Especially since Harlow has been on edge since we got here. Her hackles are raised and her body is tight and low to the ground as she moves, almost like she’s waiting to pounce on whatever is about to attack us. It’s enough tension that Bean is nervous beneath me, wanting to jog instead of walk. Even Ketchup isn’t immune as she flies ahead of us, eerily silent when usually she’d be chatting away at us.
Abandoned cars and vans litter the road of the council estate we’re moving through, much in the same way as every other village I’ve come across. Only there’s more blood and rotting bodies on this street.
My gaze lands on one particular corpse and I swallow hard. It’s the body of a child, no more than ten years old, and looks fresher than most of the others. His mouth is slack and his eyes are wide open but glazed and unseeing as he stares up at the darkening sky. There’s so much blood covering his body that it’s hard to see what killed him, only that whatever happened was traumatic.
It’s a stark reminder of this new, fucked up world.
I tear my gaze away as my chest tightens to the point I struggle to breathe and spots appear in my vision. I pant and tighten my grip on the front of the saddle as my panic crashes over me like a tsunami. Below me, Harlow whines and nudges my boot, but it’s not enough. In the grips of the attack, all I can do is hang on and hope it passes soon.
I’m not sure how much time passes when Harlow growls, a savage and terrifying snarl I’ve never heard from her before, not even when faced byzombies. I blink away the remnants of my attack just as Harlow throws herself toward a dark figure that’s emerging from the side of a house.
My eyes widen and fear rushes through me. “Harlow!” I scream as I grab my bow and ready an arrow.God, please don’t let her get hurt, I think as I nock the arrow and take aim.
A hand clamps onto my thigh and yanks me from the saddle. I land in a heap with a heavy body on top, pinning me to the ground. I cry out only for a hand to clamp over my mouth, not only cutting off my scream, but my air, too.
A Fucking Disney Princess
Rhys
I’d say this shitjourney couldn’t get any worse, but I’m sure the universe would be delighted to fuck me over again.
We should already be there, but everything just had to go wrong. First, we had to dodgetwodifferent hordes of infected, forcing us to add another day to our journey. And then our electric vehicle died. So now we’re on foot and three days behind schedule.
I hate it.
Not the walking part, but that I’m having to put in so much effort to save a woman who doesn’t give a shit about me. She didn’t when I found her in bed with her best fucking friend. Or when she called me Frankenstein because of the scars I got from an IED blastduring my last deployment. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t know that Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster. Jerri’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed.
But, as much as I detest her, she and the other people taken don’t deserve the fate in store for them. And since Theo, Alex, and I are the best of the best in our community, we couldn’t sit by and allow innocent people to suffer when we can save them. I just wish I didn’t have to walk nearly a hundred miles to go save my ex’s ass and then another hundred and fifty to get said ass back home. All because our fucking car decided it no longer wanted to live. Or maybe it just didn’t want to meet Jerri.
I can relate.
I must be grumbling to myself because Theo shoots me a look. “You’re in fine form today,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
I scowl at him. “You’re not the one who’s going to have to walk at least ten days with an ex-wife.”
He barks out a laugh. “True. I still don’t know what you saw in that harpy.”
“Fuck if I know.” Maybe at one point she was sweet and caring, but that’s a very distant memory.
“Hey, maybe we’ll be lucky and that gang will have taken care of her for us.”
“Theo, you can’t say that, you bloody asshole,” Alex snaps from somewhere behind me. “She may be a bitch, but she doesn’t deserve that.”
Theo huffs. “Fine. Maybe they’ll mark up her face a little.”
“Theo, stop it.”
“But she fucking deserves it and you know it!”
I shake my head as my two best friends continue to argue with one another. We’ve known each other since we were ten years old and it’s a friendship that’s turned into a brotherhood. When shit hit the fan and the dead started rising, the first thing we did was make sure that the three of us were safe before we searched for survivors and a place to live.
And then we came across Haven. What a Godsend that place is and has been for nearly a hundred people, including my ex-wife. Ugh.
I shake thoughts of the bitch from my mind and focus on the situation at hand. It’s already sunset and we don’t have a safe place to hunker down for the night. Sure, we could camp out in the woods we’re traipsing through, but that means a night of barely any sleep and constantly being on guard. Those infected fuckers don’t mess around once night falls.
Thankfully, we’re heading toward a small town. Normally, I’d avoid urban areas like the plague, but we have no choice tonight. If there are gang members there or infected, we’ll deal with them. That’s what the guns are for, something most people in this world don’t have or even know how to use. It’s an advantage I’ve used since the world fell and might need to use again once we head into this town.
“Alright, you two, cut it out,” I bark, using the stern voice I learned from my time in the Army and then honed in the SAS.
