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.He grabs a paddle and hands me the other one, and starts to paddle furiously away from the shoreline.“Copy me,” he says, while grabbing my hands and putting them in the correct position.“I’ll take most of the weight, but I need your help.”His arms move quickly, pulling the paddle as hard as he can through the water, and I copy as best I can.I’m pretty sure that I make it harder at times, though.He turns around to check behind him, and when he looks back, his face has blanched.I look over my shoulder and can see why: several men have come out of the trees and are taking aim at us.Mikey’s momentum increases; the muscles in his arms and shoulders strain against the movement, sweat breaking out on his forehead.The men fire their guns at us several times, shouting and laughing.Mikey shuffles down low, telling me to do the same, while we continue to paddle, and miraculously they miss us.I peep up from my position again, making the boat rock from side to side, and watch as a couple of them run over to the hut to grab a canoe, dragging it to the shore.They push off into the water, but thankfully for us, they obviously know as much about canoeing as I do and deftly fall in several times before seemingly giving up and beginning to shoot at us again.Mikey glances behind us, making sure to steer us in between the other canoes, and continues to keep as low as he can, but doesn’t slow in his momentum to get us to the other side of the lake.We’re too far away for them to hit us now, but I still panic with every shot that rings out.“They’re going.” Mikey speaks first, and I sit up and look behind us, making the boat rock furiously again.“Jesus, careful, Nina.”“Sorry.” I look back at him sheepishly, relieved that we are nearing halfway across now, though my heart is still going a million miles an hour.“How do you know how to canoe?” I ask, looking around for Emily.She’s talking with Josie, looking worried and emotional.“Duncan taught us all.This was our bug out plan.”I nod, and feel shame and sadness sweep through me that Duncan isn’t here.He was a good man after all, seemingly thinking of everything he could to protect these people.Maybe he was trying to make up for his past mistakes and cover up his own guilt, but either way he just saved our lives.I chance another glance behind us, but the Forgotten—or whoever they are—have definitely taken off.I breathe a sigh of relief that at least they aren’t shooting at us anymore.“What do you think they are going to do? Can they drive around and get to the other side?” I can’t help but feel sad that I’ve lost not one, but two homes in the space of a couple of hours, and Duncan’s death seems like it was for nothing now, too.“No, there’s no way around.They’d have to go back to the road and take the long way, but I can’t see them bothering.It would take hours.As for what they’re going to do, well, I don’t know.Maybe they won’t notice the huts in the trees, maybe they will, but if they do get up there, they won’t be able to get from tree to tree and more than likely won’t stick around.”A sweat has broken out on his forehead and I lean across and wipe it away with the sleeve of my hoody before it trickles into his eyes.I’m still mad at him, but he just saved me—again—and for that I have to be grateful.His muscles tense with every stroke of the paddle, and I’d love to be able to help out, but since I only know two things about canoes—squat and diddly—I don’t bother to offer my help.I notice that we have way surpassed the others.I look back at them; their faces are grim but determined.We paddle in silence for a couple of minutes before he interrupts my thoughts.“Idiots.”I turn to look behind us and see thick black smoke rising above the trees line.When I look back, Mikey is looking at me.He shakes his head sadly.“I guess they decided to torch it.”“Why would they do that? I mean, what the fuck do they even want?” I shout, making the others look at me.I point behind us and they stare sadly as their homes for the last couple of years burn away.“Vengeance.”Mikey’s voice is cold as he says it, and for a moment I wonder what our little group did to piss these people off so much; then I realize that he means they want vengeance against the world.They were left to rot outside the walls’ protection, hence the name the Forgotten, I guess.“You were all the Forgotten though, right? I mean, none of you lived behind the walls, and you don’t go around killing people for no reason.”“The Forgotten aren’t just any people, Nina.They are bad people.Rapists, murderers, criminals.They call themselves the Forgotten, not us, and they think that the world—other survivors—owe them a debt.They weren’t just left behind, they were refused entry.They fought and struggled and lost loved ones just to get to the walls, and when they got there they were point blank turned away.They weren’t good enough to be allowed behind the walls.”Mikey sounds more pissed off than I would have thought.I can’t blame him—it’s horrible to think that these people were just turned away, but that’s no excuse to go around terrorizing and hurting other innocent people.In all the books I ever read and all the movies I ever watched, it was always the same: the big and bad of society, so to speak, turn on everyone else, and kill and torture and try to control everyone and everything; but I never got it.And now I’m living it and I still don’t get it.I get that there are bad people in the world.I’m not stupid.There were before all this happened, and there still are now.And I understand that people turn on each other and some people—well yeah, they’re just fucked in the head, I guess.But at a time like this when what you need to do is stand together to protect each other, why the hell would you decide that killing people is a better option?I think of JD.“JD doesn’t go around killing people.Neither do you or Crunch.”“Maybe he would of if he would have been free when it all happened.It’s different for him though—he was in prison when it happened.By the time he escaped, he only had one goal in mind, and that was to kill as many zombies as possible.He never wanted to go behind the walls.” His eyes bore holes into my face.“The Forgotten were cast aside as the shit of society, in the hopes that they would die and the government would be rid of them once and for all, while everyone else got to live it up without the fear of being mauled to death by a fucking zombie every time they sat down to rest.” Mikey avoids my stare, his voice rising as he talks.“You sound like you agree with them.” My eyes narrow.“Maybe once I did, but not anymore.I know that it wasn’t anyone’s fault how it all went down in the end.No one asked for this.We could all survive if we stopped killing each other and killed the dead instead, but some people like to think of the end of the world as an excuse to go fucking mental, I guess.”I snort back a laugh.I can’t argue with that.I’ve seen plenty of crazy shit the past couple of years [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]