Cassandra had been in an hospital with some other doctors for two days. They were trapped in the on call room after the hospital was overrun. She said the mafia got them out in the afternoon, some time after we got back from the store, and the doctors went with them. They got her a working car and gave her a gun, ammo and food. We had more than enough food now and the mafia she talked about sounded a lot like Shank and her people at the Supercentre.
Cassandra had gone to talk to the neighbours with Daniel and Ezra. After she showered, she went straight into officer mode instead of sleeping like I wanted her to. I was sure she hadn't slept in those two days. Who would be able to sleep in an overrun hospital?
Zeke and Hae In were scanning through channels on the radio that Cassandra brought with her. She had also gone to the gas station and we now had jerrycans filled with gas in the garage. Most of the channels said the same thing that the news stations did, stay indoors and avoid the infected. The rest were static.
Clareta had sprained her ankle and was now grumpy because she wasn't allowed to walk. I could still hear her going on about injustice to Alison in the living room as I glued newspapers to the sliding door.
I glanced at Faye who was beside me. We'd already covered the ones Cassandra asked us to cover upstairs and most of the ones downstairs. We worked in silence and were currently covering the patio doors when I decided to say something.
"I'm sorry about your dad."
I was sure that something had happened to him. I saw her crying in Alison's room with a photo of she and her dad in her hand earlier today. I could have just left her there but I didn't want to because she looked so broken and alone. She looked up when I stepped into the room and glared at me through tears as I sat beside her. I said nothing and just let her cry.
She froze before her head turned to face me, her brows furrowed. "Did –"
Did someone tell me?
"Daniel didn't tell me." Maybe that was why she needed his help that morning.
She narrowed her eyes. Wrong person?
"Clareta didn't tell me?"
I've seen she and Clareta talking a few times, maybe she told her.
She blinked at me as the corner of her mouth turned down, gave me a once over and walked away. I purse my lips at her retreating figure before facing the patio doors.
"Well," I pick up a newspaper and apply glue to it. "I guess I'll finish up on my own."
------
A boom rolled across the streets, announcing the start of what the brooding cloud layer had promised since when I'd finished covering the patio doors. Black clouds were sprawled across the sky. Their brassy glare drains colour from houses and trees and cars in driveways, leaving the neighbourhood tinted bronze in the faltering light. The wind picks up, howling, crying like a wolf into the night as the curtain flaps in my face.
Cassandra had convinced our neighbours to move in with each other. Roshni and her mum were upstairs in Zeke's room while the rest of them were in Cheri and Faye's house. We had blocked the road into the street with cars and packed everything we needed into bags that now sat beside the garage door with the other bags filled with clothes and food that Cassandra had taken from her house on her way here. She said some of the streets leading here had been overrun and it won't take long for the infected to start migrating towards here. I wasn't looking forward to it and I really hoped it wouldn't happen.
Roshni's dad had gone to the store a couple of minutes before we had in the morning and he hasn't come back. When she and her mum came into the house, the woman looked lost. It was obvious she'd been crying and she didn't eat anything we offered her. She must have been agitated when we came back and he hadn't.
"Maybe he's trapped somewhere and laying low," Faye had told her. Roshni didn't believe it but her mum did.
I close the window as the first drops of rain started, like bullets to our roof. It pounded on it as if it were demanding entrance and for a second I wanted to be small and crawl into someone's lap. I walk over to the couch where Daniel was sleeping and sit on the floor. After not sleeping for two days, exhaustion had finally claimed him. Cassandra was still awake and guarding the front door with Zeke while Faye was by the patio doors.
Outside is dark, casting us in premature twilight but inside our home it is darker and it doesn't take long for me to start seeing things. I switch on my phone's torch and point it at the floor as I lean against the couch, listening to Daniel's breathing. A crack of lightening rents the air, and within seconds the rolling boom of the thunder reverberated overhead.
"Did you see that?" Faye asks and I sit up.
"See what?"
"Outside." She gets up from the floor and moves to the sliding doors. "Is Jack upstairs?"
"He's upstairs," I gesture to the stairs behind me as my brain processes the question. Dog person?
"Wait," I hiss and immediately get up, drop my phone on the floor and speed walk to her side when she unlocks the door.
She grips her handgun and I remember that I left my cleaver on the centre table. She slides the door open slightly and peeks outside. The air was thick with the scent of rain.
"It's just one," she mutters. "Stay here."
She opens the door a little wider and gingerly steps outside. I was able to make out a shape stumbling by the chaise lounges.
Between the howling wind and lashing of rain, I could not hear above the din and my vision was not exactly great. Ezra's denim jacket was doing an average job at keeping me warm. I wrap my hand around myself and sigh in relief when I see Faye heading back.
I give my surroundings a quick glance to see if anything had snuck past me even though nothing had. A jagged bolt of white hot lightening splits the chilly sky, briefly illuminating the room. Terror flooded my veins as I see a figure on all fours by the now open window, stalking towards the couch where Daniel slept before it became dark again. Holy shit.
"Daniel!" I yelled as the sky shook with the cry of the thunder and I ran towards the couch. I reach out my arms to shake him awake but he's already sitting up.
"It's me," I murmur as he grips my hand.
"What's –"
"What happened?" Faye asks as she quickly slides the door close behind her.
I place my hand on the centre table and feel around till my hand wraps around the hilt of the cleaver and I pick it up. My pulse was beating in my ears, blocking out all other sound.
"I saw something." Did I really? Ive been seeing things moving in the dark since the rain started so I wasn't exactly sure.
Something suddenly drops on my leg. Water.
Drip.
Drip.
The exhale I felt on my leg was what finally did it. I sent my leg flying as my heart pounded in my ears and let out a scream, not of pain but terror, when my foot connects with something solid. There was a snarl and I stumble backwards into a now standing Daniel who pulls me behind him as my cleaver drops to the floor.
"What the hell is that?" Faye asks, sounding hysterical.
Daniel and I begin to walk backwards and I debate running to the light switch but that would mean running past whatever was in front of us. I didn't like our situation, it felt like we were about to be picked off.
"Guys?" came Ezra's voice before the room's light came on.
There was no missing the infected lady on the centre table next to Daniel and I.
"Sonofa-"
She screeched and lunged at Daniel, both of them toppling to the couch. Faye fired off a shot but the lady swiftly moved her head to the side, dodging it. It was terrifying to watch her dodge another shot. I thought they had no form of self preservation and non-existent reflexes. He was trying to push her off but she wouldn't budge.
I had to get her away from him was what was on my mind as I grabbed her ponytail, yanking her to the floor. That's right, bitch fight.
The centre table was blocking Faye from shooting her and I begin to pull her back with her hair while backpedalling. She expressed distaste of her current situation by clawing at my arms and screeching. She suddenly sends her leg up, aiming for my head and she didn't miss. The pain felt like an electric connection between my temples and reverberated like sound waves. I automatically let go of her hair as I lose my balance and she leaps away, landing at Ezra's feet. He instantly backs away, a look of shock on his face, but she doesn't go after him and instead scrambles back till she hits the side of the couch.
She begins to claw at her throat, drool pouring out of her mouth as she gags. She's choking.
What the fuck is she choking on?
A shot to the head from Cassandra who just ran into the living room puts the infected out of her distress and I rush over to Daniel who is sitting on the table, his face in his hands.
"Are you okay?"
I scan his hands for bites and scratches, feeling relieved when I find none. He was obviously in shock and I grab his shaking hands.
"You're okay."
"Isn't that the one that went after you in the store?" Ezra asks.
"Went after?" I ask when Daniel nods as Cassandra walks up to us.
"The store where you found us, one of those things attacked him. She was the one."
Cassandra was rubbing Daniel's shoulders as she whispered in his ear.
I didn't like the reflexes she had and since I've encountered one before, how many more were there?