Surviving, Not Living/Issue 23

This is Issue 23 of Surviving, Not Living, entitled Never. This is the fifth issue in Volume 4.

Issue 23 - Never
The group had taken turns in carrying Doug through the forest - even Zach and Ellie had helped. They had been walking for a few hours but Jackie hadn't left the injured man's side. Due to the lack of sleep in the previous twenty-four hours, everyone was over-emotional. Danny had explained his and Ava's journey to find them, which got him a kiss on the cheek from Charlotte and a pat on the back from his dad.

"Put him in here!" Amelia shouted. The group had reached a main road. Amelia pulled the trunk of a car open and Bobby lightly placed him inside. The group crowded Amelia as she began to work on Doug. "I need space!" She screamed.

"Woah, calm it, missy." Doug chuckled as he drifted back into consciousness.

Amelia sighed as everyone else backed away. "There's not much that I can do to help, now. We've just gotta give it time. Don't move."

"Okay - erm - thanks." He thanked. She smiled at him before turning away.

Across the road, Zach and Bobby stood next to each other. For the first time, Bobby examined Zach. The man had black hair which was pushed back - a single curl fell down his forehead. His muscles bulged under his tight t-shirt. Bobby thought that he looked like Clark Kent, minus the glasses.

"Hey." Zach spoke up. "You don't mind if me and Ellie stick around, do you? I mean, she's been through a lot and you seem like good people."

Bobby acknowledged him and turned around to look at Ellie. She comforted Jackie, who was sat next to a sleeping Doug. "You both seem great to me. I'd love to have you in our gro-"

"Great, thanks." Zach jumped to a conclusion.

"But." Bobby snapped. "I'll have to ask everyone else in the group. Doug's the leader of the group, he normally does stuff like this... I guess that I'm next in-line to the throne."

______________________________________________________________________________

After clearing the snow, Jackie sat on the concrete floor, next to Doug. She ran her hand over Doug's hair as he slept. His eyes drifted open, after a while.

"Hey." Jackie sweetly smiled.

"Good afternoon." Doug quietly replied.

"How are you feelin'?" She asked.

"Quite good, actually." He told her.

"Really?" Jackie's face lit up, full of hope.

"No." Doug weakly chuckled. "I just got stabbed, if you didn't know. I think it looks worse than it is."

"Oh." She sighed. Silence fell between the pair. The only sounds were the murmurs of their fellow survivors and, every once in a while, a gunshot.

Doug was the one to break the silence, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Jackie asked.

"For not being able to spend a lot of time with you."

"What are you talking about? You'll have lots of time to talk to me, in the future."

Then, Doug leaned closer towards Jackie. He looked down to her lips and back up to her eyes. Their bodies moved closer - it felt like the most natural thing in the world. She rested her hand on his cheek. However, before they could kiss, Doug felt a ripping pain in his stomach and he screamed out in pain.

"Amelia!" Jackie screamed. Amelia sprinted over and placed pressure on Doug's stomach.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." She cursed. "I told you not to move."

Jackie began to sob. She couldn't believe it. They were finally going to kiss and now... this. She covered her face with her hands, trying to stop her sobbing. Jackie blamed herself.

"Someone get her away from me!" Amelia shouted. "I can't work like this."

Ellie ran over and hugged Amelia. She stroked the Jackie's hair as she pulled her away from Amelia and Doug. Ellie took Jackie to the side of the road. They held hands as they spoke. Zach began to walk over but Ellie shook her head.

______________________________________________________________________________

Across the road, Danny sat down with his father. Jack was still heavily breathing, despite the fact that they stopped running over ten minutes ago.

"Are you okay?" Danny asked.

Jack grabbed his son's hand before speaking, "I'm an old man, Daniel. I'm seventy-one. I won't survive much longer and I want you to be prepared for when I die."

"What are you talking about, Dad?" The younger of the two said. "You've got ages to live."

"Not in this world, I haven't." Jack explained.

"Don't speak like that." Danny told him. Jack sighed, looking down and fiddling a tuft of grass. The snow soaked their trousers. After a while of silence, Danny spoke. "We can never return to the farm - never - you know?"

The old man burst out into tears. Danny hadn't spoken to his Dad in years, he didn't know how to react. "It's j-just-" Jack spluttered. "-I was raised there... You were raised there... Marie died there, Lorna too."

"That's one of the reasons we can't return. There are too many bad memories at the farm." Danny told him. "We can find somewhere else to live. There is other communities of survivors out there, I know it."

A sudden gunshot brought Jack out of his emotional state. To the side, Zach and Bobby disposed of a few infected that had wondered out of the forest.

"I know..." Jack spoke loudly, over the sound of the gunshots. "It's just... I didn't expect to leave the farm that abruptly. I expected to be able to say goodbye to it... Don't worry about it, it's just a stupid house."

"But, it was our stupid house." Danny added.

Suddenly, Vicky appeared next to them.

"We need to go!" She told them. Without another word, she ran over to Charlotte and Ava. "There's a herd coming from the woods."

"You ready to run?" Charlotte asked Ava. She nodded and they sprinted off.

______________________________________________________________________________

Amelia quickly worked on Doug, knowing that infected were less than two yards behind her. Zach and Bobby ran over, standing either side of Doug and lifting him up. When Doug screamed in agony, they placed him back in the trunk of the car.

"You can't move him!" Amelia told them, not taking her eyes off the man.

"Amelia, we've got to go!" Bobby shouted. Zach ran behind them and shot down aother infected. He pulled a knife from his boot and stabbed another between the eyes. Silently, Doug watched.

"You're not understanding me, Bobby." She screamed. "Doug will die, if you move him."

"L-leave me." Doug struggled to speak.

"I am not leaving you, Douglas." Amelia told him.

"You have to!" Doug insisted. Zach ran back to the three with Ellie and Jackie.

"What's going on?" Jackie asked. "Why aren't we moving?"

"You're leaving me." Doug instructed.

"Woah, hold the fuck up. No-one is being left behind." Zach told them.

The infected that was leading the herd got closer. Swiftly, Ellie turned around and dragged the knife across it's forehead. The reanimated being dropped to the floor.

"I'm going to bleed to death, anyway. Let me die. Let me be with my family." Doug pleaded.

"He's telling the truth and you know it, guys." Bobby said.

"At least, give him a gun." Jackie tried to hold back her tears as she spoke.

"No, don't." Doug told her. "You've only got two guns. Don't waste one on me."

Danny, Jack, Charlotte, Ava and Vicky stopped running when they realised that the others were not following them. Jack had his arm around Danny's shoulders. He struggled to breathe.

"What the hell is going on?" Vicky wondered.

Back down the road, the rest of the group looked down at Doug, nothing but sadness in their eyes. Doug reached up and grabbed Jackie's shirt. He pulled her down and crashed their lips together.

"Goodbye." Jackie sobbed. She and Amelia both cried as they ran the others. A single tear fell down Bobby's cheek.

"Where's Doug?"Charlotte shouted. Bobby shook his head. "Oh god." She sighed as Ava buried her face into Charlotte's side.

______________________________________________________________________________

As the infected drew closer to Doug, he closed his eyes and began to think. He thought about his families - both of his families. He thought about Kristen's death - by a scratch from the first infected he had ever seen. He thought about Christina and Jamie's deaths - both within a week of Kristen's. He though about Sarah's eagerness to do what was right, Jackie's naivety, Danny's perseverance and Bobby's leadership.

The first infected bit was filled with nothing but pain and discomfort. But, as he was bitten by more and more infected, he felt numb.