Survival

Part 25: Jeordie

"What time is it?" Anna yawned and flicked a strand of long hair from her bright eyes.

"I'd say it would be around eleven." Aris answered blearily, scratching his stubble. It made a loud rasping sound that wasn't all too pleasant to hear.

We were lying together in the corner of the cell, waiting for all hell to break loose. Aris and I were sharing my iPod, playing Children Of Bodom as loudly as possible. I tapped my canvas shoes on the tiles along with the music. They had gone from black to a muddy grey. My stomach growled for the hundredth time that hour.

Max was sitting against the wall with the expression of a starving man. His eyes yearned for something outside the cell, his face drawn against his cheekbones. Max's wrinkled skin looked almost like a drum, stretched thinly over his skull. He wouldn't eat or drink, saying that Katie was more important than he.

I checked my iPod. 10:52PM.

Katie mumbled something from where she had been sleeping in Anna's lap, a bundle of muddy hair and ragged cloth.

"What was that, sweetie?" Anna brushed the little girl's hair away from her petite mouth.

"I want my mummy." Katie said again, sniffling pitifully.

"I know, love. I want mine too." Anna kissed Katie's forehead gently. It came to my attention (and not for the first time) that Anna was one of the sweetest, most selfless souls I had ever come across.

Boy, I hoped she wasn't going to get eaten.

Aluna was standing in front of the door, a bony silhouette. Her once-tight space ranger clothing had gone loose against her bones and her hipbones protruded from her shorts. I could practically count her vertebrae from standing behind her. She, too, refused to eat anything until Katie had her fill.

"There's somebody coming." She breathed.

--

We all gathered around the doorway silently. The approaching figure was human, I was sure of it.

"Indiana!" Aluna breathed and began waving to draw the person's attention.

It was a teenage guy, short and lanky. He reminded me of Tate from American Horror Story.

"Hey Lune. Where could I find a key?" Indiana asked.

"The guards kept one in that chest out there. It's locked too, but you could probably kick the lock off. It's rusted." Max said in an odd voice.

Indiana stomped on the lock of the chest once, twice, three times. On the fifth stomp it snapped off, taking a chunk of wood clean with it. Changed began filling the street, drawn by the racket of Indiana's incessant kicking. He fumbled with the lid of the chest and took a key from a hook inside. The Changed were getting closer.

Indiana put the key into the lock, hands trembling slightly. It took him a few goes to get it right, but the key turned soundlessly. I pulled the bolt out of its place in the wall and swung the door open. In a quiet rush my fellow inmates and I ran from the cell and gathered our belongings from the chest. It felt good to have cold hard weapons in my hands and weighing my belt down.

"We gotta find a way out." Indiana said.

"The gate isn't good enough?" Aris asked sarcastically. Humour in the face of death.

"The gate is shut."

"Fair enough." Aris didn't seem so amused anymore.

We wasted no time gunning down the closest Changed coming down the street, but it was like a never ending flow. Siobhan led the way through the lanes, taking us to the gate to check that nobody had opened it yet. Gunfire rang out around the streets like claps of thunder. I saw a few people around me drop, screaming, but I refused to look. I denied that any of them could have been anyone in my group. So I kept running. A weak and exhausted Katie leapt into Aris's arms. He kept running without faltering in his stride. I shot down a Changed running at me and kicked another from my side. The area around the gate was mayhem, a seething mass of humans and Changed killing and being killed. My stomach turned.

"There's a hole in the wall over here. We could probably kick it down." Aris said.

"Let's try."

We ran to that part of the wall. The hole was more like a small rip, a tear in the metal. With enough force it would widen. Aluna stood at our backs and shot the Changed approaching, being too thin and light to make any real contribution. I heard her clicking a lighter. Aris handed Katie to someone off to the side.

"Three... Two... One!" Aris yelled. I jumped and drove the bottoms of my boots into the wall in almost perfect sync with the people around me. I was still too afraid to look up and see who had been taken. It took another two kicks before we widened the hole in the wall. On the last kick I went straight through the metal, cutting all the way up my thigh on the ripped steel. I held in a howl of pain. Aluna threw the lighter and I heard a large bang and a blast of heat singed my back. Gingerly I limped through the forest, hearing the others follow me. Aris wrapped his arm under my armpits.

"Hold that shut.The blood's gonna attract them no matter what we do but we don't want you dying in the meantime." He supported almost all of my weight with one arm.

Aluna ran ahead, stretching out gracefully like a deer in flight.

I heard a crack from inside the town. Flames rose from the buildings, spreading quickly.

The feeling of the blood running down my hand and leg was somewhat disconcerting. I couldn't decide if it was the fact that I could feel the flap of flesh on my thigh opening and closing under my hand or the blood loss that made the world around me flicker. Probably both. I stumbled over a rock, giving my thigh the sensation of being set alight. Unable to keep silent, I let out a strangled scream.

"Watch out behind!" Anna yelled. Thank god she was alive.

At our backs was a pack of Changed. Some were alight, some were not. Those on fire lit up the area like torches. It would've been funny from a safe distance.They had gotten through the fence and caught the scent of my blood. The keening was so loud it was practically painful. One familiar shape bolted from the pack. Pancake. I snatched her pole and kept running.

My head began to pound. Thump, thump, thump.

Gunshots. Thump, thump, thump.

Cough. Thump, thump, thump.

I stumbled again. Aris somehow picked me up and kept running. I held Pancake's pole tightly. Thump, thump, thump.

Somebody wailed. The keening intensified. The wail cut off. I tried to block it from my mind, to no avail. I knew whose voice it was. Thump, thump, thump.

I vomited all over Aris.

"Sorry..." I managed to croak. Thump, thump, thump.

"It's cool man, it's cool. Stay with me." He began humming some kind of guitar riff as if carrying a teenage guy after sprinting for almost a kilometre was just a wall in the park.

I couldn't decide whether the darkness was because of the time or attributed to the blackness creeping across the corners of my vision.

"Fuck!" Aris breathed when he tripped over a rock.

The sound of footsteps around me went from the snapping of twigs and leaves to the crunch of gravel.

"Almost there buddy. Stay awake." Aris grunted. He was tiring -which wasn't surprising seeing as he was carrying a 60 kilogram teenage guy whilst running- and his stride faltered.

I coughed and my head spun. Indiana sprinted up to the front of the group with Aluna.

"Here it is. Around the back," Aluna said. "Quick, quick. He's passing out."

I gave up trying to keep my eyes open. The sound of a rolling door blended into the background hum of voices and the crackling of the inferno that was once Joseph Creek. I was lifted and put on something soft.

"C'mon Jeords. Awake now." Aris said. Somebody slapped my face. I shook my head. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it. The darkness was so much more comfortable.

"Jeordie!"

Wait, what?

I coughed.

The blackness engulfed me all at once.