FortyFour - Kyle

"Kyle," Joel said. His hand slapping my face. I pried my lids open, looking up... from the ground? I didn't remember falling to the ground. The fact that it was dark outside now meant I didn't remember passing out either. "Didn't think to mention you were shot?"

A smile touched my lips. "Didn't seem important."

"You're a damn idiot," he said. "Drink up sleeping beauty."

He pushed a water bottle into my hands. I must have looked confused because he chuckled a little before explaining.

"Jamie remembered that some of the kids used to play way out here. Well, that way, but sneaking through the woods was easy. I think all their men are inside the church now. They kept water and snacks in a hole in a tree." He paused, making a face. "You've lost too much blood. The ain't too bad, missed everything important, looks like. Got the bleeding under control. Bet you're missing that trauma bag about now. A nice shot of morphine would probably be nice, huh?"

I looked down at my left leg, suddenly aware of the breeze I was feeling. Joel had cut my pants just above the wound and used the extra material to dress up the wound. I might look a bit ridiculous with one blood streaked pale leg, but at least I wasn't loosing anymore blood.

"Wouldn't complain."

"Ever think you'd miss the goddammed dessert?" He shook his head. "I hate to do this to you, but... we got fuckin' go. Drink the water, brother. Then get your ass up."

"Where are we?"

He looked at Bambi and Jamie and then lowered his voice. "Not far enough. Just had to get them away, you know."

And with that, the last hour... maybe two, I wasn't sure, slammed down on me. Knowing we couldn't stay here - it wasn't safe to remain so close, I chugged the bottle and handed it back to Joel who pocketed it and then offered a hand. Feeling weak - exhausted - I let him help me up and shifted so that I had as little weight on my left leg as possible.

"A little more than 20 miles to base."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I can make it."

We walked - limped, whatever - a lot slower than we should have been moving. And it was entirely my fault. Without my bag, without any of our things painkillers were non-existent. And without the adrenaline of gunfire the pain shot through my entire leg with every step. Joel took the lead, and he was really the only one carrying his weight. He was carrying Bambi's too after about an hour when the poor kid was nearly falling down tired.

I grunted, bending to sit and leaned against a tree. "Fuck," I groaned out. "You should keep going."

"Not happening," Joel said letting Bambi off his back.

We hadn't gotten more than a couple miles away, maybe three but definitely not four in almost two hours since we'd picked ourselves up to move. On a good day, we averaged between five and six miles an hour, keeping up a fast walk or jog most of the way from Hudson to the church. I was slowing us way down at a time when we really couldn't afford to be slowed down.

"Just take five minutes," he said. "I could use it too."

I raised an eyebrow, but didn't call out his lie.

"You think they made it?" I asked resting my head against the trunk of a tree and closing my eyes. I hadn't let myself go there but now it was at the forefront of my mind. They had us staked out. Had to have. Somehow we missed them. Patrolling like crazy and we managed to overlook that many people. I didn't know how long they'd been there, waiting for us to show up. Or why they waited for us to split up... unless they thought it would be easier to pick us off if we were separated. They obviously hadn't been looking for a fair fight out there.

And if they had us staked out and watched so closely, did they have more people at the base? Did someone follow Ella and others.

"Yeah," he said after a pause. "Yeah," he said more forcefully this time. "Of course they did."

"Who were those guys?" Jamie asked, looking over her shoulder as though she excepted someone to pop out from behind one of the trees and attack.

"People we ran into in DC," I said. "Bad people."

I wasn't going to go into any details. Jamie was a teenager and she might be able to handle it, but I didn't think she should have to. Neither did Joel because all he did was nod.

"They're all dead aren't they?" Bambi asked.

"Yeah, kid," Joel said. "They're all dead."

"So what do we do now? Where do we go?" Jamie asked she barely managed to pull in a breath before she was asking more questions. "What if they followed us out here, Joel? Are... are we going to die?"

Joel pulled his sister toward him. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Jamie. I swear, alright. Have I ever broken a promise to you before?"

She shook her head.

"Right. And I don't plan on it. So we're going to head to base because Kyle needs a doctor. We'll figure out what's next after that, okay. Right now we need to get to a doctor." He frowned. "And we need to get Bambi to Zero, let them all know what happened."

While sitting, I checked my leg, lifting the makeshift bandage up enough to check the wound. Fresh blood was on the dark fabric bandage, the area swollen and tender. It wasn't bleeding though, at least it wasn't bleeding a lot. Being up and on it, walking and moving made it difficult for any sort of healing to take place. But blood wasn't pouring out of me, so it was a win. Carefully, I moved the bandage back to it's place and tightened it, gritting my teeth as pain shot through my leg.

"We can't waste anymore time," I said, bracing the tree to help keep weight off my leg as I stood.

Joel looked at me and I knew he thought we should stay here longer - that I needed the rest, which I did. But we were too vulnerable out here. Instead of letting Bambi crawl up onto his back, he asked her to walk and came to my side. Joel gripped around my waist and I slung my arm around his shoulders without complaint, letting him act as a crutch.

This way we moved faster, not a lot faster, but it was better than nothing. Bambi and Jamie didn't complain as we pushed on. And on. And on. It was hard, no, it was damn near impossible to keep a vigilant eye out for any danger - whether we were being followed or nearing some. It was night. We were all worn out. And with my injury and the girls' feet dragging in exhaustion, we weren't moving as quietly as we should have been.

It was late into the night, though I'd lost any real track of time and even distance, before we came to a sudden stop. Joel halted first, the most aware and silently shushed the girls before they could say anything. He mentioned, he needed water and I almost pointed out that we'd finished all of that off sometime ago, but stopped myself when I heard it. Leaves crunched but the sound stopped instantly, like the creature who made the noise realized their misstep and quickly stopped. The lack of groaning and the awareness meant it wasn't a zombie. It wasn't an animal either.

Without a word, Joel let me go and we both drew our guns. With a nod of his head, Joel motioned for Bambi and his little sister to get behind us and they quickly complied as we faced the threat.

"We've been waiting for you for a really long time," a feminine voice said from somewhere in the darkness, her figure cloaked by the trees and the night. She huffed. "Five fucking days I've been sitting these stupid woods waiting for you."

"It's the girl," Joel said quietly enough and I nodded, recognize the voice too. Louder, he yelled, "I should have fucking killed you when I had the chance."

She chuckled, trying to sound light and trivial about the whole thing, but failing. It was too forced. She was on edge. Nice to know.

"I did warn you. Those people at that adorable little church, "she said. "Nice people. They let us know how to get your base—how are they doing?" My fist tightened and Joel sucked in a breath. "It's too bad about that. All those people dead because of you." She clicked her tongue. "Nice base though. We were impressed." She walked forward, holding a gun, pointed toward us. "You can put your weapons down, you're pretty much surrounded."

I squinted in concentration listening.

"You're bluffing," Joel said confidently. Like me, he heard no other signs of people. And while I was in such a state that I might have missed something, I knew that he had been all ears and totally aware for the entire walk, years of our training and experience tuning him in to even the littlest disturbances in the night. There could be some, waiting in trees or hiding silently, but she lacked the confidence in voice, despite trying to appear blasé.

Still, I figured she wasn't entirely alone. There had to be one, maybe two others. But they hadn't been following us, we would have made them a lot sooner if they had been. No, we had to have happened upon them. Sheer shitty luck, is what it was. We might have even walked right past without notice if it weren't for my fucking leg causing me to make more noise than usual.

"Am I?" She said. "You should tell that to your other friends."

"Friends?" Joel, still striving for casual confidence, as if he didn't know what she was talking about, couldn't keep the emotion from his voice.

"The guy that locked me in a fucking closet." She tilted her head to the side, moonlight shining brightly enough through the trees for me to seethe cruel smile on her face. "That girl... Oh..." She snapped her fingers and all my muscles stiffened, any pain I had been feeling in my leg forgotten. "What was her name?"

"Don't you fucking talk about her," I said sounding calmer than I felt.

"Meh, who cares. You were close right? All love in the time of zombies or something. So you probably want to know how I killed her then..."

"Fuck off," Joel said. "You didn't do shit."

She took a step closer, two.

"No? You think we just followed them out here for shits and giggles? You think we were just making sure they got home safely?" She forced out a laugh. "Be real. They're dead," she said. "I slid my knife right across her pretty little thro—" I squeezed the trigger. I wasn't a thought out action but not an ounce of guilt weighed on me. My thoughts were of Ella. Was she out here... dead somewhere in the woods. I pushed the onslaught of images away. I had to if I wanted to function. Sammy dropped to the ground and then quiet settled over us. We waited, tense for a long moment. If she had other people with her, they heard the shot. They'd show themselves.

I was ready to give up and start moving again when someone stepped forward. Their silhouette taking shape in front of us, I saw his arms were raised into the air.

"Don't shoot," he said.

"Any more of you assholes?" It looked like he shook his head, taking a few steps closer, but it was hard to tell for sure. Finally he said, "No. It was just two of us."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth. Sammy and I are trackers, we were followed your friends out here— but we didn't kill them. I-I swear. We didn't even get close enough to see them more than once or twice." He looked at us, pleading. I couldn't tell if he was being honest or if I just wanted him to be telling the truth. "You don't have to kill me."

I looked down my arm and the barrel of the handgun, pointing at the man's head.

"The last time we let one of you live, I had to watch your people slaughter dozens of innocent, good people," I said. I wouldn't make the mistake again. "I'm sorry," I said knowing that if this had been a week ago I would have wanted to let him walk away. But I couldn't do that now. I couldn't risk the people we had left. Realization flashed in his eyes at the same time that I fired.

I didn't watch him fall, instead turning to Joel who was watching me with raised eyebrows.

"You want to say something?"

He frowned and then shook his head. "If you hadn't, I would have." Moving as to act as my crutch again, we walked toward the gate. "She was lying," Joel said quietly. I didn't know if he was talking to me or to Bambi who was silently crying - only making noise as she sniffled every few steps - as we made our way toward Hudson. It didn't matter though, it applied to her, me... all of us.

"I can't..." I shook my head. I couldn't think about her. I sure as hell couldn't talk about her. Because I couldn't think of a reason that Sammy would have been lying to us. Maybe she wanted to die. Maybe she wanted to goad one of us into shooting her. But what made more sense was that she was telling the truth and the guy I'd killed had been lying to save his own skin.

"We're almost there," Joel said. "Maybe two miles. Can you make it?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Bambi? You can make it?"

"I can make it."

"Dry your tears. We don't know anything yet," he said. "Jamie?"

"I'm good."

"Right. Then lets get the hell out of here."