Six - Kyle

Six - Kyle

Ella looked at me, her wide eyes filled with pain and her pink lips- the red had all faded away over the day - parted and I immediately wanted to snatch the words back and erase the horrified look on her face. A girl like her should only be smiles... and maybe pissed off occasionally because, yeah, it was kind of hot. But I hated that I was the one that put the horrified expression on her face. It was pointless to try to take back the words. I had only told her what I saw as the truth.

Had Ella really never considered that Hudson wouldn't last forever? If so, she was more naive than I thought. With as many people as were constantly coming and going, it was only a matter of time before someone slipped up. It wasn't like people hadn't already been trying to sneak in infected people. They did it with families, hell, I had even seen runners trying to get someone through who had been bit. Their excuse had been that it was only a "small" bite, as if level of bite made a difference. It broke skin and broke skin meant infected. There was no getting out of it. At least not yet.

"Well, hopefully you can find a vaccine before that happens," I said.

She kicked the ground as we walked. "It won't be me. Dr. Summers lets me do more than Dr. Fairchild did, but I'm an assistant. I know enough about it, but I couldn't possibly create anything like that."

My eyebrows shot up. She was so willing to take responsibility for creating the virus, but didn't want any credit for a possible vaccine.

"You really blame yourself for this whole mess?"

A couple words from a stranger wasn't going to change her mind or make her feel less guilty, I knew that. And I didn't know enough about science or her skills to tell her she was capable of such an achievement, but I had to say something. The silence drug on for so long I was almost thankful when I heard a familiar low groaning of the living dead. Ella tensed up next to me while I pulled out my knife, relaxed. There was only one. Dangerous, sure, but easy enough to handle on my own. I'd learned a while ago not to underestimate them, something about crazed hunger for flesh gave them more strength than they should have had.

I took a step forward, ready for the kill, but Ella's feet were frozen to the dirt. I looked back at her, eyes wide and biting down on her bottom lip hard enough it might bleed. Her hands were clenched into tight fists and her whole body was shaking. I glanced back at the zombie, there were still five or six yards before he was a real problem, so instead of attacking him, I turned to face Ella.

"Wh-what are you doing? Kill it," she said managing to point with one shaky finger. Her voice was shrill and I somehow found the whole thing funny. She was pointing and squealing like a spider was crawling on her wall. She almost looked like she might throw a shoe if she could get hers off fast enough and even though I was right in front of her, she kept her gaze squarely on the zombie as if glancing away might make it move faster. "It's not funny!"

I did my best to stop smiling, I didn't need to go pissing her off even more. Especially with what I was about to suggest. "I'm thinking you should kill it."

"Excuse me?" Her eyes snapped to mine. Her head started shaking back and forth and her feet backpedaling as she said, "No, I-I can't do that."

I caught her wrist gently and pulled her back toward me. Waiting until her brown eyes met mine, I told her, "You can."

She didn't look convinced.

"The more you do it, the less scary they are." I pushed the grip of my knife into her hand and folded my hand over hers until her fingers curled around the rubbery grip. The blade shook back and forth in her unsteady hand and her wide, terrified eyes never left mine. I rested my hands on her shoulders, squeezing for reassurance. "I'll distract it, okay? The easiest way will be to approach from behind. Kick its calves out since it's bigger than you. They're clumsy so it'll lose balance and fall and then as hard as you can come down on it's head with that blade."

She still shook her head. "You should do it."

Quickly, I took my hands off her and stepped back before she could try to give the knife back. I walked toward the zombie, pulling it's focus.

"Help me out, Ella. You have my knife."

Her jaw dropped at the insinuation that I was now weaponless.

"You can do this," I said to her really hoping I was right. I wasn't actually defenseless, I'd given her my knife - my best knife - but I never just carried one. Ella, however, did not need to know that. She would do better if she didn't know that I'd kill the zombie before either of us got hurt. I didn't know how far this would get me in earning her trust, but sooner or later she'd have to do this and better it be now in a somewhat controlled environment than later in the midst of chaos.

The zombie trailed close to me as I walked around leading it away so that Ella could more easily get her shot. It would help, I thought, that she wouldn't have to see its face. I never really thought the zombies could feel much of anything, they were just mindless beasts, but their faces still contorted occasionally as you drove a blade into their brain. Nerves misfiring, I guessed. And since the one approaching me now didn't look more than a week old - its skin was ashen but not rotted off - I guessed there was a good chance it would make a face.

At least it would if she could do it.

She hadn't moved from where I left her, but she wasn't looking at me or the zombie, she was sort of just staring off. When I noticed her lips moving the slightest bit, I guessed she was giving herself a pep talk.

"You gotta move, beautiful." Her eyes finally focused, snapping to mine. "You can't just stand there."

"Right," she muttered.

Ella placed one foot in front of the other, and then the next, and then the next. I let the zombie get close to me, close enough I that I could intervene, but not so close that I might be unlucky enough to become the monsters dinner. She was right behind it when her eyes met mine, nervously.

You can do it.

"Kick its leg. Right at the knee," I reminded her.

Taking a deep breath - and not letting it back out - Ella kicked her foot at the zombie causing it to lose balance. Unfortunately she either underestimated how hard she needed to kick, or pulled back scared, because she didn't knock the zombie off it's feet, just threw off its balance for a moment. As it regained balance, the zombie turned enough to see Ella close behind it. With a new target, it turned completely to face Ella, stalking toward her slowly.

"Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Kyle," she said my name over and over frantically, without a clue what to do.

I made some noise but didn't manage to distract the zombie from Ella, who was also making plenty of noise right then. Not wanting to risk it any longer, I reached for my second knife. As my fingers curled around the grip of the knife, the zombie tripped over something - I wasn't sure, maybe its own feet - and fell forward. Ella, who was too close to get out of the way quickly was caught in the fall and trapped underneath the zombie.

Her screamed echoed loud enough that I was sure people in the church would be able to hear and the zombie wiggled and snapped trying to tear into her flesh. Quickly recovering, I brought my knife down but the zombie stilled before my blade was embedded in its skull. Confused at first, I stopped and then I heard indistinguishable mumbles coming from beneath the zombie.

"Holy shit," I muttered to myself, surprised. She'd done it. She had really fucking done it.

I rolled the body off of her and let it fall limply to the side, my knife still stuck through its left eye. Even panicked she'd managed to put the blade through its eye and kill it for good. Ella's hands her were still up by her face, clenched like they might still be holding the knife though they weren't. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and blood from the zombie had run down her hands and onto her forehead and nose. I wrapped my hands around her wrists first and, as gently as I could, pried them away from her face. At first her muscles tensed up and she fought, but after a moment, she relaxed and let me pull her hands away from her face.

Her eyes were still squeezed tightly. "Oh my God," she was whispering, repeating the phrase in rapid succession.

"Ella?" I said in what I hoped was a tender tone. I touched her cheek and she flinched, sitting up so abruptly that her forehead narrowly missed slamming into mine. She scooted back away from me, scared for a moment until she lost the glazed over look and her world came into focus. As it did, she looked at the now really dead zombie and then at me and back at again. Ella rose to her feet and ran to the other side of the nearest tree and heaved out whatever what still in her stomach.

When she was finished she rounded the tree, wiping off her mouth and her eyes locked on to me. I opened my mouth to tell her how impressed I was — proud, but promptly snapped it shut. There was a good chance if that happened, I'd get slapped, based on her look in her eyes. The expression grew colder when she realized I had an extra knife. A tear streamed down her face but she didn't bother to wipe it away.

"I," she said with teary eyes and an ragged inhale, "I can't believe you did that to me. If that was your idea of some sort of-of joke, you are such an ass hole." She shook her head from side to side, pinning me with a gaze that made my heart lurch.

Ella turned and walked away from me without so much as a second glance in my direction.

Yep. I felt like an asshole.

"Ella," I called after her. I hadn't meant to let it get that far. It hadn't exactly turned out to be the trust-building walk I'd hoped for. She stopped, but didn't turn around. I opened my mouth to apologize or explain, but no words came. She thought I let a zombie pin her down on purpose. To scare her, or just to be a jackass... I was so stuck on that, I couldn't even think straight. When I didn't continue, Ella kept walking.

Frustrated, I sighed and pulled my knife from where Ella left it firmly in the zombie's eye. I wiped it off on the leg of my pants and walked after Ella, not really trying to catch up. I needed time to figure out what to say to her and she needed time not to want to kill me, I guessed.

That was why I'd been so against her coming. Ella is a soft person. She scares easily, cries too much, can't really even pull her own weight and she need a more hand-holding approach. I don't hold hands. I know how to get shit done and I know how to train other people to get shit done... but I only know one way to do it. I don't bullshit or sugarcoat and I'm not soft. I'd been going easy on her and I thought it was working. I hadn't really considered that maybe handing her a knife and telling her to kill a zombie would be akin to throwing a baby into a lake and expecting it to swim.

Except, Ella had swam.

She just wasn't happy about it, but I was right. Or at least, I wasn't completely wrong. Maybe she'd come around.