Last Dawn of a Horde - Chapter Four: The Outside World 2 of 2

LAST DAWN OF A HORDE

Chapter Four: The Outside World

2 of 2

~James~

           

            Suzanne was washing her feet on the river where we crashed through when she asked me impatiently, "Where is Matthew? He's very slow!"

            I ignored her. I was standing on land, waiting for Matthew to come out of the hole. Now, I don't want to remember everything we had gone through that hole, not just because the hole wall was slimy and smells of dead rats and their dung, I immediately remember John.

            He was still inside with Rich.

            It took me some time to realize Rich won't fit on the hole. The path we crept through before reaching the river we are sitting beside of was so long, dark, and it seemed endless.

            The sun was shining bright, but it was faint and weak. I doubt if it was because of clouds, because the sky was a crisp indigo and very clear. It's as if heavens were mourning for something.

            The others were washing themselves on the river. This was called the Blue River, but around the river were garbage and trash humans made. The president can know anything better, like he shouldn't have put outlet pipes of sewers leading out to once-clean rivers. Even though that's the case, the water stayed clear and blue amidst of floating dumped trash bags.

            The girls were hesitant to clean themselves. Their skirts were all dyed in blood now, and they were having thoughts on about being naked to clean themselves. Nobody believed me that the water can be fine for bath, but I know that if John was here, he can convince everyone.

            But he wasn't around.

            I hear a grumble on the hole I was watching for, and familiar glasses dropped on my feet. It landed on marshy earth, and then suddenly I remembered that the pipe holes work only when the waters inside the sewers were overflowing.

            Matthew wriggled out of the hole cursing dead rats that have stuck on his shoe, and I helped him stand up. With no hesitation, he sprinted towards the flowing river and dived off. The water was not that deep, and even the smallest of us can't drown. No offense meant.

            Andrea was lying on the ground with her back against an aspen tree and was clutching her wound. I wished I didn't make a wrong decision—the one I had on letting her live when my best friend wants her dead.

            With one last look on the dark walls, I sighed.

            John didn't return.

            I walk away from the hole and I went to where my classmates are gathered. We are seven in all, and I felt like I want to give up already.

            Matthew surfaced up and splashed water around us.

            "My glasses?" he asked me. I pointed at the foot of the hole. He looked terrified and said, "Okay, I'll get it later."

            Suzanne was done brushing her skirt, and it will be too rude to say it didn't make no difference.

            "I think we should wash our clothes while we still can," I said, forgetting the thought.

            Sophie looked beleaguered. "Bah! Hell no. I'll not take off my clothes while you boys are still around."

            I exchanged looks with Jimmy. Matthew, he, and I were the boys left here.

            I heaved a sigh. "Jimmy, please fish Matthew out of the water."

            When you hear girls happily splashing and swimming on the water, you might want to watch them. But when Jimmy had a red slap on his cheek from Suzanne, he was the one who suggested making a temporary base here in the unknown woods.

            Matthew shivered in the cold. "Can we m-make f-f-fire?"

            When he said 'we,' he meant Jimmy. Among all of us, Jimmy was an experienced boy scout since third grade. With two smooth rocks and a couple of firewood, he made a fire in less than two minutes.

            We took our bags off and examined everything we have. Some weapons—knives, screwdrivers, extra ammunitions, spiked rocks—are still unused. Food, anyway, was running low. Just the thought of near starvation made my stomach grumble.

            But when we looked around, we were surrounded by trees with wide spans of leaves for cover. What made me slightly happy were nuts and fruits growing out of trees; there were squirrels and rabbits hopping around (lunch,); and there are lots of trees with boughs fit to make spears and weapons from for survival.

            Matthew stopped shivering, as he placed his palms closer to the fire. "I've never been here before guys," he said. "Where are we, exactly?"

            I wasn't sure if I can answer. "They call this the Blue River. But we must be at least more than half of a kilometer away from school."

            Jimmy wanted to look on his back when we heard the girls happily splashing on the waters, but he sighed as he stopped himself.

            "Don't worry, we'll take turns in taking baths," I tell him assuringly.

            I examined the place.

            Beyond the sewer hole was a great cliff on top of us. I'm sure there's road up there, but even though it was so distant, I can hear chaos from above. I was worried that if a zombie will have an idea to stroll and fall down the cliff, it wouldn't be so long until the second comes.

            But everything seems safe. Much safer than the sewers. I admit I can only see lots of trees around; if anything happens, I don't know much where we will go, but we can hide. It's like we're in a middle of a forest.

            The river may be a solution. Coming from the falls up on the cliffs, water met on the flowing river. It seemed endless, but I was thinking if it can be used as directions.

            Jimmy sighed. "Is John and Rich out already?"

            I shook my head anxiously. I don't entertain thoughts about them being dead, but the possibility grows as time passes.

            When wind blew, we looked skyward. The harsh wind almost killed our fire, but then, I saw a helicopter.

            Matthew was having a hard time. He was narrowing his eyes; but without his glasses, he can't possibly see clear. We hear the helicopter blades churn rapidly, and one magnified voice from the helicopter said:

            "Area Seventeen, clear, Armed Air Forces ready to relocate to Area Eighteen."

            It came from a megaphone, and I didn't feel very safe and comfortable when it surely means that the government's defense was working. When the chopper was gone, the air seemed peaceful again.

            After a while, we hear the girls chattering as they were moving closer. Matthew and I didn't dare to look at them, but Jimmy turned around.

            "You guys heard something? I knew I saw a helicopter or something," said Jasmine.

            "Hey! You done? Now it's our turn to—"

            He stopped, and I heard a slapping sound.

            "Eek! Pervert!" Sophie squeaked. "Did I tell you to look?"

            Jimmy held both of his cheeks—both were very red.

            I took off my dirty uniform, and Matthew and Jimmy did it so when I told them. I threw it backwards, and Suzanne said, "Our clothes are the ones hanging by the rocks. Don't you all dare to get it wet again."

            After Sophie said it was okay to look, I turned to them.

            Sophie, Suzanne, and Jasmine were all wearing oversized dirty and bloody uniforms. Andrea was still lying beside the aspen tree, and to be honest, I didn't feel any good about seeing her.

            Jasmine wore my uniform like it was dirtier than any rag. "James, these are so dirty! It sticks to the skin, and we had just taken a bath!"

            I nod.

            After fifteen quiet seconds, Jimmy, Matthew and I were sitting shirtless in front of the fire. The girls didn't have their skirts with them, but they had wide banana leaves wrapped around their torso and waists.

            Suzanne shooed us away, and then they sat on our places and tended the fire.

            Matthew, Jimmy and I headed straight through the cold water. It was so cold my lungs seemed to freeze, but then, I see blood—the ones from the zombies—washing away from us.

            Hesitantly, we took our pants off and hanged them beside the girls' uniforms.

            Andrea suddenly chortled when she saw us on our underwears as if we are wearing nothing. Jimmy gave her a splash, and she scowled.

            "Don't you think we should...take everything off?" Jimmy said, looking down on himself underwater.

            Now, before you can even imagine us stark naked bathing on the river, let's say the three of us were imagining things. Things we can do after this onslaught.

            Matthew elbowed Jimmy when Jimmy was looking on our clothes by the rocks. We managed to scrub most of the grime, but still, some blood was hard to brush away.

            "Oh, look," Jimmy beckoned me, "the girls also had their underwears off."

            I nudged him hard on his ribs and said, "Come on, get going."

            After they had made clothes out of different sorts of wide leaves they can pluck out of trees, the girls handed us clothes made of leaves. They had covered their chests and their other half with grass skirts, while we boys barely had covers. We had skirt-like covers made of banana leaves tied together, and another two just to cover our chests vertically.

            "Oh God," Jimmy said, cursing his new nature clothes. "I swear once my uniform gets dry I'll rip these itchy leaves off me."

            Now, if you think we all huddled by the fire like we're about to sing campfire songs and to grill marshmallows, you're imagining Nirvana. We were all busy by ten o'clock.

            The girls were making nets using slender leaves, and made things like a roof nestled by the trees covering us, or plates made of woven grass.

            We boys used manpower and skills and some of our weapons to get food. There's no fish by the river, but there are fruits and nuts and meat everywhere. Jimmy made a bow using some bough he got from a tree, and a length of garter he had ripped off his pants.

            "Don't worry, I have my belt," he told us.

            Without having to wander far from our temporary base, we got woven bowls full of nuts I can't name, and mangoes and bananas to eat. And don't forget the squirrels Jimmy had shot from trees.

            He was about to throw his bow when I stopped him. "Don't. By lunch, you must make several arrows. We can use that."

            By lunch, we ate grilled squirrels that tasted like chicken, served with mango sauce made by the girls over the fire. The fire burned incessantly, and we have stocks of firewood to count. I still don't know how long we are bound to stay here.

            For more than twenty-four hours now, we are still alive. John and Rich still didn't make an appearance, and that made me sad even though the mango sauce spiced with saffrons nearby tastes so good.

            Matthew and Jimmy were making sharp-pointed arrows when I carried Andrea towards our fire. The girls fed her, but she looked so clammy and pale. She was cold to my touch.

            I sat by the river, doing nothing.

            Very bright sunlight came into life. It filtered through the wide span of the trees' leaves, and after an hour, some clothes were already bone dry and ready to be worn again.

            Jasmine was washing the T-shirts we boys had let them girls borrow, and we all finally wore our upper uniforms and underwears. The skirts and pants weren't dry yet. We removed the woven clothes, but retained the lower ones.

            I asked everyone to sleep and refill ourselves with energy, but Jimmy volunteered to stay for watch.

            "Don't worry," he said to me, holding his bow with an arrow loaded onto it. "I'll sleep when you all guys are fine with sleep."

            I smiled and I quickly drifted myself to sleep.

           

            In fact, I wanted to wake up immediately right after my dreams surrounded me.

            I was having this dream, and I feel like I was underground again, down on the sewers. it was so dark, but I can make out two figures out of the dark. One was athletic-bodied, and one was plump and trembling.

            I remember what John had told me last after I crept out. If there are... infected outside, always call for help. And promise me, to never, ever, return here. Okay? It seemed more like a haunting thought to me. Conscience.

            The place turned a bit brighter, like some movie crews light up the place for a shooting. I was to believe it was, but this was more than a movie. And then I saw it—beyond the two struggling figures were marching horde of silhouettes with their arms reaching out. I want to move and approach the two figures, but water around me looked like they were mixed with contact cement.

            No! Run from them! They'll eat you! I want to scream, but my lungs felt heavy, as if it's not oxygen that was running inside me.

            The slimmer figure pulled the fat figure on his shoulders, and they made their way towards somewhere, but not to the marching horde. The slimmer one took out something from his hands, and I saw it—magnified as if it was really meant for me to see.

            Rolls of explosive I swear I had seen before.

            He lights it up, and I wanted to scream louder and move forward. No! You'll die! Don't hold that! Drop it! DROP IT!

            I saw the fuse's tip glow with feeble fire, and then the slimmer boy threw it towards their pursuers.

            Before I can see something next, my eyes were closed and all my ears heard was a loud explosion.

           

            Someone was shaking me to wake, but the explosion still banged on my very ears.

            Jimmy was shaking me like he was dusting off rags at home. "Come on, James Stan! Wake up, damn it!"

            My eyes flew open.

            I curled up, but the ground where I was sitting—no, everywhere trembled.

            "What happened?" I asked Jimmy, and he was pulling me away from our base—away from the hole of the sewers.

            He released my wrist, and he looked bothered. "J-John," he stuttered.

            And the ground's tremor stopped.

            "John!" I yell. I got to my feet, energized, towards the hole. I try to climb up and creep inside, but Jimmy and Matthew stopped me from it. Water seeped out of the hole, and it was obvious that the sewers exploded on the insides.

            It was already afternoon, and Matthew told me I had barely slept for twenty minutes. The sun was hanging low on the sky, ready to leave us in darkness again. But lack of light didn't stop me from seeing the garbage water seeping out of the hole. With floating sediments accompanied of blood, my blood almost turned to ice.

            John.

            "When did it explode?" I ask them. The girls were all near the river, afraid to come near the sewers' outlet.

            "John and Rich must've set out the explosives they got on their bags," Matthew suggested, as he inched his glasses high up his nose bridge.

            "It took them hours?" I asked impatiently.

            Jimmy bowed his head. "I dreamt of them two. They struggled against the zombies as they placed and threw explosives everywhere inside."

            It caught me. "You have dreamed of them too?"

            Jimmy nodded.

            I fell on my knees. The girls huddled beside me, tapping my back. I felt numb. My best friend...can't be dead.

            Suzanne had tears rolling down her cheeks. "John had been a good leader to us," she clucked. "He had brilliant ideas."

            I can't accept it. On the back of my mind, some sort of voice was positively saying They are alive and they made it. I prevent tears from streaming down my face, as John would've told me this when he sees me cry: "Leaders don't cry in front of his cadets, remember?"

            I made up my mind. I stood up and I immediately set my upper self inside the hole. Of course, all of my classmates (except Andrea, who was still sitting by the aspen tree before the river,) stopped and pulled me away from the hole like I was a worm in their apple.

            I struggled from their holds. "No! Let me in! I want to help them! DON'T STOP ME!"

            As I yell, my classmates were all quiet. Hot blood flowed in my cheeks and in every vein inside my head. I balled my fist, and that's the time when they all backed away.

            I breathed heavily. "We'll get inside," I said calmly, setting my temper cool.

            "No one will," said Jasmine.

            "Come on," I said sternly. "Jimmy, get your bow ready. Matthew, come with me, too."

            Jimmy and Matthew didn't move.

            "What's wrong with you, people?" I asked, my voice going louder.

            If there are zombies anywhere near us, then my voice would be a flare to them. Hey, we're here, fresh meat for your dinner! Anyways, I don't care. I found myself I was already wearing my cleaned uniform, and then I got a backpack onto my shoulder.

            I marched towards the hole, and no one dared to stop me.

            I inhaled fresh, cool air before I climb up onto the hole again. One last look on the outside world, I crept as fast as I can.

            Brain juice and brain itself was strewn with a lot of shredded human flesh on the walls of the hole. I tried to breathe with my mouth, but as I get nearer and nearer, (I can feel it,) the air I was inhaling tasted poisonous.

            John.

            I'll come for you, bro, I thought in my mind. I will find you.

            I didn't thought of this: If I entered the hole head first, then I should land inside head first. Yuck, I thought. I can't shift positions, and then I remembered the time when I landed head first on wet land when I had wriggled out to the outside world.

            "John?" I murmured. No answer.

            I continued crawling.

            The hole had no branches, so I'm a bit thankful for that. It means this hole leads straight to the sewers. I had a several turns and turns, and I felt really claustrophobic.

            Finally, I saw the sewer's walls were lined with green moss, but now mixed with a tint of blood. With no choice, I inhaled air as I plunged down.

            If I were you, never ever try to swim on the sewer's waters. I swear my head landed and crushed a soft mass of human excretions. I quickly rose up.

            Then James Stan looked like he was a tree of garbage. My white uniform turned brown, and I had smelly masses on my face that I need not to smell what it was. I just wiped it off my face.

            John or Rich or no one was to be found.

            And actually, what I saw made me gasp. Water was still knee-high, but the water was stagnant, so everything ceased to flow. Beyond where I was standing still was a sea of floating, foul-smelling bodies.

            The zombies.

            Should I just keep calm and carry on when I see this place like this? I looked around and yelled for his name, but my best friend was nowhere to be found. I walked in circles, in hope that Rich and he were just under this murky water, unconscious. I bet it will take a huge explosion here for it to be heard outside.

            I found nothing but pulps of trash on my shoe. They weren't around.

            If they did die here, then I'm sure they must've left some remains—I mean, John and Rich was carrying some things, and I still can't find anything that will lead to them.

            I sighed.

            Before I can even examine every hole on the walls, I heard a faint, panicking scream. From the way it sounds, it must have been from outside...

            "No!" I gasped.

            I quickly raced to the hole for my way outside.

            The screams resonated for about five seconds, and that was enough for me to know something was wrong. So wrong. So wrong that I'll blame myself to death if anything happened to any of my classmates.

            I crawl faster than any toddler and when I landed outside head first on mud, I heard another scream.

            "Shoot it, goddamn it!" I hear one girl yell. It was Sophie.

            When I saw them, my mouth formed a comical O. I stared at them in disbelief.

            Andrea was on top of something that I swear uttered the scream I heard when I was in the sewers. Andrea bared her bloody teeth at me once she had seen me.

            Jimmy held an arrow on his bow, his fingers shaking. "Thank God!" he said when he saw me. "James! Andrea was infected!"

            I looked back at Andrea. Her waist length hair was disarrayed, and when she had inched a bit away, I saw who she was lying on top of.

            With a bloody stomach, Suzanne feebly twitched.

            The other girls, Jasmine and Sophie, were sobbing while behind Matthew and Jimmy who each had a bow and an arrow.

            Andrea.

            It was all my fault to let her stay. I was hoping...hoping that she'll resist it.

            "Andrea!" I called her.

            My infected friend fixed her bloodshot eyes to me. Her face looked so pale but bloody. She shrieked at me like she was an animal meeting her enemy. I reckon Suzanne was already dead—her intestines were poking out of her abdomen.

            Sophie gave me a haunting look, as if she's saying, It's your fault, coward! Your FAULT!

            I felt guilty, even though Suzanne wasn't one of my closest friends.

            "SHOOT HER!" Jasmine said. She was also crying, because what might happen will crush her to the bone. Your friend being with you then will kill you real soon—one of the most abhorrent thoughts to ponder on.

            Jimmy released the string. My eyes twitched in surprise, but when I followed the trail of the arrow, it missed Andrea. It only made her scowl.

            "Jimmy!" Sophie screeched. "You missed on purpose!"

            Jimmy snapped at her. "I just can't do it! You do it, and tell me if you can!"

            Sophie stopped and looked down.

            Jimmy went away towards me. He handed me his bow and only arrow, which tip was so sharp. "You do it. You're the one in charge until John shows up."

            I felt like a brick was dropped on my throat. Until John shows up was something more of an impossible thought now.

            I took his wooden bow in my left hand, and the feather tip of his arrow on my right. I would like to thank our Archery class every Sundays—the class where I receive poor grades.

            I pointed the arrow to Andrea, who was very still on observing me. Don't move, I say on my mind, I'll make it very quick.

            She started growling at me as I stretched the string. The bow and arrow made a strange sound, and I sighed as I released the arrow flying onto Andrea.

            It hit her on her stomach. The impact moved her slightly, but she just stared at the arrow skewering her. Not much harm, I guess.

            "Go for her head!" Sophie yelled.

            No more arrow.

            I turned to Matthew. "Give it to me."

            He shakes his head. "No! She's not that bad! She didn't want to eat Suzanne that terrible!"
            I frowned. "Stop this damn foolishness, Matthew. Give me your arrow."

            Matthew started to cry. Now I finally remember Andrea had been his crush since the fifth grade, but he only told me and John. He told us we're the only ones he can tell his secret at.

            "Listen to me! If Suzanne didn't threaten Andrea, she would've spared her!" Matthew bellowed. "Andrea was fighting it for us!"

            I felt like someone clawed at my heart. Hard. I fixed a stare at Andrea, and she was still not moving from her seat as if she's just waiting for me to tell her what to do. Her eyes, however, were different from the zombies I had seen face to face—her eyes didn't express fury.

            Eyes are the windows of our soul, a voice from my side suddenly tell me.

            It came from nowhere.

            I looked back at Andrea again. She was now whimpering, as if begging for her life. Suddenly, my mind dozed off, and my mind was playing something like a movie, and it was more of a 5D movie—I was really in there.

            A memory.

           

            I was sitting with John at the very back of the classroom. Sitting in front of John was Andrea, and sitting before me was Den. The two girls were chattering weakly as Mr. Riggins was giving the most boring class ever on history. Andrea's long, fragrant hair was laid on the back of her chair.

            John and I always liked to pull her hair. Pull some hair, and she'll turn one-eighty and give you a scary stare.

            "Nice one, John," Andrea mused. "I missed your face about an inch."

            When she said that, she meant that her hand missed my best friend's cheek from a slap. She always does that, and I always got myself caught many times already.

            The warning bell rang and Riggins flew out of the room instantly, leaving the class chatting with each other again. And John and I get to pull Andrea's hair some more. There was this unexplainable satisfaction when we see her get irritated.

            And that's just one of the hundred times we had been with her.

            Reality gripped me tight.

            An arrow mystically appeared on my right hand, but suddenly it made me no surprised—Matthew's bow wasn't loaded. I pull the string, and shot the life out of Andrea.

            I was to fall when Andrea received an arrow straight to her heart, but then we all broke in panic as Suzanne, presumably dead, rose to her feet.

            Then I know she can't resist on killing us longer than Andrea did. I appreciate her for that. With one great tackle, Jimmy and Matthew pushed her off the edge of the river, and as the river roared, she was carried away to drown.

            And that's it. Five of us left. Just like that.

            I killed the fire with three stomps on the firewood and told everyone: "We'll get the shit out of here."

            Leaving the hole leading to the sewers was like completely giving up the possibility that John and Rich still exist. We ventured through the forest, and after walking about half a mile as the sun goes down to the west, we reach a steep strip of land leading up above.

            One glance at the river falling down to the cliff, we all turned away.

            Helicopters flew around, and I knew this wasn't a normal scene for one notorious criminal of all time.

            And what I had seen on the road made me shiver—we were all stunned when we found Jasmine lying behind us, with a bullet shot right into her forehead.

            Four of us left.