is chilled and unforgiving to the gentle footed.

I follow Otis stride down the gravel road towards the gate into the vast cattle fields.

"I've got it shade, I'll be back later." Otis closes the gate between us, forcing me to stop to watch him walk across the field and into the trees, a sinking in my stomach.

Perhaps it was a small victory that he was not taking Hershel back into the woods to look for the dead. Or not...

Taz whines beside me, pawing at the dirt under the gate.

I shake my head, turning away from the fields. Towards the moaner barn. As I thought, Hershel is attempting to handle a moaner into the barn with only Jimmy's help. Beth and Maggie watch from the porch.

Taz growls and barks one sharp bark before prowling towards the barn, it set his fur on end whenever we go near it and if he can, he avoids it.

"Hey." I bark jogging to the door and slamming my shoulder into it, keeping the moaners inside.

"Thank you shade." Hershel smiles after releasing the newest moaner into the barn. This one looked almost like miss Karen Smith, the too nosy neighbor that was always sticking her nose in the Greene's business.

"They're dead. Ain't no changing it." I mutter scowling at the door. Jimmy quickly retreats from the brewing argument.

"They just sick shade. I can help them." Hershel declares sharply.

I open my mouth to spit out the obvious but Hershel is ready. "Enough. I don't want to hear it." And then he storms up to the house. Myself in tow.

Maggie pats my shoulder from over the railing as I pass, Jimmy sits on the worm wood beneath Beth, curled up on the railing. Her sniffling muffled by her pants.

I gently set my hand on her knee. Gently nudging her to look up at me.

"How can you say that about those people shade? What if my daddy found one of your brothers? How would you feel then?" Beth looks right at me, belittling me with her gaze.

Something cold and violent whispers in my chest at the mention of my brothers. I glance over at the barn imagining a life in that old wooden coffin.

"put a bullet through his head and wouldn't shed a tear." I turn back, pushing down the cold.

Beth shakes her head sniffling back the last of her tears. "I'm sorry. I don't want to loose her." Jimmy reaches up, taking her hand.

A gunshot rustles the long grass, quieting even the most restless cricket.

"Was that Otis?" Maggie ponders sitting herself in the rocking chair.

I shrug adjusting my compound. "Don't care. going hunting."

Beth pulls me back, hugging me around the neck. I try not to fight out of her hold. "Be safe."

I nod to then before jogging towards the tree's Taz doesn't move from the steps, watching the field ears alert.

I step back towards him, watching him sink onto his haunches, growling.

"Help!" Someone screams desperately. Taz puts himself in front of me. Jaws dripping saliva.

"Help!" Screams the figure charging across the fields, almost half the size of Otis who lumbers across the field at a much slower pace. The man is carrying something limp, almost dead. There isn't much I can do.

I whistle, backing away from the house, towards the brush. This time Taz follows, leaving our presence forgotten as the man stumbles into the driveway, soaked in blood that is not his own. It's a little boy in his arms, lifelessly dangling from the sheriffs arms, his blood gurgling from a large bullet like wound on his abdomen.

Hershel Step's onto the porch and the two talk for a long moment and then vanish inside.

"Come on Taz." I clench my fingers around my bow handle. "Ain't gonna go getting mixed up in that ugly."

Taz chuffs in agreement and sticks his nose to the dirt, ears up. Loosing himself to instinct.

I pull my hood up over my head, lowering my center of gravity, lightening my stride it's second nature.

It's just us and this forest, and we call it home.