Dark Wave

Chapter 10

This time, passing through the gates was different.

Different, mainly, because there was no one on their bike, and there were no stalls with people negotiating the price of slightly out-of-date oranges; but most importantly, different because there was no woman in a mauve pencil skirt to welcome us.

Because this time she was wearing black.

"I am not happy." She said, walking straight past us, and closing the gates.

I looked at Mack, confused, but found nothing in his eyes, only the same muddled expression.

"You have returned with nothing, not a single person. Are you stupid?!" one of those questions which seems more like a statement, and doesn't really require a response.

"Your. Task. Was. Simple." She says. "There was no room for failure! And yet you did it, you failed! Worthless, truly worthless." She was pacing, back and forth and back and forth and not even looking at us.

My attitude got the better of me, I guess.

"Worthless?!" I yelled, "We're worthless?! TAKE A GOOD LOOK IN THE MIRROR LADY, BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT COCK UP THE EFFORT TO FIGHT BACK THIS BASTARD INFECTION. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE DIED SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU FAILED TO ORGANIZE A PROPER EVACUATION SEQUENCE?!"

She stared at me, and the entire square fell silent. She opened her mouth to speak, her face quite blank, but I interrupted.

"Your 'evacuation sequence' killed your own daughter. And you stand there in your pish-posh outfit and tell us that we're useless? Get. A. Rain-check." I scowled.

"I don't think you realise what a good network of protection we have going on for you here--" She started.

"To be perfectly honest," I say, "I think we'd be much safer in the woods than in this sty."

"Then leave." She says coolly, "You and your friend are no longer welcome here."

I stare her down, my body like fire but my eyes like ice. And then Mack pushes in, standing in front of me.

"I think Libby just needs to calm down, Miss, she doesn't mean it, she just lost her dad..." He trailed off.

"And yet every word she said is completely true. Utterly faultless in its depiction of my own failure."

Mack blinked twice, and started to speak but she says: "Goodbye, Mackenzie." And puts a bullet between her eyes.

 ...

We fled as fast as foxes, hot-footed and cold-blooded over the gates and in a straight line through the forest. Of course, we went around trees, it's not like we ran straight through them. A crowd followed us for a while, shouting and screaming, and the chaos manifested itself inside those gates, an acrid black cloud of smoke oppressed the sky as a fire grew thick and hungry in the middle of the market-square. 

One of those creatures rounded the corner of a thick-trunked tree, attracted to the noise and smell of burning; shoved itself past Mack and I, like we were nothing, like we weren't human.

We stared after it, and then looked down at ourselves and saw the reason why.

Our bodies were covered in blood, the smell of death enveloping us and tainting our clothes, matting them with the harsh red. Mack's poker face grimaced, and I felt sick.

We carried on walking, just walking, aimlessly. We had no clue as to where we should go or where we actually were, but the more we walked, the more monsters passed us, shoving us aside, not even giving us a second look over. 

One of their shoulders brushed against mine violently, pushing me aside. Gripping Mack's shirt tightly, I looked up at him and whispered quietly "I'm scared.."

And he looked at me and said "It's okay, I promise, we'll be out of here soon." And he took my hand, squeezing tightly, and my wound up ball of nervousness untangled itself around me and evaporated into the air. It reminded me why I love him.

 

Like a bullet, she crashed into us. This girl, this figure, this weeping, beautiful creature. With golden hair, falling in soft curls over her shoulders, and eyes as bright as the Mediterranean, colour so lucid it was almost surreal, and tiny dried blotchy marks staining her fair cheeks so poignantly that you would have thought she'd have been crying for an eternity.

And she was alive!

And innocent and pure and fragile, I thought - as she covered me, head in my shoulder, silently - that if I were to stir her she might break, or crack.

She spoke, light yet stern and full of grief.

"Help me miss, help me please! They're coming for me!" She paused, and my eyes widened with shock. "I don't want to play with them anymore!" Her naivity crushed me, weighing me down so effortlessly, without intention.

"Who?" Came Mack.

"Them." She pointed at the crowd of Infected rushing through the trees, eyes hungry and black, feasting on blood as they ran, starving, starving for more.

 We ran so fast then, through the forest and...

Well this next part,

I laugh at.