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“I’m no good to eat,” I started to argue, and for the first time, her expression changed when she gave a crooked smile. “Honestly, I’m wiry and tough, and I think I could be of better use to you once my knee heals. I’m a hard worker.”
“If you’re such a hard worker, then why are you alone?” she asked. “Diligence is usually prized in any community that has it.”
“Because zombies keep destroying my communities, and because life isn’t fair and survival is hard.”
“The good news for you is that I don’t eat humans.” She hooked her thumb at the wolves behind her. “They’ll eat anything, though.”
My forehead was drenched in sweat, and my vision had a blurred edge to it. I didn’t have the strength for this argument anymore.
“You don’t have to help me. Just leave me be.”
She shook her head once. “Nah, that wouldn’t do me any good. I can’t have you becoming a zombie so close to my homestead.”
“I was not bitten by a damn zombie,” I insisted through clenched teeth. “It was a moose that did this.”
“I already told you that I’m not much for putting trust into the honesty of strangers,” she remarked. “So we’ll have to come up with something else.”
“Please. Leave me alone.” My voice was hoarse and weary, and I was practically begging her as tears formed in my eyes, further blurring my vision. “I’m not infected, and I can take care of myself.”
She cocked her head, looking down at me rather sadly. “I really don’t think you can.”
As she moved toward me, I tried to scramble backwards, but my hands kept slipping in the mud and pine needles. The young woman was telling me to be calm, but I ignored her. My heart was racing frantically in my chest, my head was spinning, and in my desperate attempt to survive, I overexerted myself.
The world slowly faded to black, and the last thing I saw was her face hovering above mine with her eyes as dark as night.
10
Lazlo
In the dimly lit room backstage, I could hear the crowd out front chanting our name. “Emeriso! Emeriso!” But I was alone. Every other time I had been waiting to go onstage before our concert, my bandmates had been with me.
“Guys?” I asked, searching the empty room for them. “Guys? We have to go on. Where are you?”
“They’re not here,” Harlow said, and I whirled around to see her sitting on a bass drum, her legs crossed at the knees. Her blond hair was colored with neon streaks of red and green, and her makeup was heavy glam-punk.
“Harlow? How’d you get here? Where’d you come from?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “All that matters is that you’re alone now.”
“But I’m not alone. You’re with me,” I pointed out, even though that should be obvious.
“No, I’m not,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I came to get my necklace.”
She held her hand out toward me, and I looked down to see her gold cross hanging on a chain around my neck. But the usually gleaming metal was tarnished and stained with greenish blood.
“I can’t give it back.” I wrapped my hand around the cross, clenching my fist to protect it.
“But it’s mine.” Harlow sneered at me. “You promised that you’d never hurt me or abandon me. You were supposed to take care of me, Lazlo.”
The crowd outside was chanting louder, but then I realized they weren’t saying the name Emeriso. They weren’t even forming words – it was the garbled howling and groans of a horde of zombies.
“Harlow, we have to get out of here.” I tried to take her hand, but she pulled it back from me. “It isn’t safe.”
“No, it’s not. But I’m not really here, Lazlo. You’re the one that has to find a way out.”
The zombies were getting closer, and I knew we’d have to leave the room if we wanted to live. I ran to the door to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“We’re trapped!” I shouted.
