Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1) (4 page)

“You going to fix me up or just leave me handicapped?” Jasper yelled back me sarcastically. His voice pulled me out of the nightmare behind us. I walked solemnly back to the front of the bus and sat down on the seat beside Jasper.

“What do I do?” I asked him, perplexed at the mission before me.

“It went right through me,” he answered. “Get a shirt out of my bag. It’s not bleeding badly so we don’t need a tourniquet. Can you clean it?” I nodded, and grabbed the shirt and some antibiotics from the kit. I put the antibiotic gently on his wound, then wrapped it with a thick ace bandage. His teeth and fists were clenched the entire time, but being the strong man that he is, he didn’t make a sound.

“Why did you save us?” I asked Lindsey, as I finished cleaning up Jasper’s wound. I wasn’t sure she was going to answer me because I’d never heard her talk before today and was still flabbergasted by what just happened. It look nearly a minute for her to answer.

“I knew Trent was hurting you,” she said, and paused for another few moments. “I was outside of the door to his quarters when he raped you the other day. I had come to talk to him about the harvest, how wrong it was, and I heard you screaming but I couldn’t do anything about it or he would have killed me too. I knew I wanted to help you,” she said pausing. “I just didn’t know how.”

“You were raped before,” I assumed. “Weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was…by my father actually. For many years when I was young.” I could do nothing but stare in shock at the woman in the driver’s seat. Now it made sense why she was always so quiet and kept to herself.

“My father wasn’t the only one that raped me,” Lindsey continued. “He forced my older brother to rape me as well.” I was caught off guard by the family secrets Lindsey was divulging. I looked over at Jasper, but he stared out of the window as if he wasn’t comfortable listening to Lindsey’s story.

“Anyway, let’s just say I feel for those who are raped.”  I didn’t want to force Lindsey to talk about her rape anymore, and quite frankly it wasn’t any of my business, so I changed the subject.

“How did you know where the bus was?” I persisted.

“I escaped last night,” she replied. “I was just going to leave you be…but when I saw the bus I knew I couldn’t just leave. It was a sign that I was supposed to help you. So I came back, and knew I was going to crash the bus into the sanctuary and kidnap the both of you…I mean, I knew what you guys had going on.”

Lindsey looked back in the rearview mirror at me, and I couldn’t help but blush. I didn’t realize anyone knew that Jasper and I had a secret thing.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, changing the subject yet again.

“Oh no, I was just driving…where are we heading?” Lindsey replied.

“Go down this road for five miles, take two lefts, and you’ll be on the interstate,” Jasper chimed in. “We’re going to Washington.” I expected Lindsey to question why they were heading to Washington, but she didn’t seem to care. All she seemed to care about was getting the hell out of Saving Grace.

I started to get lost in my own thoughts, as I let Lindsey’s story work its way through my mind. As the bus bounced up and down on down the dirt road, I realized just how tired I was. I let out a long yawn and then rubbed my foggy eyes. Though I wanted to stay awake and ask many more questions, my eyes grew heavy and I quickly succumbed to sleep.

***

It had been awhile since I had heard a zombie’s deep-throated, stomach-turning gurgles so close to me. As a matter of fact, the last time was right before a group of five of them attacked my parents as I watched from underneath the bed. I had lived in the sanctuary for such a long time after my own town was destroyed and never stepped outside of the sanctuary walls. So I was quite disoriented when I woke up to my ears engulfed by this sound. When I opened my eyes, Jasper was trying to pull the door shut on the bus, but he couldn’t, because a tall zombie with long arms had stuck one of them through the door jam and was flailing it wildly.

“Why the hell was the door open?” I screamed. Where was Lindsey anyway? Why were we stopped? I barely remembered dozing off.

In order for Jasper to pull the door shut all the way, it was necessary for him to rip off the zombie’s arm, but he couldn’t because he was holding the door shut as much as possible. Other zombies had started to stick their nasty fingers through the crack too. The zombies seemed to be stronger. I did overhear Trent telling the others they had seemed like they were getting stronger, but I thought he was just saying that to keep everyone there. Despite how evil Trent’s motives were, he still did a good job at protecting the town.

“Retta, help please!” Jasper screamed at the top of his lungs. I jumped up off of the firm bus seat to assist him. Despite feeling weak and exhausted, I lunged at the window.

“Pull!” Jasper yelled, and I grabbed on to the arm along with him and with every ounce of strength I had left in me, we pulled off the tall zombie’s arm. I flung the arm over my shoulder while Jasper forced the door shut, but when I did, nearly a tablespoon of zombie slime smacked me in the eyelid. It was so cold and smelled so bad. I forgot how bad it actually smelled. Like the scent of a decaying skunk who had his stomach ripped out of his mouth and picked apart by crows for three days straight. I shuddered and felt the fruit cup that I ate a few hours ago push its way through my esophagus. The taste of acidic stomach mixed with the texture of half-digested peaches mixed with the smell of old zombie was too much to hold in, and I barfed the little I had in my stomach, mostly acid mixed with a few lumps on to the floor of the bus.

“Are you okay babe?” Jasper asked, but he didn’t have time to wait for the answer because four zombies, three skinny males and a fat woman whose eyes were literally about to fall out of her bloated skull, were managing to pull open the door of the bus again.

“Where the hell did Lindsey go?” I questioned frantically as I lunged over to the door handle and pulled it with all of my might.

“I don’t know,” said Jasper as he sprung around to the driver’s seat. “I don’t know…I fell asleep with you while she was driving, and I woke up to us stopped, Lindsey gone and the bus surrounded.

Jasper stared at me for a second, then turned the ignition. The engine sputtered as if it were ten degrees out. “Shit,” he muttered underneath his breath. He gave the ignition another turn.

“Hurry up, Jasper. I can’t hold them much longer!” I screamed. Just then, my skinny fingers slipped off the handle and I fell back onto the floor as a fat, pus-filled female zombie with the sagging eyeballs bum rushed the door. A skinny male zombie then started to try and work his way over her plump rear end, and his stomach laid on her back while his hands reached up the stairs of the bus in an attempt to grab my legs and pull me into the swarm.

He was able to grab me and wrapped both hands around my left ankle, and inched it closer and closer to her deteriorated, skinless, bloody mouth. As the zombie fixated his empty, ravenous eyes on my foot that was less than three inches away, I saw Jasper’s steel-toed boots swing around my shoulder and connect with what was left of the zombie’s forehead – knocking it off its shoulders. The head flew off with so much force that it smacked one of the other skinny male zombies in the face, knocking its head off as if it were a bowling pin.

“Two-for-one! Who else wants to fuck with us?” Jasper screamed at the zombies, as if they actually had the capacity for any logical thinking. He pulled me up and threw me on the driver’s seat. “Try to start the bus!” he yelled, as he kicked three more zombies in the face and pulled the bus door closed.

Just as I got the bus running and pushed the gear shift into drive, I was startled by a forceful smack on the window to my left.

“Retta!” Lindsey screamed, “Wait, let me in!” I looked over to see her frantically smacking on the window.

“Shit,” muttered Jasper, as he motioned Lindsey to the emergency exit in the back of the bus just as the zombies turned in the direction of the screams. Jasper ran to the back to meet Lindsey but realized the emergency door must have never been used because it wouldn’t open. Jasper ran back up to the front of the bus and then turned around running full force into the emergency door. He busted open the door with his right shoulder and fell to the ground.

“Get up and get in!” yelled Lindsey. “They’re coming!” Jasper jumped up into the bus and then extended his arm out to pull Lindsey up. I put the bus into gear just as Jasper lifted Lindsey off the ground. When she was halfway through the air and the bus started forward, a tall, heavy male zombie came around the back of the bus and dove for her ankles.

“Retta! Grab my knife!” Jasper cried as Lindsey was pulled back down on to the ground. I slammed the gear shift back into park, grabbed Jasper’s knife from his jacket pocket, and dashed to the back of the bus to help save Lindsey.

Jasper jumped on to the zombie and tackled him to the ground, pinning him to the floor. As I reached the back of the bus, I turned the blade of the knife into my hand, and tossed it down to Lindsey. She caught the handle of the knife and turned around to slam it into the zombie’s forehead. That zombie must not have been turned long, because blood squirted from the wound, smacking Jasper in the forehead. New zombies always contained more blood than the older zombies, whose bodies were mostly filled with pus.

Just as Jasper wiped the blood from his forehead with his bare arm and jumped up, the zombies began circling the back of the bus. There were about ten of them now.  Jasper grabbed his knife from the dead zombie’s forehead, spun around and stuck it through a female zombie’s head as she put her arms on his shoulders.

Just as Lindsey was pulling herself to her knees, the fat female zombie dove on her, pushing her completely down on the ground on his stomach. I jumped down from the bus to pull the fat zombie off of Lindsey, but it was too late. The zombie had sunk her teeth into Lindsey’s neck, and she let out a depressed wail, like a dog that had just gotten hit by a bus. The zombie lifted her head just high enough for me to see the chunk of skin and blood she had just removed from Lindsey’s neck that was now hanging out of her mouth. She sucked it back into the bloody abyss of her throat and hurled her mouth back down on Lindsey’s neck for another bite. I stood horrified, paralyzed by disgust and fear.

At the sound of Lindsey wailing, Jasper also let out a hideous howl as he drove his knife through another zombie’s forehead. It mimicked the sound a small boy would make after finding out his dog died. Yet he kept going, driving his knife into zombie after zombie.

As Jasper continued killing, I kicked the fat zombie’s head in enough to make her fall over so I could grab Lindsey’s knife. I dove over Lindsey’s body and stuck her knife through the back of the fat zombie’s head, and then pulled it out to spin around to face more heavy breathing I heard coming up behind me.

Up until this moment, I hadn’t had too much of a problem killing the few zombies to help out. But this time, I couldn’t bear to do so because the zombie approaching me, ready to eat my flesh and organs, was a child of about six. Her small body must have been hidden behind the mass of adults that had tried to attack her on the bus. She was small and fragile, probably weighing around forty-five pounds, with gray skin that made her look sickly. She had long brown hair, and wore a yellow sundress with red blood stains all over it and had skinny bare feet with long toes. If it weren’t for her gray skin or steely, hungry eyes that stared me down like I was her favorite strawberry ice cream cone, she’d look like a completely normal little girl.

The girl came toward me, arms out like she wanted to dance. I saw drool drip out of her small mouth, and just before she could grab my arms to pull me in, I grabbed hers and held her back. She was very strong for such a small girl, but I held her back in her position. I stood there with her shoulders in my grip, staring into her hungry eyes, drooling like a rabid dog, mouth open and teeth ready to sink into my skin.

At that moment, everything I had ever known evaporated into oblivion around me. Ethan and I had always talked about having a baby girl, and the way I had always imagined her, looked very similar to the girl standing before me. At that moment, it was just the little girl and I. Damn, I was sad.

I felt my eyes start to get wet. Rather than hold her away from me, I had the urge to pull her little body in and give her the biggest hug she’d ever been given. I wanted to rub the girl’s silk brown hair, play with her toes, and make her normal again. I wondered who her mother was, and if she was a zombie too, or if she was normal and hiding somewhere, in despair over losing her child to such a terrible virus that made her sweet little girl turn into an animal.

My thoughts were interrupted by a knife going through the top of the girl’s head, blood squirting out from her skull, her eyes going completely blank, and her frail body falling down in front of me. I stared for a moment at her beautiful little body, zombie or not, lying dead in front of me. I wailed and fell to the ground sobbing as if I’d just lost a child of my own. Jasper had stabbed her in the head. All of the zombies were dead, and it was just the two of us surrounded by a thick silence.

“Why did you kill her?” I screamed inconsolably through sobs. I felt a heaviness taking over my body, as if I was frozen to the ground. I lined my face up with hers and cried. “She was just a little girl, Jasper!”