Ophelia Read online

  Then again, I hadn’t told him squat about me either. He didn’t even know my real age.

  I suddenly felt outnumbered. My adrenaline started flowing, and I nonchalantly picked up my bat as I stood. They paid me no mind.

  The windows were uncovered, but I saw blankets close by, ready to cover them in an instant. I walked over to them and looked out.

  I felt strongly, and unnecessarily, ready for a fight. If Clyde did plan on stabbing us all in the back, now would’ve been the most opportune time to do it. Take me out, and they could easily overpower my mother and two eleven-year-olds.

  “You alright there?” I jumped, and my arm instinctively swung my bat a few inches from my side before I realized it was just Clyde. Although, I'm not too sure if “just” would be the right word to describe him.

  He looked at me to the bat and back at me again. You can say what you want about Clyde, but he ain't no fool. He might not have all of the answers, but he sure did have a lot of them.

  “We—”

  Boom!

  I was going to say that we needed to get out of here, but a nearby explosion rudely interrupted me. The force of it shook the building, and knocked the bat out of my hands. I grabbed the windowsill to steady myself, while Clyde grabbed me to keep himself from falling, and Addeline was already on the floor, with her pack.

  Great.

  What happened next, happened fast. Every event on top of the other.

  The shaking was enough to topple the barricade, which echoed in the silence of missing shrieks several seconds after the boom was over. I went to pick up my bat, and realized that Clyde was still holding onto me.

  Get a grip, dude. Or, well, lose it.

  The Crazies outside heard the crashing of furniture, or as they would call it, the dinner bell. The sound of multiple bodies being hurled against the door is what followed next, along with the excited roaring that usually came with the sound of Crazies trying to break down your door.

  Clyde and I exchanged a look, and he said what we were both thinking, “We gotta get out of here.”

  “We're over a hundred feet up Clyde.” I stated the obvious because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and walked away from him and the window, to my pack.

  Things were just starting to slow down. Something bad was going to happen. Actually, it was already happening.

  “There's a fire escape.” Addeline was up now too, and hoisting her pack on, like I was.

  “Where?” Clyde asked and followed her as she moved through the apartment.

  The three of us filled into what I'm guessing was Addeline’s bedroom.

  “Through there.” She pointed at the blank blue wall beside her bed.

  You've gotta be kidding me.

  It didn't take long to figure out what she meant. For me, it took all of two seconds, but for Clyde, it was probably only one.

  What's happening? We are trapped in a room with Crazies trying to break their way in.

  What do we need to do? We need to get the frick outta here. And fast.

  And how can we do this? Door = no. Windows = no. Ceilings are too high, and the floor will just bring us closer to the Crazies running around below. There's a fire escape that we can access from the next room. So, let's just get to the next room! Easy peasy, right?

  Clyde held his shovel with both hands, like a warrior, heaved it above his shoulders, and with no hesitation, brought it down on the wall. A chip was formed.

  I decided to help with my trusty bat, which, if we ever got out of here, I would consider naming. Though I wasn't nearly as strong as Clyde, I still made some major contributions to the wrecking of the nice, sky blue wall.

  I came in like a... no. Not the time, nor place Ophelia.

  Instead of watching anxiously, like I would have if I had no bat, Addeline went to work and started noisily pushing her bed across the room to barricade the door.

  There's no going back now…

  Sometimes pieces of dust, and whatever the wall was made of, would come back in a cloud towards my face. It would make me stop, but only for a second, to wipe my face off before I got back to work. Clyde was having the same problem, but wasn't fully stopping either.

  Finally, the wall was weakened enough so that Clyde could break through it by ramming his entire body into it, shoulder first, like an idiot. He stumbled out into the neighboring apartment, looking just a tad dazed.

  I let Addeline go ahead of me, because I'm just that nice. But before I went through the hole in the wall, I spotted a framed picture of Addeline and Clyde on her nightstand. It was taken a couple of years ago by how the siblings looked, and probably down south, because Chicago probably didn’t have too many huge open fields. They had their arms locked around each other's necks in headlocks, like they were wrestling and trying to see which one would crack first. They were facing the camera, and smiling like goofballs while other people, probably their family, could be seen doing normal things in the background, like eating and walking. I had the urge to take it, so I smashed the glass with the handle of my bat and shoved it into my pocket. I would probably give it to Clyde later, given that he didn't stab me in the back.

  Clyde started to say my name, but I cut him off by stumbling through the opening. My jeans got caught, and I spazzed out while hopping on one leg until I yanked it free.

  Real smooth, Ophelia. Real smooth.

  The window was open by the time I was done with my episode, and the Salmons had surrounded it, and were forming a plan. Without me.

  Well, what did you expect when you were off practicing your kleptomania?

  “I'll go first, to make sure it's safe.” Was all I could hear from Clyde before he freaking jumped out of the window over one hundred feet above solid ground.

  Did I miss that much?

  There was a clank of metal. But that wasn't the only sound. The noise from breaking down the wall had attracted Crazies, and they were at the door. They were here.

  I was closest to the door, only having taken a couple of steps away from the hole since stepping into the new apartment. So, I did what any completely sane person would do and ran towards the things trying to kill me, instead of away.

  Completely sane.

  I used my body as a shield to keep the door from bursting open as the infected hurled their bodies against it with all the force they possessed, undoubtedly breaking some of their bones along the way. I put my leg up on a piece of the wall that jutted out just like in Addeline’s apartment, and locked my knee in place.

  Every body that hit the door sent my head flying forward, then slamming back against the door.

  “Did he make it?”

  Addeline didn't answer.

  “Addeline!”

  She snapped back to reality.

  “Yeah... he did.” She sounded like she couldn’t believe what was going on and looked from the door to the window and back. She was also not moving.

  “Addeline! Listen to me. You have to go right now. Then I can. Okay?” She seemed frozen in the face of danger and death. I've known this feeling several times, but pity is the last thing I should give her.

  “Go!”

  I couldn't the hold this door any longer. Me plus a tiny chain lock were no match for a pack of Crazies, and the top of the door beginning to come open. It was starting to splinter. Addeline climbed up on the windowsill, and looked back one last time. My hands were gripping the doorframe. I think I was hyperventilating.

  Then she jumped. And between her jumping and the signal of metal clanking, the door to her apartment blew open, as if by a bomb, her furniture being thrown every which way.

  I knew this because even though we closed Addeline’s bedroom door, and barricaded it, they still knew where we were, and frantically slammed their bodies against the door. When they inevitably got through, I would be the first thing they’d see through the hole in the wall we made.

  The metal outside ‘clanked’ and that was my signal to go go go. I saw things slowly, painfully
slowly. I think I was crying, but there were too many things going on to confirm that. I pried my grip away from the doorframe and took my first step. That movement, along with the ruckus the other Crazies in the hallway were making, motivated the Crazies in Addeline’s apartment in my direction. During my second and third steps, I tightened the straps of my pack as much as I could, and picked up my bat, which I’d dropped when running to the door. I gripped my weapon so tight I thought my bones would break. Steps four through six were filled with overwhelming pounding. Pounding of my head, of my heartbeat in every square inch of my body, of my lungs and my breath, and of both doors. In my seventh step, the pounding continued, only from a different source. The door I’d tried so damn hard to keep closed burst open, colliding with the wall.

  In my next steps, I was definitely crying. I could hear the first of the Crazies get stuck trying to get through the hole.

  My next step was on the windowsill, and then I was in midair, flying to the right, where I saw the others disappear to.

  Only I was at a disadvantage, because I didn't see my target until I was rapidly approaching it, and had no time to aim my jump. My arms were outstretched and my feet were kicking, as if I could correct my course by swimming in the polluted air.

  Of course, I could not do this, and when I realized, my body let out a scream, even though I don't remember giving it permission to do so.

  My jump was too low, and my knees smashed into the black metal railing with all of the force that my weight and gravity could muster. Clyde and Addeline grabbed me as I tumbled over it, losing the grip on my bat. I was hauled onto the metal platform of the fire escape. I started choking on my breath and swearing over and over because of the of pain.

  “Ophelia!” Clyde hauled me to my feet and pushed me towards his sister, despite my pain-filled screams of protest.

  What I said didn't matter, though, because the Crazies had caught up and were pouring out of the window. Most of them just spilled out of it and flattened themselves onto the sidewalk below, but one of them managed to launch itself onto the platform we were on. So Clyde had to put me on the back burner and take care of it with his shovel, since he was closest.

  Addeline put my arm around her and started leading me down the stairs. I clenched my teeth, squeezed my eyes shut, and took in rapid breaths through my nose, and refused to make another sound.

  Even when my knees buckled, Addeline kept me up, probably more for Clyde's sake than her own. I kept pushing myself, not for my own sake, but for my Mom. I was going to get through this for her, and for my little brother and sister. So I took those weird diaphragm breaths, the kind that you take when your body's shaking and sobbing, probably because I was shaking and choking my sobs back, and went forward as fast as I could.

  By the sound of the fight behind us, more Crazies had found their way to the fire escape, and it was all Clyde could do to keep them at bay. He kept descending, but only after Addeline and I had cleared the floor.

  Addeline stepped forward first to help me down a rusted stair as she was stepping off the sixth floor platform, and fell through it, bringing me down with her.

  Someone, probably me, screamed as we both came down. Addeline, still holding onto me, went straight through the hole where the step used to be while I crashed on top of the platform, my knees breaking my fall.

  The fall on my already hurt knees made me lose my grip on Addeline just for a second, but in that second we went from hanging on to each other's arms to nails digging into the each other's wrists and hands.

  I ground my teeth, my whole body shaking even more than it was a minute ago.

  Addeline held on to her bow with one hand, and both of mine held her other. She made the quick decision to chuck the bow up and over the two of us. I heard it clatter somewhere behind me. Then, she grabbed my hand that had previously held her wrist.

  “Pull me up!”

  I pulled, I pulled literally as hard as I could, leaning back with all my weight, but she didn't move.

  Now, I knew I’d never really had any upper body strength, but I never knew it’d gotten this bad. I guess I should've tried out for the volleyball team, after all.

  “I'm trying!”

  My knees were on fire, even though I was laying on my stomach and almost none of my weight was on them, I tried to bend my elbows and pull her up, but her weight plus her pack made that task painfully impossible.

  What was worse is that my palms were sweaty, and made even sweatier by Addeline’s hands. They were starting to slip.

  Addeline felt this, too, and decided to take matters into her own hands. She started climbing up my arms, like a rope. As good as the concept was in theory, the result was horrible when executed. Evidence of this would be Addeline’s movements pulling me down into the opening with her.

  There were hurried footsteps behind me, and the first thing I thought was that a Crazy had slipped past Clyde. Or worse. But those cold hands entered my field of vision and proved that theory wrong.

  “It's okay. I got ‘cha.” He helped me pull Addeline up and onto the metal platform.

  Or, he pulled her up. I wasn't much help at all.

  Once she was safe, I risked a glimpse back, and saw that instead of a roaring flood of Crazies coming out of the window, there was only a roaring trickle. An older one came falling past us, with a hideous yellow patterned dress and pale limbs tumbling over and over in midair before landing, head first, onto the pile of bodies below. The knee-deep pile was mostly still, except for a shift here and there from those who still clung to their “life”.

  Avoiding the rusted steps, we continued down. Addeline, of course, went back for her bow, and Clyde supported me on the way down. He offered to carry me, because almost breaking your kneecaps is no joke, but I shook my head at the offer, too embarrassed.

  I felt useless.

  The strangled, dying cries of the broken Crazies below attracted others. Not too many, but enough Crazies with their noses in the air and drool covering their chests to make getting out of here with a wounded person about to pass out on them a bit, or two, difficult.

  Among the bodies, I caught a glimpse of purple. My bat. That made me happy.

  What didn't make me happy was that the five or six walking Crazies started shrieking after one of them spotted us. We only had one more platform to get to and then we’d have to figure out how to get from there to the ground, from ten feet above with no more ladder or steps.

  Piece ‘o cake.

  The five or six Crazies turned into ten or eleven, all roaming around and pacing under the metal platform. Some tried to jump, and some were close to skimming the metal with their overgrown fingernails.

  “Alright.” Clyde said. “So here's the plan.”

  We were halfway to the last platform when Clyde, apparently the “man with a plan” spoke up.

  “Addy’ll pick off a couple from up here. Then I'll jump down and take care of the rest. Ophelia, you… stay up here, okay?”

  It felt like a slap, but one that was well deserved. I had failed. If it was all up to me, Clyde would’ve lost the only remaining family he had.

  I nodded. Addeline nodded. There were just a lot of nods.

  We got to the last platform, about ten feet off of the ground, and set the plan into motion. Addeline notched her first arrow and…

  And a black Jeep came barreling down Dearborn and plowed through half of the unsuspecting Crazies. Blood and guts were everywhere.

  It was pretty cool.

  The Jeep came back a second time and took out almost all of the rest. The third time, it got the last two.

  They didn't even know what’d hit them. We didn't even know what had hit them at first. The third time the Jeep launched its assault, I figured it out. Things happened so fast in the Apocalypse. I blinked, I missed something.

  The Wrangler pulled up underneath us, halving the distance we’d have to jump.

  There was no time to waste. First Addeline. Then Clyde. Then me. Clyde half
caught, half helped me down onto the roof of the car and I didn't protest.

  There was some rearranging to be done. The twins were crammed in the passenger seat, and Addeline, Clyde and I took up the back seat. Since my adrenaline was wearing off, I couldn't sit normally with my knees bent without incredible amounts of pain, so I carefully laid them over Clyde, with my shoes in an annoyed Addeline’s lap.

  Mom took the highlighted exit route on our map, out of Chicago, guided by Vi and Lucky, keeping to the opposite side of the highway as usual. Every bump and jostle of the car moved my knees, and every movement of my knees was torture.

  They couldn't be broken, could they? No, no they're not. No way. I don't have the time for anything broken. Am I being dramatic? Hopefully.

  I couldn't think of any reason as to why they couldn't be broken because Clyde’s cold hand touched my sweaty one as we came to a stop, not quite fully out of Chicago yet.

  “You three, out.” Mom commanded, sounding like she was about to completely lose it.

  Addeline had no problem with escaping out of the Metal Box of Angry Silence. Clyde, however, was a bit more reluctant, considering that him moving, moved me. I made a lot of weird strangled noises that I tried very, very hard to suppress, and felt like I was going to throw up when he finally git out.

  Mom muttered something to the other two, and the next thing I knew, Clyde was lifting me up, and carrying me. Not only did he move my knees, but he also hit the side of my head on the doorframe. The side that had my messed up ear that I “didn't want to see” according to the others. Great. Icing on the cake.

  I made some more weird noises that I couldn't suppress. As embarrassing as it was, I'll be the first to admit that it hurt. Before all of this, I’d never really done anything. I just took walks around the neighborhood for exercise, but those didn't involve any pain. When I was younger, I quit softball the season after I was nailed in the leg by a thirteen-going-on-twenty-year-old pitcher with an I’m-angry-at-the-world attitude.

  So when I got my fingertips slammed into a door, or a papercut, or even when I stupidly rammed my head into the doorframe getting into a car because I'm an idiot, I was always a huge wimp about pain. I had no pain tolerance, except for, like, cramps and stuff when they came around. So if I was a wimp about pain with only a papercut, an ear nearly cut in half and swollen knees made me a straight up weakling.