6:54 pm Thursday – 12 April 2007

Upside-down, suspended by his seatbelt not far from the ceiling of his car, with…something in pain, Odin, unable to move for whatever reason, could only think about

8:19 pm Wednesday – 11 April 2007

Molly rubbed at Odin's hand, on her thigh. He'd been holding her hand, which was pretty sweaty, but she reclaimed it at some point. He wondered why until he saw her wiping sweat off it. Then she did something he couldn't see. Feeling like a jerk with his hand just on the cupholder like that he put it on her thigh. A thing that could indicate a variety of intentions, Odin put his hand on Molly's thigh simply to have it touching her somewhere, and not on the cupholder. The seats in the theater were built for people not to have their arms around one another, as far as Odin could tell, so that was out, and comfortably, he couldn't really have it anyplace else. When Molly was done doing whatever she did with her hands, she put her hand over his. So it went.

"Hey," she said. Dialogue went by onscreen. On Molly's other side he saw her friend Darryl glance at him. No, not at him. Directly into his eyes. He glanced to hers but focused on Molly.

"Hey what?" They were close, like if he wanted to he could poke the tip of her nose with his tongue, or so Molly, if she deemed it necessary, could stick her tongue between his lips. Odin did not know why he thought of distance in terms of tongue-reach.

"I'm quite fond of you," Molly said, with a smile.

"That makes me feel happy inside," Odin said. "Apart from that I don't know what to say."

Her eyes closed. She put her hand on his arm, pulled him a little closer. Not that it would really pull him closer, because of how he was positioned. He leaned closer, nervous and hoping she wanted him to.

Yeah. When he was close, still unsure what he wanted to do, her face leaned into his a little. She couldn't lean much more than that, if she could lean closer. Molly's mouth met his and she sealed her lips over his, opened her mouth. He could easily have resisted but instead he did not, closing his eyes. His heart swooned and he felt like he was free-falling from a 10-story building –

Wet. Warm. Her tongue slipped into his mouth a little, familiarized itself with his front teeth.

Odin pulled back. Pressure popped their lips apart. He kept their lips close, their faces touching. Her hand wandered up his arm a little, from just above the elbow to near his shoulder, getting behind him a little more. Her breath poured onto his face and neck. She wasn't breathing hard, but she was breathing fast. He might've been, but he couldn't really feel his body, either.

Odin put his hand on her face, but so gently it was more like "Odin slid his hand onto her cheek." She rubbed his nose with hers slowly, maneuvering too, and leaned her mouth back into his. He pulled back a little. She halted. He kissed the corner of her mouth. He kissed her bottom lip. She went for his mouth full-on. She met him there, almost interrupting him.

Tongues met wetly, hotly. Massaged each other. A sizable breath poured out her nose. He dared to take a breath, but tried to suppress it as much as possible. Their bodies got even closer somehow. She rubbed at the top of his arm. He caressed her cheek. He felt one of her feet – no, now both her feet – come to his legs and hook one of them near his ankle. Like, "You're not getting away. I won't let you."

6:56 pm Thursday – 12 April 2007

Odin fell and almost hit his head square on the ceiling of his car. He would've if he hadn't leaned a little. Instead, he thudded on his back.

I unplugged my belt, didn't I?

It certainly looked that way.

Molly seemed okay. Darryl had a rivulet of blood going down – no, up – her face. It would either smear and soak into her hair or drip off in about five seconds. Polly…he couldn't tell.

He looked around. His car was bent, but not so much that he couldn't see out the windows. It was leaning forward, but behind and to the sides of his car, he didn't see whomever had hit him. No. Us.

His iPod was still playing, the car still on. John Mayer's "The Heart of Life." That's just unfair.

Odin cut the engine. The iPod hushed. The silence that brought with it was oppressive. Odin couldn't hear anything…except the ringing in his ears.

"Can any of you hear me?"

About nine of Odin's heartbeats later

was too long.

Oh fuck. What do I do? Is it safe to pull 'em down, or will that, like, fuck their spines up?

I'm gonna do it anyway. I can't not. If it fucks them up, I'll hafta live with it feeling like I did the right thing here.

First he opened his door – worked fine. It was way too quiet outside.

Molly was first. Positioning himself wasn't hard at all – he'd cut the belt with a boot knife that fell out of his glovebox, that wasn't in there when he checked it with Molly this morning, and she'd fall onto his chest. He'd crawl out backward, keeping her straight.

The belt went easily, the knife much sharper than it looked. It performed like a razor.

With a quiet thud her weight shifted into him. She was much lighter than he thought she would be.

It was more difficult than he thought but about 30 seconds later, she was out, safe. Odin laid her on her side.

7:08 pm Friday – 5 April 2007

And then all the women were there. Molly would wake up after a little while. Evidently her right arm hurt like shit, but she felt completely normal otherwise.

Polly was out, but okay, except, as Odin said, "that her left arm looked broken or out-of-socket."

He got Darryl last. Her large neck bite's scab had re-opened a little, and bled through her bandage, which was already wet with the stuff. With that one exception, she seemed alright. Odin felt pretty assured of her survival when, once he set her down, he ran back into his car to see if he forgot anything,

and he was wrong.

He checked for people's belongings. Two smallish purses, Darryl's ridiculous pint-size backpack. Then he looked at his glovebox. Something in there was shouting at him, for him. It needed his attention, and he needed to listen to whatever it had to say.

What it had to say was that there was a secret compartment in his glovebox, the kind Honda wouldn't have supplied. The kind that nobody would see at the top, disguised as just a bend in the plastic. In addition to "There's a clandestine secret compartment in the glovebox," the little voice in Odin's upside-down car told him two things. The first was that the boot knife had a little slot of its own. The second was "There's a holstered Heckler and Koch USP45 Compact Tactical in here with a few extra loaded magazines!"

He hadn't expected that there would be a little voice calling out to him in the car, much less than it would have anything useful to share with him.

It was then that Odin realized he was ambidextrous. Since he could remember, he'd been doing whatever he did with either of his hands, but nobody, including him, had paid any special attention to that. He just assumed he was right-handed. Like anybody else.

With the gun was a license. It reminded him of his driver's license. He didn't consider keeping the gun until he saw the license, though.

Odin came out the car with the pistol in one hand, its four extra magazines in his other. The holster was an in-the-pants type, which was exactly what it sounded like it was. The pistol was a little bulkier than he was comfortable with, but something felt fucking wrong, and while the gun wouldn't make it right, it would keep the wrong thing, or things, away from the people he loved, who were Molly, Polly and Darryl, but he assumed there were others, like Marion.

He studied the USP45CT, facing the car, before he stuck it on his person. It wasn't exactly big, but it wasn't small. It was short. It was black and blocky, and looked like a cross between whatever normal gun, a knife and a hawk. He checked it, not knowing how he knew what to check, and made sure that it wasn't loaded, and wasn't cocked. It had a round in the chamber. Odin took the magazine out, then kicked the chambered round out with a pull of the slide. He put the magazine back in, then, with his thumb on the gun's exposed hammer, pulled the trigger in partway. When the hammer started to drop, he eased it down, decocking the gun. He threw the spare bullet into some grass near the car

and wondered how he knew to do all that. It felt so familiar.

More important than all the surface stuff about the USP45, though, Odin felt comfortable with it. He didn't really feel like his car was his, and he didn't really have much stuff in it anyway – apart from the clean clothes he was wearing, from the trunk – but this gun felt like home to him somehow. Like somebody'd made the pistol grip just for him, but it didn't look like that had actually happened.

He detached from that line of thought and holstered it, then put two of the magazines in his butt pocket. Odin's pants were tight enough to keep them still, but that might've been more uncomfortable than pants that let them jangle around. He considered carrying all four extra magazines, but that would just be too much.

Odin and company were by the overpass he was on when the other car hit them. He couldn't see the other car anywhere, or hear…anything. As far as he could tell, when the car hit him, he slid off the road. Maybe he fishtailed a little and came off backward or something. Once off the road, the car fell onto a slope – a long one by the overpass. He could tell where they fell out because the cement barrier there was broken clean-out. On that slope, the car slid, to the edge, then probably past it a little. Then it teetered. If he was conscious when that happened, he didn't remember it at all. After the car teetered, it failed the test and rolled to the right, onto its roof, where it now rest.

Odin checked on Molly, Polly and Darryl, who were pretty far from the car.

When he got close, Molly walked close like she was going to hug him, then, instead, held onto him. She was crying.

"What is it?"

"Darryl's dead." She was wailing, sobbing, and hardly speaking English.

"Are you sure?" Odin asked, stroking her hair. It worked okay, but she was still a little taller than him. He wondered how well he would be able to console her.

"Yeah," she said. "We both checked her pulse."

He looked at Darryl. Between him and Darryl was Polly, teary but not crying, her hands in his pockets. When he looked at her, he tried to do it in a manner that would suggest she walk to him and make his embrace a group hug.

She hesitated for a second, like she'd been waiting for that, and like she'd almost just come over there, to be held, to be with Molly. She didn't come, though. She looked into Odin's eyes like there was some secret between them, then turned around and walked to Darryl, who was on the ground.

"Did you see anything after the car hit us? I think I passed out," Odin said, kissing Molly where he could – which was her cheek. He pulled one of her arms off him and kissed the back of her hand too. She was crying hard, but her body was so weak she didn't resist him, if she would have.

"I don't know," she said. She sounded like she didn't remember whatever she'd seen, but that she'd seen more than him.

Darryl was moving, Odin noticed, hearing her move. Maybe Darryl had been moving for a while.

Odin rubbed Molly's back, or stroked her hair, or did both if he didn't feel like that'd open her up too much. Molly was crying, and Odin felt like he was about to join her if he hadn't already, as choked-up as he felt. Molly was quieting down a little.

Darryl was moaning. Maybe she had been for a while.

"Fuck."

"What?" Molly asked, dully, like she needed to lay down or sleep.

"Something's wrong."

"With what?"

"Darryl. I gotta see if she's violent now."

"I'll let go if you promise you won't let her bite you. Even if you have to push her or something," Molly said.

"I promise I won't let her bite me. I won't hurt her though."

"Well…don't hesitate to."

Polly screamed, and less than a second later, Odin saw what made her scream, whipping his head around to face the scene.

To anybody else, Darryl might have looked like she was being embosomed by Polly, but it could also look like Darryl was necking Polly. Even without the blood, though, Odin knew that Darryl was biting – tearing – into Polly's neck, near the base between it and her shoulder. Odin felt like he was supposed to hear muscles being pulled taut and snapping as Darryl ripped flesh off Polly, but Darryl's feeding was completely quiet – at least to Odin, but he wasn't that close, either. What Odin did hear, though, were Polly's screams, but after a few seconds – maybe Darryl bit through her esophagus – Polly got pretty quiet, except for occasional pitifully small, wet gurgles. Polly was still standing after all that, but she was standing still. Considering what was happening with Polly's blood, Darryl's actions were very obvious. The viscous red stuff, outstanding with contrast from everything else Odin could see, was soundless, although spraying, erupting, up in great gushes from Polly and into Darryl's face, into the air and even on Polly. More of it came every 1/3 of a second or so, with Polly's heartbeat.

Odin didn't notice it, but, observing what Darryl was doing to Polly, he said, "Fuck."

8:23 pm Thursday – 12 April 2007

"Would you like to tell me what happened here?"

"Yeah. I was driving like normal. When I say like normal, I mean exactly that. Nobody was on drugs or drinking or…making a ruckus. I'd been watching this car approach us–"

"What kinda car was that?"

"Buick, within the last couple years, white. Okay condition – like, it'd hit something, or maybe a couple somethings, before it hit me, but it hit me pretty solid…ly."

The police officer took note of that, and by how slowly his hand moved and how much he wrote, he evidently took note in shorthand.

"It hit you from head-on?"

"Yeah, and…hard enough to make me spin. I don't remember what happened between then and me waking up upside-down, but I have a guess at what happened, if you'd like to hear it again too."

"Yeah, you already told me that. And then you said you brought all three other occupants of your vehicle – these three women – outside the vehicle, and put them on their sides, over there, approximately 40 feet from the vehicle, by the overpass?"

"That's right."

"Good work. And you set them all on their sides?"

"Yeah."

"And after two of them awoke…" The officer checked his notes. "Miss Harper and Miss Oakley – her and her" (the officer gestured with his pen at Molly and Polly) "you went back into your vehicle to check for first-aid kits or anything of the sort?" Polly was on the ground where Darryl had bitten into her, pale, very thoroughly bloodstained, and dead. Darryl was in the officer's car, handcuffed, and only slightly less bloody than Polly. Molly was next to Odin, holding him, and in turn being held by him.

"I did. That's when I found two of their purses, the…Darryl's backpack, and a gun I didn't remember I had."

"Which you have a license for."

"Correct."

"And you don't remember paying for it or anything?"

"Correct."

"That's odd," the officer said. "I sympathize, though. Sometimes I forget I have Bruce here," he said, gripping his sidearm and shifting it a little to emphasize his point. "And sometime within a few moments of then, Miss…Waddell got up and bit into Miss Oakley's neck, from the front."

"Right." As the cop wrote a few things down, Odin asked, "Have you ever had to point Bruce at anybody?"

"Have you been watching the news, Sir?"

Molly giggled.

"No," Odin said.

"And she hasn't either?" the officer asked.

"No, she hasn't. Is it something about the people who bite people?" Odin gestured to Darryl, who was staring at the three people outside the car, biting at the glass only to slide down and leave a bloody saliva trail, again and again and again. She showed no signs of stopping and did it every second or two. "Like her?"

"Yeah." The officer looked to Darryl, squirming about in the back seat of his car. His gaze remained there for what felt like a full minute. "Exactly like her."

Odin asked, "You call them zombies, don't you? When you're not around civilians?"

"How'd you know?"

"I'm just good at guessing."

"You always do things correctly on the first try, don't you?"

"Yep."

"I have a buddy like that at the station."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Tasso looked up from his notebook and grinned, genuinely. "Chief O'Neill."

Odin smiled broadly. So did Molly.

"Wow. I feel pretty cool for that association."

"You should," the officer said. Odin checked his nameplate obsessive-compulsively – "TASSO."

"Is there…anything else you need to know?" Odin asked.

"No sir, not that I'm aware of. The station may contact you later. The backup I called for should pick you up with a half-hour. They'll take you two to the hospital to do a check-up for insurance."

"But not Polly?" Molly asked.

"No."

An uncomfortable second or two of silence later, Odin asked, "Aren't you gonna wait with us?"

"No," Tasso said, with a grin like "What kinda money do you think the station has?" "That's standard-procedure, but…the city's a little…messy."

"Are a lot of people biting other people?"

"It's really only like that in the hospital's ER. We had one small riot in the city, a building burned down, but…we don't have that great a police presence. So it's…precarious."

"The police presence's been down since the mayor put more money into rehab, right?" Molly asked.

Sergeant Tasso looked at Polly like she was either intelligent or some kind of Insider, it being the proper-noun variety. "Right." His tone suggested exactly what his look did, but it pushed Odin's perception of Tasso's opinion toward "thinks she's an Insider."

"So…we'll see you later?" Odin asked.

"Probably not."

"Is it seriously okay for me to keep the gun I had? I feel like you're supposed to take it."

Said Tasso, not seriously, "If you accidentally left it in my car, without the license or any means of tracking you down, I'd, uh…"

Odin put his hands up as if to say "I'm uninvolved." "Hey…people don't just misplace HK pistols."

"I guess not," Tasso said, opening his car door. "I miss the old days."

Giggle. Not really – Odin did it supportively, but Molly stayed quiet, clearly as uncomfortable as Odin.

"You have the proper license for concealed carry and for owning the gun. I don't see any issue with it. Just don't shoot anybody."

Said Odin, "Deal."