by Emma Shortt
And this, this bite, she shuddered. She’s seen the scars on Luke’s body, knew that the other bites hadn’t been like this at all. They were shallower, barely even breaking through the skin.
“Luke, can you hear me?” she asked, and her voice broke on the last word. Deep breath she told herself. Stay calm. But the calm was not coming and as much as Jackson tried to get it, the more it wiggled away. “Luke?”
He moaned. Fear lanced her almost to the point of immobility. The moan sounded like one of them and only the years of barriers and holding everything back had Jackson gritting her teeth, taking him by the shoulders, and turning him so that she could look into his eyes. Only then would she know. Please let it be him…
They opened just as hers met his and the blue was still the blue, and the sparkle, though dim, was still there, and the fear exploded out of her so that she was speaking before she even really thought the words. Speaking past the lumps, because they paled into insignificance now against this. “Oh God, thank God. It’s me Luke, it’s me. Jackson. I’m here. I love you,” she sobbed on the last word, her body shaking. “I do. Luke, I do.”
He took a raspy breath and she could hear the effort it cost him. “Jack…
“Don’t you die on me!” she shrieked. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me, not now. Not now I know… I should have said earlier. Luke, I’m so sorry, stay with me, okay.”
He shook his head ever so slightly to the side and tried to lift himself up, but it was too much. His head was bleeding and the bite to his shoulder and God knows what else all combined to overwhelm him. He fell back against the floor, moaning again.
“It’s going to be okay,” Jackson said, her voice spitting out the words. “Everything will be fine, Luke. You hear me? This is nothing. We’ll get you fixed up in no time. You’ll be fine. You’ve been bitten before. I remember you told me…” But not like this. Not like this…
Her hands shook as she pulled the material of his shirt away from his body. Trying again to clear the wound of everything. But it was thick material and she knew she’d have to cut it away. She grasped Mandy, lying in the pool of gore around her, and wiped it on her jeans. It removed some, if not all of the blood, and Jackson lifted her ready to cut. But the glinting metal, her savior so many times, outlined the reflection of another one of them, hunger burning in its eyes, coming straight at her and Luke.
Jackson screamed. Not in fear, not in anger, just in pure frustration. When would it ever end?
She swiveled around, her arms aching, her whole body sore and battered, knowing that she had almost nothing left. The wound to her cheek began to sting in a whole new way and she lifted a hand to it, trying to close the skin into place. The adrenaline that had filled her when they arrived was almost depleted now. Jackson knew that because she could feel so much pain, and she wanted nothing more than to sink back down next to her man and find his perfect blue eyes and hold his rough hands and let everything else just bleed away.
Just us. I promise. But it never had been, and as the male zombie emitted its death groan and stretched out its clawed fingers to grab her, she knew the truth of that. She’d never let it be.
Because she was changed.
The zombies may have woken back up but they weren’t the only ones who’d done so through those first awful months. Jackson had awoken too, only different. Luke was, and only ever had been, her chance of getting some part of the old her back, but she’d never really let him.
Her Luke who was now dying beneath her…
Heavy with lethargy and screaming in agony, Jackson lifted Mandy, her constant companion, and blinked away the moisture coating her eyes. The first tears in more than two long years, all for Luke. But rather than swing through the neck, because she doubted her arms even had it in them, she simply stepped forward and buried her machete in its stomach. The zombie roared, the blade halting its forward momentum, and like she had with Luke Jackson’s eyes matched with its eyes.
Green to brown, human to hunger.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and then she pulled Mandy out, waited until the creature fell to its knees and kneed it as hard as she possibly could in the face.
Pain radiated from her kneecap making Jackson shriek. More tears, only these ones full of pain, filled her eyes. She blinked them away and screamed out the hurt, letting it wash over her because she wasn’t done yet—she was never fucking done—it wasn’t dead and she knew that her arms held no more in them—not even enough to try and cut through the head. So she hobbled over to the prone zombie, and she lifted her good leg and she slammed her steel-toe-clad boot down on its head. Once, twice, three times, over and over, until the thin, papery skin that covered it mushed under the force. And then the eyes and the muscle and the fatty tissue, on and on she went until she found the skull bone and cracked through it.
A roaring filled her ears so that all peripheral sounds were lost. Her vision closed in so that all she could see was the area around her boot and the zombie’s brain revealing itself little by little under her force. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I’m sorry.” And she didn’t know who the hell she was telling, him or her or Luke or even the goddamn world.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Luke awoke in an instant. Awareness filled him, the sound of a repetitive crunch assaulting him. He sucked in a deep breath and the pain was almost enough to knock him back out again, but he gritted his teeth and pushed the blackness back. It wasn’t easy and sweat broke across his head from the effort—or maybe that was just the gore.
Thoughts came then, in perfect order. Zombies. The horde. Jackson. Where is she? He lifted himself up, almost buckling from the pain. Dizziness buzzed in his head and it took a moment for him to take it all in. He blinked not once, but several times at the image his blurred eyes could see. The zombies were all but finished, all but the redheaded one strapped to the table, but she was quiet now, she too looking at the corpses littering the lab, lying in piles, and puddles of gore. Flames were still flickering outside and zombies screamed their dying screams.
The band of survivors were formed in a tight semicircle directly in front of him, and Luke saw that Pete and Sebastian and Jay were all okay—though looking like shit, but even as his gaze found them and rejoiced it went straight to the person in between them. She stood there and he knew then what the repetitive crunch was. Soaked through with blood she was like something from a horror movie herself. Her leg came up, and down, up, and down. And each time it crashed into the zombie’s now-smashed skull she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Up and down, crunch, crunch. Up and down, sorry and sorry.
Luke’s gaze found Sebastian’s exhausted one. The doctor shifted, his eyes full of the same questions as Luke’s.
“Jackson?” Luke called to her.
Up and down, crunch, crunch. Up and down, sorry and sorry.
“Jackson?” he said. Louder this time, though the effort made the nausea well up. But it was worth it, her movements ceased. She turned to him then, confusion writ across her face.
“Luke?”
“Come here, baby.” His words were soft, encouraging, even around the dizziness, and she must have got that immediately because she took a step toward him. Moments later she winced and fell toward the floor. Pete rushed forward to break that fall and hooked an arm under her.
“It’s okay,” he said and pulled her forward until she could collapse next to him.
In all their time together Luke had never seen Jackson look anything like this, and not just because his vision was blurred. Blood covered nearly all her skin. A ragged gash bisected her cheek, dripping more blood, and her eyes were full of something… not pain, no he couldn’t call it that…
“It’s okay,” he said again.
“Luke,” she whispered. “I didn’t… I lost it a bit… I’m…”
“It’s okay.” He wanted to lift a hand and run it across her face, maybe remove some of the blood, but his shoulder was screaming in pain and his v
ision was blurring in and out, a weird roaring filling his ears. Concussion, his mind said. You have a concussion.
“I’m gonna go check outside,” Pete said. “Make sure there’s none left. Jay?”
The two men nodded at one another and ran out to the flames, maybe to behead the burning corpses of whoever was left. Sebastian limped across the room, picked up a bag of some sort, and began pulling out vials. Luke ignored him, focusing completely on Jackson.
“We’re okay,” he said. “We’re okay. We’ve survived. The horde’s gone.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know that, but Luke…”
“What, baby?”
“It bit you,” she said.
Yes, why hadn’t he remembered that? The zombie’d ripped his skin away, the worst bite he’d ever had.
“I’m all right,” he reassured her, though he wasn’t entirely sure that he was. “I’ve been bitten plenty in the past. This one’s a tad worse is all.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “You’ll be fine.” Her hand took his, squeezing. Luke tried to apply some pressure back only he didn’t seem to have very much strength left.
“You have to be fine,” she added. “I need you, Luke. Without you I’ll never be me again.”
“You are you,” he said.
“Me the way I was,” she insisted.
“I don’t want you the way you were,” he whispered. “I like you just fine as you are. I should have realized. I didn’t, but I do now. You’re mine, Jackson. And I’m yours.”
She let out a small sob and lifted a hand to her mouth, pulling away only to look at her blood-covered fingers and shake her head.
“Freak and all?”
“Freak and all.”
Sebastian sat down next to them, passing Jackson a towel and a pack of antibacterial wipes as he did so. “Pressure to the wound, then clean it,” he said.
She nodded and pulled some wipes free before pushing the towel against his shoulder. Luke gritted his teeth at the pain, which was all consuming now, licking at the edges of everything. His strength was pretty much depleted. He’d told Jackson what he needed to and just wanted to sink into the blackness.
“Stay with me, Luke,” Jackson said, but her voice came as if from a distance.
“Let me give him this,” Sebastian said and through his blurred vision Luke could see a syringe.
“What is it?” she asked, pressing the towel a little harder. Pain exploded and he sucked in a deep breath. “Pain relief?”
“No.”
“Antibiotics?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Sebastian shook his head and Luke couldn’t help but notice that the gray hairs were tipped with blood. He looked exhausted, his hands shaky. “It’s an immune suppressant. An accelerator if you will.”
“A what?” Jackson was rubbing against the wound on his head now, cleaning blood away, maybe. Luke wanted to tell her to clean her own wound, wanted to do it for her, but he could find neither the words nor the strength to lift a hand.
“An accelerator,” Sebastian repeated.
“And what will that do?”
Sebastian paused before answering, or maybe Luke just imagined that, things were not making perfect sense. “If he’s infected,” Sebastian said slowly, “this will speed the process up. It depresses the immune system allowing the virus to take hold.”
Jackson gasped. “Speed it up? Depress his immune system? Are you fucking insane?”
“It’s best we find out immediately. We can’t take him back to camp like this, and we need to get moving. God knows if there are more hordes coming. We’re lucky to have survived this one.”
Jackson wrenched the syringe out of Sebastian’s hands, her movement blurring in front of Luke’s eyes. “You want to wipe out his last moments? Jesus fucking Christ, Sebastian. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“If he’s going to turn, we need to know,” Sebastian insisted. “We can’t take him back to camp if we don’t.”
Jackson crunched the syringe on the floor, lifted a leg, and stamped on it. Luke saw the wince chase across her face and guessed she was injured. He wished he could help her, but he was barely hanging on. Could he be infected? He had no idea how he could tell. His head was pounding but maybe that was the concussion. He felt sick but was it any wonder? And there was so much pain. Did that mean the virus was already consuming him? Did he want to know if it was?
“We can’t take him back to camp,” Sebastian insisted. “Nancy won’t let him in. You know she won’t. But we can’t stay here, either. It’s too dangerous. The fire will draw even more.”
“Fine. You go,” Jackson hissed. “All of you go. I’m not losing the last minutes of him so you can feel better.”
“It’s better for him this way. He—”
“He what?” she screeched. “Will give you the antibodies you need. You’re a piece of fucking work, Sebastian.”
The doctor reeled back. “I wasn’t thinking that! I just want to make this easier for him. Do you have any idea what it’ll feel like to turn? It will hurt him if it’s drawn out.”
“He’s going to be fine,” she insisted. “I’ll look after him.”
“And if he turns?”
“Then I’ll behead him myself. That’s my job, as it would be his.”
Jackson slicing Mandy through him. The image was clear in his mind. Her face would set into its battle lines and she’d grit her teeth and do it—he knew she would. But Luke knew too that it would be the end for her. The last little bits of normality she had would disappear if she had to behead the man she loved. He knew this because that was how it would be for him. Some things you never came back from, and this would be one of them.
“Get Pete,” he said, and the effort of those words was almost too much.
“It’s all right, Luke,” Jackson whispered, turning herself so that her body covered his wound. “I’m going to look after you.” She wiped the cloth against him, humming and mumbling words his ears were not able to pick up.
“Jackson…” he breathed, his voice catching on the word.
“And then we’ll start our journey again,” she said, her voice suddenly louder, but not because she’s raised it, he got that, just because his ears weren’t working properly. “We’ll go all the way to the coast. Sit on a beach and rub lotion on one another. Everything will be fine because we’ve got each other. That’s how it is supposed to be. I’ll catch fish. You like fish. Remember you told me? I’ll make a net or something and you’ll make a fire and we’ll eat them… and…” Her voice broke and Luke’s pain intensified in so many ways.
“I—”
She bent forward then and placed a light kiss on his lips. “I love you, Luke. I need you.”
And he loved her, so goddamn much, which was why he was going to do this.
“Pete.” He beckoned the other man forward, Sebastian trailing behind. Jackson moved back so that he could pull the other man down, until his mouth was level with his friend’s ear. He thought then of how it must have felt for Pete to watch his wife turn, how it was no wonder he hadn’t beheaded her. Pete too must have known it was something he’d never come back from. “Take her away,” he whispered. “Until it’s over. And then let Seb have me okay? Let him get his antibodies.”
Pete reared back, his gaze finding Luke’s, and even through the blur he saw the other man nod. “Take care, buddy.”
“Luke, what—”
But Jackson’s voice was cut off by an arm snaking around her waist and pulling her from Luke’s prone body. She screamed and shrieked and pushed against Pete. Luke swallowed the nausea, gritted his teeth against the pain. It occurred to him then, in an abstract sort of way, that maybe Sebastian would get his cure after all, but that was secondary really. Only Jackson mattered now.
Only she had mattered for a very long time.
So he sucked in a deep breath and he screwed up his courage and he said the words he had to say. “Do it.” And the la
st thing he felt was the prick of a syringe, and the last thing he heard was her sobs, and the last thing he saw was the tears, and everything exploded.
Chapter Thirty-eight
If she could have, Jackson would have screamed until her voice was hoarse. Screeched until her head throbbed, but it felt almost like her voice was lost somewhere, grabbed away by the pain.
Pete held her fast, and any other time she would have been able to get away but her knee was stiff with pain, her cheek slicing agony each time she moved, and a horrible, despairing weariness had settled over everything. It just seemed to her that, of course it would be this way. They would survive the horde, but she’d lose the one thing worth surviving for.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said as he moved away with the needle.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” she growled, finding her voice at last. “You bastard.”
“This is Luke’s choice,” Pete whispered. “Let him have that, Jackson. Let him. He deserves that much at least.”
She sobbed, her chest heaving, the noise so ridiculously loud and unfamiliar that for one wild moment Jackson wondered where it was coming from. But then she realized it was her acting this way. Her falling apart. But this was Luke…
“I can’t lose him,” she whispered.
“I know,” Pete said. “I remember.” He turned to the doctor. “How long until we know?”
Sebastian shrugged. The redheaded zombie groaned. “I’ve never used it on a person. Maybe a few minutes. No more than five.”
Luke screamed then, a deep guttural roar that filled the room. Jackson winced. “Is it hurting him?” she whispered, her chest hoarse.
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “But less than the alternative.”
“You have to let me go,” she said over Luke’s second scream “Let me go to him, Pete. I won’t let him turn alone, not if it comes to it.”
“You’ll try and kill him,” Pete said softly, “if he turns, and Luke knows as well as I do what that will do to you. He’s doing this for you.”
