Until The Sun Dies

Pt 20:

The creatures started pushing and shoving at the door, trying to claw their way in. One of the creature's deformed hand found Winston and began to claw at his skin. Minho seeing that Winston couldn't hold the door ran into the door that Thomas and Frypan were working on hard enough that the lock finally broke. You grab Winston's hand and pull him away from the door and the clawing creatures as you make a dash through the newly opened door. You all run until it is certain that the creatures are no longer following. Even then you don't rest, not until you come by a large piece of concrete that's jutting out of the sand. It is decided that this is a good place to camp for the rest of the night, so you begin to get settled. Winston is in bad shape and Aris is patching him up. You sit down next to Newt and catch a breath. "What were those things?" You ask, your throat still hurts, but you're tired of being quiet. "I think that those were the Cranks that Janson was talking about." You give him a quizzical look and he explains, "Oh right, you didn't get the tour. Apparently, when the sun scorched the earth, a disease came about, that drove people mad, and gave them violent tendencies. They're called Cranks, although I'm not sure why." You nod, slowly digesting the information. Aris makes his way over to you after finishing up with Winston. You roll up the leg of your new leggings to reveal the bloody bandage. As he begins changing the wrappings he says, "This is the last of the wrappings, the rest got left behind in the madness of the mall." You nod, and say "Can I talk now?" The words sting your throat and you wince slightly. Aris gives you a thoughtful look then says "Start off with a whisper if you can, you're healing pretty fast, but you don't want to overdo it." You nod and finally whisper the words that you've been dying to say for so long, "Thank you." Aris smiles and says, "Always you and thank you." He laughs and rolls his eyes. You fell asleep in Newts arms shortly after Aris walked away. When you wake up Newt is gone. You sit up and look around, you see him talking to Winston. Everyone else is still asleep, so you sit and wait for Newt to come back. While you're waiting, you start digging through the backpack you found at the mall. Surprisingly you find some decently useful stuff. There's a pack of matches, a flashlight, an empty water bottle, a small knife, several packs of trail mix, a half-empty notebook, and a few pens. You shove all of it back in and put the bag down. When you put the bag down you hear glass shatter from the inside. You find the pocket, and inside is a now broken picture frame. You clear away the broken glass and some dirt. In the picture is a man, a woman, and a small child. You look closely at the woman in the picture, something looks familiar. Suddenly the image of the crank that attacked you last night flashed in your eyes. It was her, the woman in the picture was the crank that attacked you. In the picture, she looked so nice and sweet, and most of all normal. But the memory of last night returns. They way she clawed and tore at you, the violence and the snarl, the cuts and the blood, the veins and the matted hair. Tears begin to well up in your eyes. It breaks your heart to think about how those horrid creatures were once real people with real lives. What had happened to the child? You don't want to think about it, yet still, the thoughts came. Did the kid turn into a crank? Or did his mom... You couldn't finish the thought. As more tears begin to fall from your eyes you hide your face in your arms. You don't even notice when Newt sits back beside you. "What's wrong love?" You look up at him with your tear stained face and just shake your head in response. "Come here." He says opening up his arms. You crawl into his embrace and cry into his shoulder, letting his warmth slowly calm you down.