Born 01 - Born

fond of, and takes the right flank. Leo stalks down the middle of the field and I take the left. We leave Jake on the hillside. His injuries are worse than mine.
    The bullet never made its way very far into my leg. The new stitches, lavender, and tea tree oil have made it heal fast.
    I look at Jake's dark head of hair poking out of the long grass and sigh. He is too big to try to hide. He will be the death of us all. I know I will leave them if I have to. I force myself into the agreement. No matter what happens, my father didn’t die so I could waste my life on strangers.
    They don’t feel like strangers anymore, though.
    I focus my thoughts and scan the grassy thin forest.
    Bile rises when I see them. They're slumped over something. They look disgusting and diseased, even from the distance. One shoves the other and the high pitch moan shrieks out across the emptiness. It takes up all of the space. I feel the walls of fear closing around me. I see a hand come up and down on whatever they have on the ground. One of them is striking it. It is still alive. It is sick now, infected like them. They are the closest things to zombies. Not real zombies. They are human, but they live with the sickness in a way that would never be considered survival. Their skin is covered in sores, open and scabbed over. Their hair is falling out where the sores have taken over their scalps. They cry tears of blood like the fantasy movies that were out when I was nine. The first thing the virus destroys is the throat. The high moan is from the scarring in the throat and the brain damage the high fever causes.
    I look toward Anna and hope she isn’t scared. I force the thought from my brain and look back at the infected dinner party. The last time I worried about either of them, I got shot.
    I pull my mask from my back pocket and slide if over my face and loop it around my head. It's not a guarantee, but it's better than a gamble.
    It's a rule. I wear it whenever they are around. The virus should have died out years ago but the ones who got sick after it mutated survived, if you can call it that. They are contagious but don’t seem to die, no matter how sick their bodies get. There aren’t many of them left but somehow they still manage to ruin lives.
    I count the heads, seven. Not to mention the one on the ground, if it's a human. It could be an animal. The infected have no sense. They attack anything that moves. Their hunger is too great. I've seen them attack a bush on a windy day.
    I can take down three before they get close enough to make reloading my bow a gamble. I don’t like gambles. I know Anna has a pocket full of bullets, but I will be forced to trust she can shoot them before the infected get to me. It too feels like a gamble when I think about it.
    I feel stuck. My back is against a wall. I know Leo will take down one. Together we can guarantee four. It doesn’t feel safe enough. I turn back and look at the hill behind me. I want to go home. I want to climb the hill and climb into my own bed and lock the world out. Again I regret opening the stupid door. I should have left them. I should have left him in the hole.
    I am about to run and whistle when I look at Jake once more. He winks at me and grins. My stomach does the hurting twinge thing. My lips grin back. I never told them to do it. They seem to be making choices for themselves.
    I pull the arrow back and site in the largest one. I feel the gusts of wind and the cycle they seem to come in. A large gust hits and then leaves space in the air until the next one. I exhale and release the arrow. He has dark brown hair and his face is swollen. He was a man once. I turn my heart off to him and reload instantly.
    I feel the next gust and fire compensating for it. The arrow slices into a matted head of dark blonde locks. I reload, ignoring the tickles on my cheeks. The infected have noticed two are down. They turn their faces around, searching. My next arrow hits the milky eye of an older one. The remaining four stand up and begin to make the squeal. I cringe, knowing the sound will haunt me for weeks.
    My next arrow hits the one pointing at me. She drops the second it slides through her open mouth.
    I feel a shiver at the sight. I reload as the remaining three shriek and start their mad dash toward me.
    I drop another one before I turn and start to run for the nearest tree. I want to run the other way. I want to run into the hills and leave them but my feet don’t listen to