Clarkesville (Chandler Riggs)

Chapter 9

He didn't let go of my hand until we had to leave the cart, to crawl through the hole in the fence at the edge of the airport.

I didn't want to let go either, but eventually I had to release our tight hold. "C'mon, we can find something else on the other side of the fence." I told him, turning off the engine.

"Okay move quick." Said Chandler.

We climbed out of the cart, and we made our way over to the 2ft wide gap in the fence. I slung my bag through the hole, and made sure no Stiffs were too close.

There were some wandering in the middle of the street, and there were others gathering outside of stores and car-rentals. They hadn't seen us yet.

I turned to Chandler, holding my finger to my lips. If we didn't shut up now, than we were screwed.

He looked behind me with a tilt of his head, then nodded his wavy brown hair. I returned my eyes back to the open fence in front of me.

Shit.

The closest couple of Stiffs were glaring and twitching at me, limping their way across the small part of the field. More were noticing by the second, while Chandler and I just stood there and watched.

The first one was a man, who had dyed black hair that was tangled and matted. He had many pieces of metal on his lips and nose, along with very bright colored gages in his ear.

Following him was a woman who looked very young-probably in her teens. She had a pair of light blue jeans and a red MTV t-shirt.

The last stiff that caught my eye was a tall woman. She had curly blonde hair that looked like it could have been submerged into a pool of blood.

Her chin was covered in a coat of shiny red, and as she growled chunks of meat seeped out of her mouth. It made my stomach shrink.

It had just eaten; who knows what. I didn't know why she seemed so important to me. I tried to imagine what she would have looked like before.

Obviously neater hair and cleaner clothing. But maybe she could have been a stay at home mom, a gas station employee, or even a business woman dressed in comfortable clothes.

So this is how bad it was going to be?

"We've got to go, now." Whispered Chandler. There was no point in being quiet now, because there were what looked like about fifty pairs of glowing eyes staring at us, getting closer just like the herd way behind us.

"Where do we go?" I cried, backing up and looking back toward his worried self. The moans were getting louder and more obnoxious.

Chandler jerked his head to the left, right, and to the left again. "That way, c'mon!" We started running to the left; that led to the edge of the woods, and the corner of the fence.

We couldn't climb over because of the barbed wire at the top. There were no holes in the fences unlike the other side. Eventually the herd behind us would catch up; so why would Chandler choose to go left?

I looked behind me, to find Chandler fumbling with the keys on his belt.

The gate latch.

I flipped back around, and made sure the large metal piece in the fence's corner was really locked. It wouldn't budge.

Chandler came up to me, but still messing with the options of keys. The thin gold one was already used for the luggage cart, so that was out of the question. He took one of the silver keys and twisted it into the lock. Nope.

The second was a larger silver one, and that didn't work either. I wanted to tell him to hurry; but it wasn't his fault.

He put in the next key, and it clicked when he turned it successfully. I helped him by lifting the latch and pulling open the large gate. "Let's go!" I told him, seeing the first couple of Stiffs trudging toward us from possibly 100ft away. The way we sprinted over here did not seem that far.