Chapter Seventeen

AUDREY

It's sometime past noon when I finally reach the gates of Haven and I'm nearly tripping over myself with exhaustion. The gates open and a familiar looming figure slips out, his gun pointed at me. "Whoa, Dwight, relax, it's just me," I say, lifting my hands in surrender.

"Stop right there, Audrey," Dwight says, pulling his rifle up against his shoulder and sighting down the barrel at me.

"It's fine," I say in annoyance. "It's me."

"I'm serious, Audrey," Dwight says. "Stop. We have to know you're not infected."

I pause, holding my hands out away from my body. "Okay, fine, I'm stopped," I say. "But I'm not infected, I promise." I stand still - or as still as I can on shaking legs - as Dwight closes the distance between us. He pulls a pocket light from his vest and then lifts my left eyelid, flashing the beam into my eye. He checks both eyes before he steps back and tucks the light away again.

"Told you I was clean," I mutter to him.

"We have to be sure," Dwight says with a tight smirk. "Don't want any more sneaking through." I wince when I remember; his daughter was one of the people killed when that Corpse turned inside the Compound.

"Right, sorry," I say and squeeze his forearm in a weak attempt at comforting.

Dwight doesn't answer, just turns and gestures at the gate over his shoulder. A moment later it opens and Duke comes sprinting through the gate. My heart leaps into my throat and I run to meet him halfway, practically launching myself into his waiting arms. Duke hugs me to him, one arm around my back and his other hand cradling my head against his shoulder. I can feel him shaking.

It's several minutes later when he finally sets me on my feet again. Dwight ushers us inside and Duke doesn't let go of my hand the entire time. Once we're safely locked behind the Compound gates again, he turns and seems to examine me from head to toe. "Jesus, Audrey, I thought you were dead," he says breathlessly and pulls me into his arms again.

"I thought you were too," I say, clinging to him. All of this time I've had no idea if he was alive, if I would ever see him again. I can feel tears stinging in the corners of my eyes. "How did you get back?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Duke says with a airy laugh. He strokes my hair fondly and then smiles. "C'mon, let's get you home." He drapes an arm around my shoulders and steers me across the Compound to the house we share with Vince. Speaking of...

"Where's Vince?" I ask.

"Out looking for you," Duke says. "We've had searches out looking for you for days. I just got back a few hours ago, I was going to head out again when the Guard spotted you coming up the road."

We walk the rest of the way to the house in companionable silence, Duke's arm a heavy but comforting weight on my shoulders. He lets me take a long bath and get changed into clean clothes, and when I come downstairs again he's got lunch laid out for me on the table. "I could kiss you," I say eagerly when I smell the warm rice and chicken.

"Promises, promises," he teases, sitting down in the chair beside me and helping himself to a smaller helping of rice. I jump at the chance to eat cooked food for the first time in days and it's only because of his constant warnings that I don't wolf the food down in seconds flat. By the time I finally scrape the last of the rice off the plate I am pleasantly warm and full and ready for a nap.

The burning curiosity behind Duke's eyes tell me I'm not getting that nap until he gets some answers.

"Audrey, where've you been?" he asks, picking up our plates and taking them to the sink.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I start uncertainly, picking at the fraying edge of the tablecloth.

Duke leads me into the living room and once we're settled down on sofa he fixes me with a piercing look. "Yeah well this morning I was starting to give up hope you were still alive and then you came trooping up the front steps," he says drolly. "I think I can handle a little more impossible today."

I take a deep breath to steady myself. "I was with a Corpse."

"You what?" Duke says, blinking in confusion.

"I know it's completely insane, but I'm serious," I say. "He found me at the hospital and somehow he knew my name. Duke, this Corpse, he can talk. He took me with him back to their city. I stayed with him in his house - he has this old bookshop he lives in - for a couple days. And then we stole a truck and came up here. We were in a suburb last night and then I left and came here."

"A Corpse," Duke echoes disbelievingly. "You were shacked up in the Dead Zone with a Corpse and somehow made it out without getting infected?"

"He's not a normal Corpse. N, he talks and thinks and feels. It was the most amazing thing," I say. "I've never seen anything like it. He's incredible."

Duke frowns thoughtfully. "N?"

"That's his name," I explain. "Or at least that's all he can remember of it. It's so sad, he has no memories of his life before being a Corpse, but somehow he's still so human."

"Audrey, this is insane," Duke says.

"Wait, no, I can prove it," I say and I scramble up. I race upstairs and I can hear Duke following me. I find my bag where I left it in my bedroom and I rummage inside until I find it - the polaroid picture. I turn around and show it to Duke. "This is N. We found a polaroid camera in the house we stayed at last night."

Duke takes the picture and stares at it thoughtfully. "This is the Corpse?" he asks in surprise. "God, Audrey, I can't believe this. You've spent the last few days hanging out with a Corpse. This is unreal."

"I know it's crazy but it's true," I say insistently.

"No, I believe you," Duke says. He sinks down to sit on the edge of my bed and I climb up next to him. "I mean, you can't make this shit up. You're not that creative. I just - how did they not just eat you? Even if this one is special somehow, you were in the middle of the Dead Zone. There had to have been other Corpses there."

"It's their blood. Since they're attracted to the smell of fresh blood, N took his own blood and he put it over my neck. It hid my smell so the others thought I was one of them," I tell him.

"Gross," Duke says and wrinkles up his nose. "That must be how come they didn't kill me then," he says on sudden inspiration. "When I woke up at the hospital I was covered in Corpse blood. Someone must've shot one right above me."

"That was me," I say. "The one that threw you into the shelves. It was going to eat you."

"Well I think you saved my life then," he says affectionately. He looks down at the photo of N and chuckles. "So, tell me more about your adventures with zombie boy."

N

The highway stretches out in front of me like a photograph, the horizon a static image that never seems to get any closer. I keep my head down, watching my feet as I shamble back in the direction of home. That's where I belong, in with my people, in with the other Corpses. I should stop being so stupid. I'm going to go home and just stop. Stop thinking. Stop feeling.

And most importantly, I'm going to forget about her.

It starts raining and I bow my head to keep the droplets from getting in my eyes. I try to concentrate on my steps as the rain rolls down my back, soaking into my jacket. The rain is surprisingly cold. It only takes a short while before my clothes are completely drenched and I feel a shudder roll through me, promptly chased by another, and another. It's almost like I'm - shivering.

Shit, am I cold? Is that what this is? But Corpses don't get cold.

In my mind I see Audrey sitting in the driver's seat of the blue Bronco, her blonde hair laying against her face in curling tendrils, shivering as she huddles lower in her jacket. I see Audrey stripping out of her wet clothes, pulling the covers up to her shoulders as her entire body vibrates from the cold.

Great, this is just great. It's one more thing to remind me that I'm not like the others. One more thing to remind me of her.

"Ehhnn!"

The distant shout makes me look up in shock and through the gray sheets of rain I see a shuffling horde of Corpses on the road a mile ahead of me. Leading them is Gr and I recognise that he was the one who called to me. There must be more than thirty Corpses behind him, all of them stumbling along in his wake.

I feel lighter than before and my pace quickens so I can meet them in the middle. Gr offers out a hand and I grip it briefly but it doesn't help. It doesn't ease the ache in my chest. So I do something I can never remember having done before; I nudge Gr's arm aside and then crumble against his chest, wrapping my arms limply across his back and tucking my head into the curve of his neck. It takes him a second but Gr returns the embrace.

So this is what a hug feels like...