Infected inside

Infected inside (chapter 5)

He didn’t say anything about the shower incident as we walked and after some time I stopped feeling awkward and embarrassed. When we reached a town he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me down into a crouch beside him.

Frowning I looked up at him and he motioned with his hand over where two cars were. Looking over there I saw two zombies, one standing there, it’s clothes torn and hanging, it’s face didn’t look much better, I had no idea what had caused it but the flesh on its face was barely hanging on, it’s jaw dislocated. The one next to it was standing there too but I couldn’t see it’s face, it’s back was to us, it’s body twitching. I knew the second one was female from the long brown hair and slim delicate frame, the one with the hanging face I was sure was male but not a hundred percent.

There was another zombie in front of the shop entrance eating the remains of what used to be a human but was now just chunks of meat and flesh, unrecognisable. Further up ahead were five other zombies, two walking slowly around, head down while the other three were just standing there doing the same thing as the woman, their bodies twitching. They were unaware of us for now but could we keep it that way?

Motioning for me to follow he’s lead he started moving forward, still crouched. Edging ever closer towards them my heart started to pick up speed, my breathing grew faster and at one point I wondered if I was going to have a full blown panic attack. That would be really bad, if I had a panic attack now I’d get us both killed.

Luck was on our side and none of the zombies were currently facing the shops entrance but there was the one zombie in front of the door that was eating human flesh. While in a frenzied state of eating was the one time it was safe to quietly sneak around a zombie and not be detected and so we did just that, Liam guiding us until we reached the car that was tipped on its side. We were so close to the group of zombies I swear If we so much as breathed too deeply right now we were screwed. I put my complete faith in Liam and followed him as we slowly crept out from behind the car and inched our way closer to the shop. I did not for any reason turn and look at the zombies to see if they had become aware of our presence, trusting Liam and his reactions until we were a hair breadth away from the zombie feasting on its meal in front of the entrance.

Liam slowly opened the door a small creaking noise loud enough only for the zombie beside us to hear but thankfully so engrossed in its meal It go didn’t acknowledge us as we made our way inside.

We didn’t relax until we checked down all the aisles and the back entrances making sure the place was clear, only then did we stand up and start gathering what we needed and were able to carry in our backpacks.

We packed as many tins of beans, sweet corn, basically anything we could eat that didn’t involve cooking into our backpacks as we could. While Liam was distracted I quickly packed some sanitary towels into my bag too. When we were ready to leave and went to leave the same way we had come in we noticed that the zombie that had not barely five minutes ago been happily engrossed in its meal wasn’t there anymore. There were a pair of legs there instead, I was confused for a second as I slid my eyes slowly up the legs and up until I made eye contact with the zombie that had clearly finished it’s meal.

My heart froze as it’s eyes bore into mine, complete and utter silence except for the sound of it slowly licking its cracked and bloodied lips, staring at me with animalistic madness. One minute we were staring at one another and the next it came charging into the store gunning for me. Liam threw me behind him protectively whipping out his pistol at the same time and firing a shot straight into the zombies head before I had time to even blink.

The zombie stopped still for a minute before it collapsed to the floor, but we both knew it would be back up in a matter of minutes, it took a good few headshots to be certain it was dead, unless you had a shotgun to blast in its face, or so that’s what Liam had said to me one time.

Grabbing my hand he pulled me back away from the door as more zombies started making their way towards us having heard all the noise.

Luck was on our side this day as these zombies were either so badly injured or decomposed that they couldn’t run at us so fast. They crashed through the door, shattering glass as they pushed their way inside, aisles of food and drink crashing to the floor from the effort of them trying to reach us. I was sure we were dead at this point, there was no other way out that I could see. Liam had me still behind him, arm blocking me from moving in front while his other still pointed the gun at the mass of zombies making there way towards us. Liam was looking around frantically all the while keeping us slowly but surely moving backwards never giving our back to the herd. I watched as he looked over at the big windows of the store and let him drag me towards them as he yelled, “cover your eyes!”

I did as instructed, the sound of gunfire and shattering glass deafening me. He hauled my ass out through the shattered glass window before following behind, firing shots as two zombies grabbed at him, one grabbing his ankle while the other had a hold of shirt, he managed to fire and hit both zombies, not head shots but enough to stun them into loosening their grip allowing him to jump over and through the window. Grabbing my hand again he raced us away from the relentless zombies until our lungs burned and ached, my legs turning to jello from running so long, it was amazing the things your body could endure while you fought to survive.

We didn’t slow down until we could no longer hear anything behind us nor see anything and we were back inside the bunker, door locked tight and chained.