by M. J. Haag
Something moved to my right. From the corner of my eye, I saw another one stand from where it had crawled between the displays of clothing. Stalking me.
With a desperate yell, I gripped the rack between us and rammed it forward to knock the first infected onto its back. Not stopping the momentum, I swung the rack around to the side. The second infected caught it in his hand and pushed back. I stumbled.
Drav yelled my name. The infected on the other side of the rack tilted its head at the sound, though its gaze never left me. It shoved the rack back at me, and I turned and sprinted in the other direction.
Drav roared behind me. As I dodged around clothing racks, I thought of Drav’s stubborn insistence we stay close. I should have listened. My lungs burned from my ragged breaths. Everything blurred in my panic, and I ran almost blindly, not sure where to go.
Turning the corner to an aisle of cookware, I skidded to a halt. An infected stood swaying from side to side on the other end. When it spotted me, it gave a low, moaning yell and raced toward me. Spinning around, I took off in yet another direction.
Drav yelled my name again.
“I’m here,” I screamed.
I shouldn’t have. Several moans came from different areas of the store. They were hunting us. Not us. Me. They’d seen me look at the ball and thought to use it as bait, just like they’d done with Timmy. The infected were getting far too smart.
I continued to run, the sounds of my feet giving away my location, but I couldn’t stop.
Something stepped out in front of me, and I collided with it. Arms immediately closed around me, and I struggled to get free.
“Shh…”
I looked up into Shax’s eyes and almost passed out in relief. Movement from the top shelf, just behind him, caught my attention. An infected, previously laying perfectly still, rolled off the shelf and onto Shax, who pushed me out of the way. I stumbled backwards. A moment later, arms closed around me again, steadying me.
Exhaling shakily, I relaxed as Shax gripped the infected’s head before it could bite him.
The fetid stink of rotting flesh hit me a half a second before a low moan echoed in my ear. Horror filled me as I realized my mistake. I thrashed in the infected’s hold. It didn’t help. It was too late.
Teeth bit into my left shoulder, and I screamed.
The pain and fear of what would come made me crazy. Reaching back, I gripped the infected’s head and bent forward with a heave. The creature flipped over my shoulder, his bite dislodging with the move.
I grunted against the pain but stayed on my feet.
Shax caught the infected and, in a blink, the creature lost its head. Not that it mattered. It had already gotten what it wanted. A taste of human flesh. The luck that had kept me alive until now had finally run out.
Shax looked up at me. His gaze immediately went to my shoulder. Before I could say anything, Drav came running around the corner, followed by three other fey. Red bathed their hands and arms.
Drav took one look at the infected laying on the ground and started giving orders.
“Search the store again.” The three fey took off running.
Shax stayed, watching me with sad, guilty eyes. My stomach clenched, and fear made it hard to breathe.
Drav strode toward me, gripped my arms and leaned his forehead against mine.
“Mya,” he said, ignorant relief echoing in that one word.
“I’m sorry,” I said, tears welling. “I should have listened. I should have stayed right by you.” A sob choked my last word.
“Shh…” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “It’s okay.”
My heart broke, and I shook my head slowly.
“It’s not, Drav. One bit me.”
He jerked in my arms and pulled back to look at me. His gaze swept over my face then settled on my left shoulder. Fear and panic spread over his features.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
I reached up and placed my hand on his cheek. Regret made my tears fall faster.
“You saw Butch. You saw what happened. There’s nothing you can do but listen.” I gripped his face between my hands. “You have a child with you, now. You need to protect him. You need to find my family. You need to help the humans destroy the hellhounds and clean up the infected. You can do all that. I know you can.”
“Not without you,” he said, leaning his forehead against mine once more. “You are the best thing here. Without you, the surface can go to hell.”
“It already has. You need to save it, Drav. Please. For me.”
A sudden wave of pain speared my stomach, I groaned and wrapped an arm around my middle.
“Children need a lot of care,” I said, panting. “Timmy’s meat has to be cooked. If you feed him raw meat, he’ll get sick. Don’t touch him when you’re coated with infected blood, and wash his hands often with soap because he sucks his thumb.”
The pain grew so intense that my knees gave out. Drav eased us to the floor and held me in his lap, tucking my head under his chin and smoothing back my hair.
“I don’t know how Timmy didn’t get infected already, but I want to spare him this,” I said clutching Drav’s shirt.
He rocked me gently, making small sounds of comfort. Exhaling shakily, I closed my eyes and tried to memorize the feel of his arms, the smell of him. We’d been through so much together. I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted us to see this through to the end. Not just our journey to find my parents, but the journey of us.
Something wet dripped onto my forehead. His tears spurred my own grief.
Opening my eyes, I caught Shax’s gaze. He stood back, quietly watching us, sorrow and guilt pulling at his features. I hated that I was about to add to both.
“Shax, when it’s time, send Drav away and take my head. I don’t want him to have to do that.”
Drav growled and held me tighter, making me cry out in pain. He immediately loosened his hold and pressed a kiss to my brow, right where his tear had landed.
“No, Mya. There is a way. You said things can save you. Tell me what to do.”
“Drav, there’s nothing.”
My insides twisted, knifing a new level of agony through me. I cried out and turned my head just in time to empty the contents of my stomach onto the cold tile floor beside us.
“No,” Drav yelled, the sound echoing with each of my gagging heaves.
He held me, soothing a hand down my back again and again until I finished, then gently settled me against his chest. His ragged breathing tore at me. He knew as well as I did that the end hovered just in sight now.
I set my hand on his chest over his heart and struggled for a few beats to catch my breath. My eyes burned, but not from tears. It felt like a million needles jabbing into them. As much as I feared what was happening to me, I feared what would happen to Drav once I left.
“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me,” I said. “You terrified me at first. Then shocked the hell out of me with all your boob grabbing and pussy talk. I hate the word pussy, by the way.” I pulled back and looked up at him.
The moisture in his eyes added another ache to my chest, and my effort to smile proved futile. It hurt too much. Physically and emotionally. Instead, my gaze held his.
“And, I love you, too, Drav. More than I would have ever thought possible.”
He made a pained sound and brought his mouth to mine. His lips brushed mine tenderly, pouring so much into the contact it could no longer be simply defined as a kiss. It was our bittersweet goodbye to a happily ever after…to a future together, good or bad. It was a last memory he would hold onto as he walked away.
When it ended, my whole body shook.
“I’m sorry, Drav. We should have had a lifetime together.” I lifted my hands and touched his cheek gently.
“You’re breaking my heart, Mya,” he whispered. “Do not leave me.”
I closed my eyes, unable to stand the pain any longer.
DRAV…
&nbs
p; Mya’s pale skin grew paler. The blood seeping from her bite slowed as did her shaking.
“Mya, open your eyes,” I said, brushing my lips over each eyelid.
She didn’t do as I asked. Her exhale tickled my chin. I pressed my lips to hers again. She didn’t respond. It took a moment to understand she no longer breathed. That her heart no longer beat.
Pain greater than any cursed hound bite ripped through me.
“Mya! Do not leave me!”
“Drav,” Shax said quietly, “she has already left.” He set a hand on my shoulder, a show of sharing in my pain. But I shrugged it off and rocked her, desperately breathing in the scent of her hair and memorizing the soft feel of her body against mine.
“You should go now,” Shax said again. “I will do as Mya asked.”
“No. I will see her open her eyes again.”
“You would let her become what she feared? You would dishonor her wishes?”
Not all of them. Every infected and hound on the surface would die by my hands. But I would never stop protecting Mya.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly as I tipped my head back and let the world know my grief.
The building rattled with the thunderous echo of my cry.
MYA…
A heavy pain gripped my chest then eased enough that I felt the unsteady beat of my heart. I inhaled, needing air. The ringing in my ears suddenly stopped.
“She breathed, Drav. Leave, now.” Shax’s worried voice penetrated my confused awareness, and I struggled to open my eyes.
“You will not touch her,” Drav said, anger lacing his words.
I tried to lift a hand to reassure him, but it was too heavy. My pulse thumped in my ears twice before the memory of the last few minutes clicked into place. An infected bite. My shoulder.
I gasped and forced my eyes open. Drav stared down at me, the vertical slit of his pupils wide in his grief.
“How did I ever think your eyes anything but beautiful?” I asked, my voice a rough rasp.
“Mya? You are not dead or infected,” he said, raining kisses over my face.
I frowned and focused on how I felt. The pain twisting my insides didn’t seem quite as bad as before.
“I don’t understand. How long was I sleeping?” I asked.
Shax moved toward us.
“You were not sleeping, Mya. You were dead. Why are your eyes not white? Why are you still smart?”
“Quiet, Shax,” Drav said. He demanded my attention by planting his face right in my line of sight. “Mya is smart and beautiful and alive. That is all that matters.”
He kissed me hard and pulled away to stare at me again as if not quite believing it. I felt the same way.
“How? How am I still alive?” I pulled away from Drav’s hold and gingerly felt my shoulder. It hurt like a bitch.
“Does it matter how?” Drav asked.
“It might. I don’t know. Can you find me a mirror, Shax?” I asked.
The man ran off and returned a few moments later with part of the sunglass display. I hadn’t realized we were that close to the front of the store. I took the mirror and angled it to get a look at the bite through my shirt. The infected’s top row of teeth had created a deep crescent-shaped puncture but the bottom row had only left a darkening bruise on the already grey patch of skin. My mouth dropped open as a possibility came to mind.
“What happens when the infected bite you?” I asked Drav.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing because you had adapted with the crystal’s help. Because your world is all part of the curse that created the infected. The crystal was changing me. That change was killing me, but it might have also saved me.”
I had no other explanation than the time in his world had made me immune to an infected’s bite.
The rest of the fey joined us and looked down at Drav and me with curious, confused expressions.
“The infected have been cleared,” Kerr said. “We found a few hiding on the tall shelves.”
I looked up at the shelf, remembering how the infected had hidden there and noticed the fading light.
“Drav, we need to get moving. We can’t be out at dark. I’m not ready to try surviving more bites.”
He stood with me in a fluid move.
“What does she mean? More bites?” Kerr asked, his gaze landing on my bloody shoulder.
“She was bitten and survived,” Drav answered. “Stay close. I will not risk Mya again.”
He strode toward the front of the store.
“Wait. Before we leave, I should clean and bandage the bite,” I said. “All the supplies I need are back where we found the toothbrushes.”
“We have the supplies you already gathered. It’s not safe here.”
I didn’t point out that I hadn’t grabbed peroxide or bandages.
“Drav, it’s a risk to wait. I might have avoided turning into an infected, but there’s a possibility I could still get sick in other ways.”
Drav immediately veered in the correct direction.
When we stood in the pharmacy area, he set me on my feet and helped remove my shirt. I didn’t care that they all watched us. Modesty went out the window after kissing death. Plus, I felt a lot safer with all of them nearby.
Shax grabbed the bottle of peroxide that I pointed out, and Drav held me as I doused the bite with the cool liquid. I gritted my teeth against the sting and kept pouring until I’d rinsed all the blood from my skin.
“Kerr, can you grab as many of those bottles as we can fit?” I said. “And all the bandages. Maybe some of those cleansing wipes, too.”
The first-aid supplies were barely touched by the looters, which made sense. They’d likely passed them by for the same reason I had. Anyone hurt wouldn’t likely need first aid after fifteen minutes. Anyone except for me.
While I added salve and gauze, Kerr handed Drav some of the wipes. Drav quickly cleaned his face and hands, removing any trace of infected blood.
Once I had gauze taped over the bite, I looked down at the dirty shirt we’d removed.
“Here is a clean one, Mya.” Kerr held out a man’s pink, long-sleeved t-shirt that had #survivor on the front.
I snorted a laugh.
“That’s perfect. Thanks, Kerr.”
Drav helped me ease it over my head. Although my shoulder ached, it didn’t burn with pain like it had before I’d closed my eyes. In fact, other than the awful taste in my mouth, I didn’t feel like a recently bitten person.
As soon as Drav tugged the shirt into place, he pressed a kiss to my forehead and lifted me gently. He started toward the entrance, but I stopped him when I spotted the pre-pasted travel toothbrushes on the aisles end cap.
“Shax, can you grab all of those and hand me one?” I said, pointing.
He tossed me a pack and loaded the rest into a bag.
While I scrubbed the taste of death from my mouth, Drav strode toward the entrance. The men picked up the supplies we’d gathered and followed us out the door.
Ten
The shock of being bitten settled over me as Drav ran. Although I breathed and thought normally, I struggled to believe I’d actually survived. That one moment…that single, stupid mistake of not seeing who had held me had almost robbed me of everything. Life. A chance to see my family again. A chance to show Drav what family meant and why they were so important to me.
I looked up at him, realizing it wasn’t just my family who held that level of importance in my life now. When I lay dying in Drav’s arms, I’d worried about him, too. Without me consciously realizing it, he’d made a place for himself in my life. He was my family now, too. And, he needed to know that.
He caught me looking at him.
“Are you in pain?” he asked, running faster.
I ducked my head into his shoulder to hide from the wind.
“No. The bite feels tender but doesn’t really hurt.” I pressed a kiss to his collarbone to reassure him. It didn’t seem to work, t
hough, because he didn’t slow his pace.
With the rest of our party forming a protective circle around us, Drav ran tirelessly. The distribution factory came into sight, and I exhaled with relief seeing the fence just as we’d left it. I didn’t like these new, smarter infected.
The men on guard opened the gate for us. One of the men from our group stopped to talk to the lookouts, likely to warn them about what the infected had done. Drav and the rest of the group continued their jog until we reached the main area inside the building.
“Welcome back,” Molev said when Drav stopped.
While the rest of our group began emptying the bags out on the floor, Drav continued to hold me close. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t quite ready to let him go, either.
Resting my head on Drav’s shoulder, I watched Shax sort the things we’d collected, and I studied the slow-growing piles with a sinking stomach. There hadn’t been a lot of cans or dried goods left on the shelves I’d seen, but I’d hoped they’d found more while Drav and I had been collecting clothing. Seeing the cans now, though, compared to all the men who lounged around the factory floor, I knew we’d only managed to gather a small amount of food.
“You brought back more supplies than I thought you would,” Molev said, studying the piles with me.
“Less than I’d hoped. We’ll need more. But, we only hit one place.”
Drav growled, and his hold on me tightened. Molev’s gaze shifted between the two of us.
“What happened while you were collecting supplies?” he asked.
“Found a supercenter. Found some infected. Same old, same old,” I said. My flippant response didn’t fool Molev or calm down Drav.
“Some infected had set another trap, waiting out of sight on shelves. One bit Mya.”
Molev looked at me.
“Show me,” he said.
I pulled the neckline away to reveal the gauze.
“I already disinfected it and shouldn’t remove the bandage until I’m ready to clean it again.”
“It broke your skin, though?”
“Yeah.”
“Her heart stopped beating,” Shax said. “She stopped breathing.”
