Page 17 of Apricity
“Alright, everyone on me. Here’s what we need to do.”
Chapter 11
Alessandra
“Have you ever used a bow before?” Jax asks as we make our way deeper into the woods behind the cabin. We spent yesterday planning in response to Jax’s delegation. After only being here for a few weeks, we have a lot to do to get this place up to snuff.
I lift my foot to avoid stepping on and potentially snapping a fallen tree branch as we make our way to wherever the hell Jax is leading us. I don’t know where we’re going, only that he said to try and stay as quiet as possible and to take a weapon for hunting. He opted for a bow, while I opted for the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. I tried to bring my bat, but he just lifted his eyebrows as if to say 'you’re joking, right?'
He's obviously never played whack-a-mole…
“I used one a long time ago. Not to hunt with but, you know, like on an archery range. Probably like riding a bike, right?” I say in response to the bow question.
“Eh, something like that. Stick with the AR, it’s probably best we have both just in case we run into something bigger than a deer.” He lifts me up and over a large fallen tree before hopping over it like it’s a stick on the ground. My steps faulter as I take in his words.
“Wait… bigger than a deer? Like what?”
“Well, you know there’re bears down here, but there’re also panthers.”
“Panthers?!”
“Yeah, cougars, mountain lions, they’re all pretty much the same, only here they’re called panthers.”
I frown and tilt my head to the side in thought.
“Well, shit. Knowing me, I’d still probably think it’s cute and want to pet it. Adopt it as a guard kitty. Survival instincts through the roof in this biotch!”
“No… if we find one, you can’t keep it,” Jax not so helpfully supplies my inner monologue, who decided now’s a good time to use her outside voice.
Skank…
“Hoe…”
“Focus, Aly…”
I shake my head and do as Jax asks, focusing on the path in front of us, lest I trip over myself again. Grace was something I wasn’t born with and will probably never learn, so it’s the least I can do to look at the damn pathway in front of my toes instead of daydreaming about being a kitty cat commander before I—
“Fu—”
“Gotcha, you’re ok.” Jax grabs for my elbow before I faceplant the muddy ground. He hauls my clumsy ass back up to its proper height and continues walking as if nothing even happened. Like he knew I was going to trip and he was just waiting for it to come to pass.
Am I that predictable?
Any who. Back to walking to who-the-fuck-knows-where.
*Grunt… groan…crack! *
The snap of a twig amongst the strange echoes through the woods draws my attention, and that of Hawk, Cole and Jax, to a lone lurker as it closes in on us. The stare in its eyes is focused solely on that which gives it purpose.
Flesh.
I'm sure if we were on the road and not in the middle of the woods, the walking corpse would be much faster. Lucky for us, we're in the better of the two locations. It creeps closer and closer, stumbling over fallen tree limbs, stumps, rocks and debris to get to us. A single thought in its infected mind- to devour. By the rate of decay, I’d say this one’s been around a while. It’s missing an arm and half its face has been eaten away, the sinewy innards visible even from this distance.
“Got it,” Hawk volunteers before runnng over to it with Cole backing him up. Closing the distance quickly, he pulls out his Kabar knife from the strap on his leg and stabs the thing through the fleshy part under its jaw, right up into its brain, killing it instantly. Its body falls to the ground in a thudding lump, breaking apart into meaty chunks on impact. Without a care in the world, Hawk bends down to pull hisknife out of the body and wipes it on his pant leg before returning with Cole to us.
It's strange, even after all these months: the fact that we’re so nonchalantly killing a thing that used to be a living, breathing person. But that’s all we can think of them now. Things. Monsters. The souls that used to inhabit the infected bodies are gone, leaving a shell of themselves behind to purge the land of everything and anything still living. But that’s our reality now. Fiction be damned. And we survivors simply move on, leaving the departed where they fall.
We’re not that far away from the cabin, able to see it still if I simply turn around and peer through the trees and underbrush, when Jax sets his bow down on the ground next to a large tree. I don’t see the metal ladder attached to said tree until Jax starts climbing up the side of it, waving his hand instructing me to follow. I give him the worst case of bombastic side-eye known to man.
