89 Don't trust Zain
The night hadn’t fully set and there was still daylight outside. Cody was resting as he leaned his back against the metal wall and looked at the beam of sunlight shining through the hole in the metal roof. He could feel the slight heat on his leg, but slowly it was getting cooler.
‘The sun is about to go down, I should really get a move on.’ Cody thought. The swelling on his face had decreased a little, making it easier for him to see, and resting on the ground had allowed him to regain his energy for whatever threats he could encounter next.
When he tried lifting himself up with both hands on his knees, he noticed his legs were still wobbly.
‘If I run into anyone or anything dangerous, I’m not sure if I can even do something about it…but that is if there is still something that I have to worry about.’
Looking around him, Cody glanced at all the dead bodies on the floor, most of them were Zombies, other than members of the Cobra gang with the side of their skulls smashed.
There were many things that Cody had seen in the last week, things that he could never delete from his memory. Honestly, he thought he had seen the worst until he had witnessed Zain smash those skulls..
Just thinking about it had made him a bit queasy in the stomach, but he quickly diminished the memory from his head. Right now, getting sick wasn’t an option.
‘I can’t think of him like that…because of him, because of them and that little group, he saved me. Why should I care what he is…in fact, he is a lot better than these people near on the ground. No matter what he is.’
Walking out of the warehouse, Cody picked up a couple of machetes from the floor that Cobra’s men had used. He continued to walk out of the place carefully trying not to attract anyone through the noise.
Chinatown was mostly quiet already, one thing Cobra’s gang did well was getting rid of most of the zombies and storing them in the container. They were quite lucky that they didn’t run into anything like what Cody and others had done in the supermarket.
While navigating through the streets, somewhere inside Cody’s mind, he was hoping that he would run into Zain.
‘Why didn’t he stay…is it because of the others that are with him? Or is it about self control?’
Eventually, Cody had reached the area he had been looking for, the hairdresser shop that Zain had instructed him to go to. Heading inside, he noticed there were small traces of blood inside the shop. After a few moments, he deduced they were not from a large physical wound but just droplets here and there.
Then finally, going towards the back door, Cody pushed it open, and there he could see her.
Muffled sounds came from the chair, and tears streamed down her eyes. Kelly couldn’t help herself as she continued to cry over and over again.
“You need to be a bit quiet, or we might get caught,” Cody whispered and tried to calm her down. Using the machete, he released Kelly from her bounds. And when she was no longer on the chair and could now talk again, the first thing she did was pull Cody towards her and bring his head right into her chest.
“Thank you…thank you so much for saving me…and I’m so glad that you’re alive…I really thought something happened to you.” Kelly said as she wound her body and continued to pull Cody’s head deeper into her chest.
Cody didn’t complain. But in the end, he had to tap her body to inform her that he couldn’t breathe.
“What happened to the Cobra gang? Are they still alive? Are they coming back? We should start getting out of here as soon as possible!” panic started to settle into her voice.
“It’s okay, we are okay,” Cody replied. “But it’s getting dark outside, so I think we should stay here for the night. Let’s head upstairs.”
Above the hairdressers, there was a one-bedroom apartment. A living room with a sofa and a small double bed. As they closed the lights and turned the curtains, all they could do now was to wait for the sun to set, and Cody started explaining what happened. Luckily, there were some food cans that they could still eat in the cupboards as well.
“Honestly, the Cobra Gang had me tied up and they were going to feed me to the Zombies, but in the end, Zain was the one who came and saved me,” Cody explained.
“Zain came to you as well! I guess he really did go and help you, and that’s how you knew where I was?” Kelly replied.
Cody went on to tell the story of what had occurred, although there was a big detail that he had decided to miss out on, however, he didn’t touch on the fact that Zain was a Zombie.
He felt like there would be a lot of people that wouldn’t be able to accept this fact. Even he could only because he had been saved by Zain. It was similar to if he was saved by a tiger. Just because he had been saved by one, didn’t mean that people would stop being afraid of tigers.
“I guess Zain is really strong…but did you see Skittle as well? That friend of his, he was here as well, and he was definitely—”
“I don’t know. Skittle was there but was just following him all the time, maybe his friend remembers a bit still from being attacked and just follows Zain around.” Cody replied. “Still, getting out of the supermarket, and saving both of us, that’s twice now because of him we are alive.
“I asked Zain to join us, but I don’t know where he is now…which is why I think we should go looking for him.”
Kelly didn’t respond straight away, she had a nervous look on her face and was even biting her nail. After a long silence, she replied.
“I’m not so sure about that…I was a teacher at his university, and because of that I know his past, I don’t think it’s a good idea if we travel with him.”
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