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

Last weekend, FanFiction was having technical difficulties. The chapter I uploaded Friday night at midnight did not until 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, 40 hours later. Hope things are more stable now…

Chapter 3 - Escape

Later in the day, another new Dead is brought in, the same way I was.

As the group approaches the gate with their thrashing prisoner, the two soldiers on duty stand up, 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?

In the confusion surrounding the falling soldier, I manage to come up to the gate behind the distracted guard. Grabbing a lock of his hair through the chain link fence on either side of the gate, I yank his head to the fence, and manage to bite his neck. He pulls back instantly, stumbling away from the gate, clutching his neck. Glancing around, he seems to reassure himself that none of the other guards has seen this. He quickly pulls down his helmet and visor so the other Living won't see the wound.

I wait at my place, staring at him, and as the other guards leave, the Dead begin to resume their pacing. The bitten guard turns back to the enclosure, lifting his helmet off, putting his hand to his neck. The other Dead seem to sense the drama going on, and stop. He stares at me, then gently rubs a finger against the wound on his neck . When he pulls it away, it is tipped red with blood.

He stares at his hand for a moment, as expressions flitting across his face, ranging from shock to fear to resignation. After looking at the blood on his finger one last time, he unholsters his gun and cocks it, pointing it at me. I hold my ground, and our stare down continues. Welcome to the party, pal, I think to myself. After a few minutes, he slowly moves the barrel of the gun away from me, and puts it into his own mouth. He sits like that, with his eyes closed for several minutes. But it seems he can't do it.

Suddenly he sets his gun down and puts his face into his hands. He utters one word, almost like a prayer, so softly I can scarcely hear it: "Julie." He seems to come to some kind of decision, and moving slowly, removes his helmet, protective vest and gloves and sets them on the bench by the gate. He looks up at the sky, and then back down at his hands, the expression on his face finally registering resignation, as if a moment he had been long expected has now arrived.

He walks up to the gate, opens it and steps inside, allowing it to slam behind him.

The Dead are on him instantly, but as I am closest, I grab his head, smashing his skull against the old Chevy that forms part of the wall. We quickly pull him to pieces, as the others are ravenous; some appear not to have eaten in weeks. Since I am the newest and therefore strongest, I manage to hold onto his head, working my fingers inside of it along the fracture line caused by hitting the truck. Prying it open around this crack, I scoop out his brain, fending off the others who want to share my prize. Bending over it the skull protectively, I wave toward the rest of the body, indicating I have left them the meaty parts, the arms and legs.

I have the prize, though, and I intend to keep it for later. It is something meant to be savored slowly, not gobbled down to stave off starvation. The brain cannot sustain our bodies on its own; it just gives…pleasure. As we consume it, it seems to cause the neurons in our own brains to fire again, but the memories and visions see are not our own. They are the dreams and thoughts of the Living to whom the brain belonged. I stuff the brain into my pocket, just gnawing on the meat at the base of the skull for now.

By unspoken agreement, we eat quietly, then, moving quickly, we begin to dig with our hands, working to bury the guard's bones and clothes. The dirt is already disturbed around our walking track, and as we only have to bury small items, not a whole, articulated body, we succeed in hiding the traces. Or so I hope.

When we're done, I put a small piece of the brain in my mouth, still remembering the look on his face as he felt my bite mark on his neck. It's almost…as if he was relieved. As I savor the fresh bit, rolling it around in my mouth, my present surroundings fade away, and my brain sputters back to life, firing the dead man's memories.

oooo

My name is Perry Kelvin, and today is my sixth birthday! My friends are here for my party, and my mother is holding a cake with candles on it in front of me. The six blue candles are lit and burning, though the flames are being pushed by the wind, and everyone is singing while I blow them out. The cake is chocolate, with a real Thomas the Train on it! My party is outside, in a large park by our house. Mom has selected a spot not far from the metal playground equipment. Our brown wooden table with matching bench, splintered with age in places, is surrounded by my friends and classmates, laughing and trying to smear cake on one another's faces.

Mom claps her hands, and it's time to open presents. As I start to pull one from the brightly wrapped stack of boxes that cover one end of the table.

"That's from me," Alan yells. "It's a…"

Here he is stopped by his sister, my classmate. Alan's only four, he doesn't know not to tell everything he knows to everybody. His sister, of course, being my age, is much smarter. "Let him open it and find out, dummy," she says.

Alan starts to cry, and Mom moves in to soothe him. What a baby…

Oooo

I am Perry Kelvin. Today I am ten. Dad is driving the car, which we have crammed full with as much stuff as we can, and we're even pulling a small U-Haul behind us. We couldn't bring a lot of my toys, but Mom said we can't take everything. We are lucky, Dad said, that we could find this trailer. We are going to a bigger city, where it is safe. Mom is in the front seat, biting her lip, looking as if she might cry.

She wears a headband, and one of her earrings is partially caught behind it. I unbuckle my seatbelt to lean forward and free it so that it will dangle, but she hears the seatbelt click and turns around.

"Keep that on," she says softly so that Dad won't hear. "We don't want anything to happen to you."

"Are we ever coming back here?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know, but something tells me won't."

"What about grandpa and grandma?"

Now she is fighting back tears. "They have chosen to stay behind, in the house that they raised me in."

I reach over and pat the seat next to me. It was empty initially, now it has some of my stuff on it. "Aunt Kay?" I ask.

"She's staying an extra day or two, to try to talk sense to Grandma and Grandpa. I told her we would get her an apartment big enough to stay with us. She's got gas in her Taurus, and we're bringing her things. She'll be joining us…"

But I could tell from the tone that my mother never expected to see Aunt Kay again.

oooo

The firings fade, and I am back in the enclosure. I shove the rest of Perry's brain into my pocket, and walk to the gate. As I look through the fence, I see the lock lying on the wooden bench. Stunned, I realize that while the gate is latched, it isn't locked. Perry Kelvin didn't try to put the lock on the gate behind himself as he walked into the enclosure to meet his death at our hands. After careful manipulation with the stick I tugged away from boy earlier, I am able to unlatch the lever, and lift it.

As it opens, the rest of the Dead follow behind me, quietly, none of us quite sure of what to do. As I put on the clothes Perry left on the bench, I hear the voices of the guards from inside the building. They're obviously coming back, and we don't have much time. I signal the others to go back into the enclosure, lower the face visor on the helmet to cover my face, and begin to push the chicken wire gate closed behind them.

Their motions seemed impossibly slow to me, but I get the gate closed and latched just as four more armed soldiers appear.

I watch the approaching soldiers carefully, knowing that my ability to escape relies on them not learning that I'm not Perry. Though the four look almost identical, since they are all wearing protective jackets and helmets, I do notice small differences. The one in front is taller than the others. Another man is heavyset. The other two are built about the same, and almost the same as Perry Kelvin, both tall and thin. One thing I notice that they all have is common is the natural fluidity and grace of their motions.

"Hey, Kelvin! Grigio's looking for you!" the tall guard in front tells me. "Guess the break you're giving your buddy here is over. Where is he, anyway?"

I don't move, not knowing what to do.

"Well, go on," he says. "No point keeping the big man waiting. We can take over here."

As I stand silently, trying to think of how best to proceed, the heavysset solder jostles the tall man. "Whaddja do, get his daughter pregnant?"

The four men begin to snicker, and I start to walk, trying as hard as I could to control my motions so I don't have the Dead shuffle.

They watch my efforts in silence for a few nerve-racking seconds. The leader looks uncertain, but then the heavyset man bursts out laughing. "Julie really work you over last night, guy? You look as if you can barely walk! You should lay off the vodka, at least."

I nodded my head slowly, careful to lift my feet and not to just shuffle them along the ground. They watched my slow progress to the door, the other two men joining the second guard in laughing.

"Grigio work you over?" the heavyset guard continues. "Don't want anyone to check out your black eye, man? We get it." They turned to one another and started talking, ignoring me. I look out of the corner of my eye, back at my former cellmates, who were all standing quietly at the gate. I bite the side of my mouth, vowing that I would try to come back for them, though I doubted I would have the chance.

PLEASE REVIEW. I WILL SEND A PREVIEW OF THE NEXT CHAPTER TO ALL REVIEWERS.