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.

And I'm not Dead myself, though sometimes I feel awfully tired.

Dark Negative of Love

Chapter 8 – Dog Problems

After the General and Rosso left, Julie quietly exhaled a sigh of relief. She turned and walked back into her room, looking at me with her startling blue eyes, eyes that now appeared strained with sadness.

"My Dad wasn't always like that," she began. Then she stopped.

She sat down on the bed, pulling up her legs beneath her, and I brought over a chair, hauling it over the clothes. I decided to ask her about her multi-colored walls, to break the silence.

"Red?" I asked her pointing to a wall painted bright red, though the red base was almost obscured by a riotous collection of bright posters and other memorabilia.

She laughed, a beautiful sound that seemed to light up the room, its sound waves seeming to still ripple after the laugher itself was gone. "That's my music wall," she replied. "Concert posters, places and events I can only dream about. Dad was a musician, you know, at one point. It brings life into the room, I think."

You bring life into the room, into whatever room you enter, I thought. But what I said, after tapping my chest was, "I like…music…"

"Really?" she exclaimed excitedly. "Well, you certainly figured out the MP-3 player! What do you like?" She bounded over to a portable CD player, and looked up at me expectantly.

How could I tell her that I could no longer read? I mean, I am sure I used to be able to read, but now…the letters just slipped away from me, refusing me access to the worlds of meaning locked behind their orderly arrangements. I tapped at one of the posters on the wall. The bright colors and simple yet effective design made me think it was one of the 1960's music posters, maybe a Woodstock poster.

"Hendrix?" she asked.

"Foxy…Lady," I replied.

She blushed, and looked back at her music machine, fiddling with the dials, and flipping open a panel.

I turned my attention to another wall. The simple arrangement of this wall posed a dramatic contrast to the riot of color on the red wall across the room, as its decoration consisted of a single photo tacked against a stark black background.

"Black?" I asked.

She looked at the lone photo on the wall. "Wow. You sure know where to point. That's her, the reason Dad's like that."

I peered more closely at the photo. It was a small snapshot of a woman, blonde like Julie, but somewhat older.

"My Mom," Julie said.

"Beautiful," I replied softly.

Julie giggled. "You know the right thing to say. Well, once she left, Dad started to change."

Had Julie realized he was becoming a Boney? I wondered. "How…long…?"

"It's been a few years since I last saw her," she said, appearing to reply to the issue of her mother's departure as opposed to her father's change.

I bit my lip, frustrated.

Fortunately, she continued. "But he started shutting down right after she left. Becoming more…interested in building walls and beefing up security, more than in the people he was supposed to be trying to protect."

She looked at me, as if waiting for my reaction. I nodded.

"Yeah, well, things got a bit better, for a while at least, after Perry Kelvin and his Dad got here. Some of the buildings had been collapsing after heavy rains. You might have noticed they're kind of…unstable. So while Mr. Kelvin wanted to start working on them right away, tearing down the unstable houses and replacing them, Dad convinced him to just stabilize them using the cables. See?"

I looked out her window. I hadn't noticed the thick ropes of wire before, as they were several stories from the ground. But on examination, I saw that a complex system of cables was somehow supporting the random-looking structures.

"Interest…ing" I managed to get out. I looked down, frustrated at my inability to express my innermost thoughts. I wanted to ask how Mr. Kelvin set these up. How had he ever had the idea in the first place? And what had the General wanted him to do instead?

"Once Mr. Kelvin stabilized the buildings," Julie continued, "Dad got him involved with digging a tunnel between our dome and the next closest fortress, called it the Goldman Dome." She sighed and sat back down. "We're lucky to have another group so close to us, actually. There were crews working digging from both domes, and they were just about to meet in the middle when the tunnel collapsed. Mr. Kelvin died, and so did some of the other workers. Work hasn't resumed on it since, as the construction workers claim that some of their former colleagues who didn't make it out alive were changed, and still walk the tunnel."

The workers were right about some of their colleagues being converted to Dead. I had seen the new Dead milling about in the city. Only one had made it out to the airport, though. He had fallen in with us on one of my hunting expeditions, and followed us back when we were through. It was clear he was recently turned, as he was still wearing his construction hat and tool belt, and was still covered in the dirt he must have dug through trying to escape the collapse.

"It was right after his father's death that Perry started shutting down as well. But enough sad stuff. There is too much of that everywhere. Back to music talk!"

Julie prattled a little more about her music, and then played a few songs for me. We sat and listened in companionable silence, while I stared outside her windows, looking at the odd assemblage of unstable buildings being supported by the aerial gridwork of cables. I wanted to ask her how they figured out how to lay them out, where to attach them, and all sorts of other questions, but was struggling with how to phrase my question, limited as I was by my almost child-like speech abilities.

Soon Julie looked at her watch, and declared it was time to leave for the salvage.

So I put down my visor, and we left the house, making our way through the narrow passageways between the rickety houses, trampling across the asphalt, mud, and occasionally AstroTurf. As we walked, I looked up at the cables above us, wondering again how long they could continue their work of supporting the buildings that sheltered this small population of surviving humans.

I also reflected on the general atmosphere in the city. Somehow, from the outside, I had expected it to be…more alive in here. Happier, more upbeat. These were, after all, the Living. But this fortress city, filled with unstable structures, was marked by sadness and worry. The few people we met looked at us warily. They were dressed in work clothes for the most part, drab overcoats over gray denim, their work boots muddy and scuffed. Most of those we met passed seemed to pass one another in silence, only occasionally exchanging brief greetings.

I realized that what I had expected to find within these wall was an oasis filled with vibrant, happy people. I thought I would be surrounded by the sounds of children's laughter and people talking, chattering at one another. A blue sky above, containing a sun that shone down on green grass below. These fortress walls should have contained a Garden of Eden. I felt angry at them. After all, they were Living! They should be enjoying the experience. They could read; they knew their names. They could have meaningful conversations; create things with their hands. All the things the Living could do that I could barely remember at this point in my existence, and all things I missed.

Yet life inside these walls appeared dreary, barely carried on at subsistence levels. The residents really must think they are at the end of time.

A few times I was so distracted by these thoughts that I bumped into Julie.

"Hey, eyes on the road, R! We can't afford to fall down out here," she whispered.

"OK," I replied, though a few moments later my eyes were drawn up to Perry's father's legacy, the intricate network of cables that kept the buildings standing.

After a little while, Julie paused and pointed between the buildings to the fortress wall. I could see a couple of bulldozers parked by a barred gate. It appeared that not much activity had happened taken place there recently, as there were large bins covered with gray tarps by the earth moving equipment, with green weeds were sprouting up around the tires.

"That's our end of the tunnel to the Goldman Dome," she whispered to me.

I stared at it, thinking about the Living who lost their lives below ground a mile or so away, as the earth collapsed in on them. I shuddered, thinking about it. I couldn't remember my own death, but thought it must have been fast as I had been changed. But their deaths…being slowly suffocated by dirt, possibly waiting for help? It was horrible to think about.

Distracted, I bumped into Julie again.

"Stay focused. We're almost there," she whispered as she put out a hand to steady me. I grabbed her hand to keep from falling, relishing its warmth and softness before releasing it.

But our movement seemed to have attracted attention. Suddenly a dog started barking. Dogs were not good, as they could pick up our scent. Julie and I froze in our tracks as I looked around for the animal. I quickly spotted him. In addition to the guards stationed along the watch towers that dotted the top of the wall, there were soldiers walking the inside of the perimeter. One member of this ground crew had a German shepherd on a leash, and the dog was barking, pulling his handler in my direction. The soldier had his walkie-talkie out and was calling someone, staring straight at us.

Within a minute, two soldiers turned a corner under the eaves of one of the buildings. As they approached, Julie stood up straight, smiling at them as they walked up to us.

"Hey, Dave," she said, greeting the two approaching men. "What's up?"

"Something's got the dog in a snit," answered the one who must have been Dave as the second man looked over at the dog handler and then back at us. "We always have to check it out. Did you pass anybody on the way here?"

Julie shook her head. "Perry and I didn't see many people. Lunch time, you know?"

"I don't know what he picked up," Dave replied. "They've brought some more zombies through here over the past few days for the school. Maybe one of them dropped a hand or something on their way over. The soldiers get kind of rough sometimes, you know?"

The second man laughed, and I gave an involuntary shiver.

"Hey, Perry." asked the second man.

Not good, I thought. Perry must have known this man and…

Julie quickly came to my rescue. "We're going on the 2:00 salvage, John" she interjected, saving me from having to respond.

"Yeah? Getting out of the city?" John replied. "Well, it's something to do. Get the Post Commander to give you some extra ammo, though. The guys up top saw a hunting party working the city the day before yesterday. Though they sent out a crew as quickly as they could, but there was only one survivor. They did bring a zombie back with them."

I clearly remembered that, as I was the zombie they had brought back. I wondered what they would think if they realized that the zombie they were referring to was standing in front of them. Actually, I knew exactly what they would do. They would just shoot me in the head. I held my ground, forcing myself not to shudder with fear.

"Yeah, and the high school kids have probably already cut him up on one of the tables," commented Dave. "Bob Banner's doing his Basic Anatomy class again, and he needed subjects. Well, back to our rounds. Keep your eyes open, because the dog's still hyper, see that?"

I definitely saw that. The dog was still pulling at his handler, trying to get to me. We had to get to the gate, and get out of the city quickly, before my cover was blown and I ended up either dead, or on one of Mr. Banner's dissection tables.

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

To the reviewers of the last chapter – sorry, but the preview I sent of the Salvage will the next chapter posted. I ended up expanding this chapter a little bit. Right now I have a total of 21 chapters written, and probably 2-3 left to write.