Free Deadies: Run for Your Life by Krystell Lake

don’t know, a slattern?
    Nick walked in still wet. He was wearing his pants, carrying his boots and had his t-shirt tossed over his bare chest and shoulder.
    “ Hey, are you okay?” He sat his boots on the floor and sat down in front of me in the vacant chair.
    “ Yeah,” I couldn’t think of words.
    “ You were screaming and I didn’t know if it was good screams or bad screams. Did I hurt you?”
    “ No, good screams.” I reassured him.
    Nick looked out the window and all my trepidations went away. “Get dressed. You need to show your face downstairs. I don’t want them to think I killed you.”
    “ I was that loud?”
    “ Huh,” was all he said and I was immediately embarrassed. Nick stood and paced. He looked down at me. “I’m sorry.”
    “ About what?” I innocently asked as I stood to face him.
    Nick wiped his face with his hands. “Ray is dead. I tried to save him. I swear, me, Joe, we really tried.”
    I listened to the words. I had heard them earlier but somehow I blocked them out. How could I consciously do that? Or was it unconsciously? I was going crazy. This world was making me lose my sanity. “What?” I said, hoping he wouldn’t repeat it.
    “ Jesse, Ray is dead.”
    I gasped for a breath. “Ray is dead.” I flopped down in a chair. I had to comprehend what was going on. Ray was my buddy. “What happened out there?” I asked before I broke down in mildly controlled sobs.
    “ We found a building we thought it looked secure. Some asshole had booby-trapped it. We broke in and Ray tripped a wire and the ceiling came down on us. I got stuck under the rubble. Ray got stuck. Joe had to dig us out. The cave-in made a lot of noise. It must’ve attracted the freaks. Ray was free first. He said he couldn’t breathe so he ran out the building and there were freaks out there. I swear Jesse we tried to pull him back through the door. There were so many freaks pulling him out. We just couldn’t hold on to him. After he was bitten over and over we let him go.”
    I had heard enough. I threw my hand in the air signaling Nick to stop talking. He did. I wiped my tears but they continued to fall. Nick grabbed one of my t-shirts and pulled it over my head. I let him do it. He was dressing me like I was a baby. I was acting like a helpless child.
    “ Jesse we need to go down stairs and talk about this with the group. As much as I want to sit in this room and be sad. I can’t. We lost one of the group. We lost Ray and we have to grieve together.”
    Death happened in the old world and it happens more often and more violently in this new world. Get over it, I said to convince myself. I grabbed a fresh pair of shorts out my backpack and finished dressing. I followed Nick downstairs to the living room.
     
    CHAPTER 7
     
    Everyone was in the common area. It felt like they were waiting for us. Maybe waiting for Nick, he was the speaker of the house. Kait was sitting on the couch crying her eyes out. Her face was buried in her father’s chest. Naveen was sitting on the floor against a wall. He was in a comatose state. He wasn’t moving. I’m not sure he was breathing. Seeing Naveen punctured my heart. It was obvious Ray was his best friend and vice versa. I don’t think they knew each other before the deadies came but they were so close you would have thought they were childhood friends. They were genuine friends. Not like Nick and Joe who existed together. They backed each other up but there was no true camaraderie. Ray and Naveen were different, the real deal.
    I remember some guy in high school making me watch all three of the old Superman movies. Lois Lane was dead. Superman flew into the sky and around and around the earth as fast as he could to turn back time and have a do-over. It’s amazing how dreadful things like zombies are real but decent good things like Superman are not.
    Malik was sitting next to Michelle. He was rubbing her back. Michelle’s eyes were as red as her hair. She had been