Valley of the Dead IV
Shepherd’s Fields

This story is dedicated to Maria Salazar, Jake, and Sean Franklin.

Maria Salazar 1984 - 2007
Rest in peace, you deserve it you crazy diamond…

Part One

“Sean!” I heard her yell. I heard the fear in her voice, knew I had to reach her, to save her. After a moment, Mick ran out of one of the room and looked at us.

“Shit.” he muttered, reaching for his AUG. I killed him, wasting most of the clip on him.

“Holly!” I yelled, running towards the door. She screamed in a mixture of pain and fear, and I prayed to whatever god might be listening to let her live, to just let her live. I kicked in the door and saw her, covered in those god damn things, being ripped apart.

“Sean…” she muttered one last time before one of them stuck it’s hand in her mouth and pulled, ripping her skull apart, killing her.

“Holly!” I yelled, sitting up. I looked over to the other side of the bed and saw no one there, causing the past ten years to come back to me before my door was pushed open.

“Sean, are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m alright Morgan.” I said as she walked in, sitting on a chair looking at me. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” I muttered, looking at her.

“No, you have your nieces kicking at my stomach for that one.” she said, a true sign of her being five months pregnant with twins. “I still don’t see how H…Maria dealt with it.” she said almost without thinking.

“Maria only had one child…and Holly was only a month pregnant when she…” I said, feeling the tears start to cloud my vision. “Yeah.”

“Sean, you don’t have to play strong in front of me.” she said, quickly getting up to sit next to me and put her arm around me. She hugged me for a second before letting the embrace end, but still holding me.

“You’re eight years younger then me, I’m supposed to be comforting you kid.” I said, calling her by her nickname from all those years ago, before the dead rose.

“I’m not nine anymore either.” she said.

“I know, but you’re still eight years and one day younger then me.”

“Like a day makes a difference.” she muttered, getting a small smile to appear on my face for a moment before there was another knock on the door.

“Oh, here you are.”

“I couldn’t sleep Joe, and I knew he would be awake, so I came in here to talk to him for awhile.”

“Oh.” he said, looking between us. “Well, come on Morgan, might as well try and let him get some sort of sleep.” he said, walking in and pulling her away with him. “Commander.” he said with a nod before walking out, pulling Morgan with him.

I lied back in bed and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before turning to look at Holly’s picture next to my bed. “Why did you take her from me God…” I muttered, staring at her picture till I dozed off after what seemed like hours, yet was only minutes.

---

“What’s your problem Joe?” I said after we got back to our room.

“I don’t like you being around him.” he said simply before lying back in bed before pulling the covers back for me to get in as well. I just stared at him and didn’t move.

“He’s my brother Joe. What the hell are you afraid of, me getting the interest of performing incest with him?” I said, his look giving me his answer. “Damn it Joe, how the hell can you think of me doing that!?!” I yelled, putting my hand on my hips. “Only thing sicker would be you getting off on some fantasy of me and another women! And don’t get any sick ideas, because there is no chance in hell that will ever happen!”

“Hey! I don’t want you speaking to him because all he has to fuck him is his god damn hand! I’m pretty sure that at this hour, he won’t see you as his younger sister, but as a pussy to fuck!” he yelled. After he saw the look on my face, he knew it was a mistake.

“Damn you.” I muttered, getting my P90 from the gun rack on the wall. “Damn you for even thinking of saying that!” I yelled, taking the safety off.

“Morgan, I’m sorry if I offended you, but it’s the truth.” he said.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get the fuck out of here!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, causing him to jump as I raised the gun and painted his forehead with the laser. “Get out of here before I blow your fucking head off!” I yelled again before Jake, Craig, and Kathryn ran in, guns drawn.

“What the hell is going on in here!?!” Jake yelled, lowing his Uzi a small bit, but keeping it relatively raised. “Morgan, put the gun down.” he said, looking at me. I hesitated for a moment before lowering it. “Okay.” he said, looking between us. “Again I ask, what the hell is going on here?”

“She’s some demented tramp!” Joe yelled, clearly forgetting who Jake was. “Damn bitch got mad because I said her brother, the ever self-righteous ‘commander’ of this hell-hole, would see her as nothing more then a pussy to fuck!”

“Calm down damn it!” Jake yelled, raising his Uzi on him. “You seem to forget who you are talking to. I know for a fact that she’d never do anything like that because I was there as she grew up after this whole god damn mess started!”

“Shit…” he muttered, looking at us.

“I’ll get Sean, I’m sure he’d love to give his input in this.”

“You do that Kat.” Jake said as she walked out. A few minutes later she came back with Sean in tow holding Holly’s old .50 caliber revolver. “Welcome to the party Sean.” Jake said, nodding to him. “Should I fill you in, or see if he tells the truth?” he asked, nodding towards Joe.

“Lets see if he tells the truth.” Sean said, walking over to him. I felt a chill run down my spine when he said that. This wasn’t my brother I used to annoy almost fifteen years ago, nor was this my brother who was spending all of his free moments with Holly before they left for Pittsburgh, and it wasn’t even the brother who came back with two wedding bands hanging next to his dogtags.

This was my cold brother, the one who would kill just about anyone for any reason he could find. His eyes showed no color, looking like he lacked any remains of his soul. His voice was deep enough and cold enough to cause someone to want to die, just to get away from it. But hidden in his voice was the pain and sorrow from having lost all that mattered to him.

“Talk Joe.” he said, looking at him.

“What do you want me to say, huh? ‘I’m sorry I made you feel bad’ or something like that? Well, guess what soulless, fuck you!”

“Wrong answer.” he said, raising the gun before shooting him in the arm. Joe screamed and held his arm, vainly trying to stop the bleeding. “Now, what did you say?”

“Fuck you! You don’t scare me you pansy!” he yelled, his voice having a trace of fear in it.

“Stand up.”

“Screw you!” he yelled. Sean looked at him then shot the bed a few inches away from his crotch.

“I said stand up you god damn son of bitch!” he yelled as Joe stood up quickly. “Now, what the fuck did you say!?!”

“Fine!” Joe yelled, pointing at me. “I said she was a god damn tramp! She’d probably fuck the whole valley if I hadn’t knocked her up, and even now, I’m sure she still would!”

“Apologize.” he said, putting the gun to his head.

“You’re too chicken to pull the trigger. You’re not gonna kill me in front of her.” he said, causing Sean to get annoyed. He put the gun to his crotch.

“I said apologize to her!”

“Fine. I’m sorry Morgan.” he said monotone, not meaning it.

“Not good enough.” Sean said, firing the gun again into his crotch. Joe screamed as he fell to the ground holding himself and crying from the pain.

“Sean, stop!” I yelled. “You’re gonna kill him if you keep this up any longer!”

“Then you might want to leave the room.” he said, walking over to Joe while reloading the three bullets into the revolver. He walked over and fired another round into him, causing Joe to scream again in-between the sobs. I ran out of the room and leaned again the wall before I started to cry. Kathryn walked out and kneeled down as she tried to comfort me as another gunshot was heard from inside the room.

“I didn’t want this to happen.” I told her, trying to calm down. “I only wanted him to leave. I didn’t want Sean to kill him!” I yelled as another gunshot was heard.

“I’ll talk to him.” she said, holding me as the door opened. I looked up and saw those soulless eyes looking down at me.

“You’re going to be sleeping wi-”

“Shit!” Craig yelled as Jake’s Uzi was heard firing. “God damn!”

“What!” Sean yelled, looking in.

“He turned into one of those god damn things!” he said, looking white. “We were just about to pick him up to get him out of there, and his eyes opened up and looked at us! Tried to bit my fucking leg, but Jake kicked it away at the last second, thanks, by the way.” he said, looking at him.

“No problem.” Jake said.

“Anyways, get this…he had a fresh bite on his leg.”

“What!” Sean, Kathryn, and I yelled at the same time.

“I think he wanted you to kill him Sean.” Jake said, looking at him. “That way, he’d be able to take you with him.” he said, reloading his Uzi.

“Okay…in the mean time, Morgan, you’re going to stay with Kathryn for the night.” he said, looking at us.

“Alright.” I muttered, getting up.

“Morgan, you go on, I want to have a talk with Sean.” she said, getting a nod out of me before I slowly walked off towards her room. I walked in and lied down in the spare bed and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

---

“What do you want Kathryn?” I asked, looking at her before walking off towards my room.

“I want to talk Sean, please.” she said, following me.

“Then talk.”

“Why did you do that in there?”

“Simple, he insulted my sister, who happens to be one of the last few people I care about.”

“You killed an unarmed man!” she yelled.

“It wasn’t the first time.” I said, walking on.

“Those people were bitten, that is the worst kind of weapon.”

“Yeah, well, so was that jackass!” I yelled, turning to face her before leaning against the wall and covered my face with my hands. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. All I’m trying to do is make sure those I care about have a chance to live.”

“I know.” she said, walking over and hugging me before putting her head in my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her, turning my head slightly to rest my cheek on the top of her head for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of being in each others arms. “She’ll forgive you in time.”

“I know.” I said, lifting her chin to look at her face. “I know.”

“I love you Sean.” she said, saying the four words that seemed like they were a hundred miles away. The four words that until a few months prior, I thought I’d never hear again.

“I love you to Kathryn.” I said, giving her a soft kiss before pulling her back into an embrace. It was only in her arms that my guilty conscience could be soothed, the pain from the past made to lay forgotten. I wasn’t able to save Dawn or Holly, but I swore to myself right there, that so long as I could breathe, I would make sure Kathryn was safe.

(A/N: Ok, I know there are a few mistakes in this part here, it was posted without being viewed by a my beta. If there are a lot of mistakes, I’ll have her go over it in a few weeks. More information on this will follow in due time.)