Page 62 of Hollow Valley

I think I screamed, but I couldn’t say for sure.I only knew that I was holding her, squeezing her to me hard enough that the arrow I’d killed her with pierced my own flesh.The blood on my hands was slowly cooling and drying, and my face was slick with tears and sweat.

My stomach rolled, and I realized I was going to throw up, and that I couldn’t do that on Clementine.I had already done enough.

I lay her gently on the pine needles, and I raced a few meters away, back through the trees to the creek I had passed.It was only a few inches deep, but it was more than enough.The water was ice cold, nearly freezing, and I collapsed into it, my knees scraping against the sharp stones, but I barely even noticed.

I vomited on the banks of the creek.I splashed the water on my face, and it was so cold, I could hardly breathe.So I splashed myself again, because I didn’t deserve to breathe.

Icouldn’tkeep breathing.I couldn’t keep doing this.I couldn’t keep living when everything around me was just death and death and death and death and death….

Ripley was suddenly beside me, rubbing her big head against my back.

“This is too much,” I cried.She nuzzled up against me, and I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face in her thick fur.“I can’t do this anymore.”

Ripley suddenly pulled away from me, lifting her head high with her ears alert.Distantly, over the sound of the babbling brook, I could hear death groans and the crunch of branches.

But I didn’t care.I didn’t care if zombies came out here and devoured me.Maybe that’s what I deserved.

I stared down at the blood staining my jeans, and I remembered the way it felt when Max’s jeans slipped past my fingertips.I felt the rough fabric scrape on my fingers as he fell out that window, and I never touched him again.

My skin was red and wrinkled, and Clementine’s warm blood washed away.My hands were numb, and I wished that all of me would be numb.That the cold water would take me away.

A scream suddenly tore through the trees, raw and high pitched.It was the desperate cry of a little girl, and the zombies sounded far too close to her.

Ripley ran through the trees, running toward the sounds, and I hurried to get to my feet.I’d been kneeling in the cold water so long that they’d gone numb and prickly, and I stumbled forward, tripping over myself and scraping my palms on rocks and pine needles.

I got up again, and I ran as fast as I could, unmindful of the branches cracking into me.

And then I lurched forward, back into the clearing where I’d left Clementine’s body, but it wasn’t only her now.Zombies had crowded around her, tearing into her flesh and devouring her while she was still warm.

Ripley had arrived before me, and she’d already taken some of them out.I’d left my bow and quiver behind before I’d gone to the creek, but I always had a dagger sheathed on my hip when I went hunting.I pulled it out and ran towards the zombies eviscerating Clementine.

I dispatched them in a blur of blood and gelatinous bones and primal screams I couldn’t contain.Then it was over, none of the bodies moving anymore.Ripley’s face was stained green with blood, and so was I, but the rage and despair remained.Nothing changed, except my lungs burned and my muscles ached and my mouth tasted like copper.

Then I heard a little girl crying above me, and for a delirious moment, I worried I’d lost my mind.I looked up, and in a nearby pine tree, I caught a glimpse of orange between the evergreen branches.

A meter or two off the ground was Juniper Cruz, the young daughter of Oakley and Sienna.She was wearing an orange jumper, her dark hair hanging in two braids, and she clung to the branches with terrified ferocity.

“Juniper!”I yelled up at her as friendly as I could, and I held my hands out toward her.“Are you okay, sweetheart?Can you get down from there?”

“They ate Clemmy!”Juniper yelled, tears streaming down her tawny cheeks, ruddy from fear and crying.

“I know, and I am so sorry, honey, but you gotta get down,” I said, pleading with her really.“I want to get you back to your mom and dad.All the zombies are gone, and I’ll take you back home.”

For a horrifying few moments, she didn’t respond or climb down.She clung to the tree, sobbing, and I wasn’t at all sure what I should do.I just wanted her to be safe, and far away from this.

“If I jump, can you catch me?”Juniper asked.

And because I was afraid any other answer would leave her stuck in that tree, I said, “Yes!”

With a frightened squeal, she leapt, and I held my arms open to her.I caught her, but I fell back to the ground, and she knocked the air painfully from my lungs.

Once I could breathe, I sat up and looked her over, making sure that she was okay.Or at least as okay as she could be.Scrapes and bruises from the tree, and whatever lasting trauma happened from witnessing her childhood friend eviscerated by zombies.

I couldn’t leave Clementine here, and I didn’t want Juniper to see her this way.No one needed to see her this way.I took off my flannel shirt, stripping down to a tank top, and I wrapped Juniper up in my clothing, hiding as much of her as I could.I had killed the zombies quickly, but already, there was so little of her left.Even her feet had bite marks on them.

I carried her in my arms, and Juniper walked between Ripley and me as we headed back toward where the Barbarabelle was anchored in the Staulo River.

We hadn’t gone very far when we heard them calling for the children.Clementine’s mother Mika and Juniper’s mother Sienna, and others, many others, yelling for them.