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 9 – The Salvage

We arrived at the main gate without further incident, though behind us dog had never stopped barking. One of the guards from the watch post, who Julie identified as the Post Commander, was reading from a list as we walked up. "Perry," he called out, "check in."

Julie froze at this order, but I just nodded. That gesture had successfully gotten me through much of the city, after all. When he didn't hear an answer, the soldier looked up from his paperwork, and I nodded again, while shifting my gun to my other shoulder as I had seen Perry do.

After gazing at me for a long moment, he shrugged, and went back to calling out names from his checklist. In addition to Julie, there were five others. Four were boys, and there was one other girl. No one looked older than twenty.

Once the post commander had finished reading from his checklist of names for the salvage, he set his clipboard down and stood in front of us, hands behind his back. "OK. I see you're supposed to be going to Sector 4, to the warehouse on Fourth and Main.

I would suggest a change of destination. One of the teams on reconnaissance found the front doors open last week, and the unit contents looked pretty well strewn about. There must still be pockets of looters in the city who didn't make refuge. The unit reported that the goods appeared to have been exposed to the elements, and didn't think there were any salvageable materials left. I'm going to update the logs."

Two of the team members, the young woman and one of the men, stirred restlessly as he gave us this information. It looked like they had wanted to go to this location for some reason. The Post Commander gave them a long look, and they stood back to attention.

Julie murmured to me, "You could still find booze at that warehouse."

Then the Post Commander continued his instructions. "In the meantime, I would recommend checking out Sector 2 instead. There are some offices at the Bronson Building at 14th and Orchard that haven't been checked out yet. The last crew to visit the building got the elevators working, and left the key at the guard desk.

Just be careful out there today. We've had sightings of Boneys again."

Boneys. Those were the truly Dead, the lost ones. Some of us transformed into Boneys instead of lapsing into a final Death. These beings seemed to rule our world, never speaking aloud, but appearing to move in concert, as if sharing a common mind.

I shot my eyes over at Julie under my visor, tensing up. I was going to have to let go of her early, to keep her safe.

While I was thinking, the post commander finished giving his pep talk, the guards opened the front gate, and our group of seven walked through it quietly.

We were now outside the fortress, a place I had only dreamed about being the day before as I paced the pen with the other Dead. My heart dropped as I realized I hadn't found a way to go back for them. My former cellmates, soon to be walking fodder to be used to train the Living for expeditions like this one that we were going on. If they didn't end up on the dissection table. I glanced back over my shoulder, torn that I couldn't go back, but I knew it was impossible now.

I looked over a Julie, watching her push her hair out of her face. The wind had picked up a bit, and it must have been a cold one, as the other Living started pulling on their gloves. Once past the no man's land of obstacles set up to slow an attack in front of the gate, the group picked up their pace. I moved as quickly as I could, but it wasn't fast enough.

The group leader, a heavyset man named Marlowe, finally called me out on my pace. "Crap, Kelvin. What's going on?"

Julie came to my rescue by chiming in, "I'm a little tired, so he's keeping pace with me. But I wanted to go on this salvage. Needed to feel useful, you know?" She reached for my hand, and I took it automatically. Since she was now wearing gloves, I couldn't feel her Living warmth, and I missed it.

The guard eyed our clasped hands for a moment thoughtfully. Finally I shuffled my gun from one shoulder to the other, shifting my feet at the same time, mimicking Perry as I had done with the Post Commander. This gesture seemed to reassure him, and I heard him mutter, "Jeez. Love birds on an op. Not a good idea."

We soon reached one of the residential parts of the city. I was familiar with this area, as I had hunted it often. The buildings all had boarded-up windows, with the boards partially removed. The fronts of the houses were graffiti stained, from two kinds of tags. One was a colorful tag, bold and often featuring a stark beauty, markings of territory from looters and gangs, now long gone. The other kind of tag, quite different, was the minimal inscription of simple words from officials, indicating they had checked the houses for survivors. Also long gone.

I examined the two types contrasting types of human lettering, as at one time they had competed on the houses, showing the attempts of the Living to impose order on their disintegrating social structure. But these battles were now in the past, the only reminders of their passing were the markings now slowly fading to the elements, just as the buildings slowly fell to ruin from disuse.

We moved more slowly, as the guard in front checked each intersection. Keeping a steady pace, I managed to keep up with the Living as they made these frequent checks.

Marlowe raised a hand in front of us sharply, signaling to wait. Everyone froze. He lifted his gun, looking down its sites at the road. We all waited to see what he had heard, assuming it to be a group of approaching Dead.

Please don't let it be M, please don't let it be M, was all I could think, worried sick about my long-time friend.

To my relief, Marlowe lowered his gun, and we walked on, down the ruined streets lined with rusting cars, some with their doors still open from where the Living had been dragged out to their death. Soon we saw the tall black building that was our destination.

It was an eight-story office building, with glass windows for walls on the lower elevations. Several of the downstairs windows were cracked and partially broken out. At one time it had been beautiful, a graceful black structure rising in the middle of a small commercial distract. Now, it was just an empty shell.

I had tried searching that building myself on hunting expeditions, but found the fire escape doors on the first level impenetrable, and all of the elevators in the lobby locked down.

But Marlowe had clearly been briefed on both the location of the elevator key and the access codes for the emergency generators needed to operate them. As we entered the lobby, filled with shattered glass and other detritus that had blown in over the years of vacancy, he went behind the front desk, and fiddled with a few switches. Soon we heard a wheezing, clanking noise from above us, and I realized he must have turned on a back-up generator.

Not smart, I thought. That sound would draw us, the Dead, like flies. This place will soon be crawling with any Dead in the area.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to climb the stairs, so I was glad that he decided to use the elevators. As he unlocked the elevator bank, I heard a familiar bing, and a door slid open. We entered the cab, and watched the door close again. They closed a bit too slowly, I thought. A Living could probably use it to escape one of us, but could never hope to escape a Boney this way. With their speed, a Boney would be able to stick one its hands in the door before it closed, the Living trapped inside the car.

We rode up in silence, everyone letting their guns hang drop in front of them as they relaxed for the first time since leaving the Dome. Following suit, I pointed mine down as well.

As we got to the sixth floor, Marlowe pointed down the hall. "Perry, you and Grigio go to the lab on the left. Check for meds in suite 6400, which was a dentist office. They sometimes have antibiotics, and they usually have pain meds. We'll check out several offices down this hallway. One was a distributor for health food, and they might have some nutrition bars or other useable foodstuffs. Keep your radios on, move fast, and let's plan to be done in 20 minutes, tops."

Julie and I headed down our assigned hallway, but as soon as the other group went into one of the suites, Julie opened the stairwell door, and we started down the stairs.

I was slow, but Julie surprised me by getting on the banister. "Behind me," she said quietly.

I put my arms around her, and we slid down to the next landing. We made it down several flights this way, must faster than if I had walked. It was actually fun, and I found myself almost laughing.

However, we must have been missed. Our radios crackled as we opened the door to the first floor lobby. "Perry, come in!" I heard Marlowe bark.

Julie shot her gun into the air into the stairwell, and then walked to the lobby with me after propping the stairwell door open with her walkie-talkie.

At the front desk she stopped, reached out for my hand, and gave it a squeeze. "I guess this it, then. Go find your friend and your home. Drop your gun, go. Do it now," she said.

I set my gun down on the ground, and clumsily patted her hand with mine. So much I wanted to say, and none of it would come out. So I just looked at her, trying to memorize every feature of her face. I noticed with a pang that she seemed to look worried for me. I didn't want to leave her, but I knew it was time.

Just then I saw movement behind her. It was M and a small group of the Dead. As they shuffled towards us, I noticed that M's clothes were more torn that they had been the last time I had seen him, and he had appeared to have recently taken a hit to his left leg. He was dripping black blood. He was also between Julie and the stairwell door back to the upper floors.

As M approached, so did four Boneys. They came around the corner of the building, a little behind M's group. This could only be trouble. Julie had brought me out to safety, and now was separated from her salvage team.

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