Chapter 9

Raven's P.O.V

First day on the road back home has gone rather smoothly. As the sun begun going down, the trucks all stopped and the children were let out to have dinner. Everyone was huddled around a large fire, nibbling on the almost flavourless meal we had been given. The truck drivers patrolled around the group of children with guns ready to fire at any zombies that dared to approach them. I decided that this was the perfect time to introduce myself to the two who were yet to say a single word in our truck.

I wanted to try that Bluescreen fella first, but he had stayed in the truck on his own and I decided against it. So then I decided to move on to that other skeleton, the one with blue paint stains all over him. He was sitting alone at the back of the group of children, staring off into the forest as the dark grew closer. I handled my greeting in a completely calm and sensible way.

"Hey there, pal!" I chirped, appearing beside him.

He yelped in surprise, backing away from me.

"My name's Raven! What's your name?" I continued.

He had to find his tongue. "U-Um...I'm Blueprint..."

"Blueprint, eh? I think that's a great name!"

"T-Thanks..."

I smiled happily. "So how long have you been in FC's group?"

"About two weeks now..."

"She's pretty great, isn't she? It's super awesome of her to help all of us out like this!"

"Yeah...I-I suppose..."

My smile faded. "Is something wrong? Are you OK?"

"No, I'm fine, I just..." Blueprint hugged his legs, looking up at me with caution. "W-What do you want?"

"I just want to get to know you! If going to be traveling in the same truck for the next week then we might as well know a bit about each other!"

Blueprint went quiet and there was a rather awkward silence.

"Um...why don't you tell me how FC found you?" I asked.

"I was starving, thirsty, infected and bleeding out on the side of the road."

"Oh...but you're OK now, right?"

"It still hurts."

"Oh..."

This was becoming uncomfortable. More for Blueprint then me, I'd imagine.

"I'm sorry," I said. "If I made you uncomfortable. I can go now."

Blueprint did nothing as I got up ad walked away. Closer to the fire was our group of skeletons. I could see that mostly everyone was there. Everyone but Sage, Moon and Westy. I knew Westy was helping FC sort through their medical supplies. I didn't know where Sage and Moon were, but I had a feeling they were off looking through the food supplies, looking for something a little more filling then what we got.

"Oh, hey Raven." Sprinkle greeted. "How was your short adventure to introduce yourself to the 'antisocial truck mates'?"

I sighed, sitting down. "It didn't go so well."

"Well, that's to be expected from 'antisocial truck mates', isn't it?"

"Oh shush you."

"Somebody's grumpy."

"Who?"

"Why don't we change the subject?" Desire said quickly. "Faith and Fury, you two seem close."

"Don't even think about starting that conversation." Fury grumbled.

Faith and Fury were quite literally close. Faith had fallen asleep in Fury's embrace. He had to be the first one to get any shut eye in the last couple days. I thought about my parents and my bro, Goth. I wondered how worried they were about us, or if they were even worried at all. No, they're definitely worried about me. I can't be having thoughts like that, especially this early into the trip back home.

The loud sound of a scream echoed in the forest and everyone went silent. It was completely silent for a moments, but another scream came. It sounded like an animal of some kind, a bird maybe, trying to mimic a person. I heard someone, Hate, stand and walk to one of the trucks, knocking on the trailer's metal door. FC opened the door and Westy peered out from behind her.

"Where are your birds?" Hate asked.

"They should be in the driver's seat of this truck. Why?" FC raised an eyebrow. "Why's it so silent all of a sudden?"

Instead of answering, Hate walked to the front of the truck and opened the door, looking inside. Both the budgie and the big colourful parrot were fast asleep, snuggling each other on the steering wheel. Hate cursed under his breath and shut the door, then took a flashlight and shone it at the trees that surrounded us.

Up in the highest branches of the trees, hundreds of eyes stared down at us. The eyes belongs to big, rotten parrots, their feathers were messy and green and many had hanging eyes and half a sharp beak. You could even see the bones of some of them.

"Nobody. Make. A. Move." Hate said quietly, then slowly looked back at FC. "I need Fresh to fire a couple dozen flares opposite the direction we'll be heading. Now."

FC nodded, reaching into her pocket for a walkie-talkie. But then, a familiar obnoxious voice set everything into chaos.

"Hey guys! Why's everything so quiet?" Sage asked in a needlessly loud voice.

The zombie parrots all shrieked and took flight, swooping at the large group of children. Everyone screamed and I couldn't tell the difference between a parrot's scream or a child's scream. I covered my non-existent ears and pushed through the panicked crowd. There were gunshots and thuds from falling parrots. I couldn't concentrate with all the loud noises. Where was I going?

A parrot swooped at me and crashed into me, knocking me backwards to the ground. It squawked and tried to rip me to pieces, but I slapped it off of me and got up quickly. Where do I go? There was a loud thud behind me that sounded much too big to be one of the parrots. I took the risk and looked back.

A massive, two headed, zombie bird, much bigger then I, ripped apart the chest of a human and gobbling it up hungrily. It's messy feathers were oily black and it's heads were eyeless skulls. This reminded me of one story Desire's father had told me. Something about a giant zombie chicken.

One of the bird's heads looked back at me, forcing the other to look as well. About half a dozen eyes stared at me from it's fleshy chest and another dozen eyed me down from it's neck. I wanted to throw up. Then, it charged at me, it's wings open to make itself seem even bigger. Why me?

I turned and ran as fast as I could, but the bird was faster then me somehow. It leaped and landed on me, a talon digging into the open wound on my shoulder. I screamed and fell to the ground. My screams only increased in volume at the zombie bird pecked and ripped at my back. It's too loud, it hurts too much. Get off of me!

Then something ran into the bird, pushing it off my back and then slashing both skulls off with a single swing of a knife. I looked up and saw Blueprint, staring down at the now limp zombie bird body. He looked at me, a flash of concern in his eyes. I couldn't move. Blueprint put away his knife and grabbed me, dragging me towards a truck.

My vision was going dark and blurry, I could only make out a few things. So much screaming, then the sound on an explosion, then a cloud of blue powder that blinded the parrots. There was a yell ordering everyone to return to the trucks, and everyone obeyed. I felt the cold metal floor of a truck meet my chest and Blueprint put me down.

More people ran into the truck, I couldn't tell who. One of them ran up to Blueprint and I and took some blood from my open wounds. I heard someone say the word 'infected'. The metal doors shut on the truck and we were on the move, but I was almost unconscious. Then I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my shoulder and I began screaming.