Page 30 of All Your Days (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #4)

Chapter thirteen

Jacob

I can’t sleep. We’ve come so far over the trip, but after the shit over the past day, I don’t trust the guards one bit.

I hear them as one drink turns to two, which inevitably turns to three.

They just keep going. I toss and turn in my cot, torn between wanting to go out and confront them and knowing that whatever I do will make it worse.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this type of thing—when the freedom of the supply run gets to people’s heads. It drives them a bit crazy after being inside The Facility all their lives.

Unless… unless there is another reason for Cale’s behaviour. It’s been days since we tested. It’s a risk we take out here—not knowing how close any of us are to flipping. It’s been a while since one of the team’s turned zombified out here.

Lou had the same thought; he caught me on my way back from taking a leak before dinner. We considered locking Cale inside the trailer for the night. It was risky, though. We knew Ryan and Malcolm wouldn’t take kindly to us locking up their friend without a word.

So we tried to talk to Ryan. As non-threateningly as I could, I caught Ryan when he went for a leak and told him what me and Lou were worried about.

It went just as terribly as I expected it would. He didn’t exactly threaten to mutiny, but it was close. Really close. Ryan’s blood was already all angried up for whatever reason and I just handed him a golden key to let loose for going after his ‘brother’.

This is why I hate having tight knit, pre-formed groups with me on the run. Their allegiance is to each other, not the team as a whole. It puts everyone at risk.

Lou and I decided to just be ready. It’s all we could do without causing trouble. And really, is it any different to how we live every day? It was Lou’s idea not to tell Eli our suspicions. I didn’t like it, but Lou was right, there was too big a chance that Eli would panic and give us away.

All we could do was wait.

At some point, I must’ve drifted off, upright in my cot. I fall over gasping and think that’s what roused me.

But then I hear it.

“ What the fuck?!” Malcolm’s yell pierces the night. “ Get off me, man.”

“Ow! You’re hurting me! Ryan!”

And snarling. The sick sort of animal sound that is unmistakably human.

One of them has turned.

I snap into action without thinking, my heart racing at lightning speed, erasing all thoughts of sleep.

Pulling my knife from my belt, I slide silently to the floor and slice open the back wall of my tent. My gun makes some sound as I sling it over my shoulder with my emergency bag, but no one would be able to hear it over the sounds of the fight on the other side of the tents.

Crouching low, I hurry to Eli’s tent, cutting my way into his tent just like I cut my way out of mine. His panicked breaths are loud in the small space. He’s on the cot, and he’s awake, but he’s frozen.

His erratic breath gets worse the closer I get. Crossing the tiny space feels like I’m crossing the entire galaxy. It takes for—fucking—ever. Screams from the guards punctuate the moment. Once I’m beside his cot, I place a hand over his mouth.

“ Run .” I breathe the word into his ear. It’s all I can do.

And then, we’re moving.

With one hand I grab his forearm, with the other, I snatch his emergency bag up. Bursting out of the hole, we launch into a sprint while I’m dragging him, but he manages to keep up. It’s too dark to see much where we’re going in the waxing moon, but that means that we also can’t be seen.

We can be heard, though. Risking us both, I look back over my shoulder, and I can just see the shadows of our camp in the orange glow of the fire. Whoever has turned has spotted us. A body is moving between the tents. Or trying to—the guide ropes slow their angry, jerky movements.

“ Oh god.” Eli turns, too. Looking over his shoulder in the dark, he stumbles over an unseen bush, and would have hit the dirt if he weren’t still in my iron grip.

“Move. Move!” I grunt, picking up the pace when Cale—from the size I’m sure it’s Cale—makes his way past the tents, heading right for us.

Completely blind, we try to lose ourselves in the darkness, but Cale doesn’t have to rely on shitty instincts like sight. He doesn’t have terror making him stupid.

No, all he has is the mindless drive to hunt down his prey and consume them. He can’t think. He can’t feel. There is only the need.

His snarling is too close. Too close. Cale is rapidly gaining on us. We dodge a bush only because it’s already catching our pants. Our boots skid on the pebbly dirt.

“ You motherfucker!” The words rip through the night. A body slams into another body.

Cale growls furiously.

We both turn back, even though we can see almost nothing. I can feel Eli’s twisting body next to mine, our feet never stopping. In the black, I can almost see the shape of two men wrestling.

“ Go! Get out of here! ”

Ryan .

There is no time to think. We pick up the pace, running further into the night.

When we hear the gun blast, we just keep going.

“I—can’t—go—any—more—” Eli pants, slowing to a standstill. I don’t know how long we’ve been running. I don’t know where we’ve been running. We’ve just run.

I have to let go of him when he bends over. My fingers ache as they unfold from their vice-like grip. There is no pain in my legs, I’m beyond that now. I don’t even feel them at all. Only the pain searing the soles of my feet.

Sweat drenches my body, and in the frigid air of the night, it’s rapidly cooling on my skin, making me shiver despite the heat of my blood.

I can’t talk around the gulping breaths I’m desperately sucking in. With trembling hands I fumble with my emergency bag, then give up and drop to the ground and just open Eli’s instead. Rooting around amongst the things he’s shoved in there I try and find what I need—the small wind up torch.

The whizzing sound when I wind it up sounds like a horrible joke. There is a risk turning on a torch—who knows what else is going to come after us? But there is nothing else we can do. We need to know where we are. There are too many dangerous things creeping around in the night.

Thank God, the bright white light doesn’t show any danger lurking. There are no sounds out of place. If anything, it’s too quiet. Like the creatures that usually come out know what happened and have hidden in their burrows for the night.

There’s a tree close enough, straggly and thin trunked; it's not in any way a form of protection, but with no other options in the seemingly endless, flat plains, that’s where we head.

“Come on.” I nudge Eli, still hunched over, hands on his knees. I don’t know if he’s going to vomit or if he’s just catching his breath. Scooping up his bag, I lead us to the tree.

“Take this.” Handing him the torch, I dig out his emergency blanket. The strange silver sheet crinkles so loudly it makes me flinch. I lay it on the dirt and carefully take off my gun and emergency bag.

“Sit.” I don’t have any more in me than one word commands.

“How’re you so calm?” Eli’s voice cracks almost as badly as the sheet when he sits. In the torchlight he looks sick.

I take a moment before I answer, methodically unpacking my emergency blanket and zipping both bags up before settling down beside him with our bags at the ready. My blanket goes over both of us, tucked securely around Eli. I can’t tuck myself in because my rifle is out and at the ready.

“I’m not.” I whisper eventually.

“Coulda fooled me.”

He snipes, but he also clings tightly to my arm.

I don’t answer, because I don’t know how to. My body, my brain is empty. There is only survival.

The crash will come, when he’s safe. I just need to survive until then.