It was too real- too damn real.
Nick couldn't take it any more. It had to stop. This horrible vision, this nightmare, would drive him over the brink of madness if it didn't. His body shuddered. The wraith's perfect lips were an inch away, and he couldn't have them- would never have them.
Could I?
A low moan filled with frustration, despair, and longing, clawed its way from deep within Nick's throat. He would make this nightmare end. He knew exactly how to break free from the shackles of this illusion- by meeting it head on.
You liar.
Nick thrust his face forward and was greeted to the sensation of his lips colliding into a pair twice as full as his own. He nearly melted into them as waves of warmth flowed across every inch of his body. This nightmare was powerful, but Nick was determined to fight it, to overcome it, to shatter it.
You're not real.
He slid his tongue between the phantom's lips and gasped. He could feel- feel- the other tongue, warmer than his own as he brushed against it. He could taste a bittersweet mixture of blood and the young man's essence. Nick broke away from the kiss and breathed deeply, taking in an aroma both foul and wonderful into his being.
Are you real? Why can't you be real?
At his first inhalation, the rancid odor of a hundred rotting corpses, full of death and futility, assaulted him. As he breathed in again, the musky pheromones of a hot-blooded twenty three year old brimming with vitality, life, and hope danced throughout his nostrils, settled in the back of his throat, and flooded his mind with endorphin fueled bliss.
Nick lost the will to fight- to overcome. He allowed himself to be overtaken and overwhelmed by this ghost.
This incubus.
Nick flailed his arms about blindly and they smacked against supple flesh. The ethereal entity was gaining more and more substance- more and more of a hold over him- as Nick broke down. If he couldn't fight it, then he would revel in it.
You have to be real.
He gripped the shadowy shoulders, pulling them closer so forcefully that he could feel the entity's weight roll on top of him. He kneaded its muscles with his fingers. He clamped his lips around those of the phantasm and pressed their bodies together tightly.
Little bastard…you're so stupid…why would you do something so stupid?
The revenant complied by returning the pressure against his lips- against his pelvis- and Nick felt himself growing warmer and fuller down below. He swept his hands over the shoulders and down to its lower back, but before he preceded further down, his brow furrowed.
Why did you do it? I don't understand …you told me…
The skin didn't feel right. From the amount of time he had spent gazing at this sculpted back, he realized that it wasn't as soft and smooth as it should have been. The back of this otherworldly creature was peppered with cracked, peeling flesh and open, weeping lesions. In a panic, Nick pushed the thing off of him. He struggled to gaze upon it but suddenly realized that he couldn't see. It crushed him.
You told me you would be here for me…
He could feel Ellis. He could smell him, even taste him, but he couldn't see him- would never see him again.
You liar!
The dam that Nick had constructed throughout his thirty five years to seal away any hint of vulnerability was blasted open by a torrent of blazingly hot tears that saturated his pillow as they flowed forcefully from his closed eyes. No one was around to witness the sight. No one was around to hear the plaintive, mournful sounds that trembled from his throat- no one except this horrible demon lying next to him.
"Go away…" Nick nearly choked on the words.
"GO AWAAAAAY!" With a single thrust, Nick shoved the nightmare away from him. He felt it fade from his grasp, from his mind, into nothingness.
"Come on Coach! We're almost there!" Rochelle shouted as she ran up one of the mall's escalators. She nearly slipped on a slick layer of fresh blood that coated most of the steps. The girl was half way up when a group of infected began funneling down from the floor above her. She stood her ground and fired at the line of zombies until she felt Coach's back press against her own.
"Damn it, there's so many of 'em!" he shouted as he blasted away at the mob that raced up from the bottom of the escalator.
The pair had managed to make it just outside of the mall's atrium, where the evacuation was taking place. However, utter chaos reigned as the few uninfected people within the atrium scrambled for their lives while zombies tore them apart. Just outside of the atrium's doors, two helicopters waited for someone- anyone who managed to make it out alive.
Corpses began to clog the top of the elevator and slide down towards Rochelle. She struggled to keep from being crushed as more of the slain infected fell down towards her, and she stepped gingerly over their bodies as she continued to make her way up. Coach was still half way up the escalator when Rochelle stepped onto the second level.
A Boomer waddled over to the bottom of the escalator. There were too many infected on the escalator for Coach to aim at the Boomer with the scattered spray of his shotgun, so as the beast spewed its projectile vomit, the man turned his back to prevent from being blinded. The viscous substance splattered onto the back of his bald head and all down his neck and back. In response, a truly massive number of infected creatures began to flood out of every one of the stores on both floors.
Coach continued up the escalator until a Spitter halted his progress with a pool of acid. The man was forced down several steps, and he used his impressive bulk to shove at the horde to keep from stepping in the goo. This caused a domino effect as the zombies tumbled down the escalator, right onto the Boomer who combusted from the crushing weight. Coach reloaded as he waited for the acid to dissipate before the horde recovered and raced back up towards him.
Try as she might, Rochelle could not keep some of the zombies from brushing past her in their rabid pursuit of Coach as she reloaded her weapon and destroyed the Spitter. The girl continued to thin the avalanche of zombies on the second level, and when her bullets struck an infected CEDA worker, they shattered the glass container of bile he was carrying.
Although the modified bile stemmed the tide of zombies on her end from reaching Coach, it also attracted even more of the creatures from up above her. In their mindless frenzy, zombies began launching themselves onto the elevator from the third level. Most of them ricocheted off the structure or missed their mark completely, snapping their necks and limbs as they careened onto the floor below. Some of them successfully landed on the elevator and proceeded to attack the overwhelmed Coach.
One of them managed to swipe at one of his eyes. He howled in excruciating pain and collapsed onto the elevator's steps.
Before Rochelle could run to his aid, a Smoker snared her from its position on the third level and began reeling her upwards. She managed to keep one of her arms from being tied down by the tongue, but couldn't keep it from wrapping around her neck. As she dangled from such a great height, Rochelle panicked and tried to beat the Smoker with the butt of the gun in her free arm, but only succeeded in breaking the glass railing that the creature was leaning against. The Smoker lost its balance and tumbled over the side, but managed to grab the edge with its claws.
Both the monster and the girl dangled precariously over the empty space above the ground floor. The Smoker's instinct to kill prevented it from releasing Rochelle from its grasp and was ironically keeping her alive as the creature struggled to lift the both of them back up.
As Rochelle gripped the tongue to ease the pressure on her neck, she looked up in astonishment to see a pair of hands grab the Smoker's arm. Even more amazing was the fact that the Smoker reached out with its other hand to grip the forearm of its savior for dear life. The girl could hear the intense, strained grunts of the mysterious individual as he pulled both of them up.
"Are you two alright?" a sandy haired man asked both the girl and the monster.
There was a bizarre moment of awkwardness as all three of them stared at one another. The Smoker even seemed to shift uneasily as if unsure of what to do. Rochelle then promptly shot the Smoker in the skull, shouted a quick 'thank you' to the man and ran back down towards Coach. She blasted at a group of infected that flailed about within the rising vapors of the broken bile jar. Several of them broke free of their trance and charged towards her. The blonde man ran up besides her with a pistol and together they picked off the few remaining infected and made their way down the escalator.
Coach had managed to kill the last of the horde that mobbed him, but he had not risen to his feet and was clutching his face with his hands.
At barely five feet, two inches in height, Rochelle struggled to drag a man who was a foot taller and over twice her weight up the escalator.
"Come on big guy," she urged him, "Do you expect me to carry you?"
Coach's only response was to hiss through his teeth in pain as he continued to clutch his face.
"Allow me to help you, miss," the man who had saved her grabbed Coach and the two of them managed to drag him into a secure room with reinforced doors. In truth it was barely a small passageway that linked the main body of the mall with the atrium.
After they placed Coach onto the ground, Rochelle ran into the atrium just in time to see a pair of helicopters through the windows that lined the ceiling. They were taking off with no rescued passengers aboard either one.
The pilots had given up.
The girl looked down at the ground floor of the atrium with heavy eyes. She could see a sizable group of infected milling about. Some of them were consuming the bodies of the few people who, along with her, had come so devastatingly close to rescue.
Rochelle made her way back to the safe room, her self-pity thrown aside as she knelt beside Coach and pulled out a small bottle of sterile saline from one of Whitaker's health packs.
"Move your hand. I need to take a look in order to help you."
Coach relented and removed the hand covering his left eye. Rochelle bit her lip at the sight of Coach's injury. Three scratch marks streaked downwards diagonally from the middle of his forehead to the center of his cheek. One of the zombie's nails had passed directly over his eye and scratched across the globe of his cornea. The blood flowing from beneath his eyelid was a testament to it.
"Open your eye."
"I can't."
"God damn it, Coach!" the girl screamed and the bottle of saline trembled in her hands, then in a softer tone, "Please, open your eye."
Coach nearly passed out from the searing pain as he struggled to keep his eye open. Rochelle flushed out his eye with the saline, and observed the break in its surface.
"Can you see out of it?" she whispered.
"Yeah, but it's blurry."
Rochelle covered Coach's eyelid with a thick layer of gauze padding, and wrapped gauze bandages around his head to keep it in place.
"We're staying put for a while," Rochelle stated as she rumaged through the med kit. She pulled out and opened a small sachet containing two pain relievers and handed them to Coach along with their shared bottle of water and protein bar. Coach didn't argue with her. He took the pills, ate half of the bar, and rested his head on the hard floor. Rochelle then turned to the other man.
"Thank you so much for your help," she said warmly.
"Yes, thank you," Coach repeated wearily from his position on the ground, but he did not turn to face the other man.
"Not a problem," the stranger produced a small smile, but then sat down in a corner and sighed heavily as he bowed his head and ran his finger's through his hair.
"I'm Rochelle, and this is Coach. What's your name?"
"James."
Silence prevailed for a while as the sun sank lower in the horizon.
"So who do I remind you of?" Coach asked quietly. The initial shock of his injury was wearing off.
"I've changed my mind. You're better than he is…was," Rochelle scooted closer to Coach and placed her hand inside of his.
"Oh, yeah? Who?"
The girl didn't answer him. She merely kissed his forehead, which along with the pills; dulled Coach's pain enough for him to give in to his exhaustion and fall asleep.
Rochelle untied her hair, allowing her braids to fall freely, just above her shoulders. She took a moment to apply antibacterial cream to the numerous cuts on her arms and rubbed at her tender bruises before listlessly nibbling at what little remained of the protein bar.
"So what's your story, James?"
The man lifted his head suddenly. His blue eyes were slightly moist.
"You can call me Jimmy."
Nick opened his eyes. The bright moonlight that had flooded his surroundings just hours before was now completely obscured by an impenetrable wall of somber clouds. As a steady drizzle vibrated across the nylon ceiling, he moaned and stretched his stiff muscles. He then rolled onto his side and passed a hand slowly across the empty sheets beside him. Nick contemplated the foolishness of having fallen asleep alone and exposed in an unprotected tent during the dead of night. Before he could swing his feet over the side of the bed, a direful growl sent him springing over to the tent's entrance with gun in hand.
He poked his head out and his eyes widened at what he saw. On the ground, in the distance, crawling feebly into one of the other tents was a human- young, male, and uninfected.
No fucking way.
Nick flew across the parking lot, his heart wedged up in his throat. The young man's skin was tanned, his hair a mop of brown, disheveled, rain-soaked waves, and his legs- they were completely gone from the knees down.
Ellis! Oh my God! Oh my fucking God!
Before Nick could reach him, he heard the growl once more. It was much louder now, much closer. He stopped in his tracks to see a dark shape skulking towards the boy on all fours in the rainy gloom. Nick crouched and kept his gun's small flashlight off as he squinted into the darkness. The silhouette did not adhere at all to even the most vague interpretation of the human form. The creature kept its head low, distracted by the plethora of dead bodies. Nick watched as it lifted its head to swallow chunks of flesh and viscera.
He aimed his AK-47 and held his breath when it spotted the young man, attracted to his awkward, injured movements. All but one of the lights in the parking lot had gone out, and it was so murky that the conman could barely distinguish any details beyond a dark body fully covered in scraggly, matted hair, a pair of pointed ears that swiveled up from the sides of its skull, and the flash of teeth that lusted for the young man's throat.
Nick opened fire.
The creature emitted a horrible yowl and bounded behind the row of tents with alarming speed. Nick proceeded cautiously, yet swiftly towards Ellis, keeping his eyes and ears peeled at the spot where the quadruped beast had disappeared. His heart raced, and he felt light-headed and sick. The boy's legs were gone- gone. He caught a flurry of movement across the narrow stretch of pavement between the tents. The creature was successfully closing the distance between them while keeping itself hidden. Even more unnerved, Nick wiped the rain from his face and in the split second it took him to do so, monster circled around him so incredibly quickly that it managed to leap in front of his path and cut him off from Ellis.
In the moment before it lunged, Nick became horribly aware of the beast's identity. A thin, whip-like tail twitched rapidly as it crouched on slender yet muscular legs. Dull, black nails scraped against the pavement. Its sooty gray fur was caked with dried blood and grime, and it bristled upright along the back of its thick neck. A deep chest heaved with every panting breath. Small, dark eyes flashed like a pair of obsidian stones and thick, black nostrils flared at the end of a long muzzle. Its jaws opened to reveal yellowed teeth that dripped umber, pestilence-laden saliva onto the scraggly, beard-like fur of its chin. The monstrosity was nearly the size of a small pony, and magnitudes upon magnitudes more deadly. In an instant, it was on him.
Nick only managed to fire his gun once before it was knocked out of his arms. His hands pressed against the beast's collar as he clamped them around its neck in a desperate attempt to keep the jaws away from his own neck. A metal ID tag dangled an inch above his face, but Nick didn't bother to read the animal's name.
He pulled both of his legs up and kicked the beast in the chest. It yelped and staggered backwards long enough for Nick to roll onto his stomach and propel himself onto his feet. Before he could grab his gun, the frenzied wolfhound was on him once more.
He lifted his right arm to protect his face and the disgusting jaws clamped around it. Nick winced in pain as he fished around in his suit pocket. He pulled out one of the Habanos he had won back in the bar and shoved the cigar through the gap in the dog's jaws. This triggered the animal's gag reflex and it released itself from Nick's arm. The dog wretched as it bit into the bitter cigar and the conman dove for his gun. He shot the wolfhound in the neck, but the creature again managed to disappear behind one of the tents.
What the fuck is this thing?
The dog wasn't normal. Although its size and strength were typical of its breed, the otherworldly speed and ferocity that it demonstrated were the direct result of infection. Nick circled around the tents in pursuit of the injured animal. He had to destroy it quickly before he could tend to Ellis, who was doubtlessly bleeding profusely from his grievous injuries.
The dog led him in slalom formation around the tents, further and further away from boy. Nick growled in frustration as the animal managed to maintain a pace that kept it just out of reach. Every time he aimed his gun, the dog would vanish behind the fabric of a tent. Nick quickly backpedaled and swung around the perimeter of a tent in the opposite direction and managed to catch the dog off guard. The tail end of his stream of bullets struck the animal in the hindquarters as it turned and fled past him.
This time the creature released a deep, lupine howl from the pit of its throat, but otherwise completely ignored Nick as it doubled its pace and weaved back through the tents, drawn towards the helpless young man who was now crying out in pain.
"Fuck!" The conman had been conned by an animal. The dog had led him to the other end of the parking lot, and it would reach Ellis long before he could do anything to stop it. Nick wiped his furrowed brow in frustration and did the only thing he could do. He ran as quickly as his legs would allow, but fell face first as something tackled him from behind.
Flecks of asphalt lodged themselves under his skin as his forehead scraped against the pavement. He landed on his gun and it fired, blasting a hole through his jacket. Ignoring the possibility of having been shot, Nick kicked frantically and continued to scramble on his belly towards the dog, which was nearly on top of Ellis. Nick snapped his head around to see a rabid, old man in a boonie hat clinging to his legs.
Nick thrust the AK-47 into the creature's face, knocking it off him. Looped around the zombie's wrist, a long leather dog leash whipped about as the infected rolled backwards. Nick leapt to his feet and aimed straight at the apostrophe on the logo of the zombie's vomit encrusted work shirt.
"WITH YOUR OWN GODDAMN GUN, WHITAKER!"
In a fit of passionate rage, Nick emptied all that remained within his weapon into Whitaker's chest. The old man writhed and seized as wisps of smoke billowed from the craters in his torso. After shaking himself out of his frenzy, Nick sprinted towards Ellis with bile rising up in his mouth.
He came to a screeching halt and let the empty weapon slip from his grip as he gazed soullessly at the horrific sight.
This can't…happen.
The ravenous beast, whose weight likely rivaled that of its victim, had the boy pinned beneath its massive form. The vice jaws had completely engulfed his tender neck. Glistening with blood and rainwater, a fireman's axe protruded from deep within monster's spine. A sanguineous moat advanced in all directions around the two forms.
Both of them were stone still.
Not again.
Nick's legs lost the strength to support him, and he sank slowly to his knees. He crawled over to the lifeless pair, his hands fully submerged in thick, crimson fluid. Nick pried the stiffened jaws away from the boy's neck. His gaze lingered on the young man's glassy, brown eyes before traveling along the bump of his large, aquiline nose to end at his small, pencil thin lips.
Nick didn't know how to feel as he stared at the stranger's face. Should he have been relieved that this young man wasn't Ellis? Should he have been angry that he had wasted so much energy and suffered so many wounds trying to save someone he didn't even know?
The conman closed his eyes and let out a singular, dark laugh.
He didn't even know Ellis.
Nick got up once more, deciding not to feel anything at all.
He removed his jacket and observed the bullet hole before slinging it over his shoulder. He rolled up the sleeve of his blue button up and held his arm out to let the rain wash over his bite wound. As he shuffled wearily into the tent where he had been sleeping, he stumbled over a warm body lying at the foot of the bed.
"Ow! God damn it, Nick...bad enough you pushed me out the bed..."