no one was waiting for the bus. I hurried ahead, Morgan trailing behind me. We reached the gate and I began climbing, gesturing for her to follow. I came to the top and looked down at her. She was moving gingerly, wincing as she did.
“What’s wrong?” I called in a whisper to her.
“My leg hurts when I stretch it that much,” she returned.
I lifted my head to the sky in silent prayer to the God of zombies. Humans.
I climbed back down and wrapped my arm around her, allowing her to move using only her uninjured leg and arms, and half-carried her up the gate. I helped lift her over the top then brought her back down to the other side, allowing her to step carefully to the bottom before I stepped onto the ground next to her.
“I think I ripped some of my stitches,” she said.
I rolled up the sleeve of her pants and looked. Two of the stitches had popped out and a little bit of blood was staining the wound. I sighed with frustration. I removed my backpack and slipped out one of the containers I had filled with water. I pulled Morgan down so we were both crouching before it and dipped my hand in to cup some water. I splashed it on the wound and Morgan breathed in through her teeth, making a hissing sound.
“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t have much experience with caring for humans. I knew next to nothing about physical pain. “We can’t go into the forest with you smelling like blood, even a little. The Stiffs will be all over us.”
“It’ll keep bleeding,” she said. “Can you re-stitch it?”
“No. I didn’t bring any medical supplies. I even forgot to bring bandages.”
“That was stupid.”
“I forgot about your wound, and I had a lot on my mind,” I returned with annoyance. “Here.” I reached through the neck of my safety gear and felt for the cotton shirt underneath. I ripped at the collar and tore out a long piece of fabric. Taking her leg, I wrapped it tightly around the open part of her wound, securing it tightly in a knot, Morgan scrunching her face in pain the whole time. “Hopefully the pressure will stop it from bleeding. Let’s go.”
She rolled her pants leg down again and we moved toward the brush, going the way Trevor and I had last week, staying on the top of the hill. More Stiffs would be found in the valley.
“You’re going to have to lead us through the forest,” I said. “You sure you know where to go?”
“I think,” she said. “It’s really dark. All we have to do is find the river, though.”
“The river?”
“Yeah, the dried-up river bed where I was hiding when you first found me. It’ll lead us through the forest. I can find my way back from there. Everyone in our camp knows that if you go into the forest and get lost, follow the river to get back to camp. My brother thought if we followed the river back through the forest we might backtrack to wherever our dad was and find him. As long as we stay near the river we’ll be fine.”
I nodded. That would have to do. It was the best roadmap we had anyway. We went forward. I kept Morgan behind me, holding her arm, allowing her to direct me when necessary. It was better if I was in front. If we were attacked by Stiffs I could retain a lot more damage than she could. It didn’t take us long to reach the forest and the empty creek bed. We stayed near its edge, never going more than a few yards away from it as we traveled.
We walked for a few hours before Morgan started to complain about being tired. She had hardly slept at all the night I brought her in, and none at all before I arrived tonight. My head was starting to ache too. There was too much activity and I hadn’t wanted to eat any of the preserves until I needed them. Trevor had allowed me to take his and his mentor’s remaining supply for the week. Mrs. Kushner would have to write a report to the council that they had been stolen and request more, or maybe my mentor would share my preserves with them. Trevor promised me they would be okay.
I brought Morgan to a clearing in the forest and we sat against a large boulder. I gave her a container each of water and feed, and I took a morsel of long, gray, spongy brain and swallowed it. She viewed me with horror as I did.
“That’s so gross,” she murmured.
“It’s not your brain,” I rejoined defensively.
“Why do you have to eat brains?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s nature. Dogs eat cats. Cats eat birds. Birds eat worms. Worms eat the dead. The dead eat brains. Don’t ask me why. We just do.”
Morgan turned away from me and scooped out a handful of feed and slurped it up. “This stuff tastes like crap.”
“We don’t make it to taste good. It’s got nutrients and stuff. That’s all that matters.”
She drank a handful of water and handed the containers back to me. “I never thought I’d be happy to go back to eating uncooked canned beans.”
“You ready to start again?”
“I need to sleep. I’m dead on my feet.”
I looked at her with an expression that said “Are you serious?”
“Sorry. Bad phrasing. You know what I mean.”
“One of us has to stay awake at all times,” I said. “It’s too dangerous otherwise.”
“So? You’re dead. You don’t need sleep.”
“The less I sleep the more I use my brain. The more I use my brain the faster I skid and the more brains I need to eat. The sooner we get to the human safe zone the better.”
“Give me a few hours,” Morgan replied. “Then we’ll start again.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Where can I sleep?”
I swept my hand above the ground. “It’s no barn, but it’ll have to do.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep on the dirt,” Morgan replied.
“If you can’t sleep on the dirt then you aren’t tired enough,” I said.
She frowned. Then she crouched down and rolled onto her back, folding her arms over her chest and resting her head on the dirt. “This is awful. There’s probably bugs everywhere.”
“Go to sleep,” I said.
She closed her eyes and went silent. I sat on the rock and leaned forward. After a few minutes I could hear Morgan snoring lightly. She began tossing in her sleep. I dropped my backpack to the ground and pulled out the jacket I had packed for her. I stood and, leaning over her, draped it over her body.
“Night, Morgan,” I said. I stood and crossed my arms over my chest. Here I was in a forest surrounded by Stiffs with Wake patrollers scouring the town I had been exiled from so they could bring me in and dispose of me. Still, I couldn’t get over the suspicion that this human was going to be the death of me.
We moved on slowly through the rest of the night until dawn. I had allowed Morgan sleep for a while longer before I awoke her. She was still sluggish and we didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked. She would stop every half hour or so to sit down and rest her eyes and have a handful of water. I was afraid that she would deplete all the provisions I had managed to bring long before we got to the safe zone.
As the light of the sun emerged over the horizon, glinting speckles of radiance through the gaps between leaves and branches, we stopped to rest again, and I had another morsel of brain against my better judgment. I could have probably gone longer without it, but my head was spinning and I couldn’t concentrate the way I wanted to.
“We have to be more careful now,” I said. “The light stirs the Stiffs from their sleep.”
“I know that,” Morgan said grumpily. “Why do you think we send scavengers out at night? During the day there’s too many zombies.”
“Why don’t you get some more sleep,” I suggested.
“Now you want me to sleep? When it’s morning?”
“It’s safer to travel at night. And you aren’t very pleasant when you’re tired. I’ll keep watch for a few hours and we’ll start again in the afternoon.”
I let Morgan rest, but she wasn’t able to fall into a full sleep. Stiffs were out and about, wandering aimlessly through the forest, bumping into trees, and occasionally each other, often
resulting in a Stiff battle to the death. The moans, growls, and snarls were more frequent and intense, and it was almost impossible to ignore. They would rise a few feet behind us and carry on for a while, then off to the side, or in front of us, never completely ceasing, so there were always the cries of the dead assaulting us. Occasionally a Stiff would wander into the clearing Morgan and I had occupied and I would have to slowly and quietly turn it around from us so it headed back into the forest without being disturbed.
The Stiffs started to come more frequently, sometimes coming two or three at a time into the clearing to surround us, so that it was becoming a task to turn them all around and get them to leave without disturbing them. Even then they would try several times to return to us before leaving the clearing, and it wasn’t long until I realized why. I could smell the blood as well as they could. I woke Morgan up and had her roll up the leg of her pants to check her wound while she slurped up a bit more feed and a handful of water to bolster her strength. I lifted the makeshift bandage I had tied around her leg and examined the piercing underneath.
“It’s not really bleeding that much,” I said. “It shouldn’t be attracting the Stiffs like this.”
Morgan frowned at me, biting at her lower lip.
“What?” I asked.
“I think I’m starting my period.”
“What?”
“My period,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I think it started last night.”
“Your what? What’s that?”
“Oh my God, don’t you know anything?”
I looked at her with a bewildered