Page 16

Chapter Sixteen

H unter sets a brisk pace through the forest and by the time we break for lunch I’m sweaty and exhausted again, the high from the morning all but squished under the weight of my backpack and wounds. The only thing that manages to keep my spirits up is Nate’s hand in mine, he hasn’t let me go for more than a few moments since we started. The woods have been slowly getting thicker as we move through and the underbrush has become my nemesis, snagging at my clothes and pack and just generally making me ragey. Unfortunately, due to the zombie threat, I can’t use my power words with any real force so I’ve been reduced to whispering obscenities at the snagging branches as I move by. I occasionally catch what sounds suspiciously like a snigger from the leader of our party, but I can never be sure.

The second we come across a small stream I flop myself down dramatically and that’s how the break spot is chosen. Chase pulls more rations from his pack and I seriously consider swapping our bags out, his seems to be packed with all the food. Nate examines my arm and blessedly gives me more pain killers. I even manage to dunk my head in the cool stream and rinse some of the filth from my hair after our water bottles are filled. The break is over way before I’m ready but as the guys start to pack up, I slip off into the trees to find a spot to pee, promising to be back quickly.

I tromp through the brush as quietly as possible until I find a likely spot and quickly do my thing. Just as I’m zipping up my pants, I hear a rustling in the bushes across from me and freeze, listening, as the rustle gets closer. I draw my weapon, because I’m not an idiot. Gun pointed at the ground and ready to go, I move slowly toward the sounds, immediately disproving the before mentioned theory of my not being an idiot. I quietly push through a thick bush and freeze at the sight before me.

There are five deer grazing through the bush, eating what look to be… blueberries? Maybe? I’ve had bad experiences eating berries but damn these look good. And if deer can eat them I can too, right? I move slightly to my left, sidling up to a bush growing close by and just as I reach for a plump looking berry the deer startle at me and take off out of the clearing. They make me jump from the violent explosion of movement and sound as they clatter through the underbrush. I stand frozen, startled, and by the time their noise has receded, and my heart has made its way back out of my throat and settled in my chest again, I’m ready to head back and bring the guys to the berry patch. At least then they can tell me what I was about to pick and keep an eye out for any more troublesome deer. I might even make one of them test the berries, just to be sure.

I turn to head back the way I came and push back through the thick bush only to come face to face with a corpse on the other side. I yelp and stumble back as it lumbers towards me, eerily silent for some reason. I manage to duck to the side, under its reaching arms and give myself a little space to maneuverer. As it laboriously turns towards me again, I see why it’s not making any noise. Not only is its throat ripped out, it has no chest either, the whole front of the damn thing is ripped open, like something tried to rip out its heart, and succeeded. I gag at the sight and the stench of the thing; this is not a fresh one. I take all this in in the seconds it takes for the body to turn towards me again, then I have to make a decision, how to kill it? My gun is still out, and I could easily shoot it, but that would draw way more attention than is wise. I decide to go with my knives and quickly holster my gun and draw a knife in my good hand, leaving myself just enough time to drop into a defensive crouch as the zombie closes in on me silently. It grabs for me, and I use a hold on its slimy arm to pull it forward and off balance, into the tree behind us.

At least that’s what I mean to do. But my left shoulder gives out and the skin on its forearm comes away sickeningly easily, so I end up much closer to the thing than I had planned. I manage to get my left arm up and jammed into its ruined throat before its teeth can close around my face, but it’s a close thing. I only have a moment to feel the blinding pain of ripping stitches and God knows what else before I manage to bring my right arm up and jab my large knife through the roof of its mouth. Fortunately, my knife penetrates through to its brain… unfortunately the weight of the creature is too much for my shoulder and it takes me down with it as it crumples, I end up trapped beneath a pile of rotting flesh. Ew. I’m never going to get rid of this smell, I just know it.

I take shallow breaths through my mouth as I debate my options, but quickly abort any struggles I was making as I hear more rustling coming from behind me. I really hope that’s the deer… I think as I lay stock still and wait for the noise maker to materialize. It doesn’t take long for the moaning and groaning of more bodies to reach me and I start to really panic, seeing as I’m stuck and completely defenseless. I watch from under the rotting body as more dead shuffle into our little clearing, clearly drawn by the noise I was trying not to make. I expect at any moment to hear a screech as they spot me and descend upon me like seagulls on a freaking chip. But they don’t. Needless to say, I’m confused as fuck as they shuffle about moaning and gurgling to themselves. I can feel blood seeping from my shoulder wound and I hate to think of the infection I’m going to catch with this old corpse leaking its nastiness all over me, but still the other bodies don’t attack.

I know I don’t stay there for long, but it’s long enough that it’s getting really hard to stay still, when finally, a commotion breaks out in the clearing, and I know it’s my guys come to see what the hell is taking me so long. There’s no panicked shouting or stupidly calling out my name to announce themselves, they are just suddenly there, taking all of us by surprise. Yes, by ‘all of us’ I do mean me and the group of weirdly unaffected zombies. By the sounds of things, the guys kick some serious zombie arse but all I see is the occasional foot rush past my reluctant hiding spot.

A heavy silence follows the furious killing spree. Until it’s broken by the sound of a boot hitting flesh as someone viciously kicks a body, hopefully a dead one. “Where the fuck is she?” Hunter snarls as I hear them start to move through the clearing. I snap myself out of my stupor and begin to try and wiggle out from under the body again, unable to draw in enough breath to call out to them. I finally manage a small squeak as I hear them moving closer. Before I can make another noise the body above me is ripped unceremoniously away and I’m left staring at the pointy end of my own set of bow and arrows. How fucking rude! I send a glare at the person on the end of my weapon, a weapon he didn’t ask to borrow. I open my mouth to tell him as much but they beat me to it.

“Angel, fuck’s sake” Chase whispers brokenly, abruptly dropping my bow and making me wince, but I don’t get a chance to protest as he drags me up and wraps my stinky body in a tight hug before I’m pulled from his embrace, literally pulled, into Hunter’s arms. He nuzzles into my disgusting, blood encrusted hair as if it’s not a problem.

“Fuck, darlin’, we thought we lost you.” Hunter’s voice is thick and husky and I can hear the fear and anger behind his words. Before I can assure them all that I am, by some miracle, safe, Hunter squeezes me tighter and I let out a yip of pain. I’m immediately removed from Hunter’s grasp and thrust into Nate’s arms, who wastes no time in checking me over. Quite the job, to be honest, as I’m covered in blood and gore from my brief stint as a cadaver cushion. Nate’s hands move over me quickly his gorgeous blue eyes searching for wounds or bites, his perfect brow pinched in worry.

“I’m fine guys.” I finally manage to get out, a little untruthfully, “It’s just my shoulder, I think I reopened it. Most of the grossness is from that guy. I’m not bit.” I say gesturing to my former opponent/shield laying a few feet away. Nate growls at me, like literally growls, before slipping a knife from somewhere on his body and proceeding to cut off my shirt. Without even a ‘by your leave’. Neanderthals. All of them. Honestly, it’s like I was attacked by zombies or something . The other two are crowded close behind me, watching the surrounding forest as though it was personally responsible for the predicament I’m in.

Nate grunts and swears as he assesses the damage I did to my arm, but his touch remains excruciatingly gentle. Finally, after much poking he declares we need to get me cleaned up so he can bandage my arm and we all obediently trudge back to our camp spot, after I quickly remove my knife from the roof of the zombies mouth. Nate breathes down my neck the whole time, never letting me more than a few feet away from him. The others aren’t much better. I wonder how long this is going to go on for, I’m not sure I can tolerate this level of babysitting for an extended period of time. I mean they’re probably worried and a bit freaked out (I know I am), but seriously, I’m a big girl and I did manage not to die, so that has to count for something.

Back at the stream Hunter orders me to remove my jeans and weapons and sit in the water, which turns out to be quite a bit more involved than he predicted. Seeing as I can’t really move my arm without either Nate or Chase barking at me to stay still, eventually I give up and allow Hunter to cut my jeans off too. It’s not like the smell would ever come out of them anyway. In the meantime, Nate has moved around to his pack and is pulling out his torture bag. Sorry, medic kit. As I’m watching the Doc remove various, nefarious looking instruments, Hunter settles behind me in the cold stream and begins to sponge off the grime, I hiss at the cold water as it slides over my body, and Hunter’s touch becomes even gentler, which I didn’t think was possible. My eyes are drawn to a pacing Chase as he stalks around the campsite his brows dropped low over stormy grey eyes that can’t seem to help but flick over to me every few steps, as if to reassure himself I’m still here, my bow clutched in one hand and my arrows strapped to his back. He looks sexy and dangerous and honestly, it’s hot as fuck. I reluctantly pull my eyes away from him as I feel my cheeks start to heat. They’re not the only thing starting to heat up and I shift uncomfortably, suddenly glad the water is close to freezing.

Hunter moves around to my front and continues his diligent cleaning. Looking at him closely I can see his face, too, is drawn, his jaw clenched tightly as he scrubs blood from my shoulder and chest. His dark eyes sometimes jump up to meet mine, but mostly they stay rooted to the newly opened, old wound on my shoulder. Occasionally his iron self-control slips and his eyes dip to my nipples straining through the fabric of my bra, and I get to watch his tongue sneak out to wet his perfectly shaped lips. Yes. I am very glad this water is freezing.

Nate silently hands Hunter a bottle of what looks like soap, but smells like disinfectant and Hunter obediently leathers me up with the stuff, paying particular care around the wound. His touch is light and torturous as he slides his hands down both my arms and across my chest, dipping his fingers just slightly into the tops of my bra. My breath catches even as I sit forward, offering him more access. But he simply moves on down to my abdomen, just barely grazing my nipples on the way past and giving the same attention to the rest of my exposed body. I’m not sure if I’m happy or upset that he leaves the covered areas of my bra and panties alone. My breath is now coming in short pants and it is definitely not from the pain in my shoulder. Just when I think he’s finished, Nate hands him another bottle, this one the shampoo bottle I’ve been lugging about with me.

“We need to get her cleaned up completely, she’s not going near water again for a while after this, she’ll have to be bandaged for at least a week.” Nate says quietly to Hunter and I try not to groan at the information. Or, you know, moan at the tone of Nate’s commanding voice. I’m too worked up. This is getting out of hand for me. Fast.

Blessedly, Hunter has me lay down in the water and thoroughly scrubs my short locks clean in a ruthlessly efficient way. The freezing water closing around my entire body and the way the swift current drags at my wound help to clear away the hazy feeling of need. Once I’m clean from head to toe I’m allowed out of the stream and Nate dries me off using a towel he pulled from… somewhere. Nate is in full doctor mode and pauses only once in his efforts to get me dry, raking his gaze over my pebbled nipples and clinging panties which are still soaked through but once the rest of me is clean and dry Nate starts his ministrations. I notice Hunter dries off and joins Chase in his stalking of the camp.

“That was some seriously nasty shit you allowed into my nice clean surgery site, Trouble.” Nate states a little growl in his voice, and I huff at him in exasperation. Like I meant to let a zombie leak into my wound. “Looks like you’ve busted a few of your internal stitches at the back and pulled most of the skin sutures through too, thankfully the front doesn’t look too bad. It’s going to need a course of antibiotics, if we even have a chance of stopping the infection, and cleaning each day.” I nod at this having expected as much, but my eyes bug out of my head when he turns around and collects a big ass needle from his torture bag.

“What the fuck is that?” I whisper in horror. Only to have Nate smile somewhat maliciously back at me.

“This is the first of your antibiotics, Trouble. Give me your arm it needs to go into muscle.” And he holds out his hand as if he actually expects me to give him my arm. Nope. No fucking way. I hate needles. I keep my arm firmly tucked into my side.

“Isn’t there, like, pills or something I could take instead?” I ask plaintively. Nate just scowls at me.

“There would be, yes, if we weren’t in a zombie apocalypse.” He says in a hard voice, and I shrink away from him a little, which only makes him scowl harder. “You can consider this a small price to pay for scaring us all half to freaking death, sweetheart. Don’t be fooled, we are all mighty upset right now.” I wasn’t fooled at all; it was very obvious they were upset. I decided to let the fact that they were upset with me because I got attacked by a zombie in a zombie apocalypse slide for now, because I’m mature like that. “Now, give me your arm.” He demands again and when I hesitate a little too long, he sighs, losing a little bit of the tension in his shoulders as he picks up my hand and looks into my eyes. “Trouble, I promise it won’t hurt too much, trust me, ok? It’ll be over soon.” Then large hands land gently on my shoulders and Nate quickly moves in to jab me in my upper arm. I do my best not to struggle or accidentally stab someone and I’m reasonably successful. I may accidentally elbow Chase in the stomach as those large hands that clamped down gently on my shoulder try to stop me from flailing, but really, who can be sure? He might just be struggling to breathe because of the guilt he feels for holding me down while Nate tortures me.

After the injection Nate sets about thoroughly bandaging my shoulder, placing a poultice on both the front and back to draw out any infection and covering it all with a bright white bandage that drastically restricts my movement. I sit quietly through the whole ordeal, watching Hunter and Chase pace restlessly about the clearing slowly thinking myself in to a funk. What the hell is such a big freaking deal anyway? We are in a god damn zombie apocalypse and I am a motherfucking adult. I can damn well take care of myself, as I clearly just freaking did!

Or maybe, chimes in the snide little voice inside my head, just maybe, they think you can’t look after yourself, because really what did you do? You got trapped under a zombie and ripped open your stitches, then you had to wait for the cavalry to ride in and rescue you. Maybe, they’re sick of having to carry your needy ass around all the time. I try to hush the nasty bitch but she has some good points, I did need them to rescue me, again, and that thought chafes a little at my pride. I guess I could just ask them… I reason with myself, but something keeps my mouth stubbornly shut, even when Nate insists on putting my injured arm in a sling after dressing me in an oversized shirt that smells like Hunter. He gives me a funny look when I don’t argue with him but doesn’t seem to want to press his luck, so he just ties the sling in place and starts to pack up his shit. I manage to locate another pair of pants and some fresh socks and I’m ready to go again. No one speaks to me as we get ready to move out and I keep my silence too, not sure exactly what’s happening but knowing that it’s somehow my fault.