What if R and Julie hadn't met outside the city? What if R had been captured, and brought by soldiers 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.

A Dark Negative of Love

Chapter 26 – John G's Demand

Then a voice came over the intercom system. A strange, rasping voice , saying "I want to talk to my daughter. Put Julie on."

There was a stunned silence as it seemed everyone around me stopped breathing. Julie froze, listening to her father's voice. Then General Steiger emerged from the crowd. He picked up a megaphone and said, "John, this is Max Steiger. Talk to me."

John's voice continued, pointedly ignoring Steiger. "Julie, come out to the gate and talk to me. We can be together. We'll be safe this way. Nothing can happen to us."

His voice was haunting and terrifying. Every word sounded less human, as if he was struggling to keep up a pretense.

Julie finally seemed to snap out of her haze, and started to walk towards the gate, but General Steiger stopped her, grasping her arm firmly.

"John, she stays in here with me," General Steiger replied. "If you want to see her, come to the gate, I'll let you in. We can all talk."

After a moment, the voice came back. "We have your little evacuation group surrounded. Julie, if you come out, I'll let them go."

Julie closed her eyes. "I can't be responsible for those deaths," she said quietly.

"Please hurry, my men are getting hungry," the voice urged. I saw her wince and bite her lip at this. Nora looked concerned, and kept looking between Steiger and Julie. She and Steiger seemed to come to an understanding without having spoken a word, and he released Julie as Nora put an arm around her shoulder.

Seeing that Julie had Nora, I motioned to the General to turn off the megaphone. He did, and looked at me intently. "Put my guys on the back of one of the flatbed trucks," I told him. "We'll go out to meet John Grigio and his Boneys, and bring in the evacuees. Your soldiers can come behind us."

"You're willing to die for them, for us?" the General asked.

I nodded.

"And you're sure about your friends?" he asked.

"We all…will," I replied softly but firmly.

The General got back on the megaphone. "John," he said, "I'm talking to Julie. She's determined to come, but I want a few minutes with her first. Please wait."

I could hear his Lieutenant talking to the group that John Grigio had trapped on the road via walkie-talkie. He informed them of the situation, and then said we were coming out to get them.

"Wait," I said. "How close…to the tunnel?"

The General looked at me and nodded, understanding my plan instantly.

He turned to his men. "We're going to work the tunnel. Take equipment down there, and I'll tell Rosso to pull his group closer to the tunnel. We can meet them there. That way we'll have a unified force, which will be better than us trying to reach them, with the Boneys in between us. This way we can keep them from be cut off. "

I heard General Steiger talking to Colonel Rosso on his radio. Rosy had been making the final trip over with the last group. When he told him that John Grigio had asked Julie to come out so that the evacuees wouldn't be hurt, there was a long pause. I can only imagine what Rosy thought of that.

Finally the General came to me. "I can't send all of the soldiers with you, as I need to defend the city. I'm going to remain here, but Lieutenant Holton will go with you." He gestured to the Lieutenant, who was standing at attention beside him.

As I looked closely at him, I could tell he hadn't been won over yet, but was obeying orders. How would he act in a clinch?

"Pleased…to be able…to help," was all I said.

Lieutenant Holton nodded stiffly to me, and we took a Jeep from the gate to the construction site, and started down the tunnel together.

As it got darker, I could hear the rumblings of the equipment being used to transport the Dead ahead of us. I could also hear the sounds of equipment being moved behind us.

They were sealing the entrance, so that if our line broke, the Boneys couldn't access the Dome. We wouldn't be able to go back this way. If it meant Julie staying safe, I was OK with that. I looked ahead grimly.

Soon I could smell fresh air, which meant we were near the opening to the ground above. The soldiers reached down to help me up. They had set up ladders from the earthen ground of the unfinished tunnel to the hole to the road above. And they had earthmovers behind us, ready to seal the opening as soon as we moved through it.

As I stepped out into the evening light, I saw a mass of Dead and Living soldiers, silently standing side-by-side, with trucks forming a kind of barricade in front. The barricade wouldn't be much good, thought, as the Boneys would be able to swarm such an obstacle in seconds. We were badly outnumbered, and it was clear that everyone there knew it.

That's when I saw the Boney in uniform. It was John Grigio, now full Boney, still wearing just his General's shirt. The pants must have slipped off of him, I thought, as his body changed and there wasn't enough flesh to hold them up. It was a strange sight.

Looking at me with his empty black eyeholes, I felt as if he were boring inside of my head.

I had so many questions. And no time.

Everything was silent and still for some reason, in a sort of calm before the storm.

Then his mouth opened. "Julie," he rasped out.

From behind me, a sweet voice replied, "Daddy, I'm here."

Julie had followed us. And with my decreased sense of smell, I never realized it.

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Just three chapters after this! Then an Epilogue, Chapter 30. Quite the journey since last February, when I first started posting. I really appreciate all the reviews the story has received, and all those who marked the story with favorites and alerts.