Clarkesville (Chandler Riggs)

Chapter 17

I wanted to shout, "look out" but something in me was holding me back. It was a terrible feeling. The walkers were getting closer as I stared into the space behind Homer and Vincent. Since they were in front when we were walking, they were behind since we turned around.

The first one was just about to grab at Homer, until the very little amount of voice I had escaped from my burning throat. "Look!" Was all that came out, and it was sudden and crackled.

If only I had pointed, there could have been an advantage for Homer to pull away from it's grasp.

But unfortunately, all that he got to do was turn his body a bit before the walker's teeth grazed his shoulder and tore up his t-shirt.

He groaned loudly, which turned into a frightful scream. I felt as if the butterflies in the pit of my stomach rose up to my throat, and were choking me.

We all instantly backed away from the small about of walkers flooding our recent standing space. If I got to count correctly, there were about seven moaning and hissing at us.

I hadn't expected a gunshot, but it came from the left of me. Craig was holding up his machine gun, aimlessly firing at the group.

Vincent was yelling, Daniella was crying, and my fingers were losing circulation due to the tight grip of Chandler and I's hands. This was too much.

Craig had only shot down a single walker before Vincent ripped the weapon from his arms.

He threw the gun onto the ground, and began to thrash around at the walkers heads. Bruno and Jason did the same, until there was only one left, wandering quite a few feet away from our crowd. How would this end up going down?

"Kill it! Just shoot it!" Daniella cried from behind me.

The walker stumbled with it's head hung low. It was a man with an obvious and rotting bite mark on it's upper leg.

It's clear and red tinted eyes rolled back and forth from Homer tossing on the ground, Vincent positioning his weapons, and the remainder of us scared out of our skins.

It was near us now, limping it's way toward Homer. I looked up at Vincent, who clearly had no idea what to do. Why the hell wasn't he going to kill that thing? I figured he'd be the first to want to save his injured companion.

Although he had a large percent of dying from infection, I would still not like to see him be torn to shreds by a walker.

In an instant, Bruno was kneeling over Homer, who was beside the deceased dead woman with dark red blood soaking the leaves beneath her head. I shivered, and adjusted my hands inside of Chandler's.

I watched as Joy, Earl, and Craig rushed to Homer's side on the ground.

There was no saving him now. We had waited too long; the infection had obviously already spread through his bloodstream. If anyone would have really wanted to save him, they would have acted immediately and cut the affected area out of his shoulder. He would have lived.

But instead he rolled around in the dirt, as the others tended to his fatal wound. I could tell there was not much blood, but it gave me the chills thinking about the burning and stinging pain he must be feeling.

"You little bitch!" Screamed Homer. "Fugging bitch! Rot in Hell you little whore..." I knew his words were pointed directly toward me, and the worst part was that I knew exactly what he was ranting about.

Too much was going on and I was spaced out. I didn't even bother to lift the guilty weight off of my shoulders. All I wanted to do was hide behind Chandler. I was responsible for this man's soon to be death.