Chapter 16: Some Things You Can Never Take Back

She tried to slow her breathing and let her back glide gently down the tree. Eventually her hands met the ground and she began dragging her palms along the roots and grass, but her fumbled glasses were not within reach. She would have to step out from the tree to find them.

Quinn could hear them coming. "please…. oh please.....please oh God…”she whisper-panicked.

Her glasses were crushed by a lifeless foot.

It moaned and dropped on top of Quinn. She screamed and attracted the others. The zombie grabbed at her arms and she kicked and squirmed, keeping its bite away. It took a hold of her wrist and would not let go. The other zombies circled and she stopped screaming. Quinn knew this was it. Everything happened so quickly. She could never escape it, now there was no denying it.

The zombie gnarled and drooled blood on top of her as she shook her head furiously to get loose. Her long hair kept it from getting in her eyes or mouth, but its hand kept grinding her wrist. Before it was able to break Quinn’s skin it was sliced from the rest of the zombie’s body, followed by its head. Only after did she see that the rest were already brought down by arrows to the head. Quinn looked around. There was a figure standing before her with a red hooded zipper sweatshirt on and a black bandanna holding an ax. He helped her up.

“Who are you!?” Quinn was baffled.

“I’m Chambers Khan.”

“Thank you for saving me.”

“You're the first living person I've seen in almost three days.”

“I'm Amy. Amy Quinn.”

“We need to keep moving now, Amy, before more come-”

“Call me Quinn.”

“Let’s go”

They could hear someone talking. Quinn ran towards it as Chambers picked up her broken glasses and chased after her. They came upon a guy just sitting under a tree. Quinn got down next to him.

“Be careful, legs. He could be one of them,” Chambers warned her.

“He’s not. They don’t hold letters in their hands,” Quinn reasoned "And I don't appreciate the nickname."

Chambers laughed and Quinn asked the man sitting under the tree, “Can you move? Are you okay, sir? Can you get up?”

Chambers was preoccupied wrapping athletic tape around the broken latch and reattaching the lens on her glasses. They continued to talk below him. “I lost them all. My wife, my kids, my parents, all in the blast. Not my brother though, he’s in Florida.”

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“How do you know he’s even alive?” Chambers asked, now interested.

“He’s in a maximum security prison and it's my older brother. A true relic of the nineties. Job will survive on this earth until it’s just him and the cockroaches.”

Chambers eyes lit up. Quinn looked over at Chambers and back down at the man, before establishing, “We’re getting out of this city then?”

He finished fixing Quinn’s glasses and gave them back to her, “You bet your sweet nerdy-ass we are.”

Quinn laughed uncomfortably at the nerve of this guy, not knowing whether to be offended or thankful. She put the glasses on and thanked him. “Whoa,” she said as Chambers' face came into clarity. He looked about sixty years old and had long, shoulder-length, thin, dirty blonde hair pulled back from his head by the black bandanna. He had a harness on the back of his red hooded-sweatshirt with an ax, a bow, and a quiver filled with arrows, and his pants were camouflaged.

“So do you have a name, guy? Or do we just call you nut-job?”

“Marcus, my name is Marcus.”

Marcus, the hysterical man sitting by the tree was quite handsome when Quinn got a look at him. Strong jaw, short brown hair, thin beard, deep dark eyes, Quinn knew who she was sticking close to. Chambers threw him the ax and took out his bow while he armed it with an arrow. He did not pull the arrow back but walked ahead of them with it. They crossed the woods and before they got to the edge they came across the zoo; where zombies were surrounding the animal cages.

Except the cages weren't filled with animals, they were filled with people.

Rebecca yelled at the top of her lungs. It was the guy she saw from before! He was the one with the long hair and camouflage. Chambers and Marcus ran around to the other cages. Quinn followed Marcus to where Frank was locked in his cage. They tried to get him out quietly, but the zombies could probably still smell their sweat and would hear their breathing if they got any closer. So, they stayed away from the other cage.

Chambers put two down with arrows, garnering the remaining few's attention. He fired two more arrows and put two more holes in the zombie’s heads before stepping out from the tree-line. He kept shooting arrows and pulled their numbers from the cage. He strategically dropped the bodies so they wouldn’t pile on top of each other and snap his arrows.

Samuel and Atticus shot just a couple bullets each conserving their ammo and making as little noise as possible while letting these two random strangers fight off the rest of them. Marcus came rushing at the last three with the fire ax. He sliced the first zombies head off, cut the other through the jaw, lopping off its head, and came down with his finishing stroke on the third zombie, splitting its skull in half.

Quinn helped Samuel, Atticus, Rebecca, Nora, and Uncle Ed out of the cage. In the other cage, Frank was beginning to panic. Another pack of zombies came down on top of them from the trees. Chambers locked his bow back into his harness and pulled out a machete. He stuck the first walker through the head, pulled it out clean, and chopped the next one’s head off by the neck.

Quinn let Rebecca and Nora go before her as Chambers gave his war cry and sliced a zombie approaching the girls in the head. It fell weird and landed on top of him. He was knocked back into an intruding zombie. Chambers readjusted and pulled the machete out of the dead head, thrusting it under the chin and through the brain of the zombie.

They both fell on top of Chambers. He survived, neither bit nor scratched. Chambers exhaled. He grabbed the machete and pushed the zombie off. When he did there was another one standing over him on the pile. Chambers could not pull his machete free in time. It got down on top of him. It didn’t jump at him like a predator or claw like a monster but unenthusiastically got down like a defeated bum and grabbed his head, pinning it to the floor.

“HOLY SHIT!” he screamed, “HELP ME!”

The zombie lowered its head down and moaned, gurgling blood out of its mouth. The blood spilled down into Chamber’s right eye. He squirmed and got his arms free to grab the gun on his hip. A shot fired out. It blew the zombie off of Chambers and let him free. Atticus and Samuel surrounded Chambers. He got to his knees and began freaking out, “I need a knife! I NEED A CLEAN KNIFE!”

“Clean?”

“Sterile!”

Atticus popped out his tactical blade and tossed it to Chambers. Chambers poured some whiskey on the blade, took a deep breath, and looked up at Amy Quinn one last time. He plunged the knife into his right eye, twisted it, and pulled the eyeball out…all without screaming. Chambers exhaled and passed out. The knife fell to the ground and the eyeball bounced free from the blade for everyone to see.