THE RISEN

T

Here is a lingering smell of death lingering in the air and I can’t help the rising of bile that raises through my esophagus as I begin to wonder why we had even decided to pass through a street full of dead bodies to reach our destination that if Noah was correct about, our cross-country trek from Boston, Massachusetts to California would approximately run us another month or two.

After all, it wasn’t as if we had access to a working vehicle. Even if we did, cars littered the road like a bedbug infestation and slowly but surely, we would be seen by raiders or even roamers. Both were dangerous, and in large groups, both the raiders and those who had risen from the dead three years ago were now the cause for the two or three percent of the world population that hadn’t diminished in the first three months after the world had ended.

I wished that we could stay in Boston though. After all, Holly and I had survived through the mass population of roamers who turned in the early days and even before we met Jonah and Noah, we had survived the frigid winters, which although difficult to get around for raids, left us in a better position because the dead were unable to move quickly in icy conditions.

But in the summer months such as these, I couldn’t help but relish in the sun harshly kissing my skin. Even Holly with her jet black curls and naturally tanned skin seemed to love the heat that the sun had to offer. The hot pavement only seemed to cause the eighty-five degree weather to feel twenty degrees hotter and I questioned Noah’s idea of a trek to California when my home state seemed to prove useful.

Still, Noah trekked forward and pushed his shaggy blond locks away from his forehead and sweat dripped down his face as he continued his walk forward. He was at least three inches shorter than me and it was rather amusing to watch him sway back and forth as his attempts to find shade proved to be unsuccessful.

Even Holly’s eyes stayed trained on the man, her steely grey irises wondering why he would decide to head to a state where dry heat seemed to become prominent when Massachusetts at least offered the cushion of sweat compared to the dry heat.

“You good there, Noah?” Jonah’s voice is gravelly and his voice cracks before he pulls a jug of water from his backpack and swigs off of it.

“Yeah, just didn’t expect the summers to be so hot up here.”

I laugh and the two men stare at me, a look of disapproval sent my way as they did not realize why I was finding humor in their misfortune. Still, my humorous smile dulled back to a tight-lipped expression and I debate whether I should tell them that they should not have found their way out to New England if they could not handle it.

“It’s the pavement. I’m shocked that you’d even step foot up north if ya couldn’t handle the heat,” judging by the quirk of her lips, I can only assume that Holly thought my comment was just as amusing as I thought it was.

I wipe beads of sweat from my forehead and pull my shaggy brown hair away from my forehead. My other hand runs down my face, not missing the 3 large but jagged scars running from the tip of my left eyebrow down to the corner of my mouth. I was thankful that I could see out of it, but my iris had since shattered, and a silver hue had taken over the color.

The secret had stayed between Holly and I, knowing that if we had revealed the cause of it, the two men who were in their early thirties more than likely would not hesitate to end my life. It was something that they had stopped pushing the matter months after we had met them and before Noah’s daughter died, they realized that Holly and I would never tell them what really happened.

But they were still in a rather sour mood to this day and if Holly wasn’t so stuck up Jonah’s ass, I would have brought up the suggestion that we ditch them and head back to the suburbs of Boston, or even the survivor group that sat in Andover.

“I don’t think we’ll make it beyond the Connecticut border with the slow rate that you’re walking.”

Noah doesn’t turn to look at me, instead lifting his left hand in the air and lifting his middle finger in the air as he continued to walk through the edge of the city. I laugh as I pick up my pace, my long legs quickly walking ahead of Noah. I look up to the sun that is risen up high into the sky, noting that we have just barely passed noon.

“By this point, we mine as well just let the roamers eat us up. At least they stumble around quicker than you.”

A snort leaves Holly’s lips and is quickly masked as Jonah turns down to my closest friend and gives her a narrowed gaze. I often wondered why it seemed like he had a stick up his ass and I knew it had something to do with his disliking for me, especially when my close friendship and history with Holly would always keep the Asian beauty’s loyalty to me.

Still, there’s an unknown emotion that seems to surface in his eyes and for a brief moment, it looks as though it’s something akin to a deep hatred that I know he’s held for me since the time that we met. To be completely honest, there was always the thought it could be a stick that was never retrieved from the deep dark depths of his ass.

Puts a whole new meaning to having a stick up your ass.

A grin peeks from the side of my mouth as I try to hold back the small laugh that threatened to release itself. If I was going to be stuck walking with these people and expected to survive with them, something would have to give. Thankfully I had Holly because she seemed to be the only one who understood my humor.

Jonah inhales deeply before letting out a sharp groan as I expect him to have something stupid come out of his mouth.

“What time is it?”

“It’s a little past noon,” I don’t turn to face him, instead choosing to keep quiet from there. It was probably better anyway, especially with the lingering thought that there would more than likely be roamers anywhere around here.

Our goal was simple—kill any roamers that crossed our path and try not to get bit in the process. My eyes catch a dark tunnel and my eyes light up as I take a mental note that passing through it would give everyone a break from the heat and at the same time, we’d run into a roamer and I would have something to take my frustration out on that wasn’t Jonah’s stupid ass face.

“Look,” I point toward the tunnel and pull my backpack toward me and pull out a yellow flashlight. “There’s a tunnel. We can scout it out and rest for a bit,” I don’t hesitate to run forward and pull my butterfly knife from where it rested on my belt next to my glock.

“Leo, what the fuck are you doing?” I can hear Noah’s irritation even though he knows that in the past year we’ve been travelling together, I would never completely listen to him. I was nineteen, or maybe even twenty at this point, and was just as much of an adult as the two thirty-something year old men in front of us.

“I’m scouting!” I click on the flashlight as I enter the tunnel, immediately covering my nose seconds later as the smell of rotting bodies intensifies. “Look out, smells like fuckin’ shit in here.”

I don’t think they actually believed me until they walked in, flashlights shining and I briefly hear someone gag. There’s a silence that fills the air otherwise as we scout through the tunnel. I turn my flashlight to the right and it lands on a pile full of corpses, all of them carrying the same distinct pattern to prove they were dead.

Multiple bullets have been pierced through their skulls, some of them I realized hadn’t had the chance to become roamers before they were killed. There was a chance that military had taken them out, or rather, another passing group of survivors who were much more equipped with weapons and ammunition than we were.

“Is it just me or do those bodies look somewhat fresh?” Holly is worried, it’s obvious, but I just shrug it off before I respond.

“Nah, they look about two or three months old. . . Nothing too recent.”

I’m nonchalant about the entire situation while everyone else seems on edge, but I’ve come to realize there’s no point in freaking out. In the new world that we had come to know, fear led to your death and it didn’t seem to catch onto the others.

“Calm down, I can practically smell the terror radiating off you guys.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Listen,” I turn to Jonah. “If I can smell the fear on you, imagine what they smell. You’re practically a fuckin’ rotisserie chicken waiting to be devoured.”

I hear a low growl and a zombie walk through the dark tunnels. Patches of hair are missing from it and there’s a bite missing out of what used to be a young woman by the looks of it. I stalk toward her and a more carnal growl releases from her mouth.

“I have been waiting all day for this,” a smile lights up my face as she tries to swipe at me and I quickly duck.

This seems to irritate her more, and I quickly kick her foot out from beneath her. There’s a primal urge to keep on with this game, to keep toying with it. I would too—keep on with torturing it that is. If it weren’t for Noah’s scolding, I would have let it follow me to the other end of the tunnel, even allow it to chase me through the forest, (though I was pretty sure that the roamer was older, so it would have stumbled more than walked around).

Instead, I unleash my knife and plunge it through its skull. It continues to growl, cuing me to place my knife once again through its head. I look up to face Noah, a small quirk of my lips into something close to a smile and I look down to the blood on my hands, choosing to wipe it onto my pants.

“You guys are no fun. . .” Noah’s still glaring at me as I run the back of my arm down my face.

“You literally can’t keep doing shit like that. One day you’re going to get bit,” Holly tells me.

“Well, that day my dearest friend, is not today,” I turn back around to face toward our exit and take long strides out of the door.