Page 3 of Immune

It took some scouting and planning, spending days mapping where I am now and the surrounding area, but the bomb went off without so much as a hiccup. Beautifully done, if I do say so myself, the explosion still echoing around me.

Because, you see, the dead chase sound.

But the living? The living chase scent.

After all the shit I’ve seen and been through in the last six years since Maine left and never came back, since I found our mother turned and thrashing against her own self-made noose, I’ve long learned which I fear more.

It takes some time, enough for my nails to dry, before it’s safe for me to finally lower myself to the ground, and I waste no time hauling ass away from the walking dead as soon as my army boots hit the soft earth that has managed to thrive in the years zombies took over the world.

Tugging my backpack higher over my shoulder after checking my hair is still safely hidden beneath my ball cap, I jerk the black bandana up over my lower face and adjust my hat, making sure my pale hair is hidden beneath it. It’s done its job for six years, especially since it’s Maine’s, old and faded and too big for my head, but it hides my hair better than anything else I own. My hair lives in a perpetual state of disguise beneath my brother’s hat that adds to my disguise, because I simply can’t bear to cut it.

Stupid? Maybe.

Dangerous? Definitely.

But it’s the same shade as his. As Dad’s. And I’ll be damned if this shitty apocalypse takes that from me, too.

The bandana helps, too. Not just by hiding my face, but by disguising the shape of my jaw and muffling whatever traces of Omega scent might leak from my skin or tongue. I have no idea how I managed it, but I got lucky a year ago. Stupidly, recklessly, impossibly lucky. I found a pharmacy no one had touched, tucked behind a collapsed surgery and half-hidden beneath five years’ worth of ivy, dust, and dead hope.

Within that pharmacy was a treasure trove.

There weren’t many blockers left. A lot of them were expired, some were cracked, heat-damaged, or useless. But thankfully for me, enough of those suckers survived to give mea small stash that I guard more carefully than I guard what little food I have. Because food? That keeps me alive today. Blockers? They keep me alive if the wrong person just so happens to get close enough to breathe me in.

These days, I survive on rationed pills, stolen scents, fabric rubbed in mud, sneaky tricks I’ve learned over the years, and the constant prayer to a God I know doesn’t exist that fear doesn’t sharpen my scent enough for someone to notice.

Not that there are very many someones to notice much of anything now. But that’s the thing about being an Omega in this new world. The Zeds might mindlessly tear me apart, but the living would know exactly what they were doing.

With a quick but thorough scan of my surroundings, I make a run for it, sure to remain quiet. The last thing I need is to draw those deadly Rotters my way, especially after the trouble I went to in order to escape.

My boots barely make a sound as I run in the opposite direction of the hoard, the faintest brush of my black and raggedy cargo pants scraping against one another as I run as fast and quietly as my feet can carry me. The waistband sits a little low on my hips, cinched tight enough to hide my shape, while the loose shirt beneath my jacket swallows the rest.

Small Beta male.

That’s what they’ll see if they bothered to look.

Not Omega.NeverOmega.

Not unless I make some cosmic mistake, get cornered by someone with a half-decent nose, run out of blockers before I find more, or my body decides survival would be way funnier if it dragged me into a heat at the most inconvenient and worst possible time.

Considering my luck? That is exactly the kind of thing it would do.

So, I run.

I run from the dead behind me, the house burning bright enough to paint the street orange, the smoke thick enough to mask my trail for a little while longer. I run with Maine’s hat pulled low, my bandana tight over my face, black polish on my nails, and six years of practice that has taught me how to become nothing more than a shadow slipping between ruined houses.

Because a shadow doesn’t have a scent.

A shadow doesn’t have a designation.

A shadow doesn’t have a packless heat simmering beneath her skin like a lit match.

And if I keep moving fast enough, quiet enough, carefully enough, maybe the world will keep believing I’m what I’m pretending to be. Just another Beta boy trying his best not to die.

Only, the thing about pretending to be a shadow? Shadows don’t breathe, sweat beneath way too many layers, or feel the annoying rub of a knife sheath against their thigh while they sprint through streets split open by weeds and tree roots. They don’t have lungs that scream when they run too hard, and they definitely don’t have hearts that thunder several beats too loud when a Zed turns its rotting head in their direction, cloudy eyes rolling around in their head uselessly while whatever is left of its brain tries to decide whether the sound of my boots hitting broken tarmac is even worth chasing.

Freezing behind the rusted carcass of a long-abandoned delivery van that still holds several undelivered parcels from six years ago, I press a hand to the hot metal, curling the other around the handle of my knife.

The Zed loiters about thirty feet away, jaw dangling loose with one side of its face peeled back enough to display the yellowing curve of its teeth. I’m pretty sure this one used to be a woman. Well, I think it did. Maybe? I mean, it has long hair that hangs in matted clumps around its shoulders, tangled with dried leaves and something darker I don’t actually want to think aboutor analyze further. Its blouse is still buttoned neatly to the throat while the bottom half is torn, stained, and stiff with blood.