More bloodies are yet to come and one of them pushes itself to me, and I grab it by the collar of its torn-out shirt to give it a blow on its crotch. But my attack is cut off when an arrow almost hits me on the stomach—pierced through the bloodie. I push it off, and then Nathalie catches it behind and twists its head like she’s opening a bottle of wine.
I pant as I’m still trying to cope with this fast-paced environment.
She squints her eyes at me. “How did you figure out we can kill them if we damage their brains?”
“It’s a long story, but you can prove it to yourself.” I gesture to the reversed-headed bloodie that moves again in a jolt.
Nathalie, without taking her eyes on me, grabs her gun from her holster and shoots its head, and the bullet is perfectly centered. She clicks her tongue. “I don’t really need proof.”
“Then why were you asking?”
“Just wanted to hear a story, that’s all.”
“We ain’t got no time for that, do we?” I look over the bloodie-filled road and Bram caught my eyes. “He’s over killing that one.”
He yells, “screw you, bloodies!”
Nathalie fixes her combat glove as she glances over Bram, who repeatedly beats a head with his machete, dividing it into two, blood grotesquely sprinkling all over his face. He keeps grunting and groaning as he beats it until it looks like crushed cherries or something. Nathalie shrugs. “Yeah, he’s holding a grudge.”
Josh climbs up on a dumpster as he continues striking slow blows on the top of the heads of the other bloodies that surround him.
We hear more gunshots around us, and Mark runs toward us while looking behind. He hops backward and shoots again. I draw my hand out as I give a go signal. “Alright, let’s run!”
We speed up as we run through the streets and alleyways. We separate in different ways and end up meeting altogether. Riley and I get last in the race. She still keeps grasping at her stomach. The others fall to the ground all of a sudden, but we didn’t get tangled in it. We stop at the right time and soon we find Andrew in front who caused the stampede like a bowling ball, hitting all the pins all at once. The dog—Luke—sprints toward our direction, and Riley and I try to catch him or the leash. I don’t even know why I made that motion.
I never felt safe with the dog, and yet a part of me had to catch him without thinking about the consequences. The dog, unfortunately, slips through us and lounges into the chasing horde.
“No!” Andrew screams.
Riley stands up before my eyes, and I try to grab her by the arm, yet my hand slips. “No, Riley!” She picks up my bat and swings it around her.
I follow her, and the others instruct us to duck, shooting through us. I grab her by the waist and pull her away, and yet she forces herself toward them. She fights her way out, profusely hitting me with her elbows until I lose her free, falling on my back. I sit there, and my jaw drops. She uses all her strength to push them all away until she slips through. In the blink of an eye, she disappears into the crowd. The bloodies run in the opposite direction, leaving us as if their stomachs had become full after digesting her body or whatever.
“No.” I breathe. Tears form in the ducts of my eyes. “No, no, no. Riley!” I carry myself up and take my steps forward.
Before I can reach the end of this alley, arms grab me by the waist, pulling me away just the same as pulling me from reaching my dreams. Everything goes silent and my voice becomes muffled as I say her name again. We finally reach the other end, but my tears keep falling down, unable to keep the thought out. The thought I always hated to hear. I look behind and put my feet on the ground to pull myself from Stephen and Edward. “We… we have to go back. We have to save Riley.”
“Isaac, calm down,” Nathalie says. “She’s…”
“No, I can’t calm down knowing we’re just gonna leave her! Get off of me!”
“Isaac! She’s dead!”
The word excruciates my chest, and I feel my lips tremble as another batch of tears falls on the ground. “How dare you? How dare you say that?”
She drops her head as she cups my face. I sense tears in her eyes as well. “I’m…”
“Luke?”
My attention draws to Andrew and then to where he’s facing. The dog jogs to us, and Andrew greets him with arms wide open while kneeling. The dog licks his face as he cuddles with it, then a limping figure comes out of the walls. A figure covered in black and crimson red blood—mixing like paint oozing down from her forehead down to her arms. Speaking of arms, it seems like she’s grasping tightly at her shoulder.
We watch her as she continues to walk. A large bite on her forearm becomes clear in my eyes. My breathing speeds up my world trembles. My legs turn to jelly, yet tenacious, to walk toward her. I catch her as she starts to fall—and she regains her balance—browsing through her injured body, a bite on her left shoulder and another on her right elbow. “No, no, no. This can’t… this can’t be.”
“I… I made a mistake.” She chuckles, wearing a hurting smile. “I guess I can’t be with you when you find yourself.”
“No, please. Don’t say that.” I cup her cheeks with my hands. “You will always be with me.”
She gulps repeatedly, and black blood comes out of her nose. Her eyes swell and are now dull. Instead, I keep gazing at them, remembering the patterns of her irises. The dog starts barking in an aggressive tone, probably noticing the changes in her body. She stays silent, not cutting off our gaze.
“I love you,” I finally say. “I love you now and forever. And you’ll always be with me till the edges of the earth. And I will not stop loving you even when you… when you turn into like them.”
I almost didn’t finish my last sentence when she pulls me toward her by grasping my hair, and our lips finally press against each other. My eyes shut as I savor the taste of her soft, pillowy lips. I can feel the soft tickle of her breath beneath my nose. I run my hands from her waist to her back while her nails dig deep into my scalp. Then she pulls away and inhales. It was quick, but it was intimately special for both of us.
She opens her eyes after I do and begins choking. Then she gags and then a pint of blood comes out of her mouth. She falls, lying on the ground, squirming and contorting the joints in the back of her body. I can’t help but watch her in agony, sobbing and useless. I take steps backward, and Nathalie and Steven guide me back to the team.
I dig into my chest pocket where I hid our photo together, which was taken earlier by Lenore. She found a camera in the mall and kept it for good memories. I guess this photo is the only good memory I have with her, where there’s a little smile on her angelic face that always lit up my heart. I drop it beside her, hoping she might find it as she wanders off.
As I turn my back to her, tears also fell from all her friends’ eyes. I can tell she was a great friend to her and they will always remember her. I will always remember her. We run away, never looking back again. I can’t take another glance at her zombified body because I know it’ll hurt me. And I know it will give me nightmares the nights I sleep and guilt will ignite in my heart and burn it till I die.
This was supposed to be a great day, and yet everything—literally everything—just ended in the pit of hell. We were supposed to celebrate even just a week ago. We were supposed to graduate. Yet our graduation becomes an apocalypse.