Bitten

Arriving back to where Shane's hummer ran out of gas, we noticed the inside windows were smeared with bloody hand prints. I jumped out of our hummer before Cliff could completely pull to a stop, I ran to the open back door and peered inside. There was the bodies of two children and a headless woman's corpse, the children had horrendous bite marks on there necks and arms. There was a small bullet hole in each of their foreheads. I exhaled in relief, the fact that they are fully dead meant Shane was still alive somewhere, but that was the question...where? "Shane!" Cliff was circling the vehicle, he searched the ground for any signs of which way Shane had gone. "Cliff, weren't there two other kids, and another woman in here?" I asked pulling my 9mm out of its holster and readying myself for an impending attack. Cliff shrugged, and crouched next to where it looked like Shane had jumped off the hood of the vehicle and run East. Cliff looked towards the mountainous area, searching for any signs of life. He squinted against the setting sun, looking West. I tapped on the back window, telling the other survivors to lock the doors and stay inside, and only open them for us. Grabbing my shotgun and Cliffs M-16, I headed East. I handed Cliff his gun as I passed him nodding towards a tree where I saw a piece of torn fabric stuck in one of the lower branches. Cliff stood, took his safety off and followed me into the trees. There were broken sticks, and torn fabric along a steep pathway marking where someone had run. Whether or not that someone was alive, or infected was still unknown to us. The pathway lead us to a small clearing, and there sitting on a rock head bent looking at his hands sat Shane.
We approached him cautiously, Cliff pointed his chambered gun at the ground in front of the still figure. Softly he called "Shane? Buddy are you okay?" Shane stirred, but did not turn around. He exhaled loudly and wiped his eyes. I put my gun on safety and hurried towards him, placing my hand on his shoulder I peered at what Shane was so intently looking at...a bite mark on his arm. It wasn't deep, in fact it wasn't even bleeding, but it was red with irritation around the edges. "Oh fuck, Shane..." Cliff exhaled and stepped away from him. Shane looked up at me with a tear stained face, he whispered "One of the kids did it, I didn't want to kill them, they were just kids...Oh what have I done?" He burst into tears at this and shoved his face into his dirty hands. I pulled his wounded arm away from his smudged face and studied the irritated skin. The area around the bite was red and a bruise was forming under the skin. None of the skin was actually broken though. Cliff slowly raised his gun pointing it at Shane's head. "It's up to you bro." He said tears forming in his cold green eyes. "Wait! I don't think he is infected!" I stepped between Shane and Cliff, Cliff lowered his gun eyes flashing with anger. "What if he is, can we risk it?" Cliff grabbed my arm and tried pulling me away, but I pushed him away saying "Just wait, he can take the second hummer, that way if he is, we will be safe, but give him a chance." I said turning to Shane, I held my hand out to help him up. He wiped his eyes sniffing, but nodded grateful for any break we could give him. He looked at Cliff, and handed him his gun belt, but kept his baseball bat. Cliff looked at his feet, but followed us back to the road.
Climbing down to where the hummers were parked, we noticed the red gas can on the hood of Shane's hummer, but our hummer was nowhere to be seen! "That fucking bitch!" Cliff breathed through clenched teeth. Shane sat against the front tire, while Cliff and I removed the dead bodies of the infected survivors, and filled the tank with the red gas can. I used a heavy green blanket to cover the blood splattered back seat, and used it to wipe away the dried blood from the windows. I know it sounds bad, but in desperate times, no one thinks to cover, or even bury the dead. we just pulled them off to the side and got in the vehicle and drove to the gas station. Fueling up the rest of the way I told Shane about the strange crying zombie in the bathroom. He just stared at me with blank sad eyes. I felt bad for him, I had never had to kill any children zombies, and Shane had told us about his three little girls, so it was especially hard on him. I ran back into the gas station to get some snacks and drinks, since all the food I had grabbed was in the back seat of our stolen hummer. After the tank was full we pulled away in Silence, it was dark outside now, since the sun had gone down. Shane sniffed occasionally from the back seat, but other than that all was silent. I drifted away in the silence dreaming of how life used to be, before all this shit happened.