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Chapter 14
Things I never thought I would see in my life:
1. My dad smiling at me
2. Calax smiling at me
3. A crazy hostess lunging at my new friend with feral eyes.
Apparently, I was rocking a solid two out of three.
Like a switch was flipped, my mind turned off. I couldn’t - wouldn’t - watch Shannon hurt Ryder. Too much pain and suffering already punctuated my life.
I squeezed my eyes shut as if that small gesture could keep me hidden from the world.
Why was the world such a desolate place? When did it start going to hell?
I slapped my hands over my ears to muffle the sounds. Despite this barrier, I still heard the enraged snarl.
Shannon.
I didn’t know how, but I knew that sound came from her.
What the hell was happening?
The only two solutions I could consider were a virus or a drug, both of which seemed scary beyond belief. The latter, though, raised more questions than answers. What type of drug would both Shannon and Buttlicker be taking?
Come to think of it, what did they have in common in the first place? If it was virus, which I had begun to believe it was, they must’ve come into contact at one point, right?
And how was this virus transmitted? Air? Saliva?
My head began to pound with the mounting number of questions.
I risked opening one eyelid, only one, before wishing I hadn’t. I couldn’t look away,
Shannon was looming over top of Ryder. Somehow, her small, dainty body easily incapacitated his much larger, more muscular one. Where did she get all that strength from?
I froze in shock, growing numb as I watched Ryder attempt to push her off him. Seeming indifferent to his efforts, she bared her teeth in an aggressive display. Asher grabbed at Shannon, but she flicked him away as if he was nothing more than a pesky bug. He came back, muscles flexing and chest heaving from exertion, and grabbed underneath her armpits. It was obvious that both boys were trying their best not to hurt her.
“Shannon!” Another girl cried. She was slightly older than me, mid-twenties I would guess, and wore the pink pleated skirt that identified her as a waitress at Rosie’s Diner. “What the hell are you doing?”
Shannon’s head whipped towards the intruding voice, lips pulling back into a malicious smirk.
“Hannah,” Shannon said stiffly, and then, with her attention diverted to the other girl, she attacked. Her teeth dug into Hannah’s neck. All I could do was watch, unable to move and unable to help. Blood splattered the wall, Shannon’s face, and the boy beside Hannah. I could see the white of the bones in the older girl’s pale neck
Somebody began to scream, but that sound only seemed to spur Shannon on.
She turned towards the boy next to Hannah and began clawing at his face. Blood cascaded down his cheeks like tear drops; deep gashes marred his freckled skin.
And Shannon...
Her face morphed something I would never be able to forget. Gone was the flirtatious girl who occasionally said hi to me in passing. Her blond hair, once a vibrant sheen, now had balding spots. Her porcelain skin rippled like a reflective pool of water, veins darkening and twitching beneath the surface. She barely seemed to process that her fingernails were getting pulled off with each desperate swipe at the now dead body. Blood pooled around them all, staining Shannon’s uniform and skin. If you hadn’t seen her attack, if you hadn’t heard their screams, you might’ve believed that all three of them were lovers in an intimate embrace.
Transfixed on the macabre sight in front me, I barely registered another figure entering the dimly lit room. He, too, had flesh dangling precariously from his face, as if he had pulled at the skin repeatedly. His hands twitched, curled into clawsby his sides, and his blood red eyes surveyed the room with a predatory-like awareness.
And then they landed on me.
Prime prey, all broken and pathetic against the wall. In truth, if I were a carnivore, I would’ve eaten myself a long time ago. If, of course, I could eat myself. Not that it was possible to do so without dying. But if I could live and eat myself...
