Chapter 8: Misconceptions

EDWARD

Stumbling into the building, I slammed the door behind me and latched the deadbolt. I'd barely had a chance to lock it when my strength gave out. My arms were dead weight, not breaking my fall as I slumped to the ground. Even though none of the dead had gotten their hands on me, I still felt like I'd been beaten to a pulp. I couldn't even catch my breath because my ribs ached with every breath.

Sweat dripped from my forehead, stinging my eyes and splattering my jeans with darks spots of wetness as I hung my head in exhaustion. However, my body was still alive with adrenaline. I could still feel how my axe had cut through the dead. I'd felt powerful and in control. It was the only way that I felt normal these days.

Pulling off my shirt, I mopped my face, not even having the energy to check for any dead that might be lurking in the building. I resented that I was putting all my trust in a stranger, but I'd used all of my energy killing the dead that I'd lured to the square.

Coherent thoughts were lost in a dizzying mix of adrenaline and exhaustion. The only thought that came through clearly was that I'd seen her again.

Just like before, I thought she was a figment of my imagination when I looked up and saw her standing on the roof.

After leaving the farm, I hadn't seen another living person for months which caused me to believe that I was the only one left alive in this part of the county. However, I didn't actively look for other survivors. I didn't belong with them.

I wandered on automatic through the countryside, looking for things to kill. I hunted for food, I hunted the dead. I became a killer, nothing more.

I thought a lot about what Jasper had said to me when he kicked me off the farm. He'd been right. I was thug… really not even human anymore. The Edward that I'd been before the end of the world was gone and in its place was just a predator, hunting any moving thing. I couldn't be anything else anymore. It was too late. Jasper had been right to make me leave.

I travelled on instinct similar to the dead. I allowed my surroundings to guide where I went. If I heard a sound, I'd follow it. If it was something I could kill, I killed it. If it was nothing, I'd move on to the next sound.

I had no idea how long I continued that way, but it could have been only a month or several.

Then, one day, things changed.

I saw her appear as if out of nowhere.

Stepping carefully through the underbrush, I listened for the chittering of squirrels which was the only game that I'd seen recently. However, besides the rustling of wind through the trees, the forest was quiet. That was until I heard the loud snap of a branch followed by the rustling of leaves, ahead of me along an overgrown path. If it was one of the dead, then I would hunt and kill it because that's what I was good for, exterminating the dead.

But as I got closer, I realized that I couldn't hear the familiar groaning and shambling noises of the dead. However, the sound was too loud for a bird. My stomach growled at the possibility of it being a deer. It had been weeks since I'd had any meat.

Finally, I was close enough that I could tell that it was coming from directly in front of me. So, I crouched behind a tree with my bow notched and waited.

A gasp almost escaped me when a girl stepped out from behind an old tree. She seemed almost alien to me because she was so out of place. What was a girl doing alone in the middle of the woods? She wasn't even dressed properly for being in the woods during a zombie invasion, wearing nothing but a dark blue t-shirt and jean shorts.

As I watched her wander aimlessly along the path, she became stranger and stranger to me. She was small and delicate, but she wasn't scared to be alone in the woods with the dead. She was pale with dark brown hair that hung to her waist, but she wasn't covered in dirt and grime like I was. Even her face seemed otherworldly to me. Her face was broad at the forehead but tapered down to a pointed chin. Her eyes were large, almost too large for her face. But what shocked me the most was the look in her eyes, when they passed over where I was hiding. Her brown eyes were so dark that they practically looked black from this distance until the light hit them and then they took on a warm glow as she looked around in curiosity. Not fear, just curiosity.

A chill ran down my spine as I stared at her.

It was a sensation that didn't make sense to me, so I quietly crept closer, needing to understand who or what she was.

I followed her as she walked along the overgrown path into an open clearing. The pale grass that weaved like the waves of the ocean around her seemed to fascinate her as she ran her hands over the top of it.

In the middle of the field, she sat down and laid back to look up at the clear sky.

I couldn't stop myself from sitting down too. I just couldn't understand how she could be so carefree.

I watched her through the tall grass as she stared up at the sky before she seemed to drift to sleep.

I felt a wave of sadness at the sight. I realized at that moment there must be something wrong with her. Only a person who wasn't right in the head could be that relaxed in the open.

She was another dead girl in the making. She had no survival instinct.

I sat there for a while, just watching. I should have left because staying in one place for too long was stupid. However, I didn't move. I just sat there almost hypnotized by her peacefulness.

Suddenly, I was surprised to see her eyes fly open and jerk to a sitting position. I thought at first that she'd felt my presence and I tensed in preparation to run, but then I heard a sound elsewhere in the clearing. It sounded far, but when I peeked over the grass just as she was doing, I saw one of the dead had joined us in the clearing.

I was surprised that she'd heard it. I'd been honing my hunting skills for almost a year now and was quite attuned to the dead, but I hadn't heard it enter the clearing.

Faster than I would have expected, she rolled to her knees and crouched down in the grass so that she wouldn't be seen as the dead thing turned in her direction. Then, crawling on her hands and knees, she scurried into the trees.

I turned to follow her, but as I entered the woods I saw that a few dead had approached me without my noticing. I shook my head in frustration because my fascination with the girl had made me let my guard down. Not smart. Not smart at all.

By the time I'd finished killing them, the girl was nowhere to be found. I couldn't even find her tracks.

At that point, I convinced myself that she was a figment of my imagination because even if she wasn't, I had no time for someone like her.

I shook myself out of the memory and thought about my encounter with her only a few minutes ago. Just as I was about to be killed by a hundred approaching dead, she appeared on a roof, showing me the only route to safety.

I'd been frozen at first, convinced that I was losing my mind. However, then she smiled at me and it was so shocking that I was snapped out of my fog. I bolted towards the building she'd pointed out to me, but then stood at the door, looking back at her.

She stood confidently on the roof, looking down at me, like she wasn't even the slightest bit afraid.

Instead of the casual look that she'd worn before, this time her hair was pulled back in a tight braid and around her neck was a blue bandanna tied like you'd see bank robbers wear during a heist. Strangely, she was wearing an oversized pale blue policeman's shirt that was frayed and torn. She also wore a tool belt slung low on her hips with sheaths for different size knives surrounding it as well as a shotgun slung over one shoulder. Finishing it off, she was wearing a pair of army boots. For a small person, she looked kind of fierce.

I thought about speaking out to her, but I had no idea what to say.

And then with a wave goodbye, she was gone again. I expected for her to show up at the door so I forced myself to remain awake, but after a half hour led to an hour and then two hours, I pulled myself to my feet and headed into one of the offices that thankfully had a couch.

Collapsing onto it, I was asleep before I had time to blink.

Gnawing hunger woke me.

I had no idea how long I'd slept, but from the empty pit in my stomach I expected that it had been quite a while.

Feeling like an eighty-year-old, I stood up carefully, my joints cracking as I moved. I hobbled from room to room searching the building for anything that was useful. The remnants of the former inhabitants were like eerie artifacts in a museum—a half full glass of water on one of the lawyer's desks, a suit jacket tossed over the back of a chair. File folders open on the desk, papers fluttering in the draft that could be felt throughout the building.

When I found a small kitchenette in the back of the building, I was shocked to find that there was quite a selection of food stored there. Beef jerky, juice boxes, dried fruit strips, a box of crackers, a can of brown beans, and a Kit Kat bar were stacked on the counter.

The girl had clearly left this stash.

I tsk'd in disdain.

Didn't she know there were gangs of survivors roaming the countryside only too happy to steal and rob everyone they could? Jasper and I would have had a field day in this town a couple of months ago.

That made me pause.

If it was only this girl, then she would be easy to steal from. She couldn't last in this world. She was just prolonging the inevitable. If she had a stash like this that she kept here, then she probably had more stashed somewhere else. Since she probably wouldn't be around that much longer, it was important for me to scope out her secret stashes before another survivor came and staked a claim.

Survival of the fittest, I thought grimly.

It was a shock when she found me instead of the other way around.

I'd been searching for her and her hideout for several days, wandering through quiet neighbourhoods that seemed to have less dead than most other towns that I'd been in.

As I searched for her, I started to notice a pattern. Some of the houses had pieces of blue electrical tape on the doors and in these houses I never found any dead. It was as if someone was methodically clearing them out.

I'd just exited one of these houses when I was startled by a voice behind me.

"You're brave, but not very smart."

I whipped around at the sound with a grunt of surprise, my hand automatically going to the knife at my belt.

Standing only a few feet away from me, she stared at me with an intense look of concentration. She looked exactly the same as the last time I saw her—same hairstyle, clothes, even all the weapons.

But now that I was closer, I saw how truly small she was, probably only about five foot two, a good deal shorter than me. She was actually kind of scrawny, but she didn't look fragile.

Again, my brain fell into cataloguing details—a smudge of dirt on her pale left cheek, a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones, a slight overbite, feathered eyebrows with one raised in speculation.

Then, her words sunk in.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I snarled, irritated that this small woman would say that I was dumb.

She looked at me in confusion, like she couldn't understand why I was offended.

"You're pretty good at clearing, but you don't seem to plan for contingencies," she said.

"Contingencies?" I asked, now the confused one.

"You cleared the monsters but didn't make an escape route. You didn't even prepare a safe house," she said as if explaining something to a child.

"What do you know about it?" I said, defensively. "You've probably just been hiding out all this time."

She stood up straight, her spine stiff.

"All the buildings with the blue tape, I've cleared myself. You know, like the lawyers office that I led you to, so you wouldn't get your ass killed?"

My pride stung at her words. I was only too aware that she saved my ass and I didn't like it.

"You're a liar. You didn't clear all those houses… You couldn't have. You're probably only a hundred pounds soaking wet," I said with a derisive laugh.

"Killing the monsters doesn't require a lot of strength. It just takes knowledge of anatomy," she said matter-of-factly, but with a frown on her face.

I snorted at that.

"And a shit load of luck on your part. Knowledge of anatomy isn't worth a damn if you find yourself in the middle of a herd."

"Finding yourself in a herd only happens when you don't plan for contingencies," she responded.

"That's really stupid. You can't always predict what's going to happen…" I said, annoyed.

"I'm not stupid. You're stupid. All brawn, no brain," she said, her cheeks flushing with anger.

I opened my mouth for a counter-attack, but before I could say anything she turned to leave.

"Well, this conversation has been enlightening, but I have stuff to do," she said with a huff.

"Like what? Are you going back to your hidey-hole?" I asked, not wanting her to get the last word.

"I gotta get back to work. Buildings with blue marks have been cleared. If you have nothing better to do, you can help clear some others," she said in an official sounding tone as she straightened her policeman's shirt with a logo for the Forks police department on it.

"Do you wear that stuff all the time?" I asked, gesturing to her strange clothes.

I was as confused by my question as she was. What did it matter what she was wearing even if it was a little odd?

"These? These are my work clothes. I'm not off the clock right now…"

I just stared at her, starting to get the impression that she was indeed crazy.

"What do you do when you're off duty?" I asked, curious as to what this crazy person would answer.

"None of your business!" she snapped and bolted.

I started laughing hard but I didn't know why. I hadn't laughed in such a long time that it felt strange. By the time my laughing fit had died to a chuckle, I realized that I was alone again and that I hadn't even found out her name or where her hideout was.

With a groan of frustration, I ran in the direction she'd gone.