Light. Pain. Searing, fiery pain that slithered through every vein, every nerve, every cell in my body, boiling and churning inside of me like a thing alive. I writhed in my own secret world of pain, alone. Lost.
Then the long, dreamless night. Blackness and silence. Total. All-encompassing. It was a welcome relief from the pain and the searing light. It seemed to soothe me, draw me down into its ebon embrace, comfort me like a mother comforting an injured child. I welcomed it, and gave myself to the empty night, and knew no more for a long time.
When I finally woke, the first thing that penetrated my mind was that it was cold. Extremely cold. It felt as if the very air in my lungs was about to freeze. The second thing I realized was that we weren't in the Burger Tank any more. I couldn't see much, mostly just blurs and blobs of color. I tried to speak, but it came out as more of a strangled, choking groan. Holy shit, that hunter must have really got me good. Shivering, I pulled myself into a semblance of a sitting position on the… bed? No, scratch that. It's a couch. Propping myself against the arm of the couch, I looked around at my surroundings, my vision slowly clearing. I appeared to be inside a church, the high, vaulted ceiling soaring upwards on tiered flights of columns, adorned with tattered cobwebs. What I was lying on was not a couch, but was, in fact, a church pew. That would explain why it's uncomfortable as hell. Then I looked down, and gasped in surprise. Francis's vest was draped over me like a blanket, helping to keep me warm. Looking around, I saw the big man standing nearby, leaning against a column and looking away from me. He was wearing nothing but his white tank-top, the thin garment stretched tight over his thickly-muscled torso. He was hugging himself and apparently trying not to shiver. My eyes widened as I took in the lack of bloody wounds and bandages on his powerful frame, and I briefly wondered how long I'd been out. "Francis?" I said, managing not to choke on the word. He whipped around at the word, and rushed over, kneeling before the pew I rested on. "You okay, darlin'?" he said, looking me up and down. Smiling, I said "I think so… how long have I been out?" Francis ran a hand through his buzz-cut, and said "'Bout three or four days… not really sure myself." He grinned sheepishly, and added "Haven't been paying much attention to the time recently." Grinning back, I suddenly sobered as he shivered, then shook himself, rubbing his bare arms. "Come here, silly," I said, and patted the pew's seat. Plopping down gratefully, the pew groaning beneath his weight, he slid up next to me and enfolded me in his arms. I buried myself in his familiar scent, and drifted back into oblivion.
"So where are we, anyway? And why's it so damn cold?" I said, chewing idly on a strip of rock-hard, more than half-frozen beef jerky. "We've been headin' to that evac center up north…" Francis paused here, took a swig from the beer bottle he was holding – the frothy brown liquid inside was slushy with ice – and added "What was it called, Bill?" The 'Nam vet, in the process of checking the load on his rifle, grunted "Echo." "Right. Echo," Francis said, turning back to me. "Turns out, Echo's been moved. Y'know how it originally was in Pennsylvania? Guess where it is now!" "Somewhere cold?" I said, rubbing my numb legs to try and bring warmth back into them. It was Bill who answered, ramming the bolt on his rifle into place and saying "Canada." Francis took another swig of beer, and growled "I hate Canada." "So, are we in Canada now?" I asked, and Francis shook his head. He was about to say something when Louis cut in from his seat across the room. "Nope. We're close, though." Turning to him, Francis pointed an accusing finger at the manager, and growled "So you keep tellin' us." "You got a problem, big man?" Louis said, standing up and glaring back at Francis. "Hey! Hey!" I half-yelled, rushing between the two. "How about we save that for the zombies!" Louis flopped down in his chair, fuming. Francis pointedly turned his back on the other man, and growled just loud enough for Louis to hear "Dumbshit couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a map." Having been unconscious for the better part of four days, I really didn't know whose side to take here, so I satisfied myself with casting Louis a sympathetic glance, then seating myself next to Francis and putting a comforting arm around his waist.
"Ah, yer kiddin' me," Francis growled as he stared up at the large, yellow sign that read "BRIDGE OUT AHEAD." Viciously kicking a pebble that lay nearby, the big man slumped down on a wrecked car, the yellow paint smeared with blood. "See?" Louis said, planting his hands on his hips, voice tinged with smugness and irritation. "I said we should have turned left!" I winced, anticipating the volatile goliath's reaction, but Francis merely glared up at Louis, his eyes flashing with suppressed rage. "Louis," he said in a voice that surprised me with its calm, "I'm gettin' tired of your shit." Louis flipped him the bird and stalked off, back the way we'd come. I saw Francis' hands clench in his lap, the corded muscles on his arms standing out as he balled his fists so hard that his knuckles whitened. "Am I missing something?" I whispered to Bill, glancing at the biker, then following his burning glare to Louis. Bill shook his head sadly, and said "I don't know what's gotten into those two… they've been at it ever since you went out." I gnawed my lip in worry, looking at Francis. The one thing this group didn't need was attrition tearing us apart from the inside.
That night, I lay awake for a long time, shivering in the cold. Francis was on watch, and I could see his broad shoulders silhouetted against the flickering blaze of our campfire. He was loading and unloading his shotgun, the rhythmic click-slide-click-slide-click of the bullets entering and leaving the weapon barely audible from this distance. Rolling over, I couldn't shake the feeling that something very, very bad was about to happen. Turning onto my side, I glanced at Louis's prone form, his chest rising and falling slowly as he slept. His Uzi lay by his side, just within reach of his right hand, laying on the floor beside the weapon. Looking back to Francis, I wondered – not for the first time – what was going on between the two of them. Bill said it had started when I 'went out'… could this have something to do with me? I shook my head, though no one could see it. It couldn't be. Louis was well aware that I loved Francis, and that Francis was quite capable of killing… wasn't he? Francis shifted, and I saw the glint of his hunting knife, glowing like molten steel in the flickering light of the fire. He tossed the knife up into the air, where it hung for a few seconds, spinning end over end. He caught it deftly when it fell to earth again, snatching it out of the air and shoving it into the sheath in his boot. That was when I heard it – a dry, hacking cough. Shit. I struggled to free myself from the confines of the sleeping bag, frantically reaching for my gun, but the smoker was faster. Francis cursed as the foul zombie's tongue wrapped itself around him, then he was dragged, kicking and growling obscenities, into the darkness. "Shitshitshitshitshit!" I hissed, finally regaining my feet and starting after him, gun raised. Before I'd even reached the edge of the firelight, however, Francis came stalking out of the darkness, bloodstained knife in one hand, the smoker's severed head in the other. Shoving the knife into his belt, Francis picked up a stick and rammed it into the ground, then impaled the smoker's head upon it. I gagged, looking away from the grim effigy that slowly dribbled blood down the stick to pool on the ground. "Hopefully these damn vampires'll be smart enough to stay the hell away when they see that," Francis growled, slumping back down in his chair. "You okay?" I said tentatively, and he nodded. "'Course," was all he said, then he picked up his shotgun and leaned back. Giving him one last, uneasy look, I went back to my sleeping bag, settled in, and waited for my heart to stop racing.