War, Love and Timetravel

Veil

There was no coming back from this, Mary was long gone and her death left me devastated, I couldn’t move a single muscle and my arms were shaking so much the gun in my hand fell down to the floor, I heard Sophie’s door open but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from Mary’s body, “I can’t sleep” little Sophie said coming out of her room, now hearing her voice I turned to see her rubbing her eyes, standing at the room door. So I stood up to prevent her from seeing Mary’s lifeless body by sitting upright,  “it’s nothing dear, just a rabbit” I said getting up from the floor and walking over to her in an angle that continued to obstruct her view, “you shouldn’t worry about it Sophie, it’s been well taken care of, that annoying rabbit won’t disturb your sweet dreams again” I said gently tucking her back in bed, I moved out quietly but closed the door quickly, no child especially a little girl should see her sister dead, at least not like this. I was having a hard time looking at the body, my own sister who was just having a chat with me a few hours ago, now lying dead on the floor and the person that pulled the trigger was me, I couldn’t overcome the guilt, how did she get infected in the first place I began questioning myself, we were all together the whole time, suddenly it dawned on me when I began retracing our steps back that Mary got pushed over by one of the infected when we left mum and ran out of the car, she may have been scratched or beaten, “poor Mary…..” I cried softly, “You said you would survive, you promised me” I sobbed stretching my hand to touch her face when I heard the front door open, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” the voice of a lady said to me, I looked over and a young lady walked in, she looked in her early 20’s and was a bit thin with long hair, she was carrying a bowl of fish and crabs, “you live here?” I asked her drying the tears from my eyes, “yes, this is my home and I’m guessing the girl on the floor has been infected” she said in anticipation, so I gently nodded yes, “she was my sister and I killed her, I freaking killed her” I fell down back to my knees and sobbed, “don’t be too hard on yourself” she said heading into the kitchen, “put on some gloves we need to take care of the body, make sure you don’t have direct contact with her skin or blood, have you already?” she asked curiously, “no, not while she was showing symptoms” I replied, “that’s good, a victim can only infect someone when the symptoms have begun manifesting by touching them” she said putting on a pair of gloves she brought from the kitchen drawer, handing a pair over to me, I put it on and we both carried the body outside, it was horrifyingly quiet and dark, “check over there and bring a shovel” she said pointing at the corner of the cabin, I moved and picked up shovels to begin digging when we heard something lurking in the dark, approaching quietly from a distance, “quick, hurry inside” the lady whispered, “you drew them here with the sound of your gun shot, go around the house and put off all the lights” she ordered quietly, I made my way around the house and put off the lights obediently, “good, now be quiet” she said, “don’t make a single sound”  she whispered again so we laid there quietly in the dark cabin while I heard the screamers move right past the house credulously, we waited quietly for a few minutes until they were in the clear before uttering another word, “now common, we have some burying to do” she uttered fearlessly walking back out into the night, meanwhile I had literally just pissed myself, the fear was overwhelming and both my legs shuddered like washing machines but still I summoned the courage to go back outside to bury Mary so her soul would be in peace and I did, “would you like to say a few words?” she asked me, I lowered my head abruptly, “before all this, I and Mary never really got along, but she was still my sister and I loved her, gosh I wish I told her when she was still alive” I sobbed, “rest in peace little angel” the lady said compassionately, “rest in peace Mary” I said finally and we both moved back into the cabin. “Call me Helen” she said as she locked the living room door behind her, “I’m Francis, my little sister Sophie is fast asleep in your room, I hope you don’t mind” I said, then an expression of joy shaped her face, “you have a little sister and she’s here?” she asked seeming very excited, “yeah have a look” I offered opening the room door so she could see little Sophie sleeping well like the baby she was. “So adorable” Helen expressed, “so uh you seem really experienced with all this apocalypse stuff huh? You act like you’ve done this before” I said inquisitively, “you handled the screamers so well” I continued, “yeah I’m very observant, during the outbreak while I made my way over to the cabin I learned a lot about their behavior and how they react under different circumstances, it’s quite easy to survive if you’re being mindful enough” she said with a long yawn afterwards, “do you have any idea what caused the infection in the first place?” I asked curiously, but not even Helen knew what initially caused the outbreak, “I have my suspicions but I’m not sure” was all she said, “go to sleep Francis, you’ll be needing a lot of it in these troubled times” she said sitting vigilantly on the couch to keep guard while I went to sleep, my thoughts were unsettling and I struggled for a really long time to be at peace before I could finally sleep again.

“Francis, Francis wake up” little Sophie’s voice resonated in my ears, her hands tapped me repeatedly on my forehead, still sleepy I struggled to open my eyes so she knew I was awake and could hear her, “I can’t find Mary” she said with a worried expression written on her face, for a second I didn’t know how to respond, I didn’t think of what to tell Sophie when Mary died because there was so little time for that particular thought, so much things happened, and I simply did not realize Sophie would wake up the next morning to find out her sister was missing, “um…..” I stammered, “Remember that beautiful place I told you about? Where mum and dad are?” I asked her and she gently nodded yes in response, “well, Mary has gone to be with mum and dad in that better place, but you’ll see her someday Sophie don’t worry, you’ll see mum and dad again and trust me when you do, nothing will ever separate you from them. We’ll live together as a family forever” I said but it only made her sad, as though she understood the concept of death, “will you go away too?” she asked me holding my hand in her little palm, “I won’t Sophie, I promise” I said feeling very unhappy. Helen came in from the kitchen with a bow and a bunch of arrows strapped to her back, “hope you’re ready” she said to me, “ready for what?” I asked with a puzzled expression on my face, “Francis look around there’s no water to drink, when last did you have water? We’re going out to get some fresh drinking water, all of us; I can’t risk leaving you both here by yourselves” she said walking out the front door, “looks like were going for a little hike Sophie” I said to Sophie carrying her on my back and following after Helen but as I stepped out of the cabin she stopped and looked at me seeming a bit confused, “are you planning on carrying the water on your feet?” she asked sarcastically, “what?” I asked like a wag when the answer to the question was clear, “go get some cans” she ordered being hard on me for no reason, it wasn’t a big deal, I just went back inside, picked a can and stormed back outside, “you know you have no right to act like you’re my guardian or something right?” I confronted her, she squinted hard at me and said, “I’m just 20” then walked right past me. Helen acted too mature for her age, and I was completely speechless, but I waved it off and followed after her.

It was a long hike through the woods, it only made me realize how infested the world had become, several screamers being intercepted at every passing minute but this was where the arrows Helen carried became helpful, according to her there was a strict no gun policy and I was one hundred percent positive because I witnessed what happened when I shot a gun the previous night, “Helen we’ve been walking for half an hour now, how far out is this water source?” I asked getting tired of the ramble, “it’s a river, be patient, we’ll get there soon” she replied, meanwhile my back was seriously starting to ache from carrying Sophie uphill for so long, we eventually got to the top of the hill and I was blessed with the site of the river below it, the walk downhill was less stressful and we finally arrived at the river, I kept Sophie to sit on a rock close by and hurried to fetch and drink some water also fetching some for Sophie to drink, “Sophie get over here and have some…..” I was saying before being cut short when I turned back to Sophie and she wasn’t in sight, “Sophie!” I shouted at the top of my voice but there was no answer, immediately I turned to Helen, “where’s Sophie, did you see her?” I asked her anxiously, “wasn’t she with you?” she replied seeming nervous, and gradually I started panicking, walking around in search of her, then saw a cave with its opening tilted towards the left such that we couldn’t see it from where we were initially standing, “Sophie!!” I called out louder into the cave and my voice echoed back, “We have to go in and find her” I said to Helen impatiently, “I have a flash light” she said bringing out a flashlight from her strap bag and I took it immediately hurrying into the cave while Helen waited out front, moving further in I spotted bones scattered across the floor, human bones and skulls heaping up against the walls, “Sophie” I called out softly with so much terror, I could hear noise on my left, light taps which I slowly closed in on and found Sophie laying in a ditch half unconscious lightly tapping on the rocky floor while her head was half covered in blood, the ditch was about five foot deep so I jumped in, carried Sophie out and began making my way back out the dark cave only to intercept two screamers on the path leading to the entrance blankly staring at me, I already discerned that I had just five seconds before they attacked, so without further delay I began running backwards deeper and deeper into the cave while they chased after us screaming loudly and crawling with both hands, dragging their legs on the ground, closing in with every passing minute and right in the nick of time I heard the screaming stop behind me, I turned to see arrows sticking out of their heads while they laid dead on the ground, I lifted my eyes and there was Helen standing behind them like the hero she truly was, “you can thank me later for saving your life, now hurry out, there could me more of them” she said quickly and we made our way back out the cave and unto broad daylight. She then saw clearly what happened to Sophie, “she’s injured, how did this happen?” she asked sadly taking Sophie from me, I struggled to open my mouth and speak because I was also in shock, “I found her lying in a ditch, she must have fallen into it by accident and hit her head” I muffled, Helen quickly examined her and confirmed that she was indeed alive, but she was injured from the fall not just her head, on most of her body. “You’ll have to go into the city and get some antibiotics, medicines and any other medical supplies you think might be useful” she uttered, “there’s a motorcycle at the back of my cabin, you take it and go hurry” she instructed, “what about you?” I asked curiously, “You’ll meet me at the cabin, now go” she instructed, so as fast as I possibly could I ran back to the cabin, stopping only twice to catch my breath, I found the motorcycle exactly where she said it would be and used it to get out of the woods and into the city, but on coming out of the woods I saw the car we had supposedly abandoned mum in, driving past it I could see her body still strapped to the driver’s seat consisting of nothing but bones, the screamers had eaten of her flesh and internal organs leaving just her skeleton. The seat was red and dry after absorbing her blood, and I was thoughtless while I looked into the car, I almost broke down in tears, if only there was something I could have done. The incident was in the past and there was nothing I could do to change it, I started my bike back up and continued into the city which now looked even worse than when I last saw it. Not a single living soul was in sight, most of the infected had wondered off into more promising areas to find living flesh.

Later my eyes stumbled onto a pharmacy ahead and I remembered then why I was out there in the first place, Sophie was running  out of time, and if I didn’t get those antibiotics back in time she would probably die of bacterial infection, and this thought sparked a surge of adrenaline that charged me so much I almost didn’t realize I was going at full speed, but it didn’t matter, the road was clear and I arrived at the pharmacy shortly, then parked my bike outside and headed inside to grab whatever antibiotics I could get my hands on along with a couple of other useful drugs, I put them all in my bag pack and was about leaving when I saw through the transparent door, screamers dashing towards the pharmacy, I ran to the door, closed it and locked it to prevent them from entering, and as they got to the door they began banging their heads painlessly against the bulletproof glass, and now I was trapped there with no other way out. They were all banging their heads so hard that most of them began dying from breaking their heads open; somehow I forgot to bring a gun along with me. I sat on the floor away from their sight and waited for hours. Four hours before the ones at the door were either gone or dead, distracted by other sounds in the environment, it was already nightfall by the time they were all gone, five hours had just been wasted, and at this point the only thing on my mind was great hope that Sophie would be strong enough to survive this. I moved quietly to the door and peeped to make sure they were all gone then came out towards my bike and out of nowhere I heard a scream I looked behind me and there were screamers furiously crawling towards me, impulsively I looked left then right and found a huge wooden plank that I picked up and smashed a beast’s skull into bits with, the remains of its brain splashed all over the interlocked floor but luckily none of it came in contact with my skin. There were more screamers heading towards me now, “the hell are they coming from?” I angrily said using the plank to beat them mercilessly but gradually they became too much. I quickly got on my bike and zoomed off into the night, I checked myself and, “oh no!” I exclaimed I’d forgotten the drugs in the pharmacy; there was no way I was going back without those drugs, I turned my bike around immediately and headed right back to the infested pharmacy, clearing out every single beast in my way. The door was open so I rode my bike into the pharmacy and made a quick U turn, picked up the bag of drugs on my way out and again killed every screaming beast on my path using my motorcycle, and in that moment I realized the fear for Sophie’s life had overcome every other fear within me, including the fear of those beasts. So with a little smile on my face now, I sped up to the max into the dark and lonely road, with my headlight as the only source of light I spotted the bridge and knew I was close, I rode quickly into the forest, the sound of my motorcycle in the dead of night attracted a lot screamers, I became worried I might draw them towards the cabin so I abandoned the bike a few miles away from the cabin and began running towards it. A handful of them chased me from a distance but I wasn’t bothered I just kept on going on foot but on getting to the cabin I discovered it was completely overrun by screamers, lots of them climbing all over the roof, moving inside and outside the building, deep down I hoped Helen and Sophie were not inside the cabin, I hoped they were still at the river because Helen told me I would meet her at the cabin and she didn’t seem like the kind of person to go back on her word, but either way I had no choice but to head back quickly to the river, the beasts chasing me were now closer, so I had to run as fast as I could to escape them and make it to the river in time, somehow I made it there without getting killed, “Sophie!” I called out at the top of my voice but there was no reply, “Helen!” I yelled again but still no response then I wept because my brain had done the math, Helen had taken Sophie back to the cabin and they were both probably dead now, killed by the beasts. I could hear the screams behind me growing louder and louder, I turned to see a multitude of screamers heading towards me coming from every angle, even the caves. And I knew in that moment, that I was going to die a painful death.