Page 10

The bathroom door was open and the shower was still running. The whole room was filled with steam as if the cannibal was trying to boil themselves alive. I took a deep breath, but only humidity filled my head. It was enough to make me a little light-headed. I opened my mouth. What if it was just one of my siblings who followed me? Maybe it was a traveler who got lost and stumbled into the village? That was supposed to be impossible….

“I’m dumb,” I sighed. “It’s Night or Day. It has to be. The cat probably wandered in here and they thought he lived here too. So they turned the water on for him…” I started to back out of the bathroom to check the altar room. Maybe my ancestors had stuck around to see what happened after I met my true-mate.

“The cat’s name is Spinach. He’s hungry and filthy, but he’s a good boy,” the person inside the shower said.

That definitely wasn’t Night or Day.

“Hello?” I asked, glancing around the bathroom for a weapon.

In a pinch, I could’ve pulled the towel rack off the wall and beat someone to death with it. Hell, probably not to death, but I’d give it my best shot. I wouldn’t get eaten by a cannibal without putting up a fight. Maybe like a lot of predators they’d move onto easier prey if I put up too much of a fuss.

“Hello, mate,” the voice said.

“Uh…” I said. “Do you come from one of those places where that means friend?” I asked, because talking was better than being gobbled up by a cannibal.

“No,” he said. “I… I don’t think you can smell me yet, but I smelled you when I came inside.”

“How long have you been in here?” I asked, stepping halfway out of the bathroom in case I needed to run.

“Not long. I ate your soup.”

I hadn’t even noticed the soup being gone.

“Well, most of it. I left some for Spinach. I had some of the beef from the fridge too,” the man inside my shower said. “I’ll hunt after I rest. Don’t worry. What happened to the rest of the villagers?”

I opened my mouth unsure of how to explain this village. So I didn’t try.

“How did you know I’d be in here? Did you come from that other—Did you come through that door out there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I came through the door. Obizad. I was born there. That was a long time ago. Before the curse.”

“The cannibal curse!” Pox sounded off over our witch and familiar link.

“How… How did you get in without me noticing?” I asked.

“I followed a russet fox. Wild. I think anyway.”

“Are you… okay?” I asked, unsure of which word I was actually looking for.

“I am not infected if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Did you see them?”

“The cannibals?” I asked without thinking it through.

“Is that what you call them here?” he asked.

“Uh…. It’s what my familiar thought your cat called them,” I explained.

“They are the undead that walk.”

His words hung on the thick humid clouds of steam billowing out of the shower.

“I…” I tried to find something to say. “Do you all need help over there?”

“We needed help years ago. Now… I think Spinach and I are the last survivors of the curse.”

My heart broke into pieces. Whether or not the guy behind the shower door was my true-mate, I wanted to hug him. If anyone needed a hug it was a guy who might be the last survivor of what sounded like some Frost-damn zombie plague.

“Zombies?” my fox said from inside his inner sanctum. “Actual fucking zombies?”