II

Promises Made

For another eleven days, we went through what possibly was the worst road trip possible. We already passed two other cities in our way, all ruined the same way ours was. My gun is down to two bullets left, courtesy of fighting stragglers zombies.

We are now down to sharing an MRE per day. It is harder and harder to find food and running water. Our cellphones have died a long time ago. At least my radio is powered by old school battery. Every night, I keep watch while listening to static and the occasional transmission of names. Just that: names. I listen to them, and any with the surnames Wilson or Charleston I note down to tell to Clark and Eva in the morning.

“Stop the car,” Eva says abruptly.

It is 16:42. All day, she has been sleeping in the backseat, carsick. Her alabaster skin is now greyish; little red veins pop and crawl around the whites of her eyes. Clark pulls over, and before the car even stops properly, Eva opens the door and stumbles out. She runs, unsteady, until she is far enough from the car.

Dry-heaving, Eva kneels on the ground, short hair blown wild in the wind. Her figure seems so small, so fragile.

“I’m going to check on her,” I say, leaving the car with a bottle of water. I leave my gun on the dashboard for Clark; Eva has the switchblade and I’m the only one with any martial training.

“Eva?”

Eva staggers up then lurches forward a few paces farther. “Stay away, Kirsten,” she mutters, her voice trembling.

I should have seen the signs. She did not eat anything for two days. She barely drank anything either. Her skin and eyes. Her complete indifference to the corpses in the city.

She’s turning into one of them.

“So hungry,” Eva whines. Her arms hug her abdomen and she rocks in place. Then, I see her starting to gnaw at the knuckle of her right hand.

“Eva,” I call out, tentatively stepping forward, water bottle in an extended hand as a peace offering. “Eva, can we help?”

“Kirsten, careful, she seems off.” Clark. I ignore him.

“Eva?” I walk closer, so close. I hear Clark warning me, but I will not leave her here alone in pain. If she attacks me, I can handle her. I have handled them before. If not, then she is still Eva, and she needs my help.

I touch her shoulder.

She turns, grabs my wrist, and tugs it sharply towards her mouth with the bloody hand she was gnawing.

That is when the gunshot crack out loud and a spray of blood and brain matter erupts from the side of Eva’s head. She is still mid-turn; the momentum carries her in a twirl and the gore spins in a fountain that splatters across my face and neck as she collapses into my arms.

“Kirsten!” Clark calls, rushing. “Are you hurt? Did she get you?” He touches my face, my shoulder, my arms, ignoring Eva’s dead body still draped over me.

“I’m okay,” I tell him, then: “Since when did you, you know?”

“When she told you to stay back.”

“Oh.”

“Wait here,” he says before leaving.

I sit there, in the dusty ground in the middle of nowhere, cradling the body of a friend that tried to eat me as I wait for Clark. I look down to Eva’s body. Her eyes are still open, blank slate gray and lifeless. I close them; her eyelids are cold and soft, like flower petals.

Clark is taking too long, so I lay down Eva softly and go after him at the car. I found him sitting at the back passenger seat with the contents of Eva’s bag strewn all over. In his hands was a journal, one Eva obsessively wrote in every day and night and never let us see.