Free The Hunt Chronicles (Volume 1): Awakening by J.D. Demers Page A

do.  I didn’t know Sarah at all and there I was in the room with her while she sat naked and crying.  I wasn’t the most sensitive person.  Sure, I had cried a ton since everything went to shit, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable around someone else who was emotional.
                  I turned to give the appearance that I hadn’t seen her.
                  “It’s okay,” I reassured her.  “You’re okay now.  You’re safe.  They’re not going to get you here.”
                  I was, of course, speaking out of my ass.  How did I know they weren’t going to get us?  Calming down hysterically young women wasn’t exactly my strong suit. 
                  “We’re not safe!” she continued.  “No one can stop them.  They just keep coming back!”
                  She burrowed her head farther into the towel and continued to cry about how everyone was dead and how we would never be safe.  Sarah told me that she thought the radio had attracted the zombies.  Her crying would probably have the same effect.  I had to calm her down.
                  I moved and took a knee next to her. 
                  “It’s okay, we’ll get through this together,” I said as I put my arm around her.  “But you have to be-”
                  Before I said another word, she screeched and pushed me back.  Her hand landed right in my bad shoulder.
                  “Ouch, watch it!” I said as I knocked her hand down.  I wasn’t trying to hit her or anything, it was just a reflex.  She looked at me and shook in fear.  PTSD was thrown around me so much as a veteran that I never really considered it affecting a civilian.  But that’s what this was.  Whatever messed up situation Sarah had survived through had put her over the edge.  All she knew was fear.
                  “Get away from me!” she whined, covering herself.
                  I stood up, and rubbed my bad shoulder.  “I’m not going to hurt you Sarah.  I just want to know what’s going on,” I said in frustration.  I just wanted her to be quiet.  I also wanted to know what was going on. 
                  She calmed a little, but something caught her eye.  She started to stand, still covering most of her body with the towel.  She raised her hand and pointed at my shoulder.
                  “What-what happened?”  She stammered.  “Were you bit?  Are you infected?”  She had backed up into my bed.  Instinctively, I moved closer to her.
                  “Yeah, I was bit,” then added quickly, “But I’m not infected.”  That did not calm her down.
                  “Everyone who gets bit gets infected you dumbass!”  She shouted at me.  “It’s in their mouths!”  I had been worried her crying would bring the zombies down upon us, but shouting was almost a sure thing.  She looked around my room frantically, and then spotted my golf clubs in the corner near my dresser. 
                  “Get away from me!  You’re going to turn into one of those crazy things!  I’ve seen what happens to the ones that don’t die!” she continued as she walked around one of my water storage bins and grabbed my five-iron out of my golf bag.
                  I didn’t know what she was talking about.  She had evidently heard information on the radio and witnessed some crazy stuff, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  I guess at the time I thought she was saying I was going to turn into a zombie.  Later, though, I realized she had been referring to a scab.  But I didn’t know what a scab was yet.  All I wanted to do at this point was calm her down. She seemed unreasonably frantic and scared.
                  “Who said that?” I asked as I backed out of the bedroom and into living room.