No one.
CHAPTER3
TIERAN
Keeping on my trek back to Hensley, I stay close to the walls, but still maintain a safe distance if I need to quickly run away from the buildings or from any groups of infected ones.
I hadn't been walking long when I hear the skittering sound behind me, then a small growl. Turning my head slightly, I pick my speed up as I saw a form bent over, making slurping sounds as it chews on flesh from a woman’s face, whose head is laying in a pool of blood from his repeated blows. Not trying to attract attention to myself, but also not showing any fear, because they lived for fear. It released a hormone in the bloodstream and made it taste better, I keep walking to my destination.
When the event happened—the end of the world, or whatever the fuck everyone is calling it—it seemed to desiccate the majority of the population. Then, true to form, people turned to savages. No one was truly sure if there was actually an infection in the air that’s causing the behavior, or just man’s need to be cannibals again.
As far as I’m concerned, as long as they don’t take a bite out of her or me, they can do whatever the fuck makes them happy. No one is tasting her sweetmeats but me.
The new scratching behind me should make me walk faster, but I never did what I should do.
Instead, I stop abruptly and turn around. There is a person, not really sure if it’s a man or woman, to be honest, crawling towards me. Their hands and feet skitter towards me, body all hunched up in the air. The pustules that cover every inch of their skin make a popping sound with every move it makes.
Pop, pop, pop.
Green vomit spews from the orifice I assume it is its mouth.
Oh, for fucks sake, haven’t I seen this in an exorcist movie?
Taking my knife from my belt, I let it crawl right up to me, open its choppers up, just in time for my knife to slash the neck open. As the neck gushes blood, I watch the body flop around like a fish out of water. The others kill you to eat you. I do it for entertainment. However, sometimes entertainment comes at a price, so you always need a fail-safe.
Hensley and I have agreed on three different meeting places in the event that said fail-safe to make it back safely.
The first being the proverbial hole in the wall. An actual hole that was blown into a brick wall at the edge of town. It’s a big enough space we could both squeeze into, but not be seen from the street.
The second is a dumpster outside of an abandoned warehouse. We scouted all of the available dumpsters every week for a month. The one we chose had the lowest rat occupancy and seems to be the least populated near-by.
The third is a mold-infested library. There is so much mold on the walls, you can literally lick it and have all the antibiotics you ever needed running through your bloodstream for any disease. Of course, breathing it in for any length of time will infect your lungs and make you die a grueling death, but, yanno, if it was the only place you had, you got to do what you got to do.
These, of course, are just contingency plans assuming we can’t make it back to where we are currently staying. Then we will dip into one of the other shelters that are the closest.
Hensley and I are probably considered monsters to most of the mouth breathers on the streets anyway, but there was always that one who wanted to test us. Right now, all I want is to be inside and see her.
Walking into our room, I see Hensley sleeping, but her face looks troubled instead of peaceful. Memories that she tries to tamp down often sneak up on her when her defenses are down. Sliding in beside her on our threadbare mattress, I wrap my arms around her because I know she isn’t going to wake up calm.
Her eyes flutter open, disoriented for a moment. “You’re home.”
Nodding at her, I hand her the present I brought her from Charmaine. I know that will make her smile. I can see from her shaky hands she needs it.
Turning on the T.V., I automatically go to the porn station. It has little to do with the sex. It amuses the fuck out of me the way they look. All of the men have hair for miles and massive amounts of facial hair. The women, you could braid the bush on their pussies. I tried to get Hensley to grow hers that long so I could braid it, but she wouldn’t.
Sometimes, she’s no fun.
CHAPTER4
HENSLEY
Huddling next to the toilet in the bathroom, I pry open the little baggie with my broken, dirty fingernails.Gotta remember to steal some polish and a nail file next time.
“How you doing’ in there?”
I smile happily at the sound of Tieran’s voice as I shake a couple of the small tabs into the palm of my hand.
I answer him by nodding—not that he can see me, but now that he’s home and we know where each other are, it’s not like he knows he can’t come check on me.