Who We Were | Book One

42. Bury The Living

There was a change in the atmosphere as everyone gathered in the centre of the town. Although the cool spring breeze swept through the town, it was now a graveyard of unburied dead.

"What the fuck is she still doing here?" Chris raised a rifle to Apollo's head. She didn't even flinch, her face was almost a look of guilt.

"Is this how you greet all your visitors?" She spoke.

"Only the special few, clearly," I replied through clenched teeth.

"I've had a change of heart if you must know," she admitted, "a change in alliance."

"I'll be the first to call bullshit on that one," Chris spat.

"Second, actually," I corrected, looking to Ben's gaze. It didn't fall on the girl beside me, he barely even noticed her. His attention was focused on Will who was stepping carefully over the corpses, his hands rubbing at his cheeks. Amongst the deceased were not just Infected, but also former living. The Infected far outweighed them and yet, Will's face was still a picture of defeat, a failure. He hadn't saved them.

He hadn't saved Jake and he hadn't saved Zoe. He knelt beside her, as he did to each one, carefully closing their lids and folding their arms across their bodies where limbs were still attached. Nobody moved as Will attended to the corpses, but Ben's hand slipped into mine. He held it tightly as if he might never get the chance to hold it again.

"What does this mean?" I asked, trying to figure out the answer myself through the silence that hung over us.

Chris was the one to respond, speaking so calmly he could've been talking about anything else. "It means it's over."

Will made his way across the road, stopping just a few feet away from the crowd. The town was still as they waited for his words. A blood-red constellation covered his face, which spread to his neck and clothes.

"Pile the Infected up to burn," he announced in a steady voice. "We bury the living." He took a step towards us, firm eyes falling on Apollo. "You. Inside. Chris, watch her."

Nobody spoke as the bodies were dragged across town. Nothing but flesh and skin dragging against the concrete filled the deathly silence. Some gagged as the smell permeated through the air. It was followed by bandanas and shirts pulled tighter over their faces. I pulled at an Infected. Its right bicep was gone, exposing the white humerus beneath. Its chest had so many bullet holes it could have been easily mistaken for a target at a firing range. I wouldn't have been surprised if that was what Liz used it for before it was set on us.

Each one of them held stories; how many they'd killed before they ended up this way and how many they turned. I dragged the body over the pile that was slowly building, wondering how things could have ever ended up this way. At the back of the town, by the oak tree I'd found comfort by, the graves were being dug for the ones that had lost their race with survival.

"I hate it," Ben said beside me. I'd been so distracted I hadn't heard him approach. "I hate everything it does."

"Everything what does?"

"The Infection," he answered. "It tears people apart but keeps them alive like a puppet." His curls which usually sat neatly against his forehead were tousled and sticking up in each direction, fighting against the breeze. The sleeves of his plaid shirt were rolled to his forearms, partially exposing a selection of bruises at the crease of his elbow.

"You think they know what they're doing? When we first met you told me they weren't human."

"I'm starting to think otherwise," he explained, his voice soft. "Everything about the Infection is the worst it could possibly be, it wouldn't surprise me for a second that the world would take it that step further."