What if R and Julie hadn't met outside the city? What if R had been captured, to be used to train the children inside the fortified city of the Living? A different version of the R/Julie story, one where they meet in her world, not his.
Isaac Marion owns Warm Bodies. I just enjoy playing with the characters.
Dark Negative of Love
Chapter 2 – First Sight
Though the change of light is meaningless to us, as we seldom sleep, I notice as the early light of dawn starts coming through the holes in our makeshift prison. I suspect that whatever reason the Living have for keeping us here, it won't be pleasant for me, and this could be my last day on this earth.
With this new day's arrival, the quiet around us begins to fade as the normal bustle that accompanies the Living resumes its usual pace. We hear the sound of life from beyond our pen: the hurried footsteps of passers-by, accompanied by the occasional sound of voices interspersed with the mechanical stutter of various motors. All too soon, the armed soldiers return to the chain-link gate. And once again, the Dead around me rush the gate as it is pulled open. I am pushed to the back by the mob, as the others are ravenous with hunger. The soldiers quickly close the gate after letting four Dead out. They lead them away, using long poles and billy clubs to keep them in a group.
The rest of us wait.
Soon I hear the sound of muffled voices, then gunshots. I begin to wonder if we are being kept here for target practice. I look around and realize from the slight change in the others' facial expressions that they know it too. We are being held for some kind of training exercise. But as my hunger increases, that matters less to me.
Back at the airport, we had our own training facility, of a sort. We had made an enclosure of stacked suitcases, and we would occasionally bring back a few of the Living from our hunting trips with us. They would be put into our make-shift pen, where the recently turned children would be trained on how to attack a human. Although our hunger is instinctive, feeding is not, at least for those Dead turned as children. Killing techniques needs to be taught to the young ones, or they will not survive. I have watched occasionally as the instructors urge the young ones onto these captive humans. "Throat," they instruct, as the children attack their living prey. Occasionally a Living becomes too much for the child to handle, and the adults have to rush in to finish him off.
It would make sense that the Living would have a similar training school for their young.
At one point, I sink to the ground for a few minutes in a shallow hole under some of the metal desk and furniture stacked as part of the wall. I suddenly smell intensely human scents, and I peek through an opening between an old iron desk and rusty Chevy truck bed that form part of the enclosure. I catch just a glimpse of a young woman with blonde hair, followed by a small group of children. She is beautiful, her shoulder length blond hair flowing around her face as she moves. Though it seems odd, it's almost as if the air is shimmering around her with energy, as if she is exuding a life force so strong that it attracts the sunlight. The children who tag along behind her must be part of a school group, I guess, as she is too young to be their mother. As they walk in a single-file line past the enclosure, a few of them pause to try to peek in, and they see me.
One girl screams when she sees my gray eyes peering back at them, but the boys press in for a closer look, chattering excitedly. One even tries to put a long stick through the opening. I grab the stick and jerk it out of his hands.
I hear a young woman's voice among the jumble of the children's excited voices. "Guys, come on!" she says. "Do you want to be late?" Must be the blonde girl, I think.
"Aw, Miss Julie, I almost got that one in the eyes with my stick," comes the disappointed voice of the boy.
"We're not thinking about them today," she replies. "We're going to the Community Center for a story. It's about a hobbit, and the journey he goes on with a wizard and some dwarfs to kill a dragon. Do you want to hear it?"
I hear a little girl's high-pitched voice ask, "Will there be zombies?"
"Well, something like them. In this book, they are called 'orcs'. There were once beautiful elves, now they are something else. Come on."
"I want to go," says the little girl who shrieked when she saw me. "It smells funny here."
Wihin a few minutes, the little group was just a memory. But the flash of the young woman's face and the sweet sound of her voice linger in my mind for some reason.
Soon the soldiers return. They have their helmets on and face visors down as they open the gate again. One of the Dead immediately staggers out, launching himself onto the nearest solder, crazed from hunger. But they capture him easily in their neck harness and lead him back into the hallways, slamming and latching the gate behind him.
One of the soldiers stays behind. There is a small exchange with the guard from the previous night, who leaves while the newcomer stays. The night guard holds the door open, turning back to the newcomer, calling back to ask, "Perry, sugar in the coffee?"
The soldier nods, and the guards leaves.
After the night guard leaves, the solder takes off his protective helmet and looks in at us, as if trying to understand. Without his face visor, I can see that he is just a teen-ager, and he looks tired and distracted as he runs his hand through his hair, wiping off the sweat that accumulates under helmets. He is tall, with dark hair, and a scraggly beard, and appears to be maybe 19 or 20 years old.
Looking around, he picks up a rusty metal bar from the cluttered ground and starts to toy with it, tossing it up in the air, and then catching it as it falls. I approach the gate, and hold out my hand for the bar. He looks at me, and then starts to stick it through the gate. I am reminded of the actions of the children earlier in the day, but I reach for it anyway. As soon as I almost have it, he yanks it back, laughing.
Laughing. Something else I cannot do. The first guard returns, bringing two trays of food with him. The smell of food does not appeal to me, but the smell of the guards does. I realize I am starting to get hungry. The two talk while they eat, sitting at their post outside our gate, and the morning passes. Inside our enclosure, we begin our slow, circular pacing, occasionally moaning.
Later in the day, another new Dead is brought in the same way I was, shackled in a neck collar.
As the group approaches the gate with their thrashing prisoner, the two soldiers on duty stand up, and I notice that the new soldier doesn't fully fasten his helmet back on. As they open the gate, the flailing Dead grabs at the gate and nearly knocks down one of the guards as they unfasten his collar. Struggling with my hunger, I am at the gate and in the front of the pack, watching the struggle between the Living and Dead, just beyond my reach. Or are they?
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