Radiation Point

Eighteen

The woods had a calming effect on me. It wasn't that I forgot about Mia, but being surrounded by nature I felt slightly more normal; grounded.
I glanced sideways at Tyler and examined him. He looked strong and masculine, light stubble outlining his neatly trimmed beard. Huh. Neatly trimmed? I was tempted to ask him just how he managed that, but the hard look in his eyes stopped me. He was all business, barely even glancing at me.
Tyler brought along two of his men. One of them was a scrawny older man, his gray hair cropped short. His angular face was set in a constant scowl, his eyes cruelly taking in the sights of the forests. I still shivered remembering when Tyler introduced us earlier that day.

He had been standing just outside the doors of the camp, busy carving a piece of wood with a sharp metal knife. He didn't say anything when we approached, simply chewed tobacco with a slow meticulous pace.
"Bubba, this is Nessa. We're going on a run for antibiotics. You in?"
Bubba looked up then, his cruel eyes hardly skimming by me as he turned to Tyler.
"I'm a little busy here."
I glanced around at the empty field outside the door, the rickety metal fence his only company. I wrinkled my nose in confusion, but stayed quiet.
Bubba made a show of spitting his chewing tobacco directly in front of my boots, and gave me a grim smile. "It's called guard duty, little mama. Us men around here work."
I was caught off guard by his hard tone. I hadn't expected the renegades to be kind-history had proven they were anything but-yet I wasn't prepared for the look of outright hatred he gave me as he spat out his words.
Tyler stood up straight and stepped closer to Bubba-the-jerk. "I didn't take you for the type to call standing around real work."
Bubba flicked his eyes back to Tyler, a smirk forming on his face.
"'ey, I was just following orders, boss." He put up his hand to shove Tyler playfully, but Tyler caught his hand in a tight grip.
"I'm not your boss for nothing, Bubba. Don't forget that."
"Easy there, tiger. Easy. I'm coming with you and your hussy over there. Just let me get someone to watch the door."
Then without another word, he slunk inside the camp leaving me shuttering at the thought of him.

It was because of that short encounter that I had dreaded coming out to the woods with him, wondering why Tyler wanted to bring him. Bubba-the-jerk didn't seem like much of an asset to have on a run, but I'd agreed to follow Tyler's rules, and that included his choice of men.
Bubba hadn't said another word to me since. In fact, he barely spoke to Tyler or Jackson, the other renegade. He kept his cruel eyes trained on the woods around us, a dagger in each hand and a gun peeking out of his holster.
Without thinking, I scooted closer to Tyler, my eyes scanning the forest. Tyler looked down at me with a smirk. "You all right there, Nessa?"
I looked down at our arms touching, and quickly pulled it away. "What? Oh, yeah. Fine." I felt my face burn hot, and with exaggerated fascination trained my eyes on the woods. Tyler chuckled, but didn't say anything else.
The sound of Jackson's whistle stopped us abruptly. Jackson was leaning against a tree, his eyes trained on something in the distance. He looked like a warrior, with his broad shoulders, musclar black arms, and the fierce expression on his face. Without a word, he motioned for Tyler to join him.
Tyler sprang into action, looking surprising spry. He lifted his bow without a word and loosed his arrow with a loud thawpt. Silence answered first, followed by a small thud in the distance. I watched as Jackson seemed to shrink back into himself once the threat was gone. His brown eyes caught my gaze and he nodded at me, not exactly kindly, but not hateful as Bubba had been. I took that as a good sign.
Tyler darted into the thicket of trees, and I started to follow after him when Jackson put a hand on my arm. "Wait here," he said, following Tyler with his eyes. I watched in fascination as Tyler pulled his arrow out of the skull of a contaminated that was at least thirty yards away. He wiped the arrow on the side of his pants, then slid it back into its quiver.
He sprinted back to us and nodded, "We're all clear."

His men nodded their understanding, and without prompt, moved forward in the forest. I followed behind, giving them a wide girth in front of me. With critical eyes, I examined the three men. They worked together like a well oiled machine. Bubba and Jackson each took a side, scouting for any threat. Tyler took the center position, moving with a quiet confidence. And then it was strange, for the first time since I lost my parents I felt safe.
The thought hit me like a ton of bricks. How could I feel safe with the people who had killed my parents? But then, I didn't know if it was them specifically. I hadn't actually seen which renegades had done it. I only knew it was the renegades at all because of the message from their leader, "And so the lambs go willingly to the slaughter."

It was with those words the mayhem had erupted that day. My dad lay shot and the doors were opened to the horde of contaminated. The deafening sound of guns firing had assaulted my ears, but the horde was ever growing, clawing into the sleeping area.
I could see it as clearly as if they were in front of me, the rotting, fleshy masses of what used to be people. The horror of watching them sink their teeth into the nearest bodies. Watching as my dad's corpse was surrounded by the horde-and swallowed from my sight.
And my mom, with Mia pressed to her side, reaching for me, literally trying to pull me from the mayhem with her will alone. And it worked-for a while. I made it to my mom's side and we pushed our way to the back of the room, moving through the crowds of screaming, panicked people. The brick walls that had once seemed so comforting, suddenly felt suffocating. We were backed into the wall like cornered animals.

The screams of the people as they were eaten alive. Shot after shot being fired, but knowing it wasn't enough. And finally, my mom's voice when she said that we couldn't wait around to be killed. We had to run.

I found my self gasping at the memory-the sheer terror we had felt. I grasped the nearest tree, using the feel of the rough bark to remind myself that it was over. That the groaning monsters weren't there anymore-it was only a memory.
I could feel myself shaking, grasping the tree for support. A flash of amber at the base of the tree caught my eye, distracting my nervous mind from the memories.
It was a pile of amber tree sap, the same kind I'd seen other times in the woods. This sap wasn't dripping from the tree, though, it was heaped in a rounded pile at the root of the tree.
A strange drumming seemed to be coming from the sap, drawing me closer to it. The closer I got, the more my wound throbbed, matching the rhythm of the sap. The drumming sounded so familiar-so eerily familiar.
A gasp was wrenched from my lips when I realized why.
The drumming sounded like the thumping of a heart.
As if in response to my gasp, the sap loosed more drumming.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
Thump, thump.
My head snapped up as terror seized me. Could it really be alive? Or was I just going crazy?
I glanced around wildly for Tyler and his men. If they heard the thumping, than I wasn't going crazy. But they were farther up the path, not having noticed that I stopped to catch my breath.
Just when I opened my mouth to call them, a change in the thumping stopped me. The sap was wildly thumping as if in fear. I stared at it in shock, my mouth agape.
It was in that moment that I was grabbed.