Gone

Chapter 5: Perniciousness

"What?!" Skylar questioned in a panic.

"Karson!" I declared as I pointed to the running figure, "That's Karson!"

"Oh my God!" 

She reached for her pistol that placed on the concrete floor next to her and ran along the pool's side to the fence. She fitted the gun comfortably in between two poles of the fence and shot two shots, fired in rapid succession.

"Karson! Over here!" I yelled from my seat resoundingly as I could. 

Suddenly, he turned and started to make his way over to us. The large crowd of hungry Dead behind him stumbled after him making low grunting noises that echoed over the hills. His legs hit the ground at a fast pace and he had soon made a considerable distance on them and met Skylar at the fence line. He was in a red and black flannel with a pair of grey joggers. His black converse looked beaten and unkempt with dried dirt dotting the sides. I looked to his hand to see a small Swiss army knife situated in his palm with small droplets of blood along the blade. 

"Karson!" Skylar gasped, "I'll open the gate for you and we can kill the Dead from inside the fence." 

"Uh, I don't think that's a great idea." He announced pointing to the front of the pool house. 

Skylar's gunshots must have attracted the Dead that were gathered along the road and in the neighborhood. I could hear their growls and hisses as they trekked across the road with heavy footsteps to the fence.

"That's way too many Dead to kill from inside the fence, so meet me near the parking lot in front of the pool house!" He added. They both gave each other a short nod and went their separate ways. 

"Holy shit." Skylar uttered. "Maddi, we have to go!"

"I can't walk!" I reminded.

"You won't have to. I can just pick you up like I did when I saved you from the forest, but we have to leave right now!" 

Skylar paced over to the doors from the fence line depositing her pistol in her back belt loop. She threw her backpack across her back and gathered as many supplies laying around the camp as she could. I mimicked her lead and crawled to gather any disarranged blankets and sheets I could reach without messing up my left leg. She began to dislodge the chairs, tables, and umbrellas that made up the barricade in front of the doors until there was a space large enough for us to fit through. She lifted me from the ground into her arms as I held on to the mismatch supplies I could get my hands on. I wedged myself through the opening she created in the first barricade and tried to begin to tear apart the second one with haste on the main entrance. My left leg began to ache, but there was no time to dwell and complain.

I looked to Skylar who had a panicked look glued to her face. Her eyes were wide open with fear and her mouth was sealed into a thin line. There was a sudden crash and I looked back to see that the Dead had plummeted the fence to the ground and were stumbling their way to us. Adrenaline coursed through my system and my heart felt like it would burst through my chest at any given moment. Then, I turned to see Skylar's hand outstretched to me with her gun.

"Shoot while I break this!" She panted.

I took the gun willingly and turned and aimed through the cracked spaces of the broken window and then shot. It was the loudest, ear drum rattling noise I had ever heard. We weren't supplied with the equipment to cover our ears when shooting, but I soon learned to not care anymore. I would shoot as many times as I had to as long as it meant we wouldn't be getting torn to pieces in cold blood. I shot three more times, hitting them in their stomachs. By then, I became acquaint with the deafening noise as much as it was unfamiliar to me. It felt as if a switch had been turned off inside my head alongside my fear. I was in a quiet zone where all that mattered was that Skylar and I got out of here safely and could live on for as long as we could in a world like this.