This Would Be Paradise (Book 2)-A Zombie Novel

Chapter 13

I remember one time back in elementary school when a classmate named Eric had managed to coax a skunk onto the school grounds. He stood at the break in the metal fence for most of our lunch recess waving his bologna sandwich enticingly at the black furred creature. Eventually it creeped up to the fence only to spray Eric and make off with the sandwich he dropped from being so startled.

Eric sputtered as the kids closest to him ran as far downwind as they could get. When he tried to approach the crowd with hesitant steps, they all backed up from him in a disgusted wave. At this point he burst into tears and eventually a teacher hosed him off outside before calling his parents. For days he stunk no matter how much his parents must have bathed him and no one would go near him. It was like he was involuntarily quarantined.

I kind of felt like Roy was suffering from the same fallout poor Eric had, except this time people had more of a reason to keep their distance. After shooting Tim, Roy was treated like a leper by the rest of the survivors. Eyes widened as he passed and people were quick to move out of his way, then shot him dirty looks when his back was turned. He wasn't going to last here much longer. Either he was going to pack up and leave or be thrown out by an enraged group comprising mainly of elderly ladies.

What no one knew except for the handful of us was that Tim was a two-faced traitor, responsible for leading those mercenaries here and causing the deaths of too many to count. But a public execution was not the answer to his crimes and it left us with only a few more questions answered than before. The ones who witnessed it firsthand were too shocked and traumatized to fully understand and had gossiped to the rest of the populace by the next morning.

Now words like cold-blooded murderer and crazy were being tossed around about Roy and I could see that he was going to be forced to walk the plank soon. I tried to convince myself that this wasn't my problem, that this had nothing to do with me or me staying here, but I kept getting sucked in like a bird into a jumbo-jet engine. I wanted to leave with Chloe and continue on our way like I had planned to days ago. I wanted for this whole thing to not bother me. I wanted to not care.

But something inside me made me stay and help fix the disorder and broken pieces.

Elaine, Mac and I spent hours cleaning up the... mess. Tim was currently wrapped up in a sheet outside, waiting to be buried. His body was the hardest thing to deal with. We had to untie his wrists and maneuver him onto the sheet all while his head continued to leak blood and brain matter. At one point Mac had to excuse himself and we could hear him throwing up in the hallway. Once we got Tim's body outside, we started in on the bloody mess that was the floor. Lucky for them, the building had cheaped-out with linoleum and there was no carpet.

I stood up and stretched out my back. Looking down at our poor excuse for a murder clean-up job, I could see that the linoleum would be forever stained a russet color. I ripped off my rubber gloves and threw them into the garbage bad Elaine had labelled, "Hazardous Waste" with a Sharpie.

"We're not done yet," Elaine sighed as she slapped down the rag in her hand. It landed with a wet splat sound on the floor.

"I am." I cracked my neck for emphasis.

My head was throbbing from the concussion and I was pretty sure Elaine knew that I shouldn't be physically exerting myself this much. My eyes were starting to sag like a used mattress and fatigue was setting in.

"We need sleep Elaine," Mac groaned as he hefted himself up from his crouched position.

We had decided it was better to clean up during the night so no one saw the mess and I was starting to feel the strain and delirium from lack of sleep. Morning had come and people were moving about. The worst of it was cleaned up and you could hardly tell there had been someone shot in the rec room.