She didn't want to guess what would happen next. She knewthat her time, and perhaps the time of the others, was a limited commodity. Shehad some now; that's all that mattered. She didn't want to think too much aboutthe future. She didn't want to think about the next time she had to step footon the road and walk towards her own demise. She felt like it was out theresomewhere, just waiting for her. It was hunched over around the corner of abuilding or around a bend in the road. It was hunched up and waiting. Here,Clara... come here, Clara. We've got something for you.
No, all that was just bullshit. The sun. That's what shehad now, the sun and time. Her solitude was interrupted by another presence.Clara lifted her head up enough to see Katie perched on the edge of some metalductwork, sitting and looking into the distance. She didn't look so hot.
"You alright?" Clara asked, despite the factthat she wanted nothing to do with the woman personally. The cold-blooded efficiencywith which she had dispatched Brian and his kids was still a recurring part ofher nightmares. Brian dying was bad. Brian biting his daughter was bad. Katiejust killing them like they were nothing more than target practice... that wasjust inhuman. She knew it was what Katie was supposed to do, but still, ahesitation, some sort of remorse would have been nice. But Katie didn't havethat gene. She did what she did and expected nothing from anyone else.
"Yeah. I feel great," she said as she smiled upat the sun, her hand above her brow.
Katie didn't look great. She looked scary ill. Whateverwas wrong with her, Katie wasn't going to talk about it, so Clara just hopedthat it wasn't contagious. Silently, she cursed the woman for interrupting heralone time. That's one thing that she definitely missed... just sitting alonewithout people wondering where you were, if you were ok, or if you were turninginto some sort of monster out of their sight.
She missed that solitude, the time to herself, sitting onher bed and just enjoying the silence without the need to make smalltalk orgive a shit about what someone else had to say. Of course, Clara knew that shecould head out right now and find a whole world full of solitude, but that'snot what she wanted either. She didn't want to be alone; she just wanted a day orso to collect herself, sit back, relax, and put everything that had happened sofar into perspective.
Clara buried her head in her arms again, blocking out thebrightness of the sun. She wondered how Rudy and Amanda were doing. Had Rudyawakened? Was he heading toward them right now? She didn't know how Rudy andAmanda would make it on their own, but stranger things had happened.
Underneath the moans of the dead, she heard the recedingsound of gravel crunching under boots. Katie must have found her bad company. Good,she thought. Clara thought the same of Katie. When they had rounded the cornerin the city, Katie had been the first one to shoot. Of that she was sure. Thosemen might have been bad, or they might have been survivors just like Clara andthe others, but Katie hadn't even given them a chance. For all she knew, shewas still alive only because of Katie's actions, but a part of her thoughtthose men had just been regular men, survivors like them. Clara still saw itclearly, Katie raising her gun and squeezing off rounds without even pausing.She supposed she would never know if the men were good or not, thanks to Katie.
Tiring of the ground, Clara sat up and walked to the edgeof the building. Heights were not her forte and looking down sent her headspinning a little bit. The walls went straight down to the ground. She waslooking down at the side of the building, small rectangular openings showed herwhere the second floor ended. The dead were below her, their arms bashing intothe wooden walls of the building. They were two-deep around the wholestructure, and there were more inside. Clara scanned the faces to see if therewas anyone she knew.
She had known a lot of people, but she only knew what hadhappened to one of the people she knew pre-clusterfuck. That's how she liked tothink of the time before the dead had started to rise and bite the faces off ofeveryone. She had been there to see her boyfriend get chowed down on by one ofthe dead. Was he still in the hospital, lashed to his bed, grunting andstraining, or had he broken free by now? Perhaps he had strained so much thathe had finally ripped his hands completely off. It was a comforting thought toimagine Courtney wandering the hospital hallways with no hands. Maybe he wouldmake it outside, and enjoy some of the glorious sun.
She shook her head a bit, in the same way that she hadwhen she was younger and fantasizing about her latest crush, some boy thatolder her would be embarrassed to admit that she had ever found attractive. Butthat's the way teenage crushes were... dumb, misinformed, completely,agonizingly embarrassing. Of course, Courtney wasn't doing that. He wasn'tunder the sun sharing the same experience that she was having. He was lying ona medical bed in the dark, his arms and ankles bound to a bed. He was dead. Hewas rotting. She would never see him again.
Clara bent over and grabbed a handful of gravel andtossed it as hard as she could at the dead people below. The dead just lookedupwards, somewhat annoyed by pieces of rock bouncing off the top of theirheads. They groaned and scratched at the wall, hoping to defy gravity andphysics and reach Clara. She felt guilty.
These were someone else's "Courtneys," and hereshe was throwing rocks at them like an impetuous five-year-old. These were thefathers, mothers, lovers, and children of someone out there. Why wouldn't theyjust lie down and die?
Clara
