Snippet #2031686

The horde of infected was drawing closer. Behind him, he could hear Dillon had run out of ammo and was coming after them. He jumped the barricade of the highway into the forest. When he tried to help Katie over she had already jumped lithely over herself. She was clutching the knife so hard her knuckles were white. An infected tried to scramble over the barrier, before Rohan cracked its skull with the barrel of the shotgun. The walker snarled, broken teeth hanging out of its mouth, and met suddenly with a boot in its face. Katie almost screamed, but she bit her tongue and kept silent. With Dillon’s light turned off, the forest plunged into complete darkness. She ran into the general direction of the safe house: away from the menacing sound of the thundering horde, tripping over an unmarked gravestone and scraping her knee on the rough ground.

Rohan helped his daughter off the ground and pushed her through the doorway of the small, shabby house. The moaning of the infected was growing more distant as they went after the military radio. That was a clever move, he had to admit. Breathing heavily from sprinting for so long, he checked over his equipment, making sure he hadn’t dropped anything crucial. Then he grasped Katie, checking her over for bites, scratches, anything. “Did any of them get you?!”

“No. No! I’m okay.”

“What about this?” he said, pointing to her now knee. The scrape wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding considerably.

“It’s nothing. I tripped.”

He glanced at Dillon and Sydney warily, hoping they didn’t catch anything. It occurred to him now that he had ever bothered to ask if either of them were carriers. After scouring through the house, he found some medical gauze in a cupboard that had been used to block up a window. It looked like Dillon had been set up here for a while. Katie had dropped down exhausted on one of the cots, dropping her pack on the ground. She winced slightly as Rohan used the bottle of vodka to disinfect her knee and dressing it with the gauze. He shrugged out of his jacket and placed it around her, after which she sank into an uneasy sleep. She looked so peaceful there, Rohan felt a pang of regret. No child should have to live like this. He knew that he would get no sleep himself that night, and paced restlessly around the room, gripping onto his shotgun. “You’re not bad with that ice-pick,” he said to Sydney to try and pass the time.