The other two never slowed down or showed any fear or concern for their fallen brother’s fate. Shaun didn’t either. He had a plan and just as much hate for the dead as they had hunger for him and every other living thing they could sink their teeth into. Shaun didn’t wait for it to get close to him. He sprinted straight for the second, and as it reached out to grip Shaun, he stopped and spun his leg out in front of the Turned, tripping it and sending it forward. The third was running so fast now that it was running on all fours, gripping the dirt and propelling itself forward. Shaun held the blade pointed straight forward and the Turned impaled itself on the two feet of steel stopping at Shaun’s hands. The blade stuck out of the rear of its head. He tried to pull the blade out but it was stuck in its teeth as well as through the rear of its skull.
The second one rolled to its side, throwing Shaun off balance and backwards. Shaun went to pull a kama that looked like a hatchet. Shaun brought it around sidearm, getting ready to bury it in this thing’s skull, but Mr. Li knew that the young teenager still had very much to learn so he had made a blade seem to come out of nowhere. Shaun had to take a step back to make sure the handmade weapon did not stab him. A single drop of blood glistened off of the tip of the long blade, and as quickly as he’d seen it, Mr. Li had retracted the precision killing tool and made it disappear. It dropped dead, but this time it would stay that way. There would be no further torture to others.
Shaun stood still and focused, looking into the woods; nothing else was coming from the shadows of the thick forest. The sound of tree branches snapping in the distance could be heard though. Shaun put his kama away and put his boot on the side of the other’s skull and took the sword’s handle in both hands and pulled it out, wiping the blackened blood on the dead’s tattered pants and sheathing it. When he turned around, he had nothing but watchers. Brandy, who’d trained right alongside Shaun, as well as Timmy, weren’t surprised at what they’d seen. They knew what he was capable of and so much more.
Shaun looked at the mass of people standing at the gate watching. He didn’t think that there were half that he recognized of them, and that was a cocky estimate. There was one person for sure that he knew, one that he couldn’t forget even if he wanted to and that was Ellie. When Shaun met Ellie’s eyes, he could see a mixture of emotions: good, bad, questions, anger, and he prayed that one of them might still be love.
Joey leaned over near Greg but he held up a hand. Greg looked to the others from their camp and confusion was the common denominator amongst all of them. Shaun walked forward slowly; whatever happened, happened, and there was little he could do or say about it. Clary let go of Joey’s coat and he stood still. There was no saving what needed to be done and it was apparent that Shaun was very safe at this point. Clary walked out front but Ellie ran past him. She surprised him on quite a few levels because he didn’t have the slightest clue what to expect. Ellie ran up and gave him the tightest hug that anyone anywhere could give another. It had so much love behind it that Shaun felt a tension on his shoulder get lifted, which was a feeling he’d not felt in quite some time.
After almost a minute, Ellie stepped back a foot, her shoulders were shaking and her lip was trembling. Shaun tried to say sorry and her hand came out of nowhere. His first instinct was not to let her slap him across the face. The fact that she probably needed to do this to forgive him, to move on, to deal with what was at hand was why he took everything she threw at him. Shaun wasn’t sure if he felt or heard the slap. Joey sucked in a breath and whispered to Greg, “He should have moved. That’s going to leave a mark, I think.”
“He got off lucky if it doesn’t,” Greg replied.
Ellie brought up her hand a second time, and Shaun didn’t so much as flinch. If taking the beating was what it took to get back in her good graces, that was going to be just fine by him. She tried to make herself slap him again but she stared too deep into his eyes and couldn’t. She reached forward with her hand but gripped onto his shirt instead of slapping or punching him. Ellie finally broke down and her emotions were tearing her apart at the moment. She buried herself on Shaun’s shoulder, and after a minute, he could feel the warm tears beginning to soak through. Shaun wrapped his arms around her, lightly at first, and he could feel her squeeze him harder and start to relax.
Earl whistled from behind them; he’d missed the subtle hints that this was a quite intense reuniting of friends and loved ones or one. Ellie let go of Shaun, wiping her tears as she attempted to gain her composure. Earl said, “I’m glad you got your pretty little lady back and all but what the hell are we gonna do now that we got us back to good ol’ Iowa where all this shit started?”
Shaun sighed looking at Ellie, “Yeah, that’s Earl, he is from Iowa somewhere; I never really got a real clear answer. He always went back to talk
