A Little Undead Read online

  “Julie, are you okay?”

  “I'm fine,” I said. “Come on, I still have to find my apartment after we get you settled in and the sun's falling fast.” Diversion or not it was a valid concern, and so with shaky legs I resumed the march. I couldn't be certain about Boston, but in most parts of the world walking around outside went from potentially dangerous during the day to “You should really know better” during the night. I wasn't going to let a little panic attack keep Holly from getting to the dorms on time.

  * * *

  It was like a whole other world beyond the gates to the walled off inner city. Haven had only ever had sporadic electricity up until just a couple years ago. Enough to run a radio and a TV or two and the phones once they were reconnected, but not much else. This display of blatant wealth felt decadent in comparison. As marvelous as it was to see a piece of the world as bustling as it was before the Infection, I couldn't help but remember four winters ago when Haven had gone on half rations for nearly a month. I had woken up once in the middle of the night in pain, only to realize I had been gnawing on my own hand.

  “Julie, this is amazing! Can you believe it? I'd heard rumors but I never thought it would be so bright.”

  “Mmh,” I replied noncommittally. I wondered if Bostonians were afraid of their own shadows to put up so very many street lights. Every alley was lit, even now in the early afternoon, and one casino appeared to use more power than our entire hometown. Many of the women wore bright flowing silks that made me feel suddenly under-dressed in my blue jeans and T-shirt. People everywhere were talking into slim cellphones and some even carried slim computers... laptops, I remembered after a moment.

  I grabbed Holly's hand as we moved into the main flow of the crowd, not wanting to get separated. Every casual bump and brush frayed my nerves further until I was spending more time avoiding everyone else than actually looking where I was going. I wasn't sure if we had been walking for five minutes or thirty when Holly pulled us out of the current. “Well this is a letdown,” said Holly.

  “Maybe it's better on the inside?” It wasn't. Either the college was remodeled from an asylum or it was a precautionary measure for students that grew fed up with the line at the Registrar's Office. Every door looked like it could withstand days of battering from the infected and the stern-faced guards at every corner were more of a stifling presence than a comforting one.

  “You can go, I can handle this,” said Holly.

  My observation of the dwindling sun through the six-inch-wide windows must have been more noticeable than I thought. “I'll be fine. The sun sets late this time of year.”

  Holly gently grabbed my shoulders and turned me around. “Don't worry, I'm a college girl now. Just because Mom and Dad aren't around right now doesn't mean you have to baby me.”

  “Alright,” I said reluctantly. It was probably safer here with the army than in a frontier town like Haven anyways. What was there to worry about? “Just make sure you don't leave the campus alone, and call me if you need anything. You remember the number for the police station and my apartment?” I nearly giggled at her sour face. Of course she remembered the number, sixteen-year-old physics genius that she was. Sometimes I wondered if there were more numbers than words floating around in her head. “Okay then, I'll see you on my first day off from work. Good luck.”

  A quick hug later I was out the door. Without Holly to guide me the streets were even worse. I could feel them watching me like some sort of carnival show attraction, the little girl with the giant backpack. The strangeness of my surroundings and the falling sun had me edgy to begin with, and I didn't do well with crowds in the best of circumstances. Still, I was wary of running within sight of the droves of policemen. As I was starting as a cop myself in a couple days I knew well enough the attention that trying to run would bring. Instead I settled for a brisk walk until I exited the inner city gates. There was no time to waste however, and so with a grim smile I grabbed the straps of my backpack to keep them from bruising my shoulders and broke into an easy lope. Catching a second wind as the shadows covered the sidewalk I sped up my pace, cool spring air brushing my cheeks as I sped past suddenly sinister alleyways. It hadn't occurred to me while studying the map, but the apartment I had reserved was far enough from the main roads that the sense of life that so inspired me in the rest of the city was all but absent here.

  I gave two soft knocks on the landlady's door. The shadows deepened even as I watched, raising the heat in my cheeks to a fever pitch as the fear of the dark that had been drilled into me for years took hold. I beat the door twice more, shaking the door with the force. Just as I contemplated seeking refuge at a stranger's house or even taking my chances on a roof the door opened, but only a crack. A steel chain stretched across, keeping it from opening further. The woman, Cassandra, stood well back from the door. Any errant zombie hand grasping at her throat would be swiftly and mercilessly crushed, I was sure. “State your business, girl.”

  “Umm, I'm Julie, Julie Fisher. I reserved an apartment with you.”

  “Ah.” Cassandra puttered off, red slippers rustling against the carpet. My feet shifted nervously as I pondered the politeness of encouraging some haste in whatever it was she was doing. “Found it. Here's your key for room number nine. If you need another it's thirty credits to replace.”

  “Thanks.” I moved to escape the growing darkness but her voice made me pause.

  “You should be more careful, the city isn't safe after dark anymore.” I gave a confused nod in response. 'Since when in the past sixteen years has anywhere been truly safe?'

  Giving the batty old woman no further mind I ran by the rooms, backpack bouncing on my shoulders as I searched for the correct room. Finding it on the second floor I caught one last lick of sunlight before locking myself inside. I flicked on the solitary bulb in the room, watching hopefully as it flickered and finally steadied, holding clear. The bulb was dim, casting the room half in shadow, but my eyes had grown adept over the years at seeing in darkness. As quietly as I could – for even inside one's own house it was unwise to draw attention to oneself during the night – I crept through the apartment, making sure each of its three windows was properly secured.

  The apartment wasn't much. Small, dark, dusty, with a closet-sized bathroom and low-flow shower, but it was mine! I could make a life here, no adoptive parents looking in on me or superstitious frontiersmen half shunning me. I could make friends, throw (small) house parties... maybe even have a boyfriend? The opportunities Boston was offering left me nearly drunk with anticipation.

  However, there was one drawback that made me draw my paper-wrapped knife from my backpack. I'd had it ever since I could remember, one of the belongings given back to me when I awoke with amnesia in the refugee-built village of Haven. It was almost like a teddy bear to me after all these years, a fragment of a forgotten past. Clutching it to my chest I fell backwards onto the sheetless bed, flopping around til I found a semi comfortable set of springs. Staring at the ceiling I contemplated the distance between this apartment and my sister's. It was probably best we grew apart for a while. Sometimes I worried I was a little obsessed with my little physics-genius sister.

  She'd stuck with me from the start, helping me remember how to speak, how to wait in line and not snarl at anyone besides her that came too close to me, cute little five-year-old that she was. Many of her tales of our travels together were dismissed as childish exaggerations or fever dreams from the illness we had on our arrival to the village. Still, I had apparently kept us both alive somehow, and even deprived of my memories she felt like a piece of me I never wanted to give up. I'd grown perhaps a tad overprotective of the little tyke. Even now that she looked older than I did my stomach tensed up a little when she was out of my sight.

  Well, like she said, she was a college girl now – even if she was two years younger than the norm. Besides, I still had my ants to keep me company. Drawing out a soda bottle half full of sand and absolutely buzzing with ants I
tsked and dropped in a bit of stale bread. As upset as they were at the moment from the rough traveling I knew they'd have their nest right as rain in a day or two. Other people might find them creepy, but they were remarkably relaxing to watch once you got used to them. Almost like a living lava lamp. Besides, they cost an awful lot less to feed than a dog.

  Looking at the bare walls I found myself suddenly stymied. As excited as I was to have my own apartment, putting it all together tonight was a bit daunting, even if all my napping on the bus left me sleepless. Relegating the task to the following day I threw a few shirts on top of the bed as a pseudo-sheet and tucked my backpack underneath my head. Pillows, after all, were not an easy thing to pack. Drawing out my textbook on Boston's laws and regulations for police officers I settled in for one last read-through. It was only a day and a half before my job started, and I had to be absolutely ready. Knife laid to the side but still within easy reach I focused my eyes in the dim light. Night owl that I was, an unruly energy in my limbs swiftly lead me to pace across the brown-carpeted floor, but I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the pages. It wasn't until an hour before dawn that I slept.

  * * *

  When I awoke the window screen was covered in snow. One last spring flurry before the rains began I thought, until I attempted to open the door. A drift nearly as tall as myself had shut the door so firmly that I was forced to climb out the window to beg the landlady for a shovel. With half the day gone already I set off into the markets of Boston, huddled in ratty old jacket I'd never quite grown out of. Along with a few canned soups I found some nice bargains on a pair of sheets, a pillow, and an old plastic chair. I might have looked slightly ridiculous carrying a plastic chair on my head through the heavy snow but it was a march of victory.

  The apartment's phone was blinking on my return. After a couple false starts I remembered that the sideways triangle meant play. “Honey, I've got a little bad news.” The recording had a little static but it was easily recognizable as my mother. “An officer called saying your information was delayed by the storm. They want you to come in on the fifth, instead.” A whole week away... Now I really wished I had waited a little longer before going shopping. I'd much rather have a loaf of bread than a chair, after all. “If you need some money for food just call.” If it wouldn't be terribly melodramatic I'd say I would rather starve. The last thing I wanted after finally gaining a chance at financial independence and my own apartment was to have a debt hanging over my head. Besides, it wasn't as if my adoptive parents had much to spare, and Holly's scholarship only covered tuition and housing.

  I'd get by somehow. I just had to avoid looking so much like a famished waif as to be forcibly thrown in an orphanage.

  Chapter 2: Distress

  My father always said to head for the island. He told me, “If anything happens, take your mother and sister to the island.” He always had predictions of how the world would end. It's a shame that when it finally did, there was no island to go to – the sea just swallowed it up.

  – Anonymous journal

  Eight days later...

  My clothes adhered to my skin as I dragged myself from the sea. My high heels had me tripping in seconds, the extra water-weight doing me no favors as I tried to pick my way across the pebbled beach. Despite the growing threat that thrashed through the water behind me there was no helping it, I had to stop. In panicked haste tore off my shoes, buckles snapping in the progress. Grabbing my broken heels out of habit I kicked myself into a run towards the city. Wind nearly blew me back as I reached the top of the bank, but I lowered my head and kept my course.

  'This isn't right.' What few lit windows remained at this late hour were drawn shut, curtains and shades dimming the light until all color had fled. What little light the crescent moon provided offered little help here in the alleys. Abandoned trash and grass grown through cracked pavement were mere silhouettes, grasping shadows waiting to pull me into the night and never let go. 'Wake up, wake up!' Ankle twisting as my bare foot slid on decades-old crumbling pavement I tumbled into a roll before regaining my footing. “He–!” I tried to scream for help, but all that came out was a soft hiss of air followed by nothing at all. Jaws tightening against the pain, I forced myself to run faster and faster. Bruised feet slapped against the pavement as I fought to maintain my rhythm. I tried harder to force out a shout but my ribs felt pinched, as if glued to my spine. 'What's wrong with me?'

  The air burned at my flesh, wicking away the salt water and with it the heat from my feverish skin. His blood roared inside me still, a fading unholy fire in my veins flaring against the biting wind. 'This can't be real!' But I knew there was no waking up from this nightmare. I knew that somehow, that filthy blood was all that kept me going. The ache in my feet alternated with sudden stabbing pain whenever a pebble saw fit to bar my way. The useless pair of heels still swung from my fingers leaving bruises on my skin as my pumping arms helped propelled me through abandoned alleyways. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rip open my veins until all of the madness drained away.

  'I'm missing something. I need... air?' I took a breath and felt my lungs filled up like balloons, forcefully and seemingly endlessly. 'How is it possible to forget to breathe?' A few cars chugged past just out of sight, televisions blared in apartments, and dogs in untold numbers howled around the city, wary of the predator that prowled the night. It sounded almost normal and for just a moment I stopped. Surely it was safe here. He wouldn't follow me further, so close to people, to where normality was a rule and not a suggestion. But then I heard it, the thumping of padded paws on pavement, claws scurrying as he skidded around the corner behind me.

  My head started to turn backwards. 'No!' I couldn't let myself be distracted now. If I faltered for a moment... I threw my shoes at him as I lunged into a run, hope rising as I heard him stumble a half-step. It wasn't enough. A pebble struck the back of my legs from his furious advance and I knew I was out of time. More than that, I was out of room. A fence twice my height loomed before me, barbed wire stretching out from its top underscoring that this was the end. Still, an instinct rose within me, some subtle notion that there was still a way out. I had been running fast, inhumanly fast. Perhaps there was still a chance.

  . I summoned what strength remained to me, legs flexing as I prepared for this last gamble. 'Here goes nothing.' Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I jumped, not quite concealing the sound of claws behind me as the wolf prepared his own leap. 'Higher, higher!' I twisted desperately as my jump reached the end of its arc but for all my exertions I couldn't keep myself airborne. The jagged barbed wire that tipped the fence cut at my exposed legs, my body contorting itself away from the pain as my throat twisted in a breathless scream. The wolf rattled the fence even as I thudded into the ground shoulder-first, his growls deep and threatening, paying no sympathy as I fought back tears.

  The skin on my shoulder was shredded, the pain of it forcing me to suck in a breath to stifle another scream as I pulled away the torn fabric. What little light there was showed black blood oozing it's way out of the ragged wound. A cautious inspection with my finger came back gritty with sand and oozing plasma. Salt from the drying seawater stung in my cuts, but with luck it would help keep away infection. My legs, at least, still burned with enough adrenaline that the pain was manageable. So long as I had the threat of a rabid wolf behind me I should have the ability to continue walking

  I hissed at him, startling myself with the primal sound as it tickled like a wild thing in my mouth. “I hate werewolves.” It was such a silly thing to say, seeing as werewolves shouldn't exist, but it summed up my feelings perfectly. A thought struck me. “I can talk again?” That pinched feeling in my chest was gone as if it had never been. “Huh,” I blew out a quick gust of air, perplexed. 'I'm too tired for this.' The obvious answer, that I had simply forgotten to breathe, gnawed at me, but normal people didn't just stop breathing for no reason. 'Normal people don't bite a man's neck and drink his blood either.' Still in a crouch,
I pounded my fist against the ground. “No!” 'Normal people don't have fangs.' “Normal people don't talk to themselves either,” I whispered, pushing myself to my feet.

  Watching as he dipped up and down like a cat trying to gauge a jump I reached into the side of my skirt, grabbing the hilt of my knife. One quick pull and the waxed paper covering the blade was off. Though I had always had great night-vision, the dyed-black knife was barely even a shadow to my eyes. The dark alleyway was apparently no obstacle to his sight, however, as it was apparent from his sudden stillness and rumbling growl that he had seen me draw the weapon. The wolf staring menacingly at me from beyond the fence was until recently one Alex Whitman, my human almost-boyfriend. Now he was noticeably less human and doing nothing to improve my opinion of werewolves or my choice in men. The knife, normally a comforting presence, now felt heavy and terribly dangerous. Could I actually use it? Fend him off if he jumped the fence?

  “Alex?” The snarl sent me scurrying back as I tried to still my racing heart. Was it still him inside or did only the wolf remain? I readjusted my blouse nervously as I waited for some indication he was more than just a ravenous beast, but none was forthcoming. “Do you know why I...” I faded off, unsure what to ask him, uncertain I even wanted to hear the answer. As he loped off I reluctantly forced myself back onto my shredded feet. I'd rather be elsewhere if the currently homicidal werewolf decided to circle around.

  “Ow!” Pain spiked in my shoulder as the impact of my first step traveled upwards through my body. I shouldn't have stopped moving. Before, the pain had at least been a distant thing. Now I kept having to glance down to make sure it wasn't hot coals my feet stood on and not cold tar. 'One foot in front of the other,' I thought to myself, gripping my arm tight enough to bruise to keep it from jerking. Step by step I forced myself faster and faster, thighs working overtime as shock absorbers to soften the blows to my feet as the pavement ripped at my soft soles.