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 6 – Julie's house

I got a pang of something like sadness watching M disappear among the houses. He had risked a lot, coming so close to the city walls, looking for me. However, I couldn't watch him for long, as Julie turned to me, saying, "We can't stay up here forever, you know."

I nodded, as I did know, and then remembered – try to talk. "Yes," I answered sadly. Great, a natural conversationalist.

Stepping away from the guardrail, she started to go back to the trap door. I grabbed her wrist, not wanting to let her leave me behind. She surprised me by twisting in my grip so that she was holding my hand.

"Come on. We need to go back down, so I can figure this out," she said. "But we've got to get back. They'll start looking for me soon, and they're already looking for you. I mean," she shook her head, "they're looking for Perry."

I nodded and started after her.

We slowly went down the ladder, and made our way back to the small utility room at the foot of the ladder. After we got back into the main stadium corridor, she replaced the loose boards covering the doorway.

"How did you find this place?' she asked, turning to me.

It was complicated – a mix of Perry's memories and her scent led me to it. But that was going to be hard for me to communicate, so I just shrugged.

"Right," she replied. She started back into the city, and as I started to follow her, she suddenly stopped.

"Put your visor down, or someone will see you're not Perry," she whispered urgently, looking to the right and left.

I quickly pulled down the visor, as she suggested. It made things a bit darker, but I could follow her easily enough. Her hair made her stand out. And of course, I could smell her.

Just as I had noticed yesterday morning while I was in the enclosure, the city was quiet in the early morning. We wove our way through the narrow streets, only meeting a few people. Julie did the talking when necessary, and I just stood, holding the gun against my shoulder the way I recalled Perry doing when he was on guard.

Finally, we stopped at something that looked like a house, though it was extremely narrow, only a few yards wide. It went straight up. She opened the door and led me inside.

"Dad's not here. He's out for a few days, but you can't stay. We need to get you back to your friend. Maybe I can get us on a salvage…"

Her voice began to fade as one of Perry's memories shot through my brain like fireworks, even without my having consumed any of his.

oooo

My name is Perry Kelvin. I am 16 years old. I've been in this city for a year now. Soon after I got here, I fell in love with the beautiful girl sitting across the aisle from me, Julie Grigio.

Today we're in class, learning how to assemble, and clean, and operate a variety of guns. We are supposed to know how to handle any type, in case we're on salvage, get cut off, and have to use what's in the house or office building as our own weapon. I force myself to look at the cold metal in my hands, but my mind keeps going back to the warm girl sitting across from me.

She's Colonel Grigio's daughter. I am told she resembles her mother more than him, but I guess he used to be pretty hip. I've heard he was a rock musician at one point in his life, and that he swept Julie's free-spirited, bohemian mother off her feet at a young age.

That must have been a long time ago. He looks…stern and hard now.

I try to imagine how he went from musician to this strict, driven man. It puzzles me, but I begin to think this transformation may be necessary. It must have been done to protect Julie. He lost his wife…is this what I would become if I lost Julie?

She glances over at me and smiles, that smile that seems to bring sunshine into this room where we are being drilled on.

oooo

The moment passes, and I realize Julie is staring at me. I just shrug apologetically, and we enter the house. It is entry hall is strangely empty, having the feel of a deserted office building. The entire floor is bright but void of furniture or decoration, other than light fixtures. They must have decided to leave the first floor empty in case they needed to barricade themselves inside the upper floors of the house if the city was breached.

As we go up the narrow staircase, the house begins to feel more inhabited, with rugs on the floor and the occasional photo on the wall. She smiles as she catches me looking at one of the photos, a shot of a smiling young man and woman, and soon she opens the door to a room.

For a moment, I'm stunned at the explosion of color and life emanating from this room. The walls are each painted a different color. The wall immediately opposite the open door, painted yellow, is blank. It stands in stark contrast to the others, which are covered with various objects. I start to step in, but have to almost climb on piles of clothes on the floor.

As we enter, though, I freeze when I hear another voice coming from inside the room. "Julie?" a voice says quietly.

Julie spins around, startled, but sighs with relief when she spots a brown-haired girl sitting on the bed. . "Nora, you startled me," she says to the stranger. "You're still here?"

"Yeah, but I can see that maybe it's time for me to go," says Nora, smiling as she looks between Julie and me.

"No, wait," Julie says. "Is something wrong? Is that why you're here?"

"Just got bored with the scene in study hall. None of the guys were hitting on me. Gotta know this," she holds up a book with a familiar-looking face on it, giving it a wave, "for tomorrow. Gray's Anatomy, Chapter 2, Osteology. It's all about the bones, baby!"

She climbs off the bed and weaves around us to leave the room

"See ya." Then she pauses in the hall. "And Perry? You should really take a shower. I saw you standing by the pen yesterday, and I gotta tell you, you really smell rank. You actually smell like them." She laughs and takes off down the stairs, moving gracefully as she skips down two at a time.

With Nora gone, Julie and I look at one another for a few seconds.

Julie finally breaks the silence. "She's right. You should take a shower. It's in there," she said, pointing to a door down the hall.

I go down the hall into a bathroom, and stand outside the shower. Julie follows me to the doorway, and then comes in.

"You need help with the showerhead? I'm guessing you haven't seen one of these in a while," she laughs. She demonstrates how to work the cold and hot water levers, and shows me how to pull the curtain closed, with the base inside the shower stall. She then points out the soap and shampoo. Soap is a small rectangular bar, sitting on a shelf. The shampoo, used to wash hair, is kept in a bottle that sits on the edge of the bathtub. So much I had forgotten.

I nod, and she leaves the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

I remove my clothes, turn on the water, and get in the shower.

I haven't bathed…since I died. I stand under the showerhead, feeling the water flow over me, watching years of accumulated grime washing down the drain at my feet. Blood, some of it my own, but mostly my human victims', and other gore flows away, leaving me feeling almost purified, as if in some kind of ritual. It occurs to me that part of the ritual was simply participating in a normal human activity. For a few moments, I wonder if just being among the Living, trying to walk and pass myself off as one of them, is starting to restore my humanity. That doesn't make sense, of course. I look towards the closed bathroom door. It's Julie. She's what is restoring me. How this is working, I do not know. The only thing I am sure of is that I can't let her go.

As I pick up the soap, I give it a sniff. It smells flowery, just like Julie. I rub it all over, feeling "girly" as M used to call me. I smile remembering M, how he would say, "Such a girl," when I cleaned myself up after a hunting trip. I hope he found shelter, and that the soldiers didn't catch him while he was lingering so close to the city walls.

Once I'm done, I realize that don't have any clean clothes to put on. Unsure of what to do, I wrap a towel around my waist and walk back to Julie's bedroom. When I peek in, I see Julie sitting at her desk, eating something.

"All clean? Good. Now we just need to work on getting you some clothes. Did you want some?" she asks, gesturing to the plate on her desk.

I stare for a moment at her luminous blue eyes before I respond by shaking my head.

"Didn't think so, but it's just polite to offer," she replied. "Ummm..are you hungry?"

"No," I say out loud. I just ate your boyfriend, I think to myself.

"How to get you out of here, out to your friend," she mutters to herself. "Got it!"

She picks up a phone. "Hey, Paul. You guys got a salvage later today? I want to go. I need to get out of here…. Need to feel busy and useful, you know. ..Yes? Put Perry and I down. See, you won't have to worry about protecting me….Kiss kiss, Bye. See you in a few hours."

"OK," she says, turning to me. "Here's the plan. We're going on a salvage. You stay here and wait for me. I'm going over to Perry's to get you some of his clothes. Let's hope this works."

She darted out the door, and I sat down on the bed, still wearing only the towel.

I lay back, staring at the ceiling. There are model airplanes hanging from it, and I realize I'm seeing some kind of pattern worked onto the ceiling itself. It's…stars? On her bedroom ceiling? How unique, I think. I look at each of her walls in turn, staring at the various objects she has pinned to three of the four walls. One wall is yellow, and it is the only one without decoration. The others three are red, white and black. Each seems organized around a theme, but I leave figuring out the organizing principal for each for later, because as soon as I'm sure Julie's gone, I pull out a piece of Perry's brain and put it in my mouth.

Ooooo

We're in Julie's room. Her Dad is out, so we sneak in after class. Julie's room is like Julie, I think. It's an amazing place, a riotous mess of things, but full of boundless energy. Hey, wait. Who's that on the bed? R? Is that you?

Startled, I look up. Are you talking to me? This should be your memories

Well, apparently, since I'm in your head, you're creeping in.

But I don't want to see me. I want to see you, I think.

Tough, Perry replies. Seems we're now a team inside your head. If you go out on a salvage, are you prepared to use a gun on your friends, to keep her safe?

Stunned, I nod my head.

oooooo

The moment fades, and soon I hear the door downstairs open and close, and footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Julie must be back. I sit up and finger comb my damp hair out of my eyes. Realizing that I'm still on her bed, I get up and take a seat at her small desk, stepping over the colorful mounds of clothes on her floor.

Then it suddenly hit me. What if this wasn't Julie? And I'm sitting here in her room, clearly a corpse, since my gray skin with all my unhealed wounds are on full display.

I look around, trying to find a place to hide, worried that I might have to kill someone to keep from being discovered, and that someone could mean killing one of her friends. If they didn't kill me first.

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