I'm Here Now [ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE ONESHOT] no i am not sorry..

NOTE: This story does not have italics/bold or anything because I needed to copy and past this from a website I had posted this on. I am too lazy to go back and italicize everything. Sorry!

Also I dedicate this piece to Diablo, who I imagine will laugh at those who may cry after reading this.

If dead people disturb you, you probably should not read.

The day the Walkers arose is the day I met you.

There had already been reports on the news about it; people had been infected with some virus that stemmed from some sort of fungus or parasite or something. The virus could be spread to other people if an infected person bit someone. To be honest, hearing the reports grow more plentiful each day frightened me terribly. My family just told me it would blow over soon and everything would be fine.

Some days I saw photos of the infected online or on television. Sometimes they would look totally normal, but then you would see the hungry glint in their eyes, unnatural coloring of both eyes and skin. Other times parts of their flesh would be ripped apart totally or missing in some areas. Their eyes would be sunken, cheeks hollow, fingers would be long and bony. The hair would be matted and dirty, and whenever I saw one their mouths would be dripping with fresh blood.

Some would hobble along slowly. Others were able to run at a full-speed. Some were blind and depended on hearing to find their prey; some even used a type of echo-location thing to locate food. Others could see fine. However, all had one thing in common. They could not die unless their brains were destroyed in some way.

Obviously, it was becoming a rather big problem. But since we had never seen an infected person for real, my parents just told my brother and me that everything was fine, and thus hid us away from the truth.

Then it all came crashing down on the day I met you.

I had been driving. I recall I was with one of my friends, Amy. Groceries and handbags sat calmly in the back seat while she and I were perched up front. She was driving, and like the teenagers we were we chattered away like magpies. Blissfully unaware of the danger that our nation had succumbed to that morning, more blissfully unaware that someone had hobbled out into the middle of the road.

This someone was gnawing on something bloody. Amy screamed, I vomited, and she sharply turned the car. We hit whoever it was on the road, and due to the turn our car tumbled off the road, rolled down a hill, and in a flurry of broken glass and vomit and blood, the car stopped rolling and landed on its back.

I don’t know if I blacked out or if I was awake the whole time. I just know it took a while for my head to work once more and for my hands to fumble for my seatbelt buckle. I somehow undid my seatbelt and got myself into an upright position.

Truth be told, I’m not sure what killed Amy. It may have had to do with the fact that she had forgotten to put on her seatbelt. A thick crown of her own blood was spread around Amy’s head. I remember her neck was bent at a rather odd angle. The bloody corpse had broken through the windshield and was slumped outside the car, her lower body inside, upper out.

I tried to get her to wake up. I really did. I closed my eyes and sobbed out her name and shook her shoulder. I begged her to come back with me. But she was gone, and I had to get out of the car and get help. I had it in my mind that if I got help then they could bring back Amy.
I was pretty Ross foolish for thinking so.

My door didn’t work, so I praised myself for wearing tennis shoes that morning and slammed my feet against my already cracked window. The glass finally caved, and I heaved myself out of the car. I slumped to the ground, breathing hard, and then I heard footsteps.

I thought it was someone coming to help me, so I looked up and screamed at the top of my lungs “I’m here!” Frankly, that only made it worse. A couple of walkers, what you and I now call runners, were on me in an instant.

I tried to get away, but I discovered I had cut my leg pretty badly in the car wreck, and soon the monsters had me backed up against a tree. Their eyes were hungry for my flesh, their skin rotted away and discolored, teeth and lips red with blood. It was quite the sight to see.
So I screamed for anyone to come and save me. Anyone at all.

One lunged at me, and that’s when something collided with its skull and blood exploded all over. It slumped to the ground, and a figure covered in blood swung a hatchet towards the other one, knocking it down and bringing the blade down into the side of its head.
The figure turned to look at me. It was you.

You entire body was drenched in blood, your black hair was tangled and wild, but your blue eyes told me that you weren’t here to harm me. You grabbed my hand rather roughly and told me to shut up or the Walkers would come and kill us both. You quickly apologized and proceeded to attempt to quiet me.

I realized then I was sobbing rather loudly. I wiped my eyes and apologized. Before I even finished, there came a far-off screech, and you took off running, pulling me behind you.

You’re a fast runner. It was all I could do to keep up with you, because the cut in my leg throbbed and bled. But we stopped to rest a couple times for that reason, and I remember in one of those periods of time you told me your name was Ben. I told you my name was Carly.

When we got somewhere safe, an empty apartment complex where I think you lived, you set me up on a couch, tied a towel around the cut on my leg, sat beside me and explained that everything had gone to Fwoosh's yard.

The virus had suddenly exploded and spread out everywhere. The majority of the population of our state alone and possibly the entire nation had turned into the Walkers, and the survivors were slowly dwindling.

You told me that your area was one of the first to be struck with the virus. Luckily, the monsters had become rather daft and had lost all knowledge other than kill, eat, and repeat. So you had shot down those who had come closer to you, and when you ran out of bullets you snatched your hatchet and cut your way to the roof, until you were able to slip away into the woods. You stayed there for a while, until you heard a crash farther into the woods and heard me screaming.

At the mention of this, you calmly asked me if I had been bitten. I was rather confused at first, because at the time I had no idea that the disease could be spread through bites. You asked me if one of the Walkers bit me, I answered no. You had me pull up my shirt sleeves, lift up my shirt, roll up my pants, the whole nine yards. All the while you had a revolver pressed to my forehead.

I wanted to strangle you.

After you had explained everything to me, apologized for the shenanigans, and even let me deliver a blow to your arm, I thanked you and said I had to go home. You immediately blocked the entrance, and said that they would tear me apart out there. I told you I had to find my family, my brother, my parents. You said they were as good as dead by now.

So I pushed you down and stormed through the door. You kept calling after me to wait. But I didn’t listen. I wish I did.

I somehow made it back to my neighborhood, all in one piece. I rushed into the house, screaming for my parents and my brother and my dog. But it was empty. Clothing had been hastily grabbed as well as photo albums and food. I found a note, riddled with dry tears, addressed to me.

Carly,
We don’t know if you’re alive or dead. But if you are alive, run. Get out of here as fast as you can. We’ll be long gone by the time you read this. Someday, we’ll meet up again. Survive, Carly. And remember, pick those who you trust wisely and don’t let yourself get bitten. Some supplies are in the attic in case you make your way back here.
The world has lost itself, love. Don’t let the same happen to you.
We love you, so much.
-Mom and Dad.

New tears soon joined the dry ones. My family could be dead or alive, and I probably would not know for a while. I didn’t cry very long, though, because I heard the banging coming from the front door.

I’m not sure how the Walkers found me, but I think you mentioned before that they can smell the flesh of living humans from a mile away.
I hurriedly rushed to a closet, where my father had conveniently left his hunting rifle. Thanks, Dad. I wondered why he didn’t bring it but quickly scrapped the thought and snatched up some ammo.

I loaded it up, and began to quietly but quickly move upstairs. They proceeded to break my door down and follow me. I shot at them, but I was panicked, inept at shooting, and didn’t have nearly enough bullets to take all of them out. Even then, I was unaware at the time of the head-shot rule.

They backed me up into my bedroom. I proceeded to barricade the door, and desperately tried to search for a way out. My window was up rather high, so if I fell while climbing out I would be a goner. But there was a tree limb a couple of feet away from my window, and dying instantly upon impact sounded much more appealing than having my flesh torn apart and eaten.

I pulled open the window, and jumped. My hands grabbed onto a thicker part of the tree, and I managed to swing my legs over onto the branch and climb towards the trunk. I hugged it and watched as the Walkers broke down my door, saw me, and one by one ran to my window, reach for me, fell out, and plummeted to the ground below, where their heads were either smashed or their bones were broken so that they were rendered almost immovable.

But their noise attracted others, and I watched as my former neighbors crowded underneath me, hungry for my flesh. So I cried. I wouldn’t be able to climb back into my house. There wouldn’t be any handholds and I would have to squeeze through my window to get inside. I wouldn’t be able to do that while jumping. Plus, more Walkers were crowding around my window, hissing and moaning,

And I certainly wasn’t climbing down anytime soon.

In other words, I was screwed.

I don’t know how long I was up there, but I remember after my eyes had lost all tears and I lost all hope, you showed up. You cut down the Walkers in the house, leaned out the window, reached out a hand and told me to take it. I was terrified, but you said you wouldn’t let me die. Your face was dripping with Walker blood, but your blue eyes shone through.

“Trust me, Carly,” were your words.

And, hesitantly, I did. I took a leap, caught your hand in mine, and you pulled me up through the window. You took the hunting rifle from me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the house. I saw you had cut through my brother’s bedroom, and had used a ladder to get up to his window. You led me down the ladder, and together we dashed through the woodlands while the monsters searched in vain for us.

When we were far enough away, we stopped to catch a breather. And I collapsed, sobbing as the weight of reality hung upon my shoulders. You only sat next to me, and when I asked you why you came, you didn’t respond.

You were silent, but I remember your hand stroking my fiery red hair.

But when I had calmed down, you and I made a promise. We would not die. We would keep each other alive no matter what. We would not become one of the Walkers, one of those things. And most importantly, we would stick together.

So you and I became partners. We shared your little apartment and a couple of times returned to my house for supplies. But that place was no longer home. Not without my parents or my brother.

You taught me how to fire a gun properly, taught me to always destroy the head when I made a kill. You taught me to hunt when our supplies ran low, and somehow you made me slowly become myself again. But I had built up the will to survive.

We lived in the apartment, waiting for the military to come, for the government to intervene in the end of the nation. But they never came. To this day, we don’t know why.

We got sick of waiting, and the number of Walkers coming into the area increased each day, so we filled backpacks full of stuff and left your little apartment. We found a convertible full of gas abandoned on the road, and so you and I hopped into the car and drove off.

Our plan was to leave our country to someplace safer. An island, something of the sort, and we’d live there until the world was sorted out again.
But on that convertible ride, you and I felt the rush of the wind through our unkempt hair, laughed together, on and on. I felt our friendship in full bloom

Eventually, however, the car ran out of gas and we kept going on foot. We eventually reached an old motel sort of place, but as soon as we set foot in there, a couple of boys had guns trained on our foreheads. Their hair was brown, their skin pale, and eyes fierce.

I clung to your arm in fear, and you simply told the two that we were not bitten, and not here to start a fight. One of them pressed the gun to your forehead, and I, foolishly, drew out my rifle and trained it right beside his ear.

You said, “Carly, put the rifle down.” I hesitated, but obeyed. Likewise, your assailant’s companion ordered him to put away the gun. And likewise, he obeyed.

We learned their names were Joey and Ryan, that they were brothers and were just trying to survive like we were. You said that we planned to leave, but explained the current situation with our car. They kindly offered us a room in the motel in exchange for some of our supplies.

You agreed.

As we were pPendersing over the supplies, Ryan had the good grace to ask if you and I were “a thing”. I had the good grace not to slug him straight in the nose. But everyone laughed in the end.

That night, there was only one bed, so you and I awkwardly hopped in under a thin, cold blanket and slept. But nightmares raced through my tortured mind; nightmares of my parents, Walkers, and the many ways I could die, and I woke up terrified.

You held me close to you, my head buried in your chest. I fell asleep once more in your arms. I guess there was no need to be awkward anymore. Scenes like this proceeded to occur on a regular basis, about once or twice a month.

Joey and Ryan allowed us to stay a little longer, but unfortunately their food was running low and you and I decided it was time to split. We wish them good luck and took off on foot.

We found another car with a little gas and drove it down to a small, abandoned town in which Walkers stalked the grounds like stray cats on the hunt for mice. So you and I went through the back door to a pharmacy of some sort, and climbed up to the rooftop so we could hop our way across the roofs of the town and get out of there.

But we didn’t. We waited for a while. We sat down and talked. You told me that your family had been among the people in area who had turned, and you had put them out of their misery. I told you about my mother, my father, my elder brother, Samuel, and how I had no clue of their whereabouts.

You sat next to me and said, “Dying would seem easier than risking our necks trying to survive, wouldn’t it?” We were silent and you went on, “Promise me you won’t give up, Carly. This whole thing may get to both of us, but do not kill yourself.”

I looked at you. “Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?”

You simply smiled at me, and proceeded to polish your hatchet and try to improve the scope on my rifle. Your hair was dirty and you did your best to try and chip the dry blood off of your pale skin.

I think that was that day I began to fall in love with you.

We got out of the town, and I found out you had a love for music and theater before the world went to Sasaki. Just like me. In our free time, we chattered on and on about musicals that we had both seen, and occasionally, if we remembered the songs, we would sing together.

You were Sweeney Todd, I was Mrs. Lovett, you were Charlie Brown, I was Lucy, you were Valjean, and I was Cosette, and together we sang songs and occasionally made up small dances to them. But we’d be quiet about it, as to not alert the Walkers.

On the first night of winter, we had sought refuge from the cold in a rickety old house. We slept in the master bedroom together, and there, when I was shivering with cold, you wrapped your arms around my waist and pulled me into your body.

In other words, you spooned me.

I made no protest, and that very night when you thought I was asleep, you kissed my cheek.

And I approved.

But winter’s cold grasp took its toll, and eventually you became sick with something I had no clue of how to treat. Your temperature went up and down, you shivered and said you were cold, but then you would sweat furiously and say you were hot. You later began to burn with fever. Your sharp blue eyes turned dull and milky, and your smooth black hair turned into a pile of sticks.

I panicked at first and frantically searched your body for bite or scratch marks. But there were none. I was relieved that you weren’t turning anytime soon, but soon another problem arose.

I was no doctor, and I did not have much medicine. So I simply piled blankets on top of you, wrapped my jacket tightly around your shoulders, only taking it when I left for food. I could only feed you and place wet rags over your head and dab the sweat away. And if Walkers ever showed up, I would shoot their heads until I ran out of ammo and then swing your hatchet until they were gone. They never came as far as the front porch of the house.

And, yes, I’ll admit, at one point in time, while you were half-asleep, I pressed my lips against yours and kissed you. Your lips were dry, but I didn’t care. It made me feel like my heart had sprouted wings and was trying to escape my body, but it was worth it. I don’t know if you were too disoriented to remember or if you just kept quiet about it.

Somehow, when winter began to leave, you got better. You began to sit up in bed and eventually you were able to walk around. You stopped shivering as the cold left, and the glint in your blue eyes returned. You were able to shoot again, and when you were better we eventually set off once more to get to the coast.

Every so often, we’d meet people. We’d become friends, but something would happen and they would either die or leave. We met a girl and her boyfriend when we reached a point in the countryside. Their names were Liz and Peter. We hung around with them for a month or two, but one day some runners showed up to the hideout. You and I somehow made it through, but Peter was killed and Liz was bitten.

Liz sobbed and asked us to kill her, told us that she would not become one of the Walkers. We refused. But when her skin was paling, her eyes yellowing, when she vomited up blood and she could barely move, she asked us once more.

So you took the handgun from her, pressed it between Liz’s pale eyes, bit your lip, and pulled the trigger.

We ran.

Other times we saw just how screwed up the world had become. Once when we were attacked by bandits, they proceeded to bring us back to their basecamp when we killed two of their men during the attack. We were separated, and in my holding cell I saw them brutally chop up the corpses of humans and hungrily devour them like you and I would gladly devour some French Fries. It was terrifying. They took my stuff and almost did the same to me. I screamed and screamed for you, but two of them pinned me down to a cold table and smirked at me.

“Lover-boy ain’t here to save you, love.” Once they said that, they secured me down with thick leather belts and I began to sob to the point
where I sounded like a dehydrated seal. I was petrified.

They cleaned their weapons and even cut my arms with the blades to terrify me more. They said not to worry, no part of me would be wasted. Right down to the very last strand of my hair. I wept and pleaded and begged and implored. But they simply laughed cruelly at me. Then they raised up the cleaver and I let out a scream.

But somehow, you had escaped and before the cleaver could embed itself into my neck, down came the back of your hatchet onto the bandit’s head. I saw a huge dent. As he collapsed to the floor, you slammed your foot into his face and threw your hatchet at the remaining bandit. The sharp blade hit his shoulder, and he collapsed, screeching in utter agony.

You yanked the hatchet and the cleaver free, and got me loose out of the restraints. As soon as the final belt came off, I flew into your arms and we cried together. Both of us had bloody arms, but you had a black eye. I assumed you had been given similar treatment. You asked if they had hurt me, to which I shakily claimed that they only hurt my pride. Then, together, we slunk out of the place and escaped.

Although I think the one you hit in the shoulder lived to tell the tale.

The night we got out of there, I was afraid to sleep. You sang some song to me, a lullaby I think, and when you thought I was asleep, you kissed me. I should have kissed back, but I continued pretending to sleep. You smiled and stroked my hair, wishing me a peaceful sleep.

We went through a ton of stuff as the world went to Fwoosh's yard. But somehow we still sang.

As we traveled, we would find old schools with large auditoriums. We’d stand upon the stage and dance and sing songs from our favorite musicals. And for whatever reason, as we progressed through our trek through the country, we would sing louder and louder until we were singing full-voice. We gave no heed to the risk of being heard. All that mattered was that we could sing.

At the end of one of our stage performances, I was wrapped in your arms, and our foreheads were pressed together. Both of us were breathing hard, but we had the same thought. And we both went for it, no regrets.

We pressed our lips together and feverishly kissed each other. This time, your lips were soft and warm against my cold ones. It was the greatest feeling I have ever felt before. We broke apart once, and you said that you loved me.

“Likewise,” I responded.

By then it had been a year since we had met. And I loved you more than anything.

Every night wouldn’t be awkward sleeping in the same bed. You’d wrap your arms around my waist each night and some nights you’d kiss my neck and I’d tell you I loved you. In the daytime, when we traveled, we would throw jokes and laugh together and smile the biggest smiles we’ve ever smiled. When Walkers came, I’d bury bullets within their heads and you would smash the skull with a cleaver or a hatchet, and when we had a moment to spare, you and I would kiss in case something should happen to us and then we continued forth.

We were happier than we had ever been.

And the sad thing is that we were so close to the coast. So close that I could taste the ocean air. Other survivors told us that, yes, there were some boats abandoned on the coast that could be salvaged and used. We were in the home stretch.

Then, we stopped in a school to loot the nurse’s office for abandoned antibiotics or medicine that might come in handy later. And in came the Walkers. We ran into a classroom, where they followed us in and attacked. You and I kissed and separately battled the things. I was about to shoot one of them, its mouth agape and eyes dead, when there was a loud creaking sort of noise. Before I could look down, the rotten floorboards broke beneath my feet.

I didn’t scream.

I heard you call my name, but then came the painful impact of the floor below ramming into my butt. Pain shot up my thighs and my spine, even every nerve up to my fingertips. My rifle flew out of my palm and across the room, and it took a moment for the dust to clear and for my brain to process again. You called down that’d you’d be down in a minute, and proceeded to battle your way through the hordes of Walkers.

I groaned. My first instinct was to drag myself out of the room and help you, but when I tried to move jolts of pain shot throughout my body. Something may have been broken. So I just lay still as I waited for you.

Oh, and remember that Walker I was battling before I fell? It fell with me. And unfortunately it did not die.

I was waiting for you, unmoving, catching my breath, when suddenly something that felt like leather grabbed onto my arm. I turned and screamed, tried to push it away, but it was too late. The teeth sank down into my arm. It felt like billions of little, smoldering needles were being shoved into my skin.

I screamed and screamed, but I’m not sure if it was from the pain, or the knowledge that I was bitten and would turn in a short period of time.

“Carly!”

I heard my name, and before I knew it, a cleaver came down into the skull of the Walker. Hands reached out and pried its jaws off of my arm, tossing it aside and yanking the cleaver out of its head.

I think you’ve saved me way too many times now.

You kneeled beside me and asked if I was okay. I shook my head no, but I think you already knew that. You asked if I could move, but when I tried to talk to you my words came out as raspy, desperate sobs. So, you hoisted me onto your back and had me hold tightly onto your neck. Then, you somehow managed to get us free from the place and race over to a house that had been abandoned by its occupants.

I don’t remember much, but I do remember that you were covered in blood.

When you set me down, we established that my leg had been injured along with part of my back during the fall, and you grabbed my arm roughly and stared at the bite. Pus dripped out of the wound, and the skin around the bite was bubbling up. Blood rushed out in streams. A clear liquid dribbled from the bite, as did some sort of yellowish-green fluid.

You said that there had to be a way. You tried squeezing the bite to push the poison out, but it only made it bleed more and made me hiss in agony. You took a syringe and injected a sample of medicine into my bloodstream, once every day. But yet nothing changed. You even injected all of the few antibiotics we had. But none worked.

I kept telling you to stop, but you wouldn’t. You tried in vain to relieve my body of the poison that would soon turn me into a mindless monster. You apparently looted some laxatives from the nurse’s office, and had me take some. But it did not help. So you tied a towel around it for the time being and did your best to take care of me.

By the next day it was hard for me to move around (I couldn’t walk, but even moving my arms or something of the like ached) and you had set me up on a couch. I had a slight fever.

When you saw that nothing could be done to empty my body of the poison, you began to blame yourself. You held me tightly in your arms and apologized for everything.

You were sorry that you weren’t quick enough, you were sorry you didn’t stick by me when I walked onto the rotten floorboards, you were sorry that it was me instead of you, that you broke the promise we made when we became partners, and you even apologized for not saying that you loved me enough times.

I could only tell you that you could not have done anything, tell you to stop beating yourself up over this. But you wouldn’t listen.
By the next day my fever was higher and I was rendered to a very sorry state. My skin was paling slightly. It was harder to talk. Every move I made sent shivers of pain up my spine. Once I threw up.

You pressed my bitten arm to your chest and asked why it was me, why not you, why it had to be like this… The list went on. Who you were talking to, I have no idea. Whether it was some higher power, fate, or just the cruel grip of reality, I didn’t know the answer to your questions. All I said, all I could say, was, “I love you, Ben…” And you sobbed.

The next day the fever had spiked and my skin was discolored and pale. My eyes were yellowing and talking was nearly impossible. I began to vomit up blood mixed with my stomach fluids, and if I cried blood would be mixed within my tears. The little urine I was able to pass was brown and bloody, Fwoosh's yard, I bled pretty much everywhere as my body was forced to eject most of my blood, allowing the rest to rot in my body. I shivered with cold despite my fever. I was always thirsty and wanted nothing more than to sleep.

You were crying quite hard. You desperately tried to put cold cloths over my burning forehead to lower my fever, and you even tried to break my fever by placing any jacket, any blanket you could find over my withering body. You made me drink water, you tried to get me to eat food, but anything that went down came back up immediately. Whenever I coughed, blood came up and you’d wipe it away from my face. It hurt my chest to even breathe.

That day was long and agonizing, I think it was especially so for you.

You would go outside every so often and let your tears fall, then return indoors when you heard my agonizing moans of pain as my stomach twisted and convulsed, as my body slowly shut down. When I puked, you’d rush in and catch the mess in a bucket, stroking my hair all the while. You’d brush out my hair with either your fingers or the ratty old hairbrush I snatched from my home.

You stayed the whole night by my side, taking care of me.

Then today rolled around. Today being the day where I will become a Walker, the day where I die but return with a fierce hunger for the flesh of human beings.

I can’t move. It is so, so hard to speak. I’m pale and I feel numb everywhere. According to you, my fever is the highest you have ever seen. I am frothing slightly at the mouth. My green eyes were beginning to turn sickly beige. I have a splitting headache as my brain slowly stops functioning properly. I am going to die.

You wrapped your jacket around my shoulders earlier on and sang to me. You cradled my head in your lap and kissed my burning forehead. You ran your fingers through my dirty red hair and told me that you loved me more than you’ve ever loved anyone before, that you were so sorry this ever happened. I used what feeble strength I had left to tell you, “I love you…”

I can feel your tears dripping onto my cheek. I also feel saliva run out of my mouth and down my cheek and you take a rag and gently wipe it away. I look up at you; you’re blurry, but I think you’re smiling.

Dizziness came in waves, and I found myself slipping in and out of unconsciousness. I don’t want to turn. I didn’t want any of this to happen. All I want is to stay alive and stay with you. I want my brother to hug me and my mother to kiss me and my father to call me his little princess… I can hear you singing. And somehow that soothes me enough to drift into sleep.

I wake up now to the sound of sobbing, and I see you with my hunting rifle in your hands, which are shaking uncontrollably, tears dripping out of your eyes. I moan as my headache returns full-force, but stop when you turn to stare at me.

“I can’t, Carly,” you sob. “I can’t do this to you! I can’t let you turn, but I can’t… I can’t kill you either… I love you too much! I can’t… I can’t…” You hold my hand. “Don’t turn… Please don’t…” But you know there’s no stopping it unless a bullet goes through my head. You and I both do. But I understand. “I’d rather die than do this to you,” you whimper.

I watch you for a moment, and then spy the small revolver hidden among the folds of your backpack.

“Revolver…” I mumble. You hesitantly obey, and I take it in my fingers. It’s already drilled and loaded. I know you well enough that we can both do this. “Both… Shoot… Shoot me… I’ll shoot… you…” I rasp. It’s rather hard to decipher, but I think you understand.

Your glossy eyes widen, asking me why. But you know why. We said we would not take our own lives, we swore we would not die; we would not become one of those things. That obviously is not going to happen.

But you and I can both agree on dying together, by each other’s side, in each other’s embrace.

You laugh through your tears and move some of my hair out of my face. “This is turning out to be one of those stupid, sappy-Penders romance stories, huh?” You joke, snot and tears running down your face. But you agree.

For some reason both of us only cry more.

You lay me down on the floor, and lay beside me so that we’re side-by-side. We passionately kiss before slowly moving our weapons underneath each other’s chins. You have to help me do so.

“Sing… for me…” I whisper.

You oblige to my final request, and for a while you’re singing songs about love and a perfect world and how I am your only sunshine. You sing about the world that has long since died. But more importantly, you sang me a lullaby. You sang to me as if we were just going to be sleeping. But we’re not. We’re going to die because I was bitten. The bliss we feel as you sing will be broken by the bullets shooting through the bottoms of our skulls and into our brains.

Still, I wish this could last forever.

When you finish, I take a shaky breath, and together we loop our fingers around the triggers of our weapons. One pull and it’s over.
But perhaps when we both escape from the world where a human is nothing more than a pile of flesh and bone, we can escape to the world in which you sang. A world where flowers never stop blooming and the sun and the moon are always clear and bright; a world where there’s no more hurt and suffering.

But even if there is not, there’s nothing more I want than to take the journey with you to the island called Death.

“On the count of three,” you breathe, your voice shaky from the tears.

I nod, my own bloody tears spilling out over my eyelashes. “I lo… Love you, Ben…” I croak.

“I love you, Carly… We’ll be together soon, I swear it…” You kiss my forehead for the very last time.

We are running out of time. I will turn soon. I can feel the sickness slowly reaching my brain. So I begin the final countdown.

“One…” I rasp. I hack up the very last mouthful of blood and tighten my grip around the trigger.

You wipe the blood from my cheek with your thumb before wrapping your free hand around mine. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Carly…”

I tightly shut my eyes. “Two…”

“I’m here now, sweetheart…”

I sob, looking at you once more with pain-filled eyes full of love. “Th… Th…” I whimper like a dog. I can't finish. “Ben…”

You shut your eyes and blissfully smile. “I’m here now.”

You pull me in close and we say it together.

“Three.”

Then we both pull the triggers.