The first thing I notice is skin that should look pale and white. Instead it's tinged with red from my light and blue from the cold. Not the ugly grays, rotting browns, and bloody reds of a common infected. Besides that are the long claws, each nearly a foot long and positioned above her head, clicking across the door in an eerie rhythm as she opens it, and the long, drenched white hair that hides her face, cute as that face may be.
After a second I relax and nearly collapse. She nearly scared the crap out of me, but just standing that long feels like the wind was knocked out of my lungs, and my arm and legs are shivering from the lack of energy.
"I thought you were going to wait in the car," I moan sarcastically, trying my best to sound like this wasn't an apocalypse and I wasn't in here to bandage a hundred wounds. To my immediate surprise, the girl lets off an unintelligible murmur, almost a whisper, before moving to the ground in the corner. It's almost as if she answered me, but that moment is lost when she starts whimpering once more, hiding her face from the light the flare is letting off.
I'll have to do something about her, something to make her- no, help her- stop crying. Why? The question returns to my mind, but I push it away. There are more important things right now, like standing naked in a gas station bathroom with a shoulder nearly twice the size it should be.
I look back to the mirror, running my decent hand over the tender flesh where the head of the humerus, the bone in my upper arm, had been popped all the way out of the joint. This isn't some little thing, I'll be feeling this for the rest of my life, even if I manage to pop it back in fine. Just like the tear in my calf that's given me a permanent limp and the permanent crook in my once dainty nose.
The problem is that I have to pop it back in fast, and from what I've heard and seen it hurts like a bitch, bad enough to make a grown man faint. If I faint, the bleeding from my back and lack of food for the last several days will mean the end of me.
"Death would be so much easier, you know." I mutter, loud enough for the girl in the corner to stop her sobbing and turn to me. I'm not looking at her, I'm looking at the sunken depths of my eyes, darkened with lack of sleep, a pain that feels like a distant memory now, and the knowledge that death stands not a foot away from me, just waiting for his moment to take me. I can't remember what it's like to be tired and know I can just lay down and rest.
"But if I die… I can't just leave you to look out for yourself now, can I?" A smile, it seems like the only thing I can give her. Well, that and a show of me in my birthday suit, but I'm not exactly the picture of beauty at the moment. "Thank you."
That's all I say. She followed me here, not to strike me down, not to call a hoard of zombies on me, just to be with me for whatever reason. Maybe it's some apology for the most recent cut on my arm or she's just lonely, but because she's here with me I have a reason to keep on living for these next few seconds.
So I do what I have to, I grasp my elbow and push up with all my might before the pain can hit me… And promptly pass out.
It's not long, only a blackout that lasts long enough for me to bash my head on the sink and collapse into a sobbing heap on the cold tiles. At first it's just a noiseless choking noise, the pain paralyzes me so much I can't even speak. Lights flash into my vision, white hot motes that strike into my brain while I arch my back and squirm on the floor.
As soon as I can speak again I do, cursing all that's high and mighty, screaming into my soggy clothes, bawling my eyes out. I'm not built for this, I'm not some super soldier that can ignore pain so bad. The louder I get, the more the witch howls at me. It would be a blessing if she put me out of my misery now, it'd also be a blessing if she would just shut up.
Minutes pass while I sob into my torn, soaked jacket. Finally I roll onto my back and take a deep breath, pushing the pain as far from my mind as I can. It would have been worth it if only I had managed to set my arm, but the pain from every twitch tells me I haven't. That means I need to try again. I'm not strong enough to try again. Physically, mentally, I'm just not strong enough.
But she's here. She's so close to me and I have to protect her. Every fiber in my being is resonating pain and that one, single objective. Protect her. Help her. If it wasn't for her, I would have died in that fire, crushed by a tank. If it wasn't for her, I would die here, crying tears of pain into my jacket.
But I can't go on like this. I need to rest my weary limbs; I need to be held and think every thing is going to be alright.
"Hey, baby?" I mutter, drunk on pain. "Do you think you could do me a favor?"
Rolling to my knees is a painful, slow ordeal. The pain strikes my arm, the cut on my other arm, the cuts on my calf, even my bum ankle. When the muscles on my back stretch, the dried blood cracks open painfully and seeps down my naked back from the wounds she had left there. It all hurts so much, so much that the pain dulls into a fog in my mind that keeps me from feeling any one thing specifically. So I crawl, feebly, across the floor to where she sits, hiding in the darkness. Her howls have once more quieted to a mere whimper, quiet enough that she hears me approaching and looks up with those wide, crimson eyes.
I approach as quietly as I can, trying not to startle her. As comfortable as she looks, and as much as I need someone, anyone, to help me get through this, I did enough damage to our tender relationship out in the truck. My good arm has barely stopped bleeding from that.
"Hi," I say, just a foot away from her, smiling widely. My eyes must be puffy and red, caked with dried tears and blood. I don't care, neither does she. Her eyes are as red as mine, and I'd like to get something out of her besides crying. That might make me feel better, and I think she would be even more beautiful if she smiled.
She flinches back when I reach out, slowly grasping her hand. Everything about me is slow, and I can't say it has nothing to do with me being on my last leg of energy as to not startle her any more. At first she growls, a low snarl that comes from deep in her throat. But my eyes find hers again and my gaze holds her beautiful, crimson eyes in check. She doesn't look down as my fingers link with hers, doesn't look away when we hold hands down near our knees and my thumb runs slow, soothing circles over hers.
Her breath catches in her throat. I lean forward. There are just a few inches between us now and I can smell her under the oily rainwater. She has the distinct smell of a witch, like sweat, old sugar, sex, rain, and an undertone of crackers. Not exactly the most romantic scent, but most of my sense of smell was burned off by a poorly placed grenade and a boomer weeks ago.
"Can you hold me, for just a while?" I whisper. My throat is dry and cracked, but my voice is a soft whisper hardly enough to reach her ears.
Most surprisingly, she's stopped crying and just sits there, staring at me as I close in more and more. My head brushes past hers and rests on a slender shoulder. She's bonier than I expected, all soft and wiry muscles that seem too shocked to be tense at me. It feels good though, soft skin and the barest hints of clothing against my unclothed wounds. It feels so good that my eyes close out of reflex and I envelop her further in a hug, releasing her hand to wrap my arm around her waist.
"You don't have to cry." The words escape me, from my broken lips into the nook of her neck. I'm too tired, too hurt to know what I'm saying. Maybe this is my death? "This world might look like a big, scary place. And it is. But you're stronger than that, stronger than me." Why am I crying? "All I can do is run and kill. Kill all these people who had this shit forced on them. But you… You can live, you can live like this and make a life for yourself where I couldn't.
"Just don't give up. Please, don't give up." She doesn't understand me, doesn't understand my tears any more than I do. It sounds like something I should be saying to myself, and maybe it is. But the truth just makes the tears well up and pour out faster. I can't make a life for myself out here. There's nothing left for me anymore, no goofy Francis to protect, no sweet Louis or kindly Bill. They're gone, just like my girlfriend and my family, and there's no chance of bringing them back or finding someone else to fill the void.
After a few minutes I realize I'm still attached to her and she still hasn't killed me. My tears dry to an occasional sniffle and I finally manage to pull back far enough to look at her. If anything at least I made her stop crying, now she just looks uncomfortable and confused.
"Sorry," I mumble, my eyes drifting closed. "I'm sorry that I can't help you anymore."
I want nothing more than for her to run off and heed my words. I want her to go and just leave me here so she doesn't have to watch me die, cold, naked, and pathetic. I want her to live and be happy, and a part of me still wants to help her.
Just as I fall unconscious I hear a sound. I'm not sure what it is, maybe the door closing by the wind or something pushing it. Whatever it is, it clicks shut and the noise makes a little ping in my otherwise silent coffin.
Whatever it was, I don't have time to think on it when I find myself rudely awakened by her scream and the floor suddenly rising to meet me. She shoved me. That's all I'm positive about when I blink to clear my eyes and look across the bathroom floor under the dying flare light. She threw me.
When I look back I find her clawing futilely at the corner of the room, ripping apart tiles in her quest to escape our little room. I might as well open the door for her before I die.
That in mind, I push myself to my knees and instantly realize my mistake. I somehow managed to forget about my arm, only to find myself waiting for the pain to hit me when I see my injured side's hand pressed against the tiles. Then I hear a pop. Nothing major, nothing earth shattering, just a little pop and the sudden feeling that a hundred thousand little pins are pricking at my side and the pent up energy is arcing up my spine.
I hold my hand up, still wet from being outside, dirty, grimy, and bloody, but when I try, each finger moves one after the other. Then my wrist swivels, my elbow moves, the witch tears at the wall, and my shoulder- well it hurts, but it still moves.
And just a few seconds ago I was getting ready to lie down and die. Now I just feel silly.