Save Me
Authors: L J Baker
Save Me
L J Baker
© LJ Baker
All right reserved.
Cover art by Elaina Lee @
http://www.forthemusedesign.com
ISBN-13: 978-1483989136
ISBN-10: 1483989135
Smashwords Edition
Copyright
©
2013 LJ Baker
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is dedicated to my beautiful daughter Jennylee. Have faith in yourself and your abilities. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.
~Chapter One~
It's funny the way things happen. One day you're being asked out by the cutest boy in school and shopping for the most fabulous dress for the spring formal and the next you are standing in the middle of a group of flesh eating undead who want you as their next snack. I guess that's how things work out though. At least I got to think about going to the dance with Zach. I was able to live in a world where I could imagine Zach and I would get married and live happily ever after. That is, before his little sister Claire turned into one of those monsters and tore him to shreds in the middle of the street. I will never forget that dumb look of disbelief he had on his gorgeous face. He just stood there as she hobbled over to him in that typical undead manner, missing most of her left arm and some chunks of flesh from her face. She was still in her cheerleader uniform, though it was in pretty bad shape by then. When Claire got about two feet from Zach she lunged forward, biting into his shoulder. And still, he just stood there in shock. He didn't even try to stop her. He just stood there screaming like a little girl as she ripped chunks of flesh from him.
There was no hope for poor beautiful Zach anymore but I, however, had about five of the undead bastards trying to reach me through the chain link fence of this piece of shit dog pen I now found myself caged in. In hindsight, this probably was not the best idea I've had but when you're out of ammo and you drop your trusty zombie killing hammer, all you can do is run. Not that a 4x6 flimsy cage is the best place to go, but sometimes a girl's out of options.
I guess this would have been the end of me if not for my knight in shining armor. And by knight in shining armor, I mean a tall boy wearing combat boots, ripped black jeans, and a black t-shirt with a pretty pink pony smack in the middle. Okay, maybe this would be the end of me. I didn't even notice him until he shot an arrow almost clear through the head of one rotting skull reaching through my cage. The other four dumb bastards just climbed over its twitching corpse hell bent on making me their dinner. I still found it somewhat funny to watch. It's nothing like what you see in the movies where the hero shoots a zombie in the head and down he goes -- dead for good. They tended to twitch a bit before the light went out permanently. Definitely more creepy. Plus you had to get them in the right spot or totally blow their skull open. If you didn't take out the brain stem it wouldn't stop them for good. Although, it did slow them down quite a bit and sometimes keep them from walking if you managed to destroy enough of the brain. They could be slower than an old woman with a walker as it was, but anything that could give the living an advantage was a good thing these days. Except for the fresh ones anyway. The fresher they were the faster and stronger they were. Once they were around awhile, they tended to break down at a faster rate becoming slower and clumsier. Even the older ones were strong though. That wasn't what you would expect from something that was basically a walking corpse. Maybe they had a shitload of adrenalin coursing through their half-dead brains or something.
My Knight in pink pony armor managed to take three more clean shots with his crossbow leaving just one rotting bastard grunting his desire for my flesh. I thought for sure he would break down my cage any second. I couldn't imagine what pink pony boy was waiting for with this last one. I thought maybe he was out of arrows, but no, he was trying to show off. He came right up behind the last one, catching it off guard, and smashed its rotting skull with a hammer. My hammer. He grabbed hold of the metal gate which was just barely holding on at this point, and pushed it open just enough for me to squeeze out.
"I think you dropped this," he said handing me the hammer and looking me over with a smirk.
He looked proud of himself for saving me. Like a comic book hero, in a pink pony shirt.
I climbed out from behind the fence, stepping over three bloody once-human forms. I used to wonder who they had been before they turned. Were they good people? Did they have families? That was enough to drive you crazy though. You couldn't let yourself feel bad about killing them or think of them as one of us. They weren't anymore. Now I just try to imagine them as a completely new species, as if they were always like this. It definitely made it easier to kill them and ignore their rotting corpses strew around the streets. In addition, it cut down on the nightmares. It was the only way to survive. I had met a girl once named April who used to give them names and make up life stories for them. Her stories could get quite elaborate too. Unfortunately, she became dinner for one of her characters she named Wayne. April wasn't exactly my bff. She was actually quite annoying but I certainly did not want to see her have her throat ripped out by Wayne the gas attendant.
"You're welcome," he said smugly, as if he expected me to get down on my knees and praise his greatness for saving me.
As if that would ever happen.
"Uh huh," I muttered, climbing past him.
I put my hammer back in its place on my belt and started making my way out of the rubble that used to be the local animal shelter. I know he expected more, but I wasn't in the mood to talk to him. These days I pretty much kept to myself. It's just easier this way. I don't need to get to know him. I don't need a new friend. I've been down that road too many times since the outbreak began. You let yourself get to know someone. You let yourself care about someone and you think everything will be okay, as if they will stick around, but it never ends well. Either they get their face chewed off by a group of middle school undead or they take off in the middle of the night with all your stuff, including the gun your own father had used to blow his brains out after he was bitten. I just didn't have the energy anymore to waste on making friends. My energy was better spent on surviving and killing anything without a pulse and definitely not on some totally hot idiot who thought he was a super hero. Even if he was the cutest boy I'd seen since Zach. Well, that is before his sister ripped his face off with her rotting teeth.
"So that's it? I save your ass and you just walk away?" he yelled after me, annoyed.
He was following me down the road, amazed by my lack of appreciation. Don't get me wrong, I did appreciate him stepping in and saving me from certain death. I would have been corpse chow for sure if he hadn't shown up. I just didn't need him tagging along like I owed him something, nor did I want to say anything to encourage him. It's not like I had asked him for help. He did that on his own. Now he can get lost.
"Hey!"
Okay, now he was getting annoying. I spun around to face him, not realizing just how close he had gotten. We were practically in each other's faces. I couldn't help but take a moment to let my eyes graze over his features. His black hair fell around his face in soft waves, perfectly framing his sparkling green eyes and full kissable lips. He had a smudge of dirt on his left cheek and for one brief second, I wanted to reach up and wipe it away. What the hell was I thinking?
"What?" I yelled, shocking him into silence. We stood there for a moment glaring at each other.
"Do you expect me to throw my arms around your neck and shower you with gratitude? Oh my hero! You saved me!"I spat at him sarcastically.
I was clearly being a bit too dramatic. I told myself just to thank him and go on my way and in my head it sounded right, the problem was, my mouth was not cooperating. I didn't quite know why I was being so mean to him, but still, I couldn't stop myself.
He took a step back, looking me over as if to assess if I could really be as much of a bitch as I seemed.
"A simple thank you would be nice." He raised one eyebrow and smiled crookedly, just a bit. It was an awkward expression but on him it was adorable.
"Thank you." After a pause, I relented and turned to be back on my way.
I should have known from his persistence so far that this wouldn't be the end of it. Not saying a word, he followed several paces behind me for the next half hour. Part of me wanted to yell at him to go, to leave me alone. Another part of me wanted to turn around and see his crooked smile and his sparkling green eyes staring back at me just one more time. Ignoring both parts, I just kept walking.
He at least had the sense to keep quiet for awhile. Unfortunately, that didn't last.
"I'm Will, by the way." He called out, moving faster to catch up with me. "Will Harrison."
"Good to know."
I still wasn't ready to make friends but I had to admit, I did feel just a little bit safer with him following behind for some strange reason. It's not like I should feel safe with some boy I don't know there. For all I knew he could be plotting to steal from me, not that I had much. Or worse. I just didn't think I needed to worry about him though. I don't usually come across people I felt so at ease with these days. Normally I kept my guard up, not even turning my back on a stranger. You had to look at every unknown as a threat if you wanted to survive in this world. Something about this boy was different though. I just wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not yet.
"And you are?" he asked sweetly, as he jogged up in front of me and began walking backwards to face me. He was clearly trying to start over and get past our nasty start. I was about to tell him to get lost when he tripped over a branch in the road and fell ungracefully right in front of me. I couldn't help but laugh. My hero, taken down by a branch in the road. It was the first time I had laughed in longer than I could remember. There wasn't a lot of comedy around these days.
"Ok, now I saved your life
and
made you laugh. I deserve a name at least. Don't I?" He gave me that crooked smile again, trying to be cute. Unfortunately, it was working.
"Andi Sheppard." I offered him a hand to help him off the ground, which he quickly accepted as if he thought I might rescind the offer at any time.
"Well Andi Sheppard, it's nice to meet you."
That smile of his made me lose track of my thoughts for just a moment, something I certainly wasn't used to and definitely didn't like. I could just barely remember what that felt like from life before the outbreak. I can picture myself as one of those silly innocent teenage girls just waiting for a boy to smile at me and talk to me like it was the most important thing in the world. However, that wasn't me anymore. The world was different now. I was different. I didn't have the luxury of getting lost in the eyes of a cute boy or daydreaming about spring formals or kisses. Survival was all that mattered now and that didn't require boys, even ones with sparkly green eyes.