The hole in the wall remained. Ryan had successfully moved away the large slab of metal that obstructed their pathway and Leah went through first, followed closely by him.
Together they entered the wilderness, hiding from the guards on top of the walls that Ryan already learned would shoot first and ask questions later. Hiding from them was easy enough in the maze of alleyways, but the dead were oddly quiet.
Which Ryan knew wasn't good.
"Right there's a couple of houses that I haven't checked up north."
"There's not much there - I went to them already a few months ago."
Leah gave him a look. "Okay so there's nothing essential, but what about picture frames? Dresses? Take any of that stuff, did you?"
He smiled a little. "You think I'd look good in a dress?"
She laughed. "Sure, Ryan. I'm sure you would look beautiful in one."
As suddenly as the humour came, it vanished. Both of them held weapons in one of their hands, using every sense they had to detect the dead that might come out of the shadows. Fighting against each other over the last days somehow gave them the chance to know the movements of the other. From instinct alone.
They compensated for their ally; keeping each sense awake and ready where the other wouldn't be. No more talking was needed. Just looks and small gestures got them through the first few open streets.
Still there was no dead to be seen.
An itch whispered at the back of his mind, making him all the more edgy. He didn't like this. He wasn't ready for going out again. But his doubts were pushed away - it was just the bite. The infection was making him restless, edgy and stupid, which might get them both killed.
Then how would he live with himself?
The city was long behind them when they reached the northern wilderness, houses long abandoned, covered with dust and forgotten times. Apartments stacked up against each other like mismatched bricks from a broken Lego set.
Usually this place had too many of the dead to count at once, but this day it was empty. Abandoned. Leah and Ryan were hiding behind walls and garbage disposals, but they quickly realised there was no need. Stepping out onto the road they surveyed the utter stillness and incomplete emptiness.
"Where did they go?" Leah still held her pistol in both hands, her forehead furrowed in puzzlement.
"Dunno." Ryan didn't let his guard down. Not for a moment.
A newspaper flew across their path, gathered by the ominous wind to dance eagerly in their direction. They were entirely still, listening for the familiar grunts and groans of brainless deadmen. They were much more afraid when none were heard.
"Come on," He whispered.
The first immediate house they entered seemed quiet. All windows and the door was broken through. A cold draft blew through it like a silenced scream. Leah shivered in it. The flowered wallpaper was chipped and faded, forgotten lights swinging and squeaking on the ceiling. A distinct corpse smell crept into their noses, reawakening the raw fear they felt of them. Of the dead.
"I don't like this."
Ryan looked up to the lights, to the second floor. "D'you think there's stuff up there?"
"There's something wrong, Ryan."
"I know. I think we should look around, though."
Leah sighed, looking up at the light. Waiting for some miracle excuse to make sure that they didn't need to go up there. But none came, so while her back was turned towards the stair, she climbed them. Glancing around for any movement.
Ryan was already in the upstairs bedroom.
There wasn't much left. The bed was stripped down to it's metal frame, too heavy to pick up alone and too rusted to be any use. Nothing remained. Just like he had left it a few weeks ago - even then there wasn't much to take.
Carpet was ripped from the floorboards, some wood from the foundation was even taken to become fodder for fire. The dressing table's mirror was smashed, a little blood splattered on the wood beneath. There was also a shining glitter from the table, one that nobody would normally notice but he did. The light being just right for him to see it.
He reached in, finding a necklace.
It was silver. Genuinely silver which was a metal that he hadn't seen in so long that he barely recognised it. Ryan only saw that it looked nice, beautiful, even. It was a long chain, durable and at the end of it there was a crucifix, the centre of that had a dark blue stone. Ryan looked at it.
This would get them a lot - more than enough for all the kids to last a few weeks, maybe a month. But it... The rich didn't deserve it. Not something as gorgeous as this. But he realised how many would probably be willing to pay big for something like this. It was a cross that he hadn't seen in a while. One which was about some Jesus guy, that he never really knew much about.
Ryan noticed his fragmented reflection. Dirty blond hair, brown eyes. A cleaner face, which meant that he was able to see his pale complexion. He was built well, but it never showed properly, never had done enough for him to think himself very different. He still looked like a kid, just a kid. Never anything special-
"No..." He leaned in.
They were brown, his eyes were a dark brown colour but now they were different. They were becoming bloodshot, the pupil bleeding white veins from the black void outwards. Just like the dead. He was turning, already. It wasn't going to take months; he had days, maybe hours. Ryan tried to calm down.
Tried to breathe inwards and out as he had done so all his life. But he couldn't - how could he? How the hell could he have his eyes change like that, so soon? When had he been bitten? Three days? Only three days? How long would it take? How long did he have left...?
"Ryan?" Leah's voice. He turned abruptly. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
She nodded and stepped into the room. "Found anything?"
He turned to show her, it stayed loose in the palm of his hand.
But before he could even utter a word, he heard it. The familiar stench, the unmistakable growl and the disfigured face, flesh hanging off the bone and eyes full of evil hunger.
"Leah-!"
The deadman swiped at her back, ripping off her coat in a strong swipe. He didn't look thin, he wasn't like most of the skeletons that Ryan saw most of his life, he was well fed and strong. Very strong. Leah fell to the ground with a piercing scream, surprised and panicky, her gun flying out of her hands at exactly the wrong moment.
The metal sliding on the rotten floorboards, stopping feet away. She kicked and squirmed in the zombie's grasp as it clawed and tried to gnaw at her flesh with it's pointed teeth. Ryan ran to the gun as she struggled, grabbing it from the ground and trying to stop shaking, stop feeling his heart hammer against his ribs, trying to get a clean shot.
Leah kicked the zombie upward, "SHOOT! TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT!"
It fell onto her again, pinning her on her back, the white of her eyes screaming as well as the throat. It had taken over now, she felt the fear snatch at her breath like a cruel thief. Every inch of her voice felt hoarse and itchy.
He could miss! He could still miss!
He heard the screams and the groans, it opened its mouth-
BANG.
The corpse fell. She wasn't moving underneath it. "Leah!"
Ryan ran over, the gun still tightly in his hand, guilt and uncertainty already stabbing at him. He shoved the beast off of her body, rolling it only next to her. Her eyes were closed, blood was drenched all over her clothes, staining her skin and she was breathing. He thanked any God that remained, sighing in relief.
Leah lifted herself slowly, opening her eyes, not quite understanding what just happened. She saw the corpse, she saw Ryan over her, but she didn't take it in. Her eyes were closed, she had already anticipated her death. But she wasn't gone; why?
He hugged her tightly.
Then she remembered, taking a second more before hugging back.
"Don't do that to me."
"What happened?"
"It came out of nowhere."
They parted.
Leah looked back to it. Her voice still a little shaky. "I-it... It was strong."
"Yeah. It was."
"How did it do that? Most of them aren't even half the size of him."
"It was probably a lucky one." He looked to it. "But at least it's gone now."
There was a long moment. They sat together looking at the anomaly, the zombie that was probably stronger than any other they had seen. Thankful that it was gone, and that they were both still alive. Leah felt the itch. The horrid itch that she always felt, when covered in the blackened blood of a zombie.
"I'm..." she got up and gestured down the hall. Stepping over the twice-dead corpse without a second glance.
Ryan got up slower, unsure what she was doing grabbing a bottle of water and heading into the room at the end. She felt the blood on her shirt. Still damp, but stinking worse than any other that she had encountered.
Her face was splashed with it also, and she started there, scrubbing it off with a bit of her sodden brown coat and hands. Leah felt scratched all over and violently took off her shirt. Annoyed at how she was acting, how she was just weak and pathetic that she couldn't take care of it herself. At the filthy ripples of water that gave her a disjointed reflection. The semi-clear bottle beside the sink.
"Jesus..." Ryan was behind her, looking at her naked back.
Looking at the thick, deep scars of her torment. At how they crossed over each other repetitively, how they paled more than the rest of her skin. How she looked as stitched up and tortured as he was.
Some were paler than others, some still had the slight pale pink, but all were grotesque when stitched together. She didn't bother hiding them now, she just held onto the sink, staring into the water. Breathing lightly.
"Who did this?" He sounded disgusted. Angry. Leah turned her head.
"Isn't it obvious?" She said bitterly, her eyes beginning to water as she put her coat on again. The blood already drying through. "Nobody escapes Boss, Ryan. Even if you've been running all your life."
"That's why we can't be seen by the guards."
She nodded.
"Why we never go through the front gate."
She nodded.
"Why we didn't help that guy when we could."
She sighed. Then she nodded again. "It's for everyone's protection."
"Everyone's? Or just yours?"
"You think I'm that selfish?" She hissed. Then looked away shamefully. "I... I need to stay alive for them. I only do it for their protection"
"Sure you do. But maybe you could've told me."
She shrugged. "It doesn't make any difference."
"Yes it does!" He stepped closer, but daring, only for a moment. Sickened at what he did to her. At the scars that she would never be able to wash off. "How could anybody do this? How could anybody...?"
"I was just a kid." She muttered. "I didn't know what would happen. I was born into that life. So I got out."
"How long have you been running?"
"A long time."
"How long?"
She put on her coat, hiding the scars again, leaving her shirt lying on the floor. "Fifty eight days." She turned back to him, zipping it up, surprised at how close he was to her. Just a foot away. With something bright and shining in the palm of his hand.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I told you... It was for your own good."
"I thought that we were friends."
"Friends? When we met-"
"I didn't know you. But... But there are things which've changed."
"Like what?"
He came a little closer. Locking her eyes with his own. "I want to give you something."
Ryan held out the necklace. The impossible bright blue wonder that glittered tantalizingly in the midday sun. It blinded her eye and it made her want to blink but she couldn't, all that she saw was the caring look in his eye. The disgust in his voice when he saw her mutilations.
Something that Leah couldn't believe - most didn't see them, those who did laughed at her misfortune. Or worse. Pitied her. Ryan put it on her, becoming so close that she could smell the musky heat from his body. The smell that she knew was delicous from each night when they slept beside each other. The one she was now addicted to.
She felt every impulse inside her scream. Not in pain or anger or hate, but to just release what she had begun to feel for Ryan. They had known each other for days. Just days. Leah knew how the stories went, feelings at first sight, beauty that awakens at it's first kiss.
But that's just what they were. Stories.
She stepped back. Shaking her head. Muttering words that Ryan couldn't hear or even want to hear; she ran. She ran faster than ever, scared of him, of her feelings and of everything around them. Before he could apologise, call to her or even grab her arm she had already gone. She was out the door and heading back down the street. Back to the city. Holding onto the necklace tightly, enough to rip it off her neck.
He stood completely still, almost in shock. What had he just done? Why did he do something like that?
Ryan swore to himself, so angry and hateful at what he had tried to do to her that he wanted to scream. But he didn't, he just leaned against the decaying tiles of the bathroom, sliding down them and stopping on the ground. Sitting and wondering where in hell he thought he could do that? Impulses like that needed to be controlled, like everything else. That was how he worked. He was careful and never allowed emotions to govern him, so what had changed-?!
For a second, he glanced at his hand, about to blame every problem and impulse he had thought on it. He saw Leah's face, he saw her shake her head and run away from him again and again. The complete and utter... disgust in her eyes. Disgust of him trying to do that to her. He punched the wall. Frustrated, angry and filled with such undying regret and passion that he just didn't know how to put into words.
Ryan tried to wipe the tiring, horrible gut feeling that sat in his stomach like an unwanted pest. He had thought that Leah would look good in it, imagined how happy she would be with it on. The thoughts evaporated in his corrosive anger and shame.