Chapter 11

I remember coming up for short periods of time, to Pierce carrying me, and Natasha yelling my name.

When I finally came around, my head was in Natasha's lap, and Pierce was nowhere to be found. "Where are we?" I tried to get up, but there was a stabbing pain in my chest. "AAHHHHHH!" I screamed. "Garry! Don't get up!" Said Natasha. "What happened?" I asked. "When you saw them kill Nathan, you started to choke yourself, holding your breath till your face turned blue. Then you passed out. Pierce said that you strained your lungs." Said Natasha.

"You should lay down some more." She said. Then it all started to come back to me. "I'm… I'm a murderer. I- oh god!" I cried. Natasha stroked my hair. "You did what you had to." She said. "I didn't have to kill him, I-" I stuttered.

"Do you know what they might have done to me?" She said. "He didn't deserve to live. Imagine how many he has killed compared to you. And with less reason! You did the right thing, Garry." I thought about that, and said, "Killing is never right. And it never has been. And I'm 12 years old, Natasha. I haven't lived half his life, and I killed him without hesitation."

And with that, we were quiet, Natasha still stroking my hair. After a while, Pierce came back, but he wasn't in the mood for talking at all. I decided to ask where he'd been later. It was 3:02. Not a single one of us spoke till 9:46, when we were getting ready to sleep.

"Who says we have to go?" Said Pierce. "Go where?" Said Natasha. "Sacramento." Said Pierce. "There isn't a deadline. We could stay here as long as we can survive here."

'Here' was a wooded area far behind the mall in a little bit of a clearing, where not many people could find us unless they were looking for us. There was a fallen tree, that we seemed to have claimed as a hub for the camp by Pierce and Natasha. The ground was slightly slanted, but not so much that you could fall easily.

"That's a pretty good idea, Pierce." Said Natasha. "We should stay." That night, I still couldn't sit up without help, so I just slept on Natasha's lap, who was sleeping on Pierce, who was sleeping on a log.

The next morning, I woke up freezing, and I was in sitting position against the fallen tree, put there by Natasha, who was talking with Pierce next to me.

"Garry's awake." He said, looking behind Natasha. It was difficult to breathe, because my chest hurt so damn bad. "Don't push it Garry, try to breathe through your nose." Said Pierce. "No problem." I coughed. "So, what are you guys talking about?" I said. "Staying put for a while." Said Natasha.

"That wouldn't be so bad, even though it's pretty cold here." I said, rubbing my hands together.

"I mean, you're hurt, we lost a lot of our stuff, an- and I have a lot of emotional s**t to sort out." Said Pierce. "We all do." He was right.

Me and Pierce were both killers, as far as we knew all of our families were dead, and we just saw a man and his son beaten to death. And I could have stopped it. If I had been a little bit more careful, I wouldn't have slipped up and told them about the car.

But I was keeping those regrets to myself. Natasha would just try to convince me that it wasn't my fault, and Pierce would try to make it not seem as bad. But it was. Everything was always that bad.

Even before the incident. People do terrible things, and I can't process how they would, or why they would. But no matter how bad it was, the person who did it thought he was doing something good.

No one does anything for no reason. The police can't find a motive, but he still had a reason, wether he was insane or just angry. "Garry?" said Natasha. I had zoned out. "Uh, sorry. Anyways, I think that's a great idea." I said.

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That day we scouted out the area. It still hurt me to walk, so we moved slowly. As I said, we were in a very forested area, untouched by fire or destruction that might have been cleared for camping if the apocolypse hadn't gotten there before the landscapers. In fact, we were trying to find land that had been slightly cleared, but all we found was a creek, and it looked like our current campsite was going to be the best we were going to get. Some things that we did find were 3 areas to hide if we were found. But Pierce had other ideas.

"We can fight. You saw us back there." He said.

"It's not right. We're just kids." I said. "That doesn't have to mean that we're weak! I'm sick and tired of being stepped on for being a different age!" He said.

"It's natural selection, Pierce. We hide or we die. Do you want to have to kill again?" I said.

"You'll see when the time comes." He said. The hiding places we had chosen were three different areas, depending on where we ran. Other than that and the creek, we didn't find anything useful in the heavy forest. In fact, all we had was the backpack, and we only brought food from the car.

"Maybe we could find some iodine stuff." Suggested Pierce. "Where?" I said. "The mall." Said Pierce.

"Don't you think there's still some guys that they left for dead?" Said Natasha. "Maybe, but we have to try." I said. We decided to leave the next day. By the time we had done all this, it was about 3:09. "How are we going to make a fire, Garry?" Said Natasha. S**t. That was one thing that I had not thought of. It had been getting darker and colder every night, but I never considered that we would have to sleep outside this often.

It HAD been really cold when I woke up. "I think that we're going to have to go without a fire before we have proper supplies." I said. "It seems this whole thing messed up the whether too." Said Natasha.

It would make sense. We were somewhere in late September. It shouldn't have gotten cold for at least a month. "I'm extremely disoriented. How many days has this been going on?" Said Pierce. "Four nights, I think." Said Natasha. 3:24. "What do we do until we sleep?" Pierce asked. "I don't know, tell campfire stories?" I asked. "Without a campfire?" Said Pierce.

"Oh, shut up." I said. "It's just that sit-around-and-huddle-together-for-warmth stories didn't have a very good ring to it." "Good point." Said Natasha. "So, who's gonna start?" I said.

"I'll go." said Pierce. "Alright, what story can you possibly tell without me having been there?" I asked. Then Pierce said, "I don't know, were you there on a- DARK AND STORMY NIGHT?" He said, a smirk on his face. "Pierce, come on, it's not even dark yet." I said. "I don't know, Pierce, does it involve SPOOKY GHOSTS?" asked Natasha, in a cheesy horror movie voice.

"I like her, Garry. Pierce approves!" He said, with his stupid grin. Natasha blushed. It was almost 4:30 by then. "I guess I'll save it, then." Said Pierce.

"But what about the time we stole Ms. Jenkins' clocks from her clock room? That was funny, right?" He said.

"I have a few points to make about that, Pierce. Ahem. Point one: Ms. Jenkins had Alzheimer's, so she probably wouldn't have remembered even owning clocks. Point two: It was just you. I stood outside to tell Ms. Jenkins that the loud kid from down the street stole her clocks. But I never had to, bringing me to point three: You got caught. She was in her weird clock room when you got there and she thought you were a bear. " I said.

Natasha stifled a laugh. "Stories really suck with you being a smartass all the time, Garry." Said Pierce "I try so hard." I said.

Then nothing happened for a while. There was a brief moment when I couldn't stop staring into Natasha's eyes, but Pierce ended up feeling pretty awkward, so I stopped for his sake.

"So, Pierce, how 'bout that ghost story?" Said Natasha. It was dark enough by then. "I thought you'd never ask!" He said. "Huddle up, kids, and grab your invisible popcorn around the invisible campfire for the GREATEST GHOST STORY EVER TO BE TOLD!"

"So, it was a dark and stormy night, and Garry Hartson was just driving home from his job as a wealthy accountant." He said. "I hate this already." I said. "But then!" Pierce continued, "He saw a man in the road. The man appeared dead. Garry went up to the him, unknowing of the DEAD GUY CURSE! OOOOOOOOOHHHH!"

And with that I closed my eyes and went to sleep against the fallen tree. I woke up with Natasha and Pierce huddling around me, but it was cold anyways. "Wake up." I whispered. "Huh? S**t it's cold!" Said Pierce. It was very cold. There was even frost on the grass. "Why are you whispering?" Natasha whispered. "I don't know, mornings just seem so peaceful. I hate to break the silence." I said.

"Maybe your vocal chords are frozen." Pierce suggested. "Quit whining like a little b***h, Pierce." I said. We all just huddled closer for a little bit. "Let's go." Said Pierce. "What? Where?" I said.

"Back to the real world, Garry. We were going to scout the mall today." The thought made me nauseous. What if Natasha is taken? What if I have to kill someone again? What if they kill me?

Questions like these raced through my mind. I refused to worry though, because with my friends at my side, I felt unstoppable.

Once we were inside, however, all my fears were dead for good. We didn't see a single living soul. Living. I thought. And then I did something I would regret the rest of my life. I looked out the front window.

They were there alright, but it seemed like most of their flesh had been eaten by a maggot or a rat. They were bloodied from the beating, and sucked dry of any blood that they might have had left. The flies had picked away at most of their skin, so raw flesh was exposed. For the next few minutes I stared out the window making soft hollow sounds with the back of my throat. Natasha started to look at what I was baffled at, but Pierce grabbed her shoulders and turned her away, unable to look himself.

"Garry, w-we have to go. C'mon." I turned mechanically, my face twisted in terror. Natasha was trying not to cry.

We found what looked like a corner market-ish store, where we got some water, iodine, and 3 lighters, one for each of us. After giving it some serious thought, Pierce walked into the store marked "Guns 'n Ammo".

He walked out with a shameful look on his face. "You guys might want to see this." He said monotonusly. It was a skate shop. Upon ripping down the fake sign, which clearly had care paid to it, we saw that the store was really called, "Highway Skate Shop, because you never know where you might want to shred!" We'd been fooled.

We'd come in with our minds on personal gain, but we ended up sacrificing so much for a blind cause. "Well, certainly not on the highway." Said Natasha gravely, in response to the shop's slogan.

* * *
Walking back to our "clearing of solitude", I thought of all we went through, just so we could pose a bigger threat. Sure, guns don't kill people, people kill people. With guns. A man and his child were dead because of us and our greed.

Natasha wasn't trying to make it seem alright, or talking at all for that matter, but I'm sure she had her own stuff to deal with. I wish she would come to me more when she needed comfort.

But she was becoming stronger, faster than it was easy, to accomodate for the losses that she would have to go through. I admired her for that, and wished that I had the ability to adapt as easily as her.

Author's Note

Why. Why are there no italics. Just why.