Free The Zombie Evolution by Rowan Burke Page B

someone getting pissed off.
     
    “I like this idea very much”
    Possibly a lie, I didn’t know yet.
     
    “Nice work guys”
     
    No response.
     
    “Is there a plan, or just to head in that direction to see what happens?”
     
    Jon stopped in his tracks, the other lads following suit. I had seen Jon lose his shit once already, and I wasn’t in the right state both physically and mentally to witness it first-hand. I knew everyone had been tested to their limit, I knew everyone was completely exhausted, and I knew my questioning could easily have taken the group into a different, much tenser, possibly even aggressive dynamic. Jon looked at the floor and sighed whilst shaking his head, his hands clapped together as his head lifted to direct his gaze up toward the star-lit night sky through the gently moving leaves as they danced in the wind. His shake moved to a nod, like he was trying to convince himself of something, as his hands took a praying shape, darting back and forth to match the motion of his head. He turned to me quickly, swiveling a hundred and eighty degree on the spot, the sound of the gravel around his twisting heels being the only noise in the stillness of the night. Looking at Phil and Derek, I searched for some reassurance, but they both had their heads down and their backs to me, which made my heart race with anxiety.
    It takes a lot for me to get scared, and even with the zombie attacks I had somehow managed to stifle my fear in order to react in the best ways I felt I possibly could, but this got me so worried that I could feel myself shaking. What happened whilst I was knocked out? What had they discussed or agreed? Was he just so worn-out that my incessant questioning had pushed him to the point where he wanted to knock me out again? From the looks of it, it didn’t look like I was going to get the gratuitous carry I received last time. Plus although I’m significantly shorter, I’d normally put up a pretty darn good fight and fancy myself taking the victory, but on this occasion I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Well…I had one.
     
    Jon paced toward me, staring directly into my increasingly widening eyes as I tried to reverse from him to no avail. He stopped half a foot in front of me, the other three still looking away as if to be turning a blind eye of shame to whatever was going to happen. Jon, closed mouth, took several deep breaths through his nose as he raised his hands and put them on my quivering shoulders.
     
    “Mate”
    He exhumed.
     
    “Y-y-y-yes?”
     
    He leaned in closer, his hands tightening on my shoulders and his eyes still penetratingly gawking through mine. What the fuck is he going to do?
     
    “We’re going to Mark’s”.
     
    My fear instantly turned to a disappointment and angry hybrid. Mark was a dick. I fucking hated him and these guys knew it, which I now realised was why they were being so secretive and blunt about where we were headed; they didn’t want me to know where we were marching to until the very last minute, when I absolutely had to go along with their plans. They weren’t annoyed with my questioning; they were worried about telling me of our destination. They had evidently utilised my unconscious state to make an agreed plan I would never have advocated, which I’m sure had good reason but for now, I couldn’t see the water for the shit.
     
     
    Mark was a twat that, with the exception of my brother (who was probably completely neutral in the whole decision making process), had been friends with the all the guys since they were kids, growing up and going to school with him, and him still remaining a drinking buddy of theirs throughout their adult years. I had met him a couple of times, and although we clashed and never really saw eye to eye, we made a conscious effort to just do the sensible and mature thing of ignoring one another, exchanging pleasantries only when we absolutely had to.
    Yet one night we had all gone out boozing, and Mark