Damage & Decay

Chapter 38

Part Three: Lost Girls

"Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only one second without hope."

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Eren had no idea how long they ran. A mile, maybe two. His legs felt like lead and his chest burned, but he held onto Nix's hand on every jump and never once let her fall. With every step, his heart lifted with the knowledge that Nix was alive and safe. And then it fell as he thought of Armin.

"Look!" Nix said, pulling him to a stop on the roof of a Chevy Suburban. She pointed to a path that wound like a snake and vanished into the tall grass. "It's empty."

She was right. The last of the zoms were hundreds of yards behind them. In their panic they'd far outrun the immediate threat.

"What about Charlie?" Eren stood on his toes and looked back the way they'd come, but the bounty hunters were nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know," she said. "But let's get off these cars."

They jumped down to the ground and froze there for a moment, checking forward and backward for any sign of movement or for zombies standing still, whose appetites would be triggered by their own movement. They saw nothing but empty cars, carrion birds, the waving grass, and the bones of a thousand dead people.

Eren dragged a forearm across his eyes, although he didn't know if he was wiping away sweat or tears.

"Let's go," he whispered. "Move slowly. Follow me, do what I do, move when I move, stop when I stop."

They were Armin's words on his lips, and it hurt him to say them, but he knew that he had to draw on everything his brother had showed him if he and Nix were going to survive.

Together, still holding hands, they moved slowly from the shelter of the endless line of cars. Eren waiting for the wind to stir the grass and tall stalks of wild wheat, and when they bent to the left, he moved that way. When the wind stopped, so did he. When the grasses stood back up again, he moved to the right. Stop and start, taking his time. Doing it right. It took them five minutes t move from the highway to the path and they were inside the tall grass. The shadows of early twilight cast the trail in shades of purple, and in that velvet gloom Eren and Nix vanished entirely.

They lost track of how long or how far they ran. Eren took every upward sloping road, remembering what Armin said about there being fewer zombies in the high mountain passes. They passed burned-out houses and houses where zombies stood in the yard, but when Nix and Eren saw them, they slipped into the deepest foliage and moved without a sound. Terror made them cautious, and with each encounter, they refined the skills of not being seen and not being hunted.

By the time the last of the day's light was melting into shadows, Eren realized that it had been more than an hour since the last time they'd see a zom.

"How did you get away from them?" he asked Nix.

"I kicked one of the other bounty hunters in the groin and ran."

Eren grinned at her. "You are one tough chick."

"Call me a chick again and I'll show you how tough I am." It was meant as a joke, but it was weak. Even so, Eren gave her a big grin, and they headed higher up the mountain slope.

Then Nix grabbed his arm and pointed to something. Eren looked up. Just ahead was a building on stilts that rose a hundred feet above a steep rocky slope. Sunlight still touched its eaves. They raced to the foot of the ladder.

"Can  you climb?" he asked. Nix didn't have the breath to answer, but she nodded and they grabbed the rusted rungs and began to ascend. After the long uphill run it was torture to scale the ladder. Their muscles burned and their limbs trembled, but they never stopped, never faltered.