Cartilage Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Track recommendations:
Tim:- ‘Everyday Combat’–Lostprophets
Fiona:- ‘Looking Up’-Paramore
Billie:- ‘Do You Want To?’-Franz Ferdinand

Tim:

I lashed out with my baton, catching anything in my path, just trying to make it through. I heard Fiona cry out behind me and i swung around to check she was okay. Luckily Holly had her back and swatted away the flailing limbs as Fiona stood up. I grabbed her hand and pulled her through behind me. We finally made it out; I looked around and saw that we were the first group out. Liam and Erik were fighting back to back, slowly but methodically, taking out the nearby threats and clearing a way out. I knew they’d be fine but the other group with Cassie, Connor and Billie were lagging and couldn’t push through.
“Fiona, Holly! Look for somewhere nearby by where we can rest for 10 minutes! I’m going to get Cassie and the guys!”
“Right!” shouted Holly and Fiona as they ran off to check the nearby houses. Most buildings had been trashed in the riots after the initial epidemic, meaning that few houses had sufficient doors and windows to be a temporary safehouse. 
I started waving my arms to try and attract ‘their’ attention away from Cassie so that she could help out the boys, luckily Erik and Liam had escaped their attackers who were now focusing on the rotting bodies of their fallen comrades.
“We’ll get them boss!” Liam shouted. Liam and Erik were tall and stocky, with years of rugby experience which allowed them to charge their way through to help the others. I feel slightly helpless watching them parade in and save the day, but I know that I couldn’t help much. I’m better at planning the attacks than actually fighting, especially compared to these two. Which makes me wonder why they weren’t drafted to defence back at the shop? Still, now wasn’t the time to ponder.
“Tim! Tim!” I heard Fiona shouting behind me from a third floor window. “There’s someone here! I’m not sure if she’s okay, you better hurry!”
I looked back to the horde just as the others were escaping, Liam was holding up Billie under the arms.
“Quick! We need you to get Billie to Fiona and Holly, they’re good with injuries. I’ll lure the rest of these away. If I’m not back in 20 minutes, move on!” I turned to face the mass of decaying bodies that were limping towards us.
“Oi! Shitbags! Think you’re hard enough?!” I shouted, whether or not the abuse made them move any quicker was debateable but whatever I was doing was working.
“Come on! Come get us!” I saw Liam in the corner of my eye taunting the horde too.
“What’re you doing?!”
“I can’t let you go off on your own! If you go and get killed we’ve just left a perfectly good shelter for nowt! You’re our leader and I’m here to protect you!”
“Cheers mate. Any ideas?”
“Just one... RUN!”
We span on our heels and sprinted as fast as we could, behind me the once slouching group had become mobile and were gaining on us.
“Quick! Down here!” Liam shouted, grabbing my shoulder and swinging me into an empty doorway. He kept pulling me until we were in the back room and we were forced to stop by the putrid smell. We’d just ran into an old butchers that reeked with the worst smell possible, but as ‘they’ followed us in ‘they’ leapt into the piles of offal and rotten carcasses in a feeding frenzy. I was about to vomit when laim grabbed me again and dragged me into the open air and back into the street. It was clear now so I allowed myself to retch quietly by a lamppost.
“Come on dude! We better get back.”
“Yeah,” I said, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “Yeah, sorry. Let’s go.”

Fiona:

“Can you pass me that bandage?” I asked Cassie. She picked the roll out of my first aid bag and threw it half-heartedly towards me, she was nervous and jittery and ambled over to where it landed to pass it to me again. I grabbed the bandages, “Cheers. Everything’s going to be alright, it’s just a graze, they didn’t get him.” I smiled and she gave me a smile back before she sat down beside Billie’s head, “You like him don’t you.”
“Yeah... that’s why I came with you guys... er that and I couldn’t stand that Martin. He was a real arsehole.” She stroked her hand across Billie’s head but promptly withdrew it as he stirred.
I finished wrapping up Billie’s grazed arm and sat him up against the wall. “He will be okay right? I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
I smiled again and patted her shoulder, “He’ll be fine. I promise. I’m going to go check on our other mystery patient.” I walked over to where Connor had lifted the mystery girl onto the table. “How’s she doing?”
“Okay, she’s still not conscious, but there aren’t any signs of infection. So that’s a plus,” he said whilst placing a wet flannel on her forehead, “How do you think Tim and Liam are getting on? Do you think they’ll come back?”
I could see that he was worried, “Yeah, they’ll be back soon. Don’t you worry.”
“They’re back!” shouted Erik from downstairs on the second floor. I rushed down to meet them, Tim was white as a sheet and looked ready to puke at any moment.
“You okay dude?”
“Um... yeah... yes, yes I am.” He shook his head as if to steady his mind. I looked at Liam questioningly.
“A little incident when we took a detour through a butcher. Luckily I had a strong enough stomach to get us back out of there.” He slapped Tim on the back, “That’s nothing to say that ol’ Timmy isn’t a brave leader. I’d risk my life for this bloke.” He grinned.
“Hmm, seems like you just have.” I lifted Tim’s chin up so I could see his eyes. I never realised how blue they were. “You seem okay, just a bit shocked.”
“The smell was just...urgh I can’t even think about it.”
“Fancy a lie down upstairs?”
“No, we’ve got to move soon. I need to plan and... uh... stuff.” I steadied him as he swayed forward.
“Tim, look at me Tim. This place is fine for now. Okay? The girl I found has protected this place and we’re working on dinner. Just go upstairs and relax.”
He finally smiled and looked at me, his crystal eyes seeing into me. “Cheers Fiona. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I smiled and led him upstairs, feeling the worried looks of Liam and Erik on my back.

Tim:
“Fiona!” I sat bolt upright, covered in sweat. Someone’s hand rested on my shoulder.
“Shhh, calm down Tim. She’s fine. Just relax okay. She told me to make sure you stayed in bed, and I’m willing to use force if necessary.” It was Holly.
I looked around the moonlit room; we were the only ones awake, or at least conscious. Billie and some girl were in makeshift beds beside me. “What happened to Billie? Is he okay?!”
Holly’s soothing voice was almost hypnotic; as she spoke I felt my eyelids getting heavy, “Billie’s fine, everybody’s fine. Now just lie down and go back to sleep.”
“Right... but wake me up if anything happens. Promise me?”
Holly smiled, “Sure. You can count on me.”
I felt my body flop back and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again it was daylight. I looked around from where I was lying. Holly had dozed off beside me, her arm draped across my chest. I gently moved her arm so I could stand up, but found I was too weak and light-headed. I stumbled over to a bucket and collapsed beside it, fighting the urge to vomit. I needed to be ready. I was their leader, they had all sacrificed the safety of the shop to come with me, and I couldn’t even stand up. This was pathetic!
My stumbling must have woken Holly up as she covered me in a blanket and passed me a glass of water. “I told you not to get up. Fiona says you must have gotten some kind of bug from that butchers, Liam’s not been too good either.”
“But he was guarding wasn’t he!”
“Calm down, down get agitated. He’s not been as bad as you, he was sick last night which seems to have gotten it out of his system.” She sat down beside me and snuggled in. “Now you just sit here and tell me when feel you can move back over to bed.”
I looked for Billie’s bunk to check he was okay, but it was empty. I felt fear set in. “Where’s Billie?!”
She chuckled, “He’s fine, I expect right now he’s tucking into a fried breakfast.” The mention of food turned my stomach.
“Wait... Fried breakfast?”
“Yeah, this girl here had a whole get up sorted. There’s a whole load of tins in the kitchen downstairs, and she managed to set traps on the stairwell for anybody that tried to get in. Pretty amazing for a teenager on her own. When me and Fiona came in the traps had been sprung so we think she had been attacked not long before. She woke up last night but didn’t say a word. Just looked at me then went back to sleep. Weird.”
“So everything’s good?” I began to feel calmer knowing that we were safe here.
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling you! You daft sod!” She playfully knocked my head. “You about ready to go back to bed?”
“Um... yeah, I’ll try standing up.” Again I felt a wave of dizziness and nausea, Holly steadied me as I ambled what seemed like miles to my bunk. I say bunk, it was a sleeping bag on a table, but in this world it was good enough.
“Here you are chuck. I’ll go get Fiona, she wanted to see you when you woke up.” She headed for the door, “And don’t you try getting up again! Or else there’ll be a beating!” I found that quite funny, I don’t know why, but I started giggling.
“Do you mind?” I spun my head round to see the girl glaring at me. I could tell her accent wasn’t from here.
“Sorry, I think I’m delirious.” I grinned.
“Well, if it isn’t bad enough you march on into my house! You start waking me up with insane giggling!”
“I’m sorry, but it seems that you needed our help as much as we needed yours.”
“Excuse me!”
I was getting irritated now. “You were attacked! Don’t you remember?!”
“What? What are you talking about?!”
“Do you know what’s happened here?” I think she genuinely didn’t know.
“What has happened?!” She looked exasperated.
“You really don’t know?”
“No! Just tell me!”
“It’s the end of the world. You’re one of the few survivors. Everyone else has turned into ‘them’!”
“ ‘Them’? Do you mean the Carts?”
“Carts?”
“Yeah, sort of like urrrgh... urggh...” Things, she mimed them exactly.
“You call ‘them’ Carts?”
“Yeah, gotta give it a name. And they aren’t zombies because zombies don’t exist. Carts seemed right.”
“Why?” She seemed to be loosening up, but I was still confused why she didn’t remember last night.
“Dunno. They’re not humans anymore and whatever they are just carts around in a human body, hence: Carts.”
‘Carts’, not zombies but ’Carts’. I like it. Holly returned with Fiona in tow.
“Oh you’re awake. How’re you feeling?” Holly asked going over to her bunk.
“Confused as to why you’re all here. But otherwise I’m peachy.”
Fiona leaned in close and whispered, ”What’s with her? And when did she wake up?”
“I was laughing and she woke up. Got a bit angry. Oh, and she can’t remember anything from last night. But she does know about the whole end of the world thing.”
“Right. Glad you’re okay now though.” She sat down by my feet and stared at the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah. Just thinking what we’re going to do.”
I sat up slowly, “You’re not meant to be thinking about that. That’s my problem. Besides, I have a cunning plan!”
She looked at me with one of her trademark looks, I knew it meant ‘pull the other one!’ but this time I actually did have a plan. I just thought of it now, mind.
The idea was, when I can finally stand and move without collapsing or vomiting then we ship out to the country where we can grow our own food. I don’t know why we never thought of it before! It’s brilliant!

Fiona:
Oh no. He’s got that look in his eye again; I haven’t seen that look for years, around the time when we first met. It led to a haphazard trip out of Manchester, which did not end well. Mainly due to the freaky dude we met, the only guy in London who survived was a nostalgic glam rocker called Neon Whip, though we later learned that his real name was Nigel Wiper. He met his tragic end when he attempted to storm Buckingham Palace armed only with an axe and was shot down by the half-infected and very insane Palace guards.  But maybe this time I should give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, you can tell me all about it later. When you’re fully rested. And before you ask, yes we’re fine to stay here for another few nights until you’re ready.”
“Thanks Fiona.” I yawned, “Guess I better go back to sleep.”
He slowly drifted off to the sounds of that annoying girl moaning about us staying for another few nights. If she annoys me much more I think I’ll introduce my fist to her face. Still, while Tim’s ill, I’ve got a job to do!

Billie:
“This is deeelicious! I never thought Spam and beans could taste so good!” I mopped up the last of the bean juice with a bit of fried Spam. When I woke up to the smell of fried meat I knew we were safe! I haven’t had meat for about 4 months when we ran out at the shop. But here there was plenty more Spam, corned beef, meatballs and even tinned fish! We better be taking this with us when we leave!
“Enjoy that Billie?” Cassie asked.
“Yes,  I am stuffed! For the first time in a long while I feel... how can I describe it?” I racked my brain for the word.
“Brilliant?”
“Yes exactly! And it’s all thanks to your makeshift fry-up! I love you!” I gave her a big hug, stopping when I noticed her reaction. “What’s up?”
“You just said you love me!” Her eyes misted over, “Did you mean it?!”
I stepped back and looked at her, did I love her? We’d always got on, and I had said ‘I love you’ without hesitating. She’s good looking too, how did I never realise that? Mousy brown hair in wavy locks, nice curvy figure. I grinned, “’Course I do!” She jumped with joy and ran into me to kiss me. Whoa! This is good! I was satartig to kiss back when Fiona, Holly and Connor were cooing from the doorway. I broke the kiss and shouted, “Oi pervs! Go find another show to watch!” They chuckled and slipped away, but I knew they were still out there. Ah what the hell! “Now, where were we?”
Cassie laughed, “Cheesy line.” I felt my face burn up from embarrassment, had I really just said that? “But I can overlook that.”
She threw her arms around my neck and we went back to giving the others something to gossip about.
Things really were beginning to look up.