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“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I said, breaking the silence first. “They’re keeping us here to quarantine, so maybe things will be nicer after that.”
Kerrigan let out a misanthropic laugh. “Harlow, I know that you’re young, but you can’t be that naïve. Not after all this time. That bitch Elmyra is going to be a nightmare.”
I bristled a little. “She left us food, and that’s something.”
“She left you in here with me, too,” he pointed out harshly. “I’m going to turn into a zombie sometime in the next seventy-two-hours, and I don’t know how the hell you two are gonna be able to protect yourselves from me.”
“I always think better on a full stomach,” Kimber said, and she got up to retrieve the food they’d left for us by the door. As soon as she picked up one of the bowls, she swore and dropped it, the metal clattering on the floor.
“What’s wrong?” I asked and instantly got to my feet, even though my sprained ankle still hurt.
“It’s rotten!” Her face twisted up in revulsion. “The food is full of maggots!”
“Told you that Elmyra wasn’t your friend,” Kerrigan interjected.
“If you don’t have anything helpful to say, can you keep your mouth shut?” Kimber asked. “This is all hard enough without dealing with your attitude.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is the way I’m processing my impending horrific violent illness not setting well with you?” he shot back.
“Maybe you’re immune,” I suggested.
He snorted disparagingly. “Nobody’s immune. That’s just some bullshit people like to believe, like Santa Claus or religion.”
That wasn’t true, though. Remy was immune, and so was her brother. I had seen her zombie bite with my own eyes, and she never fell ill.
But I didn’t argue with Kerrigan. He was angry, but not with me, not really. Besides that, he wouldn’t believe me, and even if he did, what did it matter? Why did he need to know that immunity was actually possible, but he was one of the unlucky ones?
My hand had instinctively gone to my neck, where I always had the cross necklace my mother had given me, but now, I came up empty.
Somewhere in the woods, I had lost it, the same way I had lost virtually everything that mattered to me. My clothes, my sketchbook, my books, my family.
All I had now was Kimber. And Kerrigan for however long he wasn’t a zombie.
“I’m sorry,” I said thickly, and he lifted his eyes to meet mine. “You’ve been shot, bear trapped, bitten, and held captive, and you might be a zombie in a few days’ time. That really sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed, and with his anger dissipating, he was left deflated and melancholy. “But… I’ll do what I can for you girls while I’m still a soldier. And when I get sick… I’ll try to handle it, so you don’t have to.”
25
Harlow
Neither Elmyra nor her son returned the next day or the day after that. It was hard to know exactly how much time had passed, but we could see the sky through a hole in the roof and cracks in the walls.
By then, Kimber and I had drank all the water, even though it smelled suspiciously like sewage, and we had managed to get down a few bits of rancid meat. Even when starving, the maggots were nearly impossible for me to contend with.
But it had only been a few days since I’d eaten, so maybe I would feel differently in a week.
Kimber paced the short perimeter of the stall, which was how she spent most of the time we’d been here. Her long legs completed her walk in several quick strides, as she stalked around like a caged lioness.
Kerrigan was dozing in the corner, and that was also how he spent the majority of the days and nights. It was hard to tell if his exhaustion was from his injuries, starvation, and blood loss, or if it was only a symptom of the virus.
I alternated between standing and sitting, with me spending more time on my feet as my sprained ankle healed. I always stared through the cracks in the walls and gaps in the bars, looking for a way to escape, for any sign of hope.
“What if they never come back to feed us?” Kimber asked as she paced.
“They’ll come back,” I said as I chewed my nails, and I was growing less and less convinced the longer we went without seeing any of the Loths. “What would be the point of dragging us back here and throwing us in a stall to let us starve to death?”
“Maybe that was always their plan,” she countered. “Maybe they mean to eat us. They wouldn’t be the first cannibals I’ve met.”
