Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1) (11 page)

If it were up to Jasper, he would have probably left Em for dead back in the town, but he knew he couldn’t because I wouldn’t let him. I just didn’t get the vibe from her that he apparently did. Why would she want to hurt me? What would be her reasoning? She had none unless she was purely evil, and I didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe, that was true. Then again, Jasper had no reason for making something so ludicrous up. I wanted to believe she gave me some medicine to help me, but for whatever reason she didn’t want Jasper to know about it. Perhaps Jasper just had a bad feeling about Em, and he thought Em could be trying to harm me so his mind fabricated something evil. Yes, maybe that was it.

Whatever the case was, I didn’t feel like talking to Em about it during the car ride with Jasper present. Instead, I decided to wait until we made it to Washington. I wasn’t interested in talking after such long hours in the car anyway.

Out of nowhere, the jeep sputtered. I raised my head to look up at Jasper and saw the check engine light blink on. The car decelerated and came to a complete stop after about fifty feet right in the middle of a three-mile long stretch of a wooded area with nothing but trees and a road. We had been driving for nearly eight hours and evening would be upon us in a few short hours. We expected to see the next city with another half hour’s drive time.

“Shit,” Jasper muttered under his breath. He glanced around outside of the car windows to scope out the scenery and make sure there were no zombies lurking. Em and I watched him jump out of the car, pop the hood, and walk around to the front of the car to try and diagnose the problem. We glanced at each other, then pulled out our guns, slid out of the car, and went around front to meet Jasper.

“The fucking battery is fried,” he moaned. He motioned to the battery, and then slammed the hood down. He paced back and forth in front of the jeep.

“How the hell does that happen?” Em asked, the first time she spoke since the previous incident. Jasper stared gravely at her. It felt a little like she blamed him.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” I interjected the staring match. It didn’t matter how it happened. It happened, and we had to figure out what we were going to do next.

“We’re going to have to walk,” Jasper replied. “We’re going to have to walk hours to the next town, all because of her stupid truck. And we’re going to walk in the dark.

“Jasper,” I said with my hands in my back pockets. “This isn’t her fault.”

“Without my car we wouldn’t have gotten this far!” Em cried, shocked that Jasper was actually blaming her for the car breaking down. Jasper walked around the car to kick the front driver’s side tire and let out a yell when his foot connected with the rim of the tire.

“Will you be fucking quiet?” Em said sternly. “If there are zombies lurking around the woods, which I’m sure there are, you’re practically begging them to come and attack us!”

“How do you expect her to walk, in the state that she’s in, having been just attacked and knocked unconscious and nearly 10 weeks pregnant, at least ten miles to the next town?” Jasper asked through clenched teeth.

I shot them both a hard look full of daggers. It quieted the both of them down very quickly. “Both of your damn nonsense isn’t going to get us there quicker,” I scolded. “I’m fine, but let’s get moving.” I walked over to the trunk of the jeep to gather my stuff.

I knew I wasn’t fine at the moment. I didn’t feel fine anyway. My nose stopped bleeding, but with all the commotion going on with the jeep, my chest began to feel tight, and I had to put a little bit more effort than normal into breathing. This wasn’t the time to tell Jasper and Em that or they’d say that I needed to relax in the jeep for a little bit, and we didn’t have time for that. Pretty soon, zombies would find us if we stayed here. Plus, if something was wrong with me, I needed to get to Canada and get medical attention as soon as possible. I pulled my bag out of the trunk which took more effort than it should have and then stopped to put my hand on my chest to feel my breathing. It felt constricted.

I glanced up and noticed Em staring at me through the windshield, with a look of pain in her eyes, as if she sensed I wasn’t feeling well. I quickly put my hand down and looped it around the handle of my bag, pulled it out of the car and flung it over my shoulder.

“I’m fine!” I reassured them as I walked around the jeep. “I’m walking. You guys coming or not?” With that, Jasper and Em walked around to grab their bags, and our segregated trio walked off towards the direction of the sun. I led the way, with Em behind me, and Jasper behind Em.

We walked about a mile down the road in silence when I needed to stop and catch my breath. I didn’t want them to see me doing so, but I had no choice as my chest seemed to constrict with every step I took. I paused in the middle of the road and bent down over my knees, my long blonde waves falling in front of my face.

“Retta!” Jasper called, as he ran up to my spot on the road. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just having a little trouble breathing,” I reluctantly replied. Em came up behind us and bent down next to me.

“You need to stop,” she told me, then looked up at Jasper. “She needs to stop and relax. Then you’re going to have to carry her on your back as long as possible until we get to town.”

“We can’t stop,” I told them. “Or we’re going to be walking when it’s pitch dark out.”

“We have no choice!” Em cried. “My main priority is getting you to Canada and getting you medical help, Retta! If you keep walking, you’re going to pass out.” Em looked deeply into my eyes. I knew she was willing me to listen to her. I nodded.

“I saw an old barn over in the woods back there,” she said, turning around to face the way we had just come. “I’ll check it out and make sure it’s safe. If so, we’ll stay there until you’re feeling a little bit better. It’s better than being out in the open.”

She didn’t give me a chance to answer before she picked up my bag and walked away. “I’ll wave to you guys when it’s clear,” she called. When Em was out of hearing range, Jasper kneeled down next to me.

“Listen hun, I know you want to trust that woman, and I know that you’re a great judge of character, so I’m taking your word for it,” he said. “But I want you to stay aware of her and your surroundings. Just in case.” I nodded and looked up at Em, who was halfway to the barn. After another 10 minutes, she waved us over.

Jasper stood up and extended his hand down to me. I grabbed it and let him pull me up. He then turned around, bent down and extended his arms for me to jump up on his back. I did and wrapped my thin arms around his muscular neck. I felt him rub my ankle warmly as he cocked his head to look up towards my face. “I love you, that’s all,” he said.

“I know babe,” I whispered as I bent around to kiss his cheek, which felt warm and welcoming. It instantly made me feel fuzzy inside. He was just trying to protect me like any good man would do. He carried me over and up the hill towards the old abandoned barn up on the hill.

Though we couldn’t see it from where we stood before, the old barn was part of a larger farm that sat in front of a large pile of burnt rubbish that I realized was once a farmhouse. I saw the remains of the wooden frame, windows, doors, and furniture that once was a part of someone’s home sweet home. Though I would never know how the house caught fire, I imagined that the owners committed suicide when the apocalypse began. Sometimes, I wished I would’ve done that.

The barn was still intact, though it looked rather dilapidated from abandonment. I imagined it was once a beautiful classic, bright red with white trim, though now the paint was peeling and revealed the brown wood color underneath. The door to the barn was shut. I saw a gloomy look on Em’s face as we approached.

“Did you go in?” I asked her. Em nodded, but said nothing. I tapped on Jasper’s shoulder so he’d put me down, and I slid down his back on to the ground. As I stepped closer to the barn, I heard growling, but it definitely wasn’t an animal’s growl. I turned back and faced Em, obviously puzzled.

“What’s in there?” I asked. Em stuck out her tongue and scrunched up her face in disgust. Jasper let out a big sigh, frustrated with Em’s silence. He walked around me and pulled open the barn door. If something was going to attack him, he guessed Em would have warned him before he walked in. We heard another growl, as if something was warning us not to come in. Jasper had his gun cocked.

He stepped inside and I followed behind him with my gun cocked too. I looked left and right, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Out of nowhere, a rotten stench filled my nostrils and I had to force my stomach back down. The low growl came from the far left stall which was shut and locked. Jasper looked back at me and held up his hand to tell me to stay put. He tiptoed over to the stall and once he was next to it, he glanced over the door.

“Ugh,” was the only sound that came out of his mouth, which was followed by a snarl. The creature sounded weak to my ears, but also extremely angry…hungry. I walked up to Jasper and we looked at each other. I looked over the door.

In the far left corner of the stall was a decrepit older woman, a woman who had been bitten, but hadn’t turned yet. She had graying hair that was falling out in patches, and it looked like her flesh was shedding. Her eyes were in the beginning stages of turning black. Blood and guts were stuck to her chin and her teeth were covered in blood. I could see maggots all over the ground around her and flies buzzed over her.

Beside her was a rotting dead dog with a chunk ripped out of its stomach. I deduced that as the woman turned, she developed her appetite for flesh, and took a bite out of the dog because it was the only thing in the stall. I had no idea why they were locked in there, it was super creepy.

“You have to put that thing out of its misery,” I said to Em, who had come inside, as I jogged past her and out of the barn behind Jasper. I needed to get away from that smell.

Jasper paced back and forth while Em stood at the stall door and stared at the zombie lady. I sat on a block of hay outside of the barn. I watched as Em pulled her gun back out of her jeans pocket and put her finger on the trigger, but then she second-guessed her action and turned to look out the barn door at Jasper. He pulled his knife out of his pocket and walked in the barn to hand it to Em. Em grabbed it, turned and opened the stall door and was greeted by more hungry snarls. I heard Em moan with disgust.

In a way, behind that vicious snarl and ravenous growl, a part of the old lady seemed thankful that she was about to die. Em stepped forward, grabbed a chunk of hair off the top of the woman’s head and used her free hand to stab the knife through the woman’s skull. She wiped the knife on the lady’s shirt, stuck it back in her pocket, wiped her hands too and walked out of the barn. It took us all nearly 30 minutes to recover from that smell, and just as we did, night started to fall.

With the potential for zombies lurking around and no car, we didn’t have much choice but to stay in the barn for the night, though it’s the last thing we wanted to do. The next day, we’d get up with the sun and make the ten-mile trek to the next town. Hopefully, we'd find a car there. But of course, nothing ever seemed to go as planned in the land of the undead.

Before we went back into the barn, Jasper went back to the car and got us two large cans of chicken noodle soup. We opened it with our can opener and divided it into three portions. I ate mine in 20 seconds flat, but when I looked at Em and Jasper, they still held theirs.

“Why the hell aren’t you too eating?” I asked.

“You need it more than us, sweetie,” Em answered.

“No freaking way! We have enough to last us, both of you need to keep up your strength too.” Despite my resoluteness, Jasper and Em each gave half of theirs to me, and they split the remaining half. Jasper had also brought me a granola bar from the car, which I happily ate because it tasted so sweet. We each also drank a bottle of water.

Before we called it a night, Jasper scooped up the dead heaps of flesh from the barn and tossed the remains in the woods so we could try to sleep without barfing, though the smell of death did not leave with the remains. What a pleasant night’s sleep it wasn’t.

I slept on a pile of hay with Jasper’s jacket thrown over me. I woke up abruptly the next morning to the sound of my own sneeze. My nose ran and my head pounded, as if I'd just gotten a terrible flu virus. My eyes immediately landed on Em, who sat on the ground about five feet from me, and stared at me rather solemnly. She held a gun in her hand and didn’t look like she slept much.

I didn’t immediately see Jasper until I sat up and rubbed my eyes. He sat with his back to the stall facing us with his head slumped over his shoulders. He must have fell asleep while he tried to keep watch on everything.

“How you feeling?” Em asked me.

“I’m not going to lie,” I said yawning. It was too early for me to think about lying to her. “I feel more horrible than I did before.”

“The cool night air probably didn’t do well for you,” Em replied, as she rubbed her temple. Our voices woke Jasper, who opened his eyes and glanced at both of us. He looked around, rubbed his eyes and stood up.             

“Sure would be nice to wake up in my bed with a pot of coffee brewing,” he said. I smiled at him and then noticed Em stared crookedly at Jasper.

“You okay?” I asked her as Jasper pulled himself up into a standing position. Em cleared her throat, then jumped up to brush off her pants.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she replied. “I was just thinking about Frank.” I pursed my lips into a frown and nodded and then felt another sneeze coming on. I sneezed into the sleeve of my shirt and green snot came shooting out.

“Shit,” I muttered, slightly embarrassed that Jasper saw it happen.

“Hang on,” he said, and walked over to his bag to pull out some toilet paper for me to wipe my nose with. He handed it to me.

“You’re not feeling too hot, are you?” he asked me. I shook my head no as I wiped my nose. Luckily, it was just snot and it wasn’t bleeding again. He looked at me worriedly.

“Alright. We need to get you out of here as fast as possible,” Jasper said to us. “Retta, I’ll carry you as far as possible because you’re in no condition to walk. You look like you’re getting sick, and I don’t want you or the baby’s health jeopardized. We need to make it to town mid-day and then try to find a car to make it to the next town by night.”

We gathered our belongings and started towards the barn door. Jasper pulled it open and I saw the cloudy, gray sky. The clouds were heavy and looked, as if at any moment, a downpour would flood the landscape. I felt a chill in my bones, but wasn’t sure if it was the weather or my illness that was making me cold. Jasper handed his bag to Em and bent down so I could hop on his black.

It took us nearly eight hours to make it to the next town. I wasn’t sure how Jasper managed, but he carried me most of the way with a break nearly every hour. It’s a good thing I never weighed much. We came upon a few solo wandering zombies along the way, but Jasper put a knife through their heads quickly. We each ate a protein bar that Em had brought to fuel us through the day and we shared a bottle of water to make it last. The clouds hung heavy in the sky the whole day, but they didn’t let anything loose until the houses and the buildings of the town were in sight. Just as the buildings were visible, the downpour began. I wondered if this was a sign of impending doom.

Jasper put me down as we reached the edge of town because he needed to be prepared to fight. The town was empty, just as we expected. As we strolled through the town in the rain, we heard the moans and groans of zombies within the random buildings we passed. Jasper pulled a sweatshirt out of his backpack and threw it over my shoulders in an attempt to keep me from getting any sicker than I already was.

We passed a handful of once-thriving small businesses, a post office, an ice cream shop, a book store and a fitness center – nothing that would serve us at all. It looked like the entire town had been looted months ago. As we walked by open windows, I began to feel nauseous from the stench of rotten bodies.

Next to the main street of businesses, on the corner, sat a large cathedral covered in graffiti. Houses dotted the streets after that, with a large elementary school sitting on the edge of town. I noticed that the school's windows on the first floor were boarded up and the front entrance had deadbolts attached to the door. Despite it being a sign of abandonment in a normal world, a boarded-up building during the apocalypse was actually a sign of life inside.

“There’s people in there,” I said hopefully to Jasper and Em. I didn’t know if there were people in there, but I thought that if I said it out loud, it was more likely to be true. Since we'd left the sanctuary, socialization was non-existent and for a social person, not having anyone but Jasper and Em around made it feel more like an apocalypse, and I didn’t like that. Not that I felt well enough to socialize, but having people around just made things better. Unless those people were Trent and his buddies, of course.

“Doubtful,” Jasper murmured. “This town seems overrun with zombies.”

I was annoyed by his pessimism and glared at him. Thankfully, he didn’t notice it. Em did though, and threw a smile my way. I managed a crooked smile, and the three of us walked up the sidewalk towards the school building.

“Let’s check around back for any cars,” Jasper said. Em and I nodded and followed him around back to the parking lot. Around the back of the building, we saw a parking lot with three cars sitting lined up behind a gate.

“Oh praise Jesus,” Em whispered to herself, as she started to walk towards the first car, a red Ford Focus, to see if it was unlocked. She pulled on the handle, but the door didn’t budge. She walked over to second car, a small white Prius. She pulled on the handle, and the car door popped open. “Bingo.” She got into the car and searched for keys, but there were none in there to be found.

“Know how to hot wire a car?” she said to Jasper, as she pulled herself out of the car.

“Yeah, actually I do,” he replied confidently as he stepped around to the white Prius, slid inside, and fidgeted with it.

“Guys,” I started, “I don’t know, it looks like there might be people…” Before I could finish my sentence, the car ignition purred. I felt eyes on me and looked up at the school, frantically searching the windows. On the second floor, I a pair of white eyeballs stared at me but they disappeared in a split second.

“Guys, there’s someone in there watching us!” I called. Jasper and Em looked up at the window but saw no one.

“Get in!” Jasper screamed to us as he threw the car in reverse. But before I could step toward the car, a lock slid off the back entrance to the school door and it was abruptly pushed open to reveal a tall and dark-skinned Hispanic man holding a rifle. He wore cargo pants and a tight black t-shirt. His head was cleanly shaven but covered in perspiration. He pointed the gun directly at me as another man stepped out behind him with a 9mm and pointed it at Em. This man was Caucasian, shorter and on the lean side with bright red skin as if he’d been out in the sun too long. His black hair was slicked back and I could see his shapely muscles under his green t-shirt. This man wore jeans and a pair of white sneakers.

“Don’t move a fucking muscle,” the Hispanic man roared, as he walked closer to us girls. He had a deep Spanish accent. All three of us raised our hands in the air, our bodies frozen.

I had a feeling we weren’t going to make it out of this town as the Hispanic man inched closer, his gun still aimed at me. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Jasper lower his hands down to his lap, and I knew he was going for his gun. The short man saw him too and turned his 9mm to the Prius to shoot.

“STOP!” I yelled, and Jasper lifted his hands up into the air.

“Please, don’t shoot!” I yelled. “I’m sorry, please I’m sorry…that is my husband. Please don’t shoot him!”

“What the hell are you three doing in our vicinity?” the short man asked.

“We didn’t know these were your cars!” Em pleaded. “Please…we’ll leave right now, I swear.” Both men chuckled at her desperation.

“It’s not that simple,” replied the Hispanic man.

“Why not?” I interrupted. “Please, let us go…I’m pregnant. We were just trying to find a car to make our trip easier on me.” I didn’t like the way the men stared at Em and I. It was as if they hadn’t seen pretty women in a while.

“I like pregnant girls,” the Hispanic man said as he leered at me.

“Excuse me?” I asked, but suddenly knew what he wanted.

“How about you do us a favor, and then we’ll let you walk away alive?” the short man added.

I saw something flicker in the windows, and looked up to see two other men back in the window with their guns pointed at us.

“You can talk to me about those girls,” Jasper piped up. The Hispanic walked closer the car.

“What did you just say papi?” he asked.

“These are my girls,” Jasper replied. “Whatever ‘favor’ you want, you can talk to me about.” Another chuckle.

“Oh, I’m sure you know what we want, man. And I’m sure those two ladies would enjoy this brown-skinned, sexy man very much,” he said with a twisted smile on his lips. “But rest assured that we’re not answering to you.” He tightened his finger around the trigger of the gun, ready to kill Jasper at any second.

“Okay, okay,” Jasper obliged. “Go, do what you need to do, then give them back.”

“That’s what I thought. Cuff him to the steering wheel,” the Hispanic directed to his white friend, while he grabbed me by the upper arm and pulled me towards the school. “Get the other broad after you lock him up Ralphie.”

“No, please! Please stop. Please, I’m pregnant!” I screamed. The man had almost pulled me all the way to the door when a shot rang out. Both Em and I screamed and I ducked as far down as I could with my arms over my head. The Hispanic man turned me around and I expected to see Jasper dead behind the wheel, but instead the man named Ralphie was flat out on the ground, his head surrounded by a pool of blood. Jasper had shot him, then slammed his head off the cement.

The Hispanic man lifted his arm and almost had the gun to my head when Jasper shot him point blank in the forehead. The man let go of me as he fell to the ground. Just then, shots busted out the window on the second floor where the other men stood, and missed Jasper by a foot.  Em ducked in the car to avoid the gun shots, and Jasper crouched behind the car, then lifted himself back up enough to shoot into the window. Thankfully, I was too close to the school for them to really shoot at me.

“Get in the car!” Jasper screamed at me as he let out countless shots into the window. I dashed over to the car as fast as I could and slid in the driver’s seat. Still shooting, Jasper stepped around the car and into the passenger’s side and I peeled out as fast as I could.

I looked in the rearview mirror to see five other men exit the school and point their guns at our car. Jasper grabbed my gun and stuck his body out of the car and shot back. I saw two of the men get struck and then finally, we were out of their shooting range. I never felt safer with Jasper than I did at that moment.