To Kill a Cactus - The Wise Ones part 3

The Wise Ones part 2: HERE

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"Come here, girl," Laylah said reaching her very well manicured hand towards me.

I stood there as if I was glued to the ground beneath me. For the first time I saw confusion in her eyes, she put down her hand and the lines of her face turned from beautiful to angry, I moved closer to Christopher who was looking at me from the corner of his eye, I saw that he was also a little startled, but he quickly pulled himself back together.

"I told you to come here," the woman said again, this time with dark low voice.

"I don't want to," I finally answered, although I felt terrified of her. 

For some reason, Christopher found that funny since I could hear him laughing under his breath.

"What is that creature?" Laylah asked turning away from me towards Christopher. Nothing about her looked beautiful anymore, her eyes had dark circles and deep lines around them as if she had suddenly aged about twenty years.

"That's none of your business, Laylah, now we must get going, as you can see, there's no fun you can have around here," Christopher answered confidently.

The woman turned around quickly, her movements were so fast that it almost felt as if she made the air move around her as well. She floated away the same way that she arrived, the streetlight turned back off and I could feel every cell in my body buzz as if adrenaline was rushing around in my bloodstream. My legs were trembling and cold shivers ran up and down my body.

"What was that?" I asked Christopher, who seemed to be untouched by any of the effects the woman had on me. 

"She is similar to me, her veins have the same poison in them, but it has changed her differently than it changed me, she can control people to a degree and she's particularly good at controlling zombies, I didn't realise it right away, but when I saw her I knew that she was behind the attack to the hospital tonight. As you saw you were untouched by her powers, I hoped that would happen, you have a very interesting mind," he explained as if everything he said was common knowledge.

I didn't know if an interesting mind was supposed to be a good thing or not, but I didn't feel like saying anything else, I just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other since my shaky legs didn't want to cooperate.

However, Christopher felt like it was appropriate to add tempo to our walk and I could feel my little heart beating faster already, I also felt the anxiety and tension that was in the air, something was still wrong, I could tell, but Christopher didn't mention it, so neither did I until I screeched out in terror as a zombie ran out of a nearby shop and headed towards me with a metal pole in his hands.

I could hear Christopher mumble something beneath his breath, his voice sounded angry and I could swear I heard him say the word Laylah.

The zombie coming our way was not like any other, he really seemed brain dead, he was fixated on me, running and lifting his bar up to attack me, Christopher moved swiftly and threw the zombie head first back into the shop, then he signalled towards the street in front and we both ran for it. I knew he was holding himself back to make sure that I wasn't left behind, but the sprint was still too fast for me, I could barely breathe and had to force myself to keep moving. The street we ran to was covered in cobble stones, which made the run even more difficult, the moment I looked behind myself I realised that it was a mistake, there was a running herd of silent undead soldiers with various weapons coming our way. 

We moved towards a large building that looked oddly familiar, but I couldn't tell where from and I wasn't very focused on it either since I was terrified for my life. I cursed my flimsy feet and bad stamina but kept going.

Suddenly someone grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to a house by the street, I wanted to scream, but I was far too out of breath to do so. I reached my hand for Christopher, who didn't see right away that I was gone, he turned to me, but then a zombie reached him from the other side and attacked him. I tried to wiggle and make my way to him, although I wasn't sure I could've helped him in any way.

"Stay put, I'm trying to save you," I heard a familiar voice behind me,

"Ash," I whispered out and looked at him, he lifted me up and pushed me in from a door that he then quickly closed and barricaded.

I looked out from a tiny window, I could see zombies everywhere, but there was no sign of Christopher, I didn't know if he could die, but he could definitely be hurt a lot and I was worried.

"We have to go back outside and help Christopher, he helped me," I said quickly with more panic in my voice than I had realised.

"Christopher?" for the first time I noticed that there was a girl in the room as well, a tall red haired girl, who seemed fit and ready for a fight. She scared me quite a bit, so when she spoke, I jumped away from her.

She looked outside, her eyes were moving quickly around the mass of zombies.

"Yeah, who's Christopher?" Ash asked in confusion.

Before I could say anything the red-haired girl answered: "My brother."

...

To Be Continued