Note: Hey guys! Let's pick it up from where we last left off ;).

Music: AWOLNATION - Sail

Virulent

Chapter 13

"You taste so good," Edward murmured as he ran his lips across her soft ones. She whimpered in response. "I really don't mind having sex while you're on your period, even though I know it sounds disgusting to most guys."

"I even find it a little gross; let alone, most guys," Bella laughed. "On the bright side, at least I know that you truly like me. For an added bonus, I get to be a tease for a few days."

It was true; he found himself favoring his cave-man persona as he craved her and was constantly eager to prove how much he adored her. It was also probably her pheromones that were making him go abnormally crazy.

I'm such an animal, Edward laughed. Bella continued to return his kisses, oblivious to the intrusion that was waiting to demolish their sanctuary.

The growling from the bushes became louder and louder...

"What was that?" Bella murmured.

"What was what?" Edward asked lazily. He felt his eyelids drooping lower as he brushed her neck with his lips until he reached her cleavage. Hot, open-mouthed kisses tingled her skin as he searched through the plains of her body. He was sure not to miss a freckle or a spot.

"Shit!"

Edward suddenly sprang back, horrified to realize that he had an audience within close proximity. He had totally forgotten where he was for a second. When he was with Bella, it was as if his surroundings warped into nothingness.

Bella and Edward turned to see Alice's widened eyes as she stared into the bushes with a look of fright. Bella's jaw touched the ground when she saw just how close the Skeletals were to their camp.

Edward felt a rumbling sense of shame in the vulnerability he'd created so ignorantly, knowing that if Alice and Jasper hadn't been here, they could have been in more trouble through his lack of mindfulness. The underlying tension in his environment reminded Edward of just how palpable danger felt.

"Quick, get the weapons," Edward yelled as he pulled Bella up and kept her close.

As it was night time and they were keeping watch as usual, their weapons were nearby and scattered on the ground. Bella felt her stomach lurch with fear. They weren't exactly prepared for a confrontation. When Edward said 'weapons', he really meant the blunt, kitchen knives that they'd bought at the shops. The knives also came with a chopping board.

"It could be a shield," Jasper had said, thoughtfully. "A weapon and a shield, yeah!"

It had sounded reassuring. But in the meantime, all four of them looked ridiculously defenseless. Edward held a knife while Jasper was holding a chopping board across his chest and a similar knife in his hand. Spontaneity hit Bella at full force as she grabbed a glass bottle near her feet. She smashed it on a nearby rock to create the jagged edges of broken glass. Firmly, she held the bottle by the neck and raised it.

This was a Mexican standoff with a bunch of zombie-like creatures.

It was a sight to behold.

Alice held nothing so Jasper quickly gave her his knife. He moved his feet nervously as he held the chopping board in an offensive position. With racing thoughts pounding in his head, Jasper tried to picture what methods of attack they could utilize.

"They're quite slow," Bella said nervously as she struggled to remember the characteristics of previous Skeletals.

"Oh no, they'll be getting quick any second now. They're stronger in herds. They act like a pack of wolves. A pride of lions. We've gotta work as a group, just like them," Jasper said, displaying his strange expertise. "Every time you see solitary ones, they'll be more wary. They don't know what to do. But now... there's quite a few of them. Their group mentality is to infect us and that will be achieved by working together."

Four is hardly a herd, Bella thought. She was going to voice her opinion but then she realized that the last time she did so, she practically jinxed their luck and now, in actuality, they were facing their worst enemies, after all those weeks of ignorant bliss.

"How do you know so much about all of this?" Bella asked Jasper, curiously. "Past experience?"

"We figured this out during your blackout," Edward responded. She closed her mouth and ground her teeth.

"And you thought it'd be a good idea to withhold this information?" she yelled angrily. "Pretty boy, we'll be having a nice chat after we deal with those."

All four of them were backing away slowly whilst conversing like scared teenagers, looking for an escape plan to a prank gone wrong.

"Edward, you go for the one on the left. I'm going to go for the one on the right and the one standing behind it. Alice, take out the middle one," Jasper ordered professionally.

"Hey, what am I supposed to do then?" Bella asked in annoyance as her mood soured. She glared at Jasper. Her patience was running thin.

She was a ticking bomb, waiting to go off.

"Bella, you can help Jasper with the two that he bravely reserved," Edward quickly said, trying to calm Bella down.

He gave Jasper an annoyed side-look that seemed to say 'she's on her period, idiot'. Jasper instantly understood. He really didn't want to pick a fight with his girlfriend's best friend.

Girls on their periods. In an apocalypse.

No that wasn't on his bucket list.

"Don't come any closer," Alice yelled boldly.

"I don't think they understand," Bella snapped. "I can scream, like what I did last time."

"Unless you want a sore throat by tomorrow, I don't think that's a good idea. Noises might only temporarily distract them," Alice patiently reminded Bella.

"Okay, they're catching our bluff. We need to attack them first," Edward hissed.

If they kept backing away, they'd find themselves tumbling into the bushes behind them.

Or... getting stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Edward looked at Bella's petrified expression as resolution sank in his chest.

"Change of plans, Jasper. You and I will circle the four of them and take out the ones on the side. The middle ones will be group together. If not, they'll probably start randomly attacking us. But I can bet you anything that we are more lithe than them," Edward said, dishing out orders.

Alice started to protest, wanting to help as well, but Jasper nodded at Edward with firm stoicism, effectively ending the discussion. The two men walked up closer to the Skeletals as they growled fiercely. Drawing out a reasonable radius, they circled the creatures.

The line between predators and prey became blurred.

"Look away," Jasper murmured softly. It was so quiet that Bella almost didn't hear it.

Edward went for the first kill, ramming the blade into the throat of the Skeletal before kicking it so that it fell against the next one. Jasper slammed the chopping board onto the skull of the creature nearest to him. It fell down but it was still alive. Jasper then slammed his knife into the skeletal standing towards the middle. The Skeletals convulsed as they tried to stand up, not backing down from their human attackers.

"Look away." Edward said forcefully. He and Jasper had to be careful, for an infection was merely a footstep away.

Bella peeped through her fingers as her trembling hands covered her face. Alice cowered close by. The two women shut their eyes for what felt like an eternity before hearing the echoes of gruesome death, caused by the grunting men.

As the four Skeletals met their overdue expiry, Bella heard the last whimpers of a defeated growl.

Tragic certainty shook her to the core as reality ripped away the blanket of illusion from her shoulders.

This was only the beginning.

Keeping the period real (sorry if it's TMI). Simplification of the gory details sounds decent in my opinion, just for the sake of everyone's appetite. Let the apocalypse continue.

Love, perpetually.