Broken Dreams(21)

Claire grabbed Henry’s hands and jerked them away. She stuck her finger in his face. “You bastard!” she screamed. “You don’t know shit! You have Elaina! I have no one! You didn’t lose anyone!” Then she punched him in the face. Henry stumbled backward a bit, and I ran over to them.

“Claire! Stop. You have to stop. You will attract more.”

“I don’t give a flipping fuck if I attract more!” She stood there trembling all over. She took a step back and held her arms out to her sides. “Shoot me.” I looked at her in shock. No way. I could never shoot her…could I? I just shot my father.

“No! No way!”

“Stop being a pansy ass, you obstinate bitch, and shoot me! I don’t want to live without him.” I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was all too much to process. Everyone was changing right in front of me, whether they were changing into an undead or some overly-saddened, defeated person. “Don’t you get it, Elaina? You said it yourself. We’re going to die anyway. Why not by our own choosing? Shoot me. I want to die now. I can’t live without him, and I don’t want to turn into what he was.”

She stood there, waiting for one of us to take her out. I looked over at Henry, who was still rubbing his face where she had decked him. I was stunned. I wanted to end her pain, but not in that way.

“Yes, you can live without him.”

“No, I can’t. You don’t understand!”

“Understand what? My life has changed today, as well! When I got up this morning, I never thought I would be shooting undeads when I should have been fucking my new husband’s brains out! I just shot my father! I just shot a bunch of my family!” I was angry at her on top of everything else.

She put her arms back down at her sides. She turned toward Marc and fell to her knees. She sat there for a moment. Henry started to go back to her and I grabbed his arms. I whispered, “Let her be for a moment. She needs to say goodbye.” Henry reluctantly walked back to the Tahoe to cover us.

I stood in the middle of “Undead Alley” and watched, feeling helpless, while my best friend experienced one of the worst things that had ever happened in her life, aside from the death of her parents.

I wanted to run to her. I wanted to hold her and console her, but I was so angry with her. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare that we were experiencing. I wanted all of the madness to end, but it wasn’t going to end. It would only get worse.

Far worse.

Claire wiped her face on her shirtsleeve, then she got up and walked over to me. She put her arm around my shoulders. “I’m so sorry I did that to you. I know it is hard for you, as well. That wasn’t fair for me to say.” I accepted her apology, even though it was unnecessary. I gave her a tight hug and we walked away from Marc. “This is just unreal.” She bent over and grabbed the gun she had dropped.

Henry waved us to him and we headed over as we held hands. “Listen, I know this is all very overwhelming, but you have to try to stay focused out here. Once we get back to our flat, you can get your emotions out.” He was speaking like he had no emotion, like a machine.

“Henry, please. We just had to do the unthinkable. We need a minute.”

“I realize that. I have been there, but there’s no time.” I cocked my head a bit, questioning in my mind what he meant by “been there”.

I have been there…His words kept running through my head. I felt that was the first real piece of information that I had gotten about him.

Realizing the gears were turning in my head, he said, “We’ll talk about that at some other point. Right now, we need to focus. We need to get to the people that Nate saw, then go to the flower shop to pick him up.”

Henry opened the back passenger door and grabbed his pack. I opened the lift gate, got a couple bottles of water, and jammed them into the side pockets of his pack. We reloaded our guns. He set the alarm and pocketed his keys.

“So we can hear if anyone tries to break in.” I nodded. The last thing we needed was for someone to steal our cache of weapons, and what little supplies we had in there. Or, worse yet, the truck.

We walked slowly down the street. Claire and I were next to one another, guns ready. Henry was behind us, covering. We walked past my true dead family. I tried not to look at my father. My eyes filled with tears again, but I held my breath and kept my head up as we pressed on. I couldn’t look at him or I would have been right there on the ground next to him.

Henry was stopping and nudging everybody to make sure they were true dead. The closer we got to the church, the worse the streets and buildings looked. I was blown away by how fast it had progressed. Total annihilation. The surrounding area was so eerily quiet, but I could hear music playing from the clothing store.