Two Alive, стр. 4

“Hurry up and go check it.” Miles pointed his knife towards the screaming with an almost hop-to-it attitude.

Antonio rolled his eyes and went running in the direction that the boy from this group went. When Miles finished picking up the supplies from the ground and putting them into his backpack, he looked down at Franklin and the bullet through his head. Then he heard coughing nearby. He went to check, knife ready, but saw it was Danny still alive on the ground.

“Please… I… you have to help us. You hav--” He was spitting up blood while tears ran down his cheeks. “You can help… you can help us--"

Miles looked him up and down and saw the blood pooling under his back. “You… you got shot.”

“Please…“

“I think your bleeding out.” Miles was staring blankly. “I think… I think you gonna bleed out. You’re gonna die. But slowly. I can help you… make it quick.”

“Oh my god.” Danny was crying softly, sniffling and breathing quickly.

Miles was vacant.

“You have to help me please. You have to take me back… you have to take me back to our shelter. We were staying at a Costco not too far from here, please! We have a doctor there, he can help me! Please!” Danny started coughing up blood again.

Miles started blinking rapidly and rocking back and forth as he shook his head. “No. I can’t. It’s just me and my brother out here. It’s just me and him so we couldn’t do it. You… you’d slow us down. You already lost a lot of blood” He started to lower his head then snapped back up, “Plus, plus… plus we don’t go to big groups. We just take stuff from them if we can.”

Danny continued crying softly.

Miles looked back and forth from the man and the trees. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Everybody dies. Except us.”

The old man’s words came from Miles’ lips like they were his own now. It was a creed, a discipline that the old man taught the boys to ensure they survived this world. Everybody dies, except us. Do whatever it takes to survive because everyone will die eventually, but the boys wouldn’t if they were smart and made smart decisions. Carrying a bleeding man through the woods with lurkers all about would get all three of them killed.

The infected must’ve been close to keep popping up left and right. Even if there were only a few stragglers, it wasn’t worth the risk. Not to even mention how the old man strictly forbid them from getting too close to big groups. From their clothes and the weapons they had, Miles could assume their group was at least fifteen people or more. The fact they had a doctor made the numbers upwards of twenty or more. It was what the old man had taught him. Miles couldn’t learn much but he did learn and hold onto everything the old man taught. He’d be dead if he didn’t.

Miles wiped the blade of his knife against Danny’s pants and pulled out his phone. “I can… I can make it quick though. Before a lurker or a runner finds you.”

Danny closed his eyes and blinked away the tears as he nodded.

Cheap Thrills by Sia started to play in Miles’ ears. Danny continued to whimper but as Miles knelt down next to him, he whispered again, “I’ll make it quick. I swear.”

Elsewhere, in the woods, Antonio was getting closer to the screaming and saw that boy from earlier had caught his knee in a bear trap. The teeth of the snare were biting into the boy’s leg and blood was starting to gush from the punctures. The boy tried prying the trap open but the springs weren’t allowing it.

Antonio laughed as he got closer, “Man. That shit got you. You done!”

“Help me! Please!” The boy was screaming and pleading.

“Yo, you getting’ hella loud bruh. You gon call hella lurkers here.” Antonio dropped down to a squat while he examined the boy’s predicament from afar.

“You… you could’ve helped us back there! You coulda stopped them! You could have helped us!”

“Man I don’t know you or them people that died. I didn’t have to help any of y’all.”

“They were gonna kill us!”

“Then you should have killed them first bruh. That one chick shot that dude, you shoulda shot that other dude and yo dad coulda shot the other one.”

The trap snapped back closed and bit deeper into the boy’s knee after another failed attempt to open it. “Damn it! He wasn’t my dad! He was my friend! They all were! I didn’t want anyone to die!”

“Well… people still ended up dead. That’s just how it be sometimes. Everybody dies except us.”

Three lurkers stumbled out of the woods looking lost and disjointed. They were growling and slobbing, covered in wounds and scars from who knows what kind of trauma. Antonio stood up ready to take them on—three freaks weren’t anything he couldn’t handle—but then three more infected were emerging from the trees behind them.

“Oh shit.” Antonio put his knife away and started to back up slowly.

“Wait! You gotta help me!” The boy cried out.

Antonio looked at the boy and the small group of slow moving monsters. They were moving very slowly and judging by the shape most of them were in, the lurkers must have been infected a long time ago. More than half of them had muscles that were starting to deteriorate and bones showing. Still, Antonio weighed his options and didn’t like his fighting chances with so many of them and how long it might take to open the trap.

“You on your own man. You could probably make a run for it. Them traps ain’t that heavy and they ain’t movin’ that fast.” Antonio continued to back away.

“What? No! You have to help