Chapter Five:

A shard of something cold starts to form in my stomach. I glance down, grimacing. 

The zombie hasn’t noticed me yet. It doesn’t move though, as if it knows it should’ve made that sound. It sounded wrong against the still silent night, and it must know that the others are only so far away and able to hear. 

I grit my teeth. I didn’t mean it literally, when I’d said I’d rather face a zombie than an angry Sebastian.

Carefully, I twist my head back around to look at Sebastian. He still stares my way with an intense expression on his face. I can just barely see his fingers twitching towards his side –towards his weapon. 

I scowl. He must not think I’m capable of taking care of myself. 

Well, I’ll show him. 

I hesitantly unsheathe my sword. For a brief moment, I wonder where I got it. Where did I get this sword and even these clothes? But there is no answer to that question right now, like the question of our whereabouts, and I realize I’m just stalling. The more I try to think about things the higher the chance of the creature disappearing on me rises. 

So I swing my legs over the side of the branch, letting them dangle, and pause briefly, angling my sword right. 

The zombie looks up. 

I am already flying towards the ground. The wind presses against my skin, against my hair. Dead leaves and grass crunch as my shoes slam into the ground and the zombie lets out a strange, feral sound. It charges forward. 

“I thought zombies were supposed to be slow!” I growl grumpily, sidestepping its sharp yellow claw-like nails and bringing my blade back sharply. The sword somewhat easily slices through its neck. My muscles clench, straining against the bone and sinew that lie beneath the deteriorating skin. 

Nonetheless, the head comes off and thumps loudly against the earth. 

It is probably overkill, but I can’t help but make sure it is dead. I drive my sword into the top of its spine and then wrench it down, splitting the nerve center in half. The head bounces once more against the ground, threatening to disappear behind a bush, but I stop it by driving the blade into its skull. 

Panting, I take a step back. 

My hands shake horribly and I can hardly see straight, my vision so blurry that it has reduced everything around me into mindless shapes and shades. I have never killed anything before, not with my own two hands like that. And I really don’t want to do it again.

Hands touch my shoulders. 

I go to scream, but one of the hands clamp over my mouth. “Shh, stop crying.” It’s Sebastian. 

I sink into him, trembling. His arms wind around my shoulders and hug me tight. I breathe in the smell of spicy soap and slowly start to calm down. “It was already dead.” He says softly, patting my shoulder awkwardly. 

I step back, rubbing wildly at my eyes. I can’t believe I’m crying! “I’m sorry.” 

“Why didn’t you wake one of us?” He bends down and picks up my sword. I don’t remember dropping it.

Because I wanted to prove that I wasn’t squeamish like Monique, who screams like a banshee whenever she sees a bug. But it’s not like I can admit that to him. And now I’ve only made it worse, by flinging myself at the nearest boy and crying my eyes out because I killed something that was already dead. 

His hand on my shoulder stops my mental scolding. 

I look up. Sebastian stares down at me evenly, dark eyes patient. “I wish I could say it gets easier, Scar, but it doesn’t.” He says softly, sternly. “Just remember that they’re already dead.”

They are already dead. 

That’s right. These are zombies we’re talking about. The only way the nanobots can take over the control system is if the host is dead. 

That does make me a feel a teensy bit better. I let out a breathy sigh. 

“Why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll take over now.” He nods towards the camp and removes his hand from my shoulder. 

“I don’t think so.” Tears quickly set aside; I scowl darkly up at him and cross my arms. “They’ve only been asleep for ten minutes. Give me a couple of hours and then I’ll let you take over.” Besides, I seriously doubt I can fall asleep now. I’m not even sure that I want to try. 

Sebastian says nothing, dark eyes glued to my face, but he doesn’t move either. “Go rest.” I turn back to my tree, grimacing at the zombie remains that rest below it. 

I don’t allow myself to stop though, because that would show that I was scared. The zombie is dead and I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Who cares if I cried; it was a rookie mistake. 

Plus, Sebastian would never leave. 

Instead, I keep my eyes trained on my branch and take a wide step over the sizzling body-making sure my ankles are out of reach. I climb back up into my branch and look down. He matches my gaze evenly; a single eyebrow lifted –as if he’s silently daring me to say something. He now sits at the base of a tree trunk across from mine, an arm slung over his knee. 

“That’s not resting.” I straddle the branch and slump forward, resting my chin in my hands. Luckily, the end of the branch becomes incredibly thin and dips forward -so even after becoming eyelevel with the branch, I can still see him shrug lightly. 

“Neither is what you’re doing.” 

I scowl. “It’s my watch.” 

“That you were relieved of.” His voice is clipped, cold. 

I glare at him. 

It’s so dark, I can hardly see him. He’s almost completely consumed by the large shadows that surround the base of the tree. I hear small cracks and pops and look down. The zombie is slowly withering away below me. Nanobots aren’t supposed to affect the body’s decomposition rate, but apparently they were keeping the layers of dead cells intact because now the skin had completely fallen off the gnarled dark rotten bones. 

“Hey, Sebastian?” I watch as a small gust of nighttime wind blows a small piece of flaky skin away. 

He doesn’t answer. 

I glance over at him. 

For several long moments, I ponder the idea that some estranged boogie monster has soundlessly grabbed him up and devoured him whole. But then, after a while of straining my ears -to the point I’m fairly certain my head will explode - I realize he’s just being a pain and ignoring me. “Sebastian.” 

No answer. 

Tightening my grip on the branch, I let my head dip down below it so I can get a good look at him. He is watching me, dark eyes glinting in the dank moonlight, and I scowl darkly. 

And his eyebrow is lifted. I guess that means he’s waiting for me to continue. I grit my teeth and shake my head. Gosh, boys are confusing. “Where do you think we are?” I move back up to rest my cheek against my arms again. 

“I’m not sure.” He murmurs, just loud enough so I can hear, “There aren’t any beaches around Crescent City and the only strip of forest we were aware of was the one that houses all the food.” 

He’s right. There’s only one strip of forest that wasn’t destroyed by the nuclear bombs, and that was the one that surrounded the Tip. The Tip was where all the officials lived and worked, where they made the rules and tried to figure out how to keep surviving. The forest was full of wildlife, bears and cougars and dingoes, and housed anything scary enough to keep the beggars and poor out of the Tip. 

My legs swing back and forth, but it doesn’t block the small hungry wails that sound from my stomach. I grimace. Just thinking about the thickly packed forest was a bad idea. 

“Hey, Sebastian?” I call again, only this time I don’t pause to see if he’ll answer. “Does Monique know how to hunt?”

He snorts and it’s probably the most emotion I’ve seen, or heard from him since Monique publicized his touchy past. “She’s hardly lifted a finger. Her parents are filthy rich; they even have servants. I seriously doubt she knows how to do anything other than be mean and cheer.” 

I blink, surprised. “I thought you were her friend?” 

“I used to be.” The words are clipped; I’ve made him angry again. 

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Sighing softly, I sit up and look around. My stomach groans again and I grit my teeth. I shouldn’t have thought about food, shouldn’t have brought it up at all. 

Stupid food; or lack of food really, for making me hungry. 

“Stop thinking about it!” I bark, palm slamming against my forehead. 

“I’ll teach her tomorrow.” Sebastian grunts. “Maybe pretty boy can surrender a few bullets for breakfast.” 

My eyebrows furrow. “Pretty boy?” 

He doesn’t answer. My lips curl back and a loud peal of laughter bubbles up through my lips. Unable to stop, I grasp the branch tighter, afraid I’ll fall. But this isn’t normal laughter. 

No, this is the laughter of someone who’s slowly starting to go mad. It’s hysterical.

I clamp my mouth shut, lips pressing into a bone white line. No. No laughing. Not when I’m sitting out here in this tree, in this strange unknown forest filled with man eating zombies, with two grubby handed Power-rangers and a banshee from the deepest depths of hell. 

Not when I’ve just killed something. 

Not when my stomach is growling like rabid cats in an alleyway, or a lion deep in the savannah fighting for its territory.

Sebastian obviously doesn’t find it funny. Once I find him again in the shadows, he’s still rock-like, cold eyes moving around the forest. After calming down, I sigh softly, gaze darting around as I sit up. I don’t see a zombie, or any other creature that could cause potential harm. That is another thing I have to worry about now, I realize, that these woods could be stocked with other animals like the Strip is. 

My stomach lets rip another loud roar.

“Do you think there are even animals to eat?” I call to him. 

I haven’t seen one fruit tree or vegetable sprout, which suggests we’ll have to rely on animals for food –if there actually are any. Maybe they’ve been hiding from the zombies or something? 

“I wouldn’t count on it.” 

No food? Then what are we supposed to eat? Shouldn’t there always be food? The hero can’t…Oh. 

“Oh.” I say softly, repeating my thought aloud. 

This isn’t a fairytale. 

This isn’t some old movie where everything is given out to you; everything is laid out before you so you will survive –because the hero has to survive. 

This is reality and I am not a hero; none of us are.

And there is a pretty good chance we won’t survive.