The Infected: Fogo Island (13)

thirteen: it's been awhile

The cold outside should have killed me by now. The winter was creeping up on us fast - abnormally fast, something I was not used to; a Texan all my life, i've never seen so much snow.

Malory and I haven't talked since our little chat over an hour ago. Night had forced us to pay more attention to our surroundings. We weren't protected like we were back by the beach. We didn't have a security team, a wall so high it would intimidate the largest of predators, and alarms to sound off once tripped or activated. I had my sharp staff and Malory carried both a gun in a holster and a shotgun in her hands.

Zombies were a threat again. I could hear some of them in the distance but none got close. We moved fast, as fast as our cold legs would let us. And that fight to survive, that desire to see Felix, to hold him, to kiss him - that is what kept me alive in this surreal Canadian winter.

"They're getting closer, Charlotte. Keep to my side." Malory warned me and I crept closer to her, our backs touching as we moved along the western forest of Fogo Island.

It's been a few weeks since I've been faced with the bastards but I haven't lost touch with reality. One single bite and i'm fucked. I wouldn't mind Malory being eaten, though. It's crossed my mine to stab her in the leg. Let the zombies go to her while I run to safety. Her guns keep me from doing anything of the sort.

"Why aren't they coming straight at us?" I notice, my back still firmly resting against Malory's. The walking dead seemed to stay at bay, forming a peremeter around us.

"I honestly don't know. I've never seen them so..." She was cut off by the sudden attack. The dozen or so zombies that circled us began to walk towards us at once. Like an army.

"SHOOT THEM!" I screamed and impaled the first bastard that reached us. I pulled my wooden lance out of its head, swung around and stabbed the other flesh-eating fuck that was behind me. Malory hadn't released one bullet yet. "WHY AREN'T YOU FUCKING SHOOTING THEM?!"

"MORE WILL COME!" She yelled back, holstering her shotgun and pulling out a nine inch blade from her boot. "TAKE OUT THOSE FOUR, I'LL TAKE THOSE THREE"

The rush of adrenaline that coarsed through my body brought me to life. I left Malory's side and made my way towards the four bastards that had clustered to my left. Their faces disfigured, their limbs torn apart, and the flesh on their skin rotting away as they walked. I felt nothing for them.

I lifted the wooden spear to the sky and impaled the first zombie. I pulled the spear out, and planted the sharp side in the second zombie's head. They were so slow. The third one came from behind and I had to duck and spear the bastard from below. Brains and blood spattered upwards and came close to land on me. That was a dumb move.

The last bastard came slowly towards me; his eyes bulging from their sockets, his left arm completly ripped apart from his shoulder. His right hand was reaching out, trying to grab onto me even though the bastard was an easy ten feet away.

I gripped the lance with both hands and threw it at the zombie's head. It went throught its skull like knife in butter. The bastard crumbled to the forest floor. Malory screamed out my name, asked if I was okay.

I picked up my weapon and ran my hand through what little hair I had left on my head.

"I'm fine - What about you?"

"Fine. Let's get going. They won't wait for me forever."

For you. She didn't say anything about me. My fingers curled tightly around my spear and a new fire lit inside my eyes. And I repeated to myself what I told Felix.

I am not dying today.

The Infected: Fogo Island (12)

twelve: web of lies

We exit some odd tunnel that leads into the forest just outside the fortified walls that protected the makeshift camp that Malory and her people called home for a month. The men that accompanied Malory and I didn't leave the tunnel; once we were out, they simply shut the door behind us.

The wind was cold and fierce, blowing snow every which way. As I turned to shield myself, that is when my eyes caught sight of the pillar of smoke rising from behind the walls, the flames licking flirtatiously with the sky.

"What is happening..." I ask, confused.

Malory slips on a fur coat and stands beside me, arms crossed.

"That is your mother and her men. They want you; there is no end to the Olsen's cruelty. You all rot from the inside."

I gawk in her direction, slightly insulted. She doesn't even pay me any attention. Malory turns her back to her village and begins walking towards the heart of the island. I'm not familiar with the area but the road that twists through the forest lets me know that somewhere, sometime, we will come across a town. From experience, towns are never welcoming. Not for the living.

"So what's the plan, now? Now that you've abandonned your people?" I ask Malory, following her from close behind - looking back every so often to show what little respect I can give them. I wonder if Leila is there.

"I haven't left everyone behind. The important ones are waiting for us at the Northern tip of Fogo. Keeping you away from the hands of your mom and Robert Scott is our only plan right now." Malory answers, keeping her eyes on the scenery before them.

They aren't protected by walls and sentinels anymore. Whatever comes their way, they must fight off on their own.

"I heard that name before..." I let out, and before I can say anything else, it suddenly hits me that Greta is no longer with us. In every sense of the term, Greta has left this world. I'm here walking with Malory as if heading to the mall on a cold autumn's day. And Greta Price is dead. David is dead. Grams is dead. Even Victoria's death saddens me.

I look at Malory and only see fire in her eyes. There is no life, only flames, flickering back and forth.

"You mean Robert Scott?"

"Yeah"

Malory stops walking and looks at me with that grin again, her rusty freckles and flaming red hair shining bright against the white landscape.

"You know, I really thought you were something special when you arrived. When my spies caught Aleksandra I was sure you were the mastermind behind some bloody takeover. That you and your little friends were trying to take from us what we worked so hard to achieve. But the more I get to know you, Charlotte, the less I'm threatened by you. It's absolutely pathetic how little you know."

"Says the woman who can't figure out what the cure is. You don't know any more then I do, Malory." I fire back, keeping my eyes trained on hers. Hopefully she'll continue talking and finally give me something to work with.

She sighs and rolls her eyes.

"I know that Robert Scott is the US Secretary of Defense and that he hired your parents to study a substance they found during Typhoon Tips' ravage of Japan. I know that they worked for two years straight to devellop a weapon that could be used to raise an army of warriors that felt no pain. I know that your parents hated each other and would have rather not having a child. I know that Denton Drake, my father, helped a struggling researcher and his wife with their new project in return for profit. And I know that my father sealed a deal with your parents to release that weapon against the world so they could make profit off the cure."

I don't say anything. Malory waits for me to answer. To say it isn't true. But I know it is. David was on to something, he knew about the deal between Drake Foods and my parents laboratory. My parents had created all this - they killed Grams. And David.

"So your Denton Drake's daughter?"

"Yes. I guess we both have family issues."

"I guess so." I answer vaguely, looking out towards the forest, towards the Northern tip.