(How's everyone doing in the place called Life, outside of Notebook?)
They'd been walking for 4, 5 hours now, Cash figured. They'd started following the blood trail. The oddly separated patches of liquid had been large at first, but shrank as the distance they traversed grew. Whatever was dripping that blood was running out of it. He looked at the horizon. They probably had a few more hours of sunlight.
He realized with a start that he'd lost track of the red trail they'd been following.
"Hey, anyone see the blood?"
The ground beneath Zoe's feet wouldn't stay still long enough for her to orient herself. With every step she took the world took another spin. Although losing strength and clarity, she realized her dizziness could be chalked up to one of two things, either to blood loss or…..well, the thing that had led to the collapse of society.
"I always said I wasn't going to join the popular kids. Apparently I don't have a choice." Her words didn't make sense to herself, but they apparently clicked with somebody. Zoe heard the moaning of an infected before she saw it. It stumbled towards her in the waning light. Zoe rolled her eyes. "Come on. Give me a break!"
Peyton had been tracking the blood as they went. While the spots grew more distance, which was worrying, to say the least, she hadn't lost track of them. at least until Peyton asked his question, "Umm, no. There might be some blood in the dirt if we want to try and see if we can get a trace of blood from it?"
Trying to stamp down his frustration Cash nodded. "Okay." He knelt close to the dirt and focused on any trace detail that might indicate the blood trail still continued. "I don't see anything."
He clenched his fists tight and breathed in deeply before speaking again. "I think we've lost her."
Zoe stumbled away from the undead chick who was limping towards her. The thing had been after her for the last 20 minutes but Zoe was alive enough that she was able to keep up a good pace and keep up the distance between her and the zombie. All the same, teen was losing strength fast and her dizziness had only increased as time passed. This is it.
If this was it, she might as well do something useful. Might as well be bait if she couldn't do anything else. Her sacrifice might give anyone who was still alive in the surrounding area a chance. Zoe stopped walking. She lifted her bloodied hands to her mouth to form a funnel.
She screamed.
Peyton perked her head up as she heard a distant scream. She had been looking for any blood traces, but that seemed to prove fruitless, "Did you guys hear that?"
"It's….!" Cash whirled around, wildly looking in every direction for the source of the scream: Zoe. The muffled moans of some undead were coming from the east but they sounded close. "Let's go!"
Zoe stood still and waited for death.
(I apologize for the updates that are hardly updates. Excuse: Life.)
Peyton chased after him to come from where the scream and sounds were. She hoped they weren't too late.
After forcing his way through a large section of crowded trees, Cash was the first to burst into a large clearing. He frantically scanned the area for signs of life, or death. A hoard of infected, possibly 20 or more, were gathered in the distance. They were swarming around something he couldn't see. Someone? "Zoe?!"
Zoe screamed again as the infected stumbled towards her. The teen had believed she had been ready to die. No, not like this. She thought she heard someone calling out her name, someone who might be dumb enough to get this close a hoard of infected and swoop in to save her. The voice was that of someone she knew but in that moment she couldn't place it. "Help!"
