Rough Waters

They were vastly outnumbered by the zombie hoard they had accidentally stumbled upon. They had tried to gun down as many as they could, but there were still so many more. They fled, changing direction.

Kurt fired at another one with his handgun before quickly holstering the weapon and grabbing the shotgun strapped to his back. “Getting low on ammo here!” It wasn’t as though they had time to reload at the moment. He took out another zombie with the shotgun slug, and quickly dashed a further distance before shooting another down.

Suddenly, Adam spotted some sort of fence constructed out of scraps of metal; it might not hold them back long, but it would put something between them and the zombies, and thus buy the four of them more time. If they could clear it…

“Quick! This way!” He called, attempting to jump the structure. “Over this thing!” It seemed he would make it over when he felt something tear into his left leg. He cried out in pain and fell to the other side of the fence.

“Adam!” Kurt was right behind him, clearing the fence and landing beside him a moment later. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I dunno,” Adam answered, investigating his injury. It was a rather deep gash, something—likely a sharp piece of metal—had ripped through his trouser leg and into his flesh. “I think I might’ve got caught on some metal.” Pausing and looking around, he asked, “Where are the others?”

As if in response, Elliott landed beside Kurt, stumbling slightly, and a moment later Sebastian fell to the ground next to him. “Not a word, Gilbert,” he muttered as Elliott helped him up.

There was a banging coming from the other side of the fence. Adam got to his feet with some assistance from Kurt. “Is everyone alright?”

“Are you alright? You’re kinda bleeding a lot,” Elliott asked, taking notice of Adam’s injured leg.

He winced as he placed more weight on it, but he could still use the limb, which was what really mattered for now. “I hit a snag on the fence. I’m sure it looks worse than it is. Anyway, we need to keep moving.”

Kurt looked like he was about to argue when the fence moved behind them, redirecting his attention. “Alright, but as soon as we get away from those bastards we deal with that.” He gestured towards Adam’s injury.

“Deal,” Adam said, moving forward as best as he could. Surveying the area, they saw they had stumbled upon a private residence that appeared abandoned. There was a gate on the opposite side of the yard from them, which led them to a conjoining property that had also been abandoned.

“Let’s go through the house and sneak out the back or something,” Elliott suggested in a rushed whisper. They all nodded and followed his lead.

They travelled off road for a while, and finally stopped when they were confident they were alone once again. It felt like they had walked for ages, with Adam’s wounded leg screaming at him nearly every step of the way.

Once they had all taken the opportunity to catch their breath and drink some water, Kurt got out their first aid supplies. He looked from their meager kit of dwindling supplies to Adam’s leg and grimaced. “I really wish we had more supplies…and that I actually knew what I was doing.”

“Anything you can do for it is better than nothing,” Adam said.

“I guess,” Kurt responded, “Hold still, alright? This is gonna hurt.”

Adam tensed and cried out as Kurt poured the peroxide on the wound, the liquid stinging like mad when it came into contact with the gash. Then, Kurt tried to close and cover the wound with tape, gauze, and bandages. He didn’t seem terribly confident in his handiwork.

“That probably needs stitches, but there’s nothing we can really do about that,” Kurt said.

Adam nodded. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. Thanks, love.”

--

A few moments later, Kurt had their map out and was studying it. He frowned. “Alright, nobody panic, but I have no idea where we are.”

Sebastian and Elliott looked over each of his shoulders. “Well, I don’t know where we are, but as long as we can find one of these highways or roads on the map we should be alright, right?” Elliott suggested.

Sebastian and Kurt nodded. “Makes perfect sense to me,” Adam said, rising with some difficulty from his brief resting place on the ground, “So, all we have to do is find one of the main roads again.”

This proved far easier said than done. They spent the rest of that day travelling totally lost. The following day went slightly better in that they found what they thought was a main road on their map, but then they realized they had no way of knowing if they were going the right way, at least not without doing a lot more walking. None of this was helped by Adam being hurt and slowing down the group as a direct result.

On this day, they lost the meager remains of their medical supplies. They stopped briefly to rest and so that Kurt could tend to Adam’s wound, but no sooner had he gotten out their supplies than another hoard of zombies had shambled out of the woodwork. They fired on most of them, killing quite a few, but ultimately had to retreat again. A while down the road later, they realized they’d accidentally left the first aid kit behind.

That wasn’t ideal, but Adam tried to remain positive and not to worry too much. Adam hoped that might rub off on Kurt, who was upset about it and definitely worrying. At any rate, they had to press on and hope for the best, hope they would all be okay and that they’d find their way again.

--

He couldn’t believe he’d fucked up and lost the rest of their medical supplies. Sure, by now they’d have likely run out, but still that was one more day they could have used them.

And he still wasn’t totally sure where they were or even if they were headed in the right direction. So much had happened in the last several days, and this area was so utterly unfamiliar, Kurt had completely lost his bearings. And the rest of their group wasn’t faring any better, especially not Adam.

Adam was in a lot more pain than he was letting on. He clearly didn’t want everyone to worry. Well, tough. Kurt, at least, was gonna worry, and he would worry enough for all of them.

The pain was evident in the limp Adam walked with, and the in the way Kurt could see all the tension drain from his body when he was finally able to take weight off his injured leg, even if only for a short rest. And he kept apologizing for slowing everyone down, and at the same time was trying to act like he wasn’t suffering as much as he obviously was! It made Kurt a little crazy. As did the fact that Adam only seemed to get worse instead of better with each passing day.

Stuck between the option of keeping the same, now gross, bandaging on his wound or leaving it open to the elements, Adam finally chose the latter. The cut still looked horrible, maybe even worse than when he’d gotten it, albeit less bloody and slightly less open. Actually it definitely looked worse. There was an angry red color surrounding the injury that hadn’t been there before; that wasn’t a good sign.

They needed more supplies. They needed a safe place to stop and rest for more than just one night. They needed help from someone who knew what they were doing with the aforementioned medical supplies. They needed to figure out exactly where the hell they were and where the hell they were headed.

Kurt took a deep breath and released it slowly to ease the spinning in his head. He couldn’t freak out right now. That wouldn’t solve any of their numerous and escalating problems.

In the last day or so, Kurt noticed how awful Adam’s wound looked and that Adam seemed to be getting weaker. He obviously didn’t feel well—even if he was trying his best to power through it and be positive, and he was warm to the touch. He probably had a fever because he probably had an infection.

So, first things first, wherever the hell they were they had to find the necessary supplies to help Adam. At the very least, they needed to clean and cover the wound again, beyond that Kurt wasn’t sure what they could do, even if they found medicine none of them would know what medicine to give. And the idea that they would find someone who did know to help them was a pipe dream that he might as well just put out of his head.

But rest would help. So, they needed to find somewhere safe to rest for several days to help Adam recover. Alright, that was their second goal then: find a safe place to crash.

Then, they could go back to worrying about being lost in who-knows-where, New Jersey in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.