AN: I want to thank QTO5 for reviewing each chapter so far. You sign in as a guest so I can't write you back. I love how in depth your reviews are. Thank you for taking the time to really give me feedback on the story. I do appreciate it. You asked me about the zombie movies I watched…all of them but I am a chicken so I tend to watch them without the sound, hiding under a cover, and then I have nightmares and make "zombie attack" plans about how I will escape. Yeah…I am so NOT normal.

Thanks also to Name's Nick – glad you like this.

I have quite a few followers at this point and I hope you continue to enjoy this story. This chapter is a bit bloodier than the last few but it's a zombie story so it should be expected.

Earthworms

It was a miserable night. By the time I woke and I stumbled out of my pine shelter the sun was already midway up in the sky. I headed back onto the road, hopes of spying my lone wolf becoming slimmer as I realized how much time had passed. Walking was almost agony, my joints were swollen and stiff, hip flaring with each step and my knees and elbows popping with each movement. Staggering, I started westward down an empty road.

Funny how not having a blood thirsty monster on the road ahead made me feel lonelier than I had felt in weeks, months even. With a sigh I took a small sip of water from my canteen, noticing that there were maybe three swallows left. I needed to find water.

Mentally I began to make a list of needs for my immediate survival. Water was at the top followed by food and shelter. My bow was a total loss and prey was becoming scarce during the colder months. With each day getting colder I knew my time sleeping out under the stars with only a light blanket was long over.

I had to face it: I was screwed.

Coming to the top of a small rise in the road, the trees cleared and I saw a lone form in the distance. It was carrying multiple packs with ease and didn't seem affected by the cold that cut through my body now that the forest was no longer blocking the wind. It was my wolf.

Once off the hill I lost track of him but I felt better knowing he was on the road ahead of me. I picked up speed, jogging until I came to a battered welcome sign. 'Nevels: population 763' it exclaimed. The seven and the three were crudely crossed through along with the 'wel' part of the word welcome.

I didn't want to head into the town but desperate times and all that crap. As I walked down the silent streets I could tell it was a town that hadn't come to a pleasant end. Doors were torn off their hinges, glass from broken windows frosted the streets with an icy sparkle, and large black smudges scarred the road at random intervals. I tried my best not to look at those smudges. Cleansing circles is what they were called, places where the infected were burned down to their crackled remains, jaws open in frozen screams. Each gruesome victim still evident as you passed.

The streets were quiet. Too quiet, my brain supplied with its ever helpful internal dialogue. Cars lined the streets in a traffic jam that would never end, bumper to bumper with the doors and windows all closed. Actually that was a little strange. Usually the doors would be open, panicked occupants not having the time to close and lock their vehicles behind them as they ran for their lives.

You try NOT to see, which is hard when you have to keep a careful eye out for things that want to eat your face but you TRY. I tried not to see the barricades that were overrun, the tattered and boney remains that peeked out from under a green jeep, or the half burned stuffed bear still clutched in the remains of a tiny out flung hand.

My chest heaved with the effort to not see.

I ducked inside a small convenience store, moving cautiously as I double and triple check for signs of life, or un-life down each aisle. Searching under the shelves that were stripped bare I found a couple of bottles of water and a small jar of peanut butter. Behind the counter there was half a jug of delivered water that I used to fill my canteen and then drank as much as I could hold. The container was too bulky to take with me but I hated to waste a drop.

I continued through the town eyes peeled for someplace that I could pick up some extra clothing and blankets. I didn't want to enter the houses. I had made that mistake my first few weeks. I'm sure there were houses that didn't have horror scenes splattered across their walls but I was not willing to take that chance.

To my left I heard a strange sound. It was a low rustle, like dry skin being rubbed together. I edged alone the sides of the buildings until I came to a gap containing a low wooden fence. The fence was hastily made; mismatched pieces of lumber nailed crookedly together, a hodge - podge of left over bits. The sound was coming from behind the fence and I slipped closer to chance a glance over the side.

There were at least twenty of them, their pallid skin rasping against each other as they slithered around the area. Arms severed from shoulders left tendons, muscles, and sharp hints of bone trailing outside of gore soaked sockets. Their legs were torn at the knee forcing the zombies to lurch and crawl about like earthworms.

But what made me heave an empty stomach full of acid onto the dirt was the refuse they were crawling over. Bodies, or what was left of bodies, littered the floor of the small dirt yard. Scraps of rope were evidence that these poor souls were tied before being lowered helpless into the withering nightmare.

I must have made a sound. Their eyes were filmed with dirt, faces streaked with old gore as they lifted their heads in my direction. The fence creaked and moaned as the dead pressed against it while I wiped the last of the bile from my mouth and tried to get rid of the caustic burn in my nose and throat.

When my stomach finally settled I searched the nearby house for containers, not even bothering to check for danger. I don't know what kind of monster would make a pit like that, throw the living in to be eaten alive but I was going to put an end to it. I'm not a hero, there is no brave last stand in my blood but I know what is right and what is wrong. And that hell spawned pit was wrong.

Finding a large soup pot and a length of hose I traveled back down the row of lifeless cars and siphoned off as much gas as I could gather. It took ten trips before I was satisfied that the writhing mass of zombies were well soaked. Using one of my precious matches I sent the whole vile mess up in a blaze.

The fire was huge, licking its way up the walls of the buildings on either side of the fenced area. It was at that point that my logical, rational, 'let's not get ourselves killed' part of my brain finally broke through my rage. Whoever did this couldn't be that far away and a fire this big, which was starting to spread down the street, was not subtle.

With a last look back at the mass of zombies which had stopped moving and were truly dead, I made my way to the outskirts of town as quickly as I could. Once the buildings started thin to the point where they no longer offered me shelter, I took off in a run ignoring the weakness in my legs from lack of nutrition and the burn in my lungs. I could smell the smoke behind me almost like a force pushing me to faster speeds as I scurried down the road.

I didn't even feel the hit just the strange lurch of stomach and mind as I flew through the air before slamming into the ground. That I felt. Before I had a chance to shake the inky specks from my vision he was upon me, pinning me to the ground with hands that were more like claws

"Tasty little boy came and broke our toy." His breath was cold against my face as he loomed over me, smelling like the grave and old blood. His teeth were razor sharp but not like fangs, sharpened along the edges like scissors. They made a metallic hiss as he snapped his mouth closed on the last word. His body straddled mine, waving snake-like as he looked at me with eyes bleached of all color, an eerie pale white like a zombie's lifeless skin.

Fingers tipped in claws that looked more like hypodermic needles sliced through my shirt exposing me to the cold air. He traced lightly over the goose bumps that spread across my flesh. Other hands joined his, stroking me, running nails across me, just barely stopping short of breaking the skin.

Sitting back, the leader made a flinging motion and all the others stopped touching me and backed away, lurking over his shoulders like carrion crows waiting for the lion to finish his share of the kill. One finger worked its way down my chest until it came to my abdomen where he pressed down, slicing into my skin with ease.

He touched a red tipped finger to the long tongue that slipped out of colorless lips, tasting my fresh blood. At his moan of pleasure the rest moved forward to dip digits into me, coating each digit with my blood to taste it. Within seconds I was ringed by the flock of bladed mouth freaks, their lips glossed with my blood.

"What are you sick fuckers?" They weren't human not with those teeth.

The leader smiled as he leaned forward scenting my skin before stopping at my rib cage where he moved back and forth, cool breath causing me to shiver and twitch. He paused, clammy lips touching my skin in a parody of a kiss. His teeth were so sharp that I didn't even feel the bite, wondering briefly at the red mass the he spat next to my head, until the blood welled up in the divot left behind.

His tongue dipped into the wound licking with delicate attention, not touching the skin just the blood. "Shit! You're a vampire? It's daylight. Shouldn't you be dust or at least be glittering in the sun or something?"

Hissing in delight with the taste of my blood the vampires bit again, digging deeper making the divot into a large gaping hole that filled rapidly with blood. With a silent cue from the leader the rest swarmed me, each taking a divot sized chuck out of me and lapping up the blood like rabid cats with cream.

I screamed, once, a long wail filled with pain and panic but then a darkness blurred the edges of my vision. I was falling down a deep well. I could see and hear the vampires but they seemed so far away. The world started flashing like a strobe light; each flicker flash changed the view. Gruesome vestiges of my attackers, mouths painted red with my blood, loomed over me, blocking my view of the cold pale blue sky where black birds gathered for their long flight southward.

Flicker flash. And then they were gone. The clouds were wisps high in the atmosphere, trails of cotton white against a perfect sky. Another flicker flash and I saw my werewolf in his half wolf form crouched between me and the vampires.

"Leave here, Cur. This is ours." They were never still, swaying back in forth, eyes darting between the wolf and me. "Is he worth the trouble?"

My wolf didn't bother with an answer, just a low growl. Ebony hair snaked up his arms, winding like inky ribbons as his muscles surged outward. He shifted forward, taking a single step and his body morphed, splitting the seams of his pants and ripping the back of his shirt. One single step and the coven faced a seven foot tall wolf.

Another flicker flash and they were gone. Pity. I would have liked to see them run.

I blinked my eyes and it was dusk, the setting sun painting the skies with broad strokes of purple and red. There was a small blanket covering my body and the remains of a shirt tucked under my head. The wolf was leaning over me, his tongue rasping against the wounds. I lifted my hand weakly and sort of flopped it at him. Without pausing he grabbed my wrist and brought it back down to my side.

"They have venom in their saliva. This weakness will wear off soon." He continued to clean my body, dipping into every cut and tracing each edge.

"Wa re ou oing?" Much like my body, my tongue didn't seem to want to work but the wolf seemed to understand.

"I'm healing you. Between this and reneging on our trade I think you are going to owe me. I want my pound of flesh, boy. Actually I want to pound the flesh but it can wait for now."

I wanted to care, to panic and cry "no" but I was too far down the well, unable to reach emotions or fears, I could only lay back and wait until I surfaced again.

Flicker flash, strobe light, my life was jumping forward without my conscience mind along for the ride. I could smell smoke and for a second I thought it was from the fire I set to cleanse the horror I had found but this scent didn't carry the sickening sweet smell of burning flesh just wood and pine.

My nose itched. Which is not that unusually but the fact that I was able to scratch it was pretty amazing considering that for the last few hours I had been imitating a crash test dummy. I sat up slowly, closing my eyes against the slow spin. I could hear the crackle of the fire nearby and feel the heat on my back.

Struggling to my feet I turned. Across the fire the werewolf sat in a red camping chair. Wrists resting at the edge of the arm rests, hands relaxed over the side. The dancing light added ruddy streaks to his light brown hair and the shadows sharpened the angles of his cheekbones. His eyes reflected pale orange flashes through the flames, a feral king on his throne.

As I walked toward him I ran my hand down my chest noticing that in place of horrible bloody sores I was covered in smooth scars, pale against my skin and oval in shape. He had healed me. I noticed his eyes watching me as my hand traced down my front from the scar just below my collar bone to the one resting on my hip. I stroked myself again, this time using both hands as I came to a stop in front of him. He was defiantly taking an interest.

"What you did today was rather stupid."

"They were feeding helpless people to those zombies. They tied them up, hand and foot and dropped them in to spend their last moments in pain and terror. I couldn't leave it there. I couldn't let more people die that way."

"You're a fucking Boy Scout. I thought the whole rope thing was a flash of mercy to stem the guilt for taking my supplies but you really are a do gooder. How the hell are you even alive? Naïve little shits like you died by the thousands that first month."

"I just lucky I guess." He tilted his head back and laughed. It was sexy as hell and didn't I feel like I had gone completely insane by thinking that.

He motioned to the ground next to his chair and after a moment I sat at his feet. His hand ruffled my hair, tugging gently when he reached the ends. "So what are your plans, Boy Scout?"

"I don't really have any plans, just some vague goals. They are a little fuzzy. I guess I have fuzzy goals." The pressure of his hand on my head forced me closer to his lap and I could see his growing interest and pleasure at having me so close.

"Fuzzy goals? So what are your fuzzy goals?" His hand clinched in the hair at the nape of my neck and I shuffled forward until I was between his knees to stop the pain. Daring a glance upward through my lashes I could see that his eyes had become red tinted.

"They are simple really. My first goal is to not die. My second is to keep enough food in my stomach so that my belly button doesn't kiss my backbone and last, to find someplace safe. So far I'm not doing very well but at least I'm not dead."

"Yet." Damn, he would have to say that. I swallowed hard enough that he had to have heard me and by the smile that touched the corners of his mouth, he heard it loud and clear.

"Maybe I can help you reach your goals. I was thinking that we could come to an understanding. You will be my…" he paused looking skyward for his missing word.

"Companion." I supplied while my brain added sex toy and whore.

"Yes, companion." He tugged me closer so that my chin was resting on his thigh.

"What do I get out of this deal?" His grip tightened causing me to arch my back and whimper in pain.

"Listen Scout, you get to meet you goals. All of them. You get to live, have enough food in your belly and I will keep you safe."

I kneeled in place weighing my options; dignity and a horrible death or warmth and safety. It wasn't really that hard of a decision. I was tired of being alone; tired of jumping at shadows and living in constant fear. I pushed my past life morals aside and let my hands travel up his legs, my thumb running along the inseam of his pants until I reached his bulge.

"Okay." I watched porn, lots of porn, so I knew what I was supposed to be doing but research and real life were vastly different creatures. His button parted easily and the quick slide of the zipper revealed his erection. I ran two fingers under the shaft before looking up. The wolf's head was thrown back, eyes lidded as he watched me, urging me forward with insistent pressure to the back of my head.

It wasn't neat or fancy. There was too much saliva and I couldn't find a rhythm so his shallow thrusts ended up hitting the back of my throat causing me to gag slightly. He smelled musky with a hint of green, like freshly mown grass on a lazy summer day. Wrapping my hand around the base I tried to work it the way I had watched so many times before but fumbled nervously.

I sucked at sucking.

But my wolf didn't seem to mind. His thrusts become more erratic and forceful, bumping the back of my throat as he tried to get deeper. The only warning I had was his sudden stiffening and a low huff. I hadn't even given thought to whether or not I would swallow but the flood in my mouth didn't give me much choice. I gulped franticly but I could still feel it dribble slightly out the corner of my mouth.

When I finally gathered the courage to look up my gaze was met by the satisfied smirk of a sated werewolf. Reaching down he wiped a drop from the edge of my mouth and licked it off his finger. I couldn't decide if it was the hottest thing I had ever seen or psycho level creepy.

Suddenly embarrassed I pushed myself to my feet only to find myself falling back into that mental well as my vision darkened and tunneled, as if I was looking at the world through a paper towel tube like when I was a kid playing pirate. My swaying was checked my warm arms that guided my to the sleeping bag and tucked me inside. I should care, I should struggle and fight and be brave enough to face the lone road on my own. I should but didn't. I guess I'm just not that strong. I let my eyes drift shut and the darkness claim me.