I walked in the same general direction while keeping my eyes open for any infected, so it was of no surprise when after an hour of walking I tripped over something. I stood up while drawing my machete ready to attack if it stood up, but when nothing happened I walked up to it and saw that it was a dead body, it was a male so it's not Julia. I sigh to myself in relief as I rolled the body over and saw a few bullet holes. I walked on, now noticing the occasional dead body of the infected. After a few minutes I reached a dirt road, alongside of the road I found two more dead bodies.
One was an infected that had been shot to hell, the other was that of a biker. The biker had a jacket with a skeleton angel on the back, with blue jeans and black boots. I turned the guy over and saw that he had been shot in the head, the most interesting thing was that he wasn't infected. I checked his pockets, but didn't find anything of use, that's when I noticed something glinting in the sun. Picking it up I recognized it as Julia's necklace since it had the raven on it. I punched the ground, fearing the worst.
"They have a three day head start, and their on motorcycles," I thought to myself frustrated, "No, I'll chase them down until the ends of the earth if I have, but I won't give up." I studied the tracks left by the bikes on the dirt road and noticed that they went west, deeper into the country and started running down the road as fast as I could. I alternated between running and jogging, passing the odd infected headed in the same direction so it would spur me on knowing that I was still on their trail, at sunset I had to slow down to a walk to catch my breath and drink some water, but started again as soon as I was rested.
I even ran into the night knowing that I had a lot of distance to cover to catch up and because it was safe not to sleep outside alone. I ran so much that eventually my limbs went numb and I even threw up, but I did not stop. It was well into the night when I saw some light coming out of the forest, so I slowed to a walk. I felt like my body was going to fall apart and knew that if I fell or sat down I probably wouldn't get back up. But I had to know if this was them, and if it was, darkness would be the best cover to slip into their camp. If it wasn't, I might be able to get information on their location.
I took off my pack to leave beside the road and it felt like I had shed a hundred pounds. Taking only my knife I slipped into the forest in a crouch, using the trees for cover, aided only by the light of the moon and their fire. Halfway to the camp I saw two guys walk out and huddled behind the nearest tree for cover. As they came closer I could hear them talk to each other. "Man that girl we picked up the other day sure is a wild fire," said the first, a short medium build man with short cropped hair. "I know, but we'll break her like the others, all women like it even if they don't know it at first," said the second, who was taller than the first, but thinner and bald.
Hearing them talk and laugh amongst each other made my blood boil, but I stayed hidden without saying a word since it was obvious that they were armed and I didn't know how many of them there were in the camp. I wished I had brought the rifle, but I knew I wouldn't have made it this far with the weight of both the rifle and my pack. As they split up to walk the perimeter I slipped in closer to the camp. There was a bonfire in the middle with a hulking guy sitting next to it that reminded me of Jim with a similar biker outfit, surrounded by five tents.
I huddled in a bush behind one of the tent's trying to decide which one to try first when two guys came out of the tent to the right. "Dammit duke! She's dead, how many times do I have to tell you to not be so damn rough. Especially now with there being so few women around," said the guy, he must be the leader since he is the oldest on I've seen so far, he looked like duke except for his gray hair, and the other looked like a miniature version of the two sat by the fire with a scowl on his face. Duke just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Then we'll just find some more pops, sides, we picked up a livelier one the other day didn't we. We just need to get her to tell us where her camp is." Duke got up and started walking to the tent to my left when pops stepped in front of him. "Knowing you, you just might kill her to get that info, and there is no way of being sure that there are more women at her camp. Hell, she could be the only one, which would explain why she was running through the woods alone," said pops.
Two more guys came into the camp and sat by the fire quietly. "Come on, I haven't even gotten a round with her yet, I promise I'll be gentle this time," duke said with a smile on his face. "No, not until I'm certain you won't kill her in one of your drunken stupors," pops replied forcing duke to sit back down by the fire. Once he was sure duke wasn't going to get back up he walked to the middle tent and went in.
I took this chance to slip out of the bush and make my way to the tent being as careful as I could not to make any noise. After reaching the tent I took a moment to make sure no one had noticed me or moved, but they continued to talk amongst themselves. So I took my knife and began to cut my way into the back wall, just then it started to rain a little providing me with enough distraction that they didn't notice the sound of cutting. With the rain as cover I started to cut through the tent wall faster and when it was big enough I slipped inside. It was dark and there wasn't much light from the fire coming through the flaps so I had to feel my way around, after a moment I touched a soft mound. As my eye's adjusted to the light I noticed that it was Julia, her feet were bound and she was completely naked with dried blood coming from her lower body. It sent my blood to such a boil at seeing her state that I started to shake. I took off my coat and covered her with it, as I held her I undid her bonds and removed her gag, I could no longer hear the rain or anything else while my blood froze in my veins, all of my attention was on the scene before me as I slowly crawled to her and dragged her onto my lap. "Why?" I was barely able to get out since my throat felt as if I was being hanged. And for the first time since I was a child I truly cried as lightning cracked outside.
I laid her body on the ground and with blurry eyes picked up the knife. "Why? Why most I always lose things in my life that I wish to protect," I thought to myself, "Why must the world take these things from me? Why must I be punished when I have committed no wrong? I must make certain that no one else falls prey to them," I thought to myself with my blood beginning to boil again. Just then duke pulled back the flap to the tent and walked inside. "I think it's time that you and I got to know each other baby," he said before taking in the scene in front of him. "What the-", was all he could get out before I threw myself on him while digging my knife into his chest causing him to fall back out of the tent. He drew his gun while trying to pull out the knife, but I was resting my body weight on my knee that I had on the knife and wrestled the gun from his grasp, but not before it went off, waking the camp. His father was the first to come out a moment later to see the commotion, but walked right in front of the barrel of the gun. I didn't hesitate to shoot him in the head causing him to fall back into his tent collapsing it around him and shot into the other tents.
When I was sure duke was dead I pulled the knife from his body and stood up, making my way to the other tents as someone came out. I went to the nearest one and as the guy stood I wrapped my arm around his throat while shoving the knife into his back. "Let him go you piece of shit," said another. With my blood boiling I barely registered the gunshots coming from the perimeter, but they weren't aiming at me. As another one came out of the tent I noticed that the guy who was pointing his gun at me started to smile. So I threw the guy's body I was holding towards him and jumped behind a tree while the other one started shooting in my direction. When I was behind cover I noticed that it was an infected that had snuck up behind me, but now he was snacking on duke's dead body while being shot at. The bikers couldn't shoot for shit because it took them nine tries to get a head shot at such a close range, but he could have also been trying for me.
I noticed one of the bikers that walked the perimeter running towards me so I prepared to shoot, but stopped when I realized he wasn't even looking at me. True enough, he ran right past without stopping straight into the camp but unfortunately for him, his two buddies where still jumpy so when he ran in they emptied their clips into him. I took this opportunity to lean out from behind the tree to shoot, dukes brother dropped to the ground behind the log around the fire which had been put out by the rain at this point. I was able to get the other one in the shoulder throwing him back, right into an infected. He screamed so loud it pierced the rain, I decided to leave the rest to the infected and made my way back to the tent were Julia's body was. After wrapping up her body, I picked it up, cradling it in my arms and made my way back outside. There was so much rain I couldn't see across the camp, but I could still hear those that were caught by the infected scream at the top of their lungs as they were eaten. I made my way back to the road slowly, tired as if I hadn't slept in a thousand years, but I wasn't going to put her body down until I could give her a proper funeral. I reached the road without any problems with screaming and gunfire still coming from the camp. I cradled her body on my knees as I put on my backpack since I didn't want to put down her body, and started making my way further west to the main road which doubled back and headed into town.
I continued to walk silently for who knows how long as is kept raining heavily, on occasion I would pass an infected but it was as if the rain and thunder made me invisible to them. I would have walked forever if I hadn't almost tripped on the asphalt of the main road, so I turned north and headed back into town. The rain never let up, the only way I could tell that the sun was up was that I could make out more than just my hand in front of my face. After hours of walking I finally reached the supercenter as the darkness began to close in again, and stood in front for a while longer before banging on the front to let me in. When they confirmed it was me I walked over to the side of the building and waited for them to let done the ladder so I could come over.
I barely comprehended what was happening as I was ushered inside, I didn't even now they were saying anything, after a while Jim pried Julia's body from my hands. As frank then ushered me into the shower and scrubbed me done before checking me for bites as I just stood there unable to comprehend the things happening around me. Frank then dress me and Isis lead me to my bed where I then finally fell asleep. As I slept I dreamed I was chasing after Julia screaming her name as I killed anyone or anything that got in my way, but every time I got close she would just get further away. I eventually reached her, I placed my hand on her shoulder, and as she turned around she held up her bloodied arms. "I'm sorry, but you're too late," she said to me before falling limp in my arms. "NO!" I yelled, before being shaken awake. "You are only having a nightmare," I heard someone say before falling back asleep, to a dreamless sleep.
I finally woke up, confused about where I was, unable to move since my whole body hurt, then the memory of what had happened came back to me and I was numb while staring at the ceiling. After a while Isis came in and said something, but I too numb to register her presence or what she was saying. Eventually she left as I continued to lay there on my bed staring into nothingness.
I don't know for how long I laid there before finally getting up, the first thing I did was go take a shower, hoping I could scrub the feeling away. When it didn't go away I dried myself off and got dressed before heading out into the center. The others were sitting at the table for dinner as I made my way to them. No one said anything as Isis served me, so I ate in silence, but the food tasted bland. After I finished I sat there for a while before asking "Have you cremated her yet?" Isis was the one to answer, "We are about to, we wanted to wait until it stopped raining and you woke up." I nodded my head and then followed the others as they led me to the freezer where they were keeping Julia's body. We carried it out to the lot and placed it on top of a pyre made of pallets. Everyone was silent as I lit the pyre and watched in silence. After a while the others went inside but I remained until the fire had burned out before going back to sleep.
The next morning my body still hurt but I took a shower and went to breakfast in silence where the others were already seated. They let me eat in peace, once I was done Isis ushered the kids out while the rest of us sat at the table while I drank my coffee. "Fade, I understand how you must be feeling, but we would like to know what happened out there," Jim said, his wife elbowed him, but the look he gave didn't change. I took a drink of coffee as I gathered my thoughts before letting out a sigh. I started off slowly, telling them about the day I left, and when I reached the point of when I discovered Julia's necklace it felt as if I was telling the story of a past life, in a sort of detached state of mind. I didn't look at the others until I finished my story, but when I did I saw looks of horror, fear, disgust, and hate. No one said anything while Samantha cried in Jim's arms, and after a while she regained her composure. "Poor Lilly, she's lost everyone now," Allison said. At that I felt my pocket where I had Julia's necklace, I was thinking of keeping it, but thought better.
I asked where Lilly was right now and wasn't surprised when they told me that she was still in bed, so I excused myself from the table and went to see her. When I got to her room I knocked on the panel and waited, when no answer came I went inside to find Lilly laying on Julia's bed. I didn't know what to say so I sat down on the bed beside her in silence for a while before pulling Julia's necklace out of my pocket and holding it in my hand. Seeing the necklace Lilly slowly sat up in the bed.
"I am going to miss her too, and I think she would have liked you to have this," I said leaning over and fastening the necklace around her neck. She fingered the necklace for a moment with tears in her eyes before leaning over and crying into my chest. I didn't know what to do so I just held her and stroked her hair as she cried. When she finished crying she fell asleep in my arms, I moved to lay her on the bed but she wouldn't let me go. That's when Isis walked in, seeing my predicament she helped me to pry Lilly's fingers from my shirt, and when she was tucked in we left. We walked in silence for a while before Isis asked, "So what will you do now?" I had been thinking that very thing all day, I felt like I had been prolonging my stay here more then I intended, keeping myself from finally having to move on. But after what has happened I knew it was time for me to leave, I just had one more thing to do before moving on.
I went to my bedroom and lied down thinking about my next move when after a while there was a knock my door. "Come in," I said while still thinking about other things. It wasn't until I heard the door close that I turned to see who it was. In front me stood Isis like a woman in her right with a smile on her face and cherry red lipstick as she walked to the bed before sitting down, and crossed her legs on which she wore see through black stockings up to her knees, preventing me from getting a full view of her black panties with satin bow's that connected to a matching black bustier with a satin string tying up the back, and a single satin bow in the middle bringing full attention to her bountiful mounds. "With the way the world is right now I do not want to regret not doing something when I have the chance in the future," Isis said, looking into my eyes. I stared at her for moment to take everything in, before reaching up and pulling her towards me. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep that night.