"Unghhh…" 10 groaned. He tried to clear his throbbing head while he sputtered in and out of consciousness. In between flashes he became vaguely aware of something tugging at his legs and a viscous fluid seeping into his eye. Confused, he blinked and tried to focus on where he was.

How did I get on a bed? Wait…is that blood on my forehead? What is going on?

His head hurt, and his vision was blurry. He groggily moved to rub his eyes, only to discover he couldn't because both his arms were lashed to a bed frame.

"What the hell?" His predicament jolted him to full consciousness. He tried to yank his wrists free but the cords binding him were too tight and the bed posts were fashioned from solid wrought iron. 10k looked down at his feet to see the old man he had just met finishing up the final knot on his ankle.

10k panicked when he realized that not only was he tied to a bed but the old man – Fred? Was that his name? - had stripped him down to his maroon undershorts. The rest of his clothes were in a heap on top of a bedside table.

Great. Why do all the psychos and perverts survive the zombie apocalypse?

"Let me go!" 10k yelled as he thrashed and struggled trying to wrest himself from his bindings, to no avail. The mattress was wrapped in slippery plastic which made it difficult to get any purchase.

His frustration ramped up to fear when he took in the rest of his surroundings and saw a rainbow assortment of plastic shower curtains tacked to the walls and floor, all of them splashed with copious amounts of dried blood. With a sinking feeling he realized he was not the first prisoner Fred had tied to this bed. Who would have thought a room plastered with images of sea horses, flamingos and tropical fish could be so terrifying?

Confident his knots were secure, Fred patted 10k's bare leg and creakily rose from a crouch to his feet. 10k slackened and ceased his struggling when it dawned on him that it wasn't desire that he saw in his captor's eyes.

It was guilt.

"Why are you doing this?" 10k asked him. "I helped you!"

"I know, and I am so sorry about this, son." Fred shook his head, his creased face filled with woe. He pulled a handkerchief from his overall pocket and gently dabbed the blood out of 10k's eye - a strange kindness, given the dire circumstances. "I can see that you are a good kid, and there sure aren't many like you left in the world. The ugly reality is that now we all have to make the hard choices to feed our family."

Oh crap, not cannibals!

10k remembered the horror stories Cassandra had told him about her days with that cannibal cult. Since the Z outbreak, food had become scarcer and scarcer with every passing year. He'd had some close scrapes with desperate people during Black Summer himself, and some of the Enders they'd encountered in the past few years had devolved into eating each other. If 10k's father hadn't taught him how to live off the land, he'd never have survived this long.

"Fred, please…you don't have to do this," 10k implored. "Look, I can help your family. My friends and I have food back at our camp. Just let me go and -"

"No, you don't get it." Fred stuffed the hankie back in his pocket. "The Black Rain changed everything. My daughter…I guess you could say she has very specific dietary needs. A can of peaches just ain't gonna cut it. I would have preferred one of them Enders you scared off, but now you'll have to do."

He walked through the open bedroom door to a room across the hall that 10k could see was locked from the outside with several large padlocks. Fred pulled out a ring of keys and started unlocking.

"Darla? Wake up, dinner's ready. Just like I promised."

10k's heart pounded as he tried again to pull free from the cords, but with every struggle they cinched tighter around his wrists and ankles. He saw that the window next to the bed was cracked open.

"Doc! Sarge! Murphy! Help!" he shouted. 10k had no idea where Fred had taken him, but maybe his friends were within earshot. He couldn't just give up and let himself get eaten.

Fred unlatched the final lock and opened the door.

A woman in a red sundress padded out of the room, her head hung low and her long white-blonde hair obscuring her features. Or was she a Z? 10k honestly wasn't sure. The skin on her bare arms and legs looked dead and grey, but oddly she didn't lunge at Fred like a zombie. Was she trained?

10k kept shouting. "Doc! Can you hear me? Anyone?"

The Z yawned and stretched. "What's with all the yelling?"

10k was stunned into silence. Since when could zombies talk? Then he remembered how Doc had said he'd heard a new rumor about talking Zs, but at the time 10k had figured someone had been smoking too much Z-weed. Apparently the rumor was true!

Darla perked up as soon as she saw 10k. She pushed the hair out of her face, revealing a grossly swollen nose, milky yellow eyes and rotting patches of flesh around what looked like a huge bite on her cheek. She was probably quite beautiful once, but now she was a decomposing mess. If she wasn't a zombie, she was doing an awfully good impression.

"Oooh, Daddy, is that for me?" She gave her father a hug like he'd just surprised her with a birthday gift.

"Try not to make a big mess this time, pumpkin." Fred kissed his daughter on the forehead. "Sorry, son. I wish there were another way, but you gotta understand. My Darla has…needs." He cast 10k one last regretful look before heading downstairs.

"Mmmmm. Fresh brains!" When Darla grinned at him she revealed a black, rotten maw behind her yellowing teeth. She stalked towards 10k. "You. Look. So. Yummy," she purred as she teased her finger slowly from his ankle, up his leg, across his chest, along his throat until she was able to grasp his chin.

"W-what are you?" 10k cringed away from her fetid breath and tried not to vomit as she leaned down and licked the blood off his forehead.

Memories of Murphy flooded back to him. "Don't fight it, kid. It will all be over soon…" His heart began to thud faster and faster. "No…please…don't bite me!"

"What am I?" Darla giggled. She plopped down on the edge of the bed and traced playful circles around 10k's nipple. Trapped as he was, he couldn't angle his body away from Darla to make her to stop. "What are you? Because you sure don't taste or smell like other humans."

What does that mean? I thought Sun Mei cured me. Am I still different?

She eyed 10k hungrily like a predator ready to pounce, but her features abruptly froze when she glanced at his arm lashed to the frame.

"Wait a second…that's a zombie bite." She grasped his forearm and rubbed at the scar Murphy had given him. "No wonder you smell different. You're just like me!"

10k almost blurted out that he was nothing like Darla, until he realized this might be his out. "Uh…yeah! I'm like you! So you better not eat me…because…uh, we probably have mutated brains or something!"

"Wow! This is amazing!" she squealed with glee. She sprawled on top of 10k and hugged him so hard he could barely breathe. "I knew I wasn't the only one!"

10k blew her long strands of greasy hair out of his face. Although 10k now had hope of surviving this bizarre encounter, it was somehow getting even more creepy. "Lady? Um, do you think you could untie me now? Please?"

She responded by kissing the side of 10k's neck.

Uh oh…I really, really hate where this is heading…

"But this could be so much fun, too," Darla purred. She pressed closer and undulated against him while she suckled his neck and jawline. 10k was beginning to wish she had eaten his brains as he tugged futilely at the bonds holding him prisoner.

This is not happening this is not happening please don't let this be happening…

"Mmmm. It has been so long since I have been with a man," she moaned into his ear. She nibbled his lobe while she nuzzled him. "Just think, together we could repopulate the earth with a brand new race!"

"Let me get this straight." He coughed and swallowed back the bile forcing its way up his throat. "A minute ago you wanted to eat my brain, and now…now you want to marry me?"

Darla rolled her eyes at him. "Jeez. Aren't you old-fashioned! I don't want to marry you, silly boy." She grasped his chin and forced him to look her. "I just wanna jump your bones!"

When she leaned in to kiss him, 10k recoiled and tried to move his face away, but she ignored his protests, forced her bloated tongue through his lips, and devoured him. It horrified him that she tasted like spoiled, maggot infested meat left in the sun all day, and 10k had never felt so nauseated in his life. When she finally pulled away, he gasped for fresh air and it was all he could do to keep from retching.

She straddled his thighs and flipped her hair back, striking a playful pose. "Although I have to say, you are quite the catch," she cooed. "Gorgeous, still have all your teeth, and you're not decomposing!"

10k winced when Darla leered down at him in a way she probably thought looked seductive, and then her hand roved lower, inching toward his shorts.

"Hey, hey! Watch the hands!" He blushed and tried to buck Darla off of him, but it only seemed to excite her more. "Please, stop!"

"My, you are so hot when you're flustered! C'mon, baby. Don't be shy. Let me make it good for you." She leaned down and lapped at his nipple, then dotted his neck and chest with kisses, descending lower and lower towards his shorts while he squirmed. 10k blanched when she got a little too forceful and her nose suddenly separated from her face; it was barely hanging on by a tiny strip of flesh.

"Oh my God!" 10k dry heaved. It was a good thing he hadn't eaten in two days or else he'd be painting the pink flamingo shower curtains with his vomit.

Darla tried to push her nose back in place, but it kept flopping back and forth, revealing her bloody nasal cavity and part of her skull. "Ugh. I hate it when that happens!"

10k gulped, trying to suppress his gag reflex. "Darla, please! Before this goes too far, can we talk first? Get to know each other? We just met!"

"Oh, fine. Party pooper!" Darla pouted, but 10k breathed a huge sigh of relief when she lifted herself off him to sit at the edge of the bed again. She reached over to the bedside table drawer and pulled out a tube of Krazy Glue, which she used to re-affix her nose.

"Tell me the truth. Does this look okay?" She turned her face back and forth to show him different angles.

10k thought it looked crooked, but he nodded sheepishly. She seemed satisfied by his response and tossed the glue back in the drawer.

"Okay, so talk." She adjusted her skirt and primped her hair. "What is your secret? How do you keep from falling apart? How often do you have to eat brains?" she asked.

"Ew." He grimaced at the thought. "I don't eat brains!"

Darla looked doubtful. "Never? Then what do you eat?"

"Normal stuff. Fish, crickets, puppy chow if I can find it…"

She pushed at his chest. "Get out of here! You were bitten, just like me. Are you seriously trying to say you have never craved brains?"

"I'm not lying! I died two years ago, but since then I have never wanted to eat anyone."

10k thought back to when he had died. He had been feverish, so his memories were chaotic, but forever ingrained in his mind was the sensation of Warren choking the life out of him. Red's beautiful face looking down at him had been marred with tears. 10k had been terrified, gasping for breath, not understanding what was happening, but then there was nothing. The fear, the pain, all of Murphy's influence nattering in the back of his mind, it all slipped away and everything went gloriously quiet.

Death had been a relief, like being completely immersed in a warm bath or being wrapped up in his mother's quilt…but just as soon as he accepted his fate, he was violently jerked out of that perfect tranquility and he woke up looking at Murphy's face.

Damn him. He knew I never wanted to be bitten! What if Darla's right, and I am like her? It took years before Murphy started going all freaky Zombie Messiah. Am I going to start craving brains, too?

"Huh. So you died before the Black Rain?" Darla's voice jolted him back to the present. "Maybe that explains it. That gunk messed everything up. I can't remember everything, but Daddy said I got attacked by a Z and I woke up like this. I was fine for a while, but then the cravings started. I'm normal most of the time, but if I don't eat brains every other day I start to go all 'UHRRR!'" Darla curled up her hands into claws and acted like a lurching zombie.

"I'm sorry this happened to you." And despite everything, 10k meant it. In a way, this might be his fault. He and his friends unwittingly let the Black Rain descend upon the world. It changed all the rules, and now Darla was paying the price. No matter how hard he'd tried, ultimately 10k couldn't control himself when he was a Blend, so how could he expect Darla to resist what she had become?

Darla shrugged. "I guess it is better than dying. But I could do without the rotting, you know?"

"…or the brain eating?" 10k added.

"Oh, man. Brains taste AMAZING." Her face lit up and she licked her lips at the thought. "You don't know what you're missing!"

"Uh, I guess I'll have to take your word on that. How many people have you eaten, anyway?" asked 10k, unable to contain his morbid curiosity.

She tapped her cheek while she considered. "Five? No, six. They were all Enders," she said with air of dismissal. "They were so far gone that I tell myself they were mercy kills. Besides, I'd rather eat a stranger than attack Daddy. He's all I have left…except I guess now I have you, too!"

Suddenly, 10k could hear someone yelling in the distance. "10k! 10k! Kid? Where are you?"

10k's heart leapt for joy. "Doc? I'm h-mmmph!" His happiness was cut short when Darla swiftly clamped her hand over his mouth to muffle his cry.

"Shhh, baby. We don't want anyone to ruin our fun," she whispered. "We haven't even gotten to the good part, yet!"

Good part? Hell, no! The only "good part" in this scenario is me getting the hell out of here!

"Mmmmrph!" 10k bit into her hand and shook his head trying to free himself, but Darla was very strong and seemed immune to pain. While he struggled, she grabbed his bandanna from the pile of clothes next to the bed and used it to gag him.

"Guys, I found 10k's goggles," Doc yelled somewhere off in the distance. "Murphy, you were right…he must be somewhere nearby!"

"What the heck kind of name is 'Ten Key' anyway?" Darla whispered. She slid the window closed and smiled down at her silenced captive. "Never mind. You can tell me later, baby. Right now I'm going to go find your friend so I can eat HIS brain!"

10k's eyes widened. No! Don't hurt him! he muttered from behind the gag. He glowered at her and yanked furiously at his bonds. The cords were so tight they were starting to dig into his flesh and cut off his circulation.

Fred burst into the room carrying two rifles, and 10k recognized that one of them was his own. He tossed it to his daughter. "Look alive. We've got company! An old hippie, a red haired boy, and a fella with the worst sunburn I've ever seen. "

The old man was surprised to see that 10k was still alive. He shook his head with an exasperated scowl. "Darla! Honestly. Ever since you were a little girl, I never could get you to stop playing with your damned food."

"I'm keeping him, Daddy. So we need to take at least one of the strangers alive." She looked over at 10k. "If you're a good boy, I'll share my brains with you. You'll start to like them, too. I promise." She blew him a kiss before she followed her father downstairs.

10k was desperate. He couldn't figure out to free himself, and now his friends were in trouble. He had to warn them somehow. He tried one last gambit not knowing whether it would even work…and half hoping it would fail.

Forcing away all his apprehension, he reached out to that cobwebby, long walled off part of his mind that had once been his psychic connection to Murphy and with all his might tried to push out a message:

"DANGER!"