In Death || A Fleeting Fiction

We ran until our lungs ached and our legs burned.  We ran until we stumbled, until we crawled, heaving breaths that provided no air at all.  Then we stood again and shuffled on like the extinction on our heels.

Finally we came to a town, one of those half-forgotten highway outposts in the pine barrens.  We had been thankful for the call at first, grateful her phone had picked up the signal all the way out at our campsite.  By the time we arrived in Low Rock, New Jersey, though, there was nothing left in us but bitterness.

I had chased her and waited for her and consoled her since high school.  Twelve years I spent longing for her like some guy from an eighties teen movie.  When she'd gone to college in the city, I had written or e-mailed or called every day.  If she had gotten sick of it, shown some sign of frustration, I might have given up, but she never did.  

Finally, that night at our campsite, after two bottles of wine and two hours of tears, she had realized.  We had done that sort of thing a dozen times.  More.  

"Why are they always such pricks," she'd asked through the tears.  

"I don't know," I said.  I had long since given up on reminding her I wasn't a prick.

It was then that the teary mist over her eyes cleared.  I had waited so long to see her face soften that way.  She coughed, excused herself to a bush.  Over the next three hours, she went from doubtful to curious to coy.  It was almost dawn, we were watching the sky lighten, when she scooted up against me in the cold.  As the sun appeared, she leaned in, I felt her exhalation my neck, like a warm breath after a million years submerged.  

Her phone rang.  I heard the panic in her mother's voice.  We left the tents, the fire, taking only our packs and my rifle.  The truck was an hour's hike east.  East was most certainly the wrong way,; so we took off on foot.  

We heard the first screams an hour later, off in the distance.  We thought they were victims.  We'd seen the movies; everyone had.  They're supposed to moan.  But in real life, they scream like demons.

The first packs appeared about dusk, shuffling toward us like heroine addicts.  We had thought we knew what to expect, but the movies can't prepare you. That's when we ran.

Coming into Low Rock, everything was silent.  We thought we were safe and made for the hardware store.  Our plan was to get some supplies, find a car to steal, and head up into Canada.  It was a good plan, all things considered.  

But as I took aim at the chintzy lock on the back door, Becky screamed.  I spun around to see a pack of them, no, a horde, shuffling madly down the alley.  I glanced behind, thought we could make the fence. we did make it, but as she pulled me up after her, one of them clawed at me and bit me hard, tearing through my Achilles before I hauled myself over.

I came down hard, the breath rushing out of me, my vision already going red. I unslung the rifle, pushed it into her hands.  She shook her head, crying audibly.  

"Go," I said.  She stood up.  I watched amazed as she undressed, right there, the undead shoving each other into the chain link just a couple of feet off.  She was  down to shirt and white bra in no time, kneeling down to rip off my belt.  She pulled my pants down, and in spite of everything-- the fear, the shock, knowing she was committing suicide, I was ready.

And she knelt over me, grinding while she ripped off the last of her clothes.  She leaned in, kissing me, as my vision went crimson.  I tried to push her off, but she locked her legs around mine.  She was moaning into my mouth.

I felt my back arch, my loins throb, my heart stop.  I had saved myself for her: I didn't know what to expect.  I screamed, first in pleasure, then in unliving rage.  I bit her face, tearing the flesh off her chin.  She pushed herself up, leaned back and swung the gun around into my face.  I clawed her breasts as she pulled the trigger.

My vision shifted again, this time to gray scale.  She watched me twitch once more and die, eyes still open.  I didn't understand.  She leaned in and kissed me again before bringing the gun to her mouth, but it was too late.  Her eyes went red-- somehow I could see that among the shades of gray.  The gun clattered to the asphalt.

She rose and shuffled off into the night.  My awareness went with her, leaving my body behind in the alley, smelling of death and sex.

I followed her like that for a year before a squad of marines finally caught up to her pack in the Adirondacks.  There were a hundred of the dead gathered around her by then, but they only lasted a few minutes.

Now I spend my days running from the pine barrens to Low Rock, my nights hovering over her grave.  No-one knew who she was.  Her I.D. had been in the pack, a hundred miles away.  Her family was gone, her birth certificate and dental records lost or destroyed.  

Besides, no one cares about the dead anymore.  Only I remember her for who she was.  Only I know her name.