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“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled, tossing a dagger into a Rager that was running towards Asher. The creature dropped like a bag of rocks, the copper handle protruding from its scalp.
“You do this a lot,” Asher pointed out. He swung his sword in a swooping arc, effectively beheading three more Ragers.
“Do what?”
There was a reason I had joined Asher on this supply run, and it wasn’t to talk about my fucking feelings. No, I had already decided I would keep them buried away. No amount of digging could uncover them.
The pharmacy we had chosen to raid was a diminutive mom-and-pop shop just at the edge of town. Since it wasn’t a brand name, the building had been left alone during the initial riots and panic. The shelves were still lined with unopened medicine bottles and cans of food. The pungent aroma of stale milk and weeks old meat assaulted my senses.
I didn’t know how the Ragers had gotten into this building which had been padlocked shut. Perhaps they had been in there when the virus had initially hit. Perhaps they had thought this building was a sanctuary - food, medicine, water, shelter. The essentials needed to live. To survive.
To flourish.
And now look at them. Brainless monsters getting slaughtered.
There was a sort of sick, dramatic irony in that. My twisted mind wanted to laugh at the poetic justice.
Once the last Rager was taken care of, Asher turned towards me. The disgusting, black blood was plastered on his cheeks, staining his blond hair.
“Addie is going to be-”
“Don’t you dare say fine!” I snapped, pointing a quivering finger at him. “Don’t you dare fucking say it.”
That was the last thing I wanted to hear - a false fucking promise. My insides convulsed, a strange combination of fear and an incandescent fury. I didn’t need Asher to lie to me about something like that. No, we both knew that she wasn’t fine. She was anythingbutfine.
And I wasn’t man enough to be there with her.
Forher.
She was dying, and I had left her like a coward. I had been selfish - unable to see her lying immobile on that bed. She had once been such a vibrant flame, full of life, that it physically pained me to see her like that. My heart rebelled at the idea of losing her. The damn organ wouldn’t listen to my logical brain. It held onto “hope”...that dreaded, evil emotion.
Hope was stupid. We built up these walls - these impenetrable fortresses made entirely of our mangled faith and hope. When hope faded, though, we were left with nothing but walls. These walls couldn’t be broken.
So no, I didn’t believe in holding onto hope.
Hope was for dumbasses.
The sooner I could accept the inevitable, the happier I would be.
But damn, if my heart didn’t pound against my ribcage, demanding me to stay strong. Adelaide was going to live. She had to - for my own sanity.
Without another word to Asher, who was regarding me warily as if I was a snake preparing to strike, I began to shove miscellaneous items into my bag. The monotonous movement allowed me to believe, if only for a second, that my life wasn’t completely falling to shambles. That I had not only lost the girl I loved, but two of my brothers. For that brief moment, as sun slashed through the surprisingly clean window, I could pretend.
It was like being on stage. I was a performer, through and through. This was just another performance.
Asher, mercifully, changed the subject.
“There’s a lot of them,” he mused, indicating the Ragers. I grunted in response. “More and more.” He paused, staring down at a decapitated body. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the gender. It could’ve been a female with a larger frame or it could’ve been a male. It was disconcerting to see a body disconnected from its head.
I swallowed the bile that threatened to explode out of me.
“What measures do you think we can take to prevent it?” he asked, nudging the monster with his foot. “The infection spreading, I mean.”
“I don’t fucking care.”
And I didn’t. It no longer mattered to me if I lived or died. Became infected.
There was no point to any of it anymore.
Asher gave me a long look, no doubt questioning the sincerity of such an answer, before he sighed heavily. It was a resigned sigh. I wasn’t sure if he agreed with my statement or just accepted it.
Silence thickening the air until it was almost palpable, we worked at loading the van. Like the rest of the vehicles, the acid rain had caused the exterior to rust and corrode away.
Ragers, faces hideously disfigured from the rain, roamed the street. Fortunately, they didn’t pay us any mind, instead focusing on attacking one another.
Asher was right. These monsters were scary, but not in the traditional sense. There was no logical explanation to explain why some people had been turned while others remained human. What attracted the worms to certain individuals? I was unsure if this question would ever be answered besides in vague theories and unconfirmed explanations.
“I love her too,” Asher’s voice broke through the silence like the slash of a keen knife. I startled at his words, despite the fact that I had already suspected as much. Before I could stop myself, I snorted. The sound was unintentionally malicious. I wasn’t purposefully trying to be a dick. Honestly. I was strung too tight; it was only a matter of time until I erupted like a fucking volcano. Instead of lava, however, I would spew blood.
“Have fun loving a dead girl.”
