Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TRAEGER
Mel screams as we fall and my heart ends up in my throat.
We both try to grab onto anything to slow our descent, desperately scraping and clawing at the earth, but there’s nothing but mud and wet leaves.
I hold onto her arm, refusing to let go of her.
The whole thing only takes seconds, I know, but it feels like an eternity.
Rocks and twigs scrap against my hands and face, but I barely notice.
We finally hit the bottom with jarring force, and I lose my grip on Melody.
She screams again as she lurches sideways, and we both tumble and roll across the small sandy bank in opposite directions.
“Melody!” I yell, scrambling through the damp sand towards her. “Melody, are you ok?” I reach down to help her up, but her leg nearly gives out and she cries out in pain, quickly clamping her lips together to stop the sound. I keep her upright, but she keeps weight off of her right foot.
“My ankle,” she gasps. “Might be broken, not sure.”
“Mel! Traeger!” Landry calls from above us. He holds onto a tree, probably worried about another landslide, and leans out over the edge as far as he can.
“We’re ok!” Mel calls. “Be careful at the edge! Looks like more could give way any second.”
“Yeahhh,” he says, eyeing the ground warily. “We’ll find a safe way down, just sit tight for a bit.”
I hear the unmistakable groans then and whip my head to our left. Fuck.
“We don’t have a bit,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
Mel follows my gaze and curses. A whole group of Bloodies is coming around the curve of the bank right for us.
This whole fucking area is apparently infested.
I shift Melody so we can head the opposite directly, only to find another group closing in from that direction.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Mel groans.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I grate, glancing back up the embankment.
Maybe there’s a way we can climb…but no, it’s pointless.
No way in hell we’re going up. Which only leaves one other option.
I look across the small inlet to the other bank.
It’s clear of Bloodies, at least for the time being, and it’s our only chance.
Melody seems to come to the same realization, but doesn’t look too thrilled by the idea.
We haven’t cleared anything on the other side of yet, there’s no telling what we might be walking into, and that water is going to be cold as fuck.
“It’s the only option,” I say. “There’s no way we make it out with this many.” We could get a little cover from above, but with no one able to get too close to the edge, it won’t be enough. She glances back and forth between the hordes closing in on us and I know she knows that I’m right.
“Go!” Landry yells. “We’ll be there as soon as we can find our way around. Fucking GO!”
“Give me the pack.” I hold my hand out towards her. She starts to argue, but I snap, “We’re about to have to swim every bit of eighty yards, maybe more, in freezing water and then huff it, and you’ve got a potentially broken ankle. You don’t need the extra weight. Give me the fucking pack, Melody.”
She presses her lips into a hard line, but slides the bag from her shoulders and hands it to me. I pull it on and she grabs the walkie talkie from my belt, spinning me around and shoving it inside the pack.
“The pack is waterproof,” she says in quick explanation and I nod, glad she thought to put our only form of communication somewhere safe. Melody is good in stressful situations, that’s for damn sure.
“If you lose that bag…” she warns.
“I won’t, now fucking come on.” I take her hand and yank her towards the water. I brace myself but gasp when we hit the water, the temperature a complete shock to my system. It must have been much colder up here than back at FOS, the storms bringing in a cold front.
“Fuck that’s cold,” I pant between clenched teeth.
“Full send,” Melody groans. “It’s the best way.
” She takes a quick breath and then dives into the water.
Well shit. I take three quick breaths and force myself to dive headlong beneath the surface just as the first of the Bloodies reach the bank just behind us.
My chest constricts as the cold envelops me, feeling like an icy fist squeezing my entire body.
My muscles all feel like they’re made of stone, but somehow, I make progress through the water.
I keep an eye on Melody, but she’s keeping pace just fine.
It’s not that far across, relatively speaking, but fuck it feels like we’re swimming across the whole of the Mississippi.
But we keep going, neither of us daring to stop to rest.
I finally make it to the other side and trudge up the bank, helping Melody to stand when she reaches it just behind me.
She sucks in a harsh breath as she puts weight on her foot and I eye her worriedly.
This isn’t going to be fun for her. Maybe I can carry her?
But before I can offer, she seems to physically push the pain away, separating herself from it completely. She nods.
“I’m good…but we have to go,” she grits out.
More Bloodies are making their way down this side of the bank now as well from our left.
They’re like ants flooding out of a hill that’s been stepped on, so many more than you ever realized were there pouring out like lava.
I jerk my chin towards a path that leads up the side of the embankment on this side and she nods.
I pull my knife and pistol, both ready for whatever might be waiting for us, and keep a close eye on Melody as we run for our lives.
I know she’s hurting but she doesn’t say a word, just keeps pushing.
She might just be one of the toughest people I’ve ever fucking met.
Cold is seeping straight into my bones and Melody’s teeth are chattering.
We need to get somewhere safe, and preferably warm, as soon as fucking possible.
We run as fast as we can through the trees, but she slips more than once between the wet ground and her ankle and I clench my teeth, knowing I need to get her off of that foot.
We only run into a handful of Bloodies on this side and I dispatch them quickly, but the ones from the bank are following our path and soon the area will be overflowing.
We’ve got some distance between us, but we can’t stop out here in the open or they’ll be on us too quickly.
“Is that a house ahead?” Mel pants, and I know she’s only upright now by sheer force of will. I squint and can make out what looks like some kind of structure behind the thick trees ahead. Whatever it is will have to do.
“Yeah, looks like it, come on.”
We finally make it into what was once a back yard.
The house itself is mostly destroyed, only a couple of partial walls remaining of the burned-out shell.
But, by a stroke of fucking luck, there’s big barn-like building off to the right that had escaped the fire completely.
Maybe one of those barndominiums that were all the rage for a while there?
I can’t imagine it was an actual barn with horses or anything out here in the woods, but what the fuck do I know?
It has big actual barn doors on the front, but they’ve been boarded up, so we head towards a smaller door on the side.
I take a quick breath and push open the door, ready for whatever might be lurking inside.
We wait on the threshold for a few seconds before charging inside, listening.
Melody shakes her head, saying silently that she doesn’t hear anything either, and we ease inside.
It’s dark, the windows mostly covered and only the faintest light sneaking in from the edges or in places where whatever is covering it—boards probably—have fallen away.
I slide my knife back into the sheath at my hip and pull the flashlight from my belt instead, clicking it on.
I sweep the beam through the room. It looks like some sort of workshop, with tables lining the walls and a huge workbench taking up the middle of the room.
Tools and sawdust cover most the surfaces, and giant stacks of wood on the shelves along the back wall beside giant storage lockers that probably hold even more tools or wood.
Some half-finished pieces of furniture—a rocking chair, a crib maybe, a small table—are piled in one corner.
Not many places for anything to hide, thankfully.
“Looks clear,” I say, moving further into the room. Melody follows and closes the door behind us.
“We need to block this,” she says, gesturing towards the door as she limps forward. I hand her my pistol and flashlight, and shove one of the tables over so it blocks the door. It’ll have to be enough for now.
“You need to get off that foot,” I say, taking my things back from her. I shine the flashlight around the room again, deciding what the best spot for her will be. The workbench will work, though it won’t be very comfortable.
“Wait,” she says, putting her arm on my wrist and directing the light back where I’d just swept from.
“There’s s-s-stairs back there.” She’s starting to shake harder and I’m far from warm either.
The temperature had dropped a good bit even since we started out this morning, and it’s getting closer to sunset, so it’s getting even colder now.
Being drenched in nearly freezing water isn’t helping a damn bit.
We need to get warm and we need to do it now.
I shine the beam higher, following the stairs as they disappear into the ceiling.
“An office maybe? Or an upstairs apartment?”
“Yeah, could be.”