No Time To Bleed

“Everybody hide now!” Clarissa shouted, running with her shotgun.

We all stood as Clarissa ran towards me and Alex.

“We’ve got a van coming in about two miles away. It’s Lexicon.”

Grimness crossed all of our faces.

“Well, isn’t that where we’re headed? Let’s go to them.” Aliah helped herself from the swing. “What’s the big deal?”

Eli came running towards me and I placed my arms around his shoulders.

“Aliah, we tried to tell you. We’re not going there for the same reasons as you. Lexicon isn’t good. They won’t take care of your baby.” Alex tried to reason.

“And why not? You guys never exactly told me that part.” Her tone grew more persistent.

We were running out of time.

I decided to speak up. “They test on babies. They’re the reason for the virus. We have to go to them on our own terms. Not on theirs.”

Aliah ignored me. “Well, I’m staying. And I’ll tell them that you guys brought me here, so you might as well come with me.”

She attempted to smirk, but Cece punched her in the face.

Aliah hunched over to the side. “What the hell?!”

Alex ran to her aid and checked her face. “Cece, you can’t punch a pregnant woman!”

“She’s trying to threaten us. I can punch assholes!” Cece shot back then, looked to Clarissa and I. “What are we gonna do?”

“We can’t let them get us. They took my mommy before.” Eli whined and I felt my heart begin to pound.

“We’ve gotta hide then.” I said.

We all took refuge in the thinning and bone dry bushes(Aliah came with Alex’s aid).

With not even a second to spare, the vans came hurdling down the road and stopped at the park’s edge. The men and women came out in white suits like in the movies, all ports of airborne access whining in through filters on their masks.

Eli trembled under my grasp as my mind begged for me to pray. But I just hoped.

They all came out with batons, about five of them. If it came down to it, we could probably fight them off, but who knew what they had up their sleeves. The last time we’d faced them involved a rocket launcher and Shatoya being shot in the head.

“Follow the signal! It’s clearest in this park!”

Signals mean tracking devices. I heard Cece curse under her breathe.

Aliah was pressed against Alex and she was breathing heavy. “I think she broke my nose, I can’t breathe…”

Seconds seemed to pass in hours. Eli’s shudders vibrated against me as his little hands gripped into my hands tighter.

“Just breathe through your mouth. Deep breaths. You’ll be okay.” Alex purred to Aliah.

Blood was trickling down Aliah’s lips and onto the dry dirt. Silence seemed to be all we had. I swallowed the lumps in my throat.

"Go near the bushes. This tracker says its over there." One man ordered.

Aliah dove from the bushes. "Save my baby! I'm not one of them! Save him!"

We all stuck to the bushes. A roar came from a convenience store across the street. Glass shattered as something hurdled through.

A girl appearing to be about twelve years old with patches of blonde hair surged out the parking lot. One eye was loosened from the socket and her white dress was drenched into sticking black blood. Her teeth were pulled open and black in their gums.

She dove to the first man, face convulsing as she sunk her teeth into his neck. His screams were agonizing and long.

The others sent off shots at the little girl, none reaching through her skull. Then the girl jumped on another man and cracked his skull against the stone playground floor. The first white suited man she’d attached lurched up from the dead, moans escaping his lips.

We all froze. They all tried to make a run for the van, but inexperience was their downfall. Then one of the things tackled Aliah to the ground.

“Aliah!” Alex dove out after her next, gun at the ready.

We were all forced out the bushes.

“Save my baby! Save my baby!” she sobbed.

Alex sent out a shot and it went perfect through the zombie’s skull. The little girl went speeding towards Eli and I.

I swung my bat and sank into her skull, it caved in easily as Eli cried more and more behind me. “She’s a little girl! Don’t kill her!”

“Get to the SUV now!” Clarissa shouted.

The massacre of the zombies had ended, one of our luckiest encounters with no one lost. Eli ran past me to Clarissa and she held him in her arms. Who know how many scars that little boy had?

Alex helped Aliah up, who was crying powerfully as well. Blood from the zombie’s throat was all over her blouse. They both went to the SUV next.

Cece still stood motionless.

I went over to her. “We’ve gotta go to the car before any more of them come.”

Her eyes still trained to the dirt, the bodies that now littered the playground floor. Clarissa raided the Lexicon van and began to pour gasoline around it.

“It’s my fault.”

“You can’t blame yourself.” I muttered softly. “They put those trackers in you.”

She shook her head. “I used to think it was just in my blood stream like everyone else. But, they’re inside me. I’m never gonna get away from them.”

Her eyes looked to me one last time. I knew nothing to say. She felt like she was one of them, any enemy to us and to Lexicon.

I followed her to the SUV as Clarissa lit the Lexicon van to a sickly flame that burned the paint and leather in a twisted smoke. Tomorrow we’d reach Lexicon, but something told me our luck was beginning to run out. Maybe it was Lexicon’s van exploding behind us and the night preparing to descend.