"We bury Craig tomorrow," I said, my voice like stone as I drove. Liam didn't look at me. "It's not because I've lost hope, it's because I'm choosing to let go."
"This isn't you talking," he muttered.
"People change, Liam," I snapped. He looked out the window away from me. I sighed. "I've changed. I'm not the person I used to be when this started, and I'm not the person you first met at the cafeteria. I'm not even the person I was this morning, because, well, things change."
He was silent.
"You know what? I don't have to explain myself to you," I said, "It's not your decision and it sure as hell was not your call earlier and it isn't now."
"I'm trying to keep you from making a decision you'll regret," he countered, looking at me now. I stopped the car.
"I don't need you to stop me from doing anything," I said fiercely. "I can take care of myself now. I'm stronger than I was before. I understand and accept the situation, and I know that nothing anyone can do will bring the people we lost back and nothing we can do will change the past, so there's no point whining about it. Craig is brain dead, and he needs to be at rest. Keeping him like this is cruel. We pull the plug tomorrow."
Liam looked away, and closed his eyes, sighing.
"Okay," he answered. "You're right, it's not my call. And you're also right, people change. I just know what it's like to watch someone lose their mind and not be able to do anything about it. I saw it happening with you, and I just wanted to stop it. I wanted to bring you back before you fell off the edge."
I thought about his words as I held the steering wheel.
"I've always tried to be upfront with you and you're one of the few people I trust nowadays," I said, staring at a lone snapper that was staggering down the street in the distance. "Well, I've been teetering on it for a while now, but a few days ago, I lost it and I did fall off. For these past few days I've been in a sort of limbo. I can't feel anything anymore, Liam. I'm numb."
"Let me help you," he said, putting his hand on mine and giving it a gentle squeeze. "I'm here for you, Lease. I'm right here. Let me help you."
"I don't need help," I said, watching as the snapper fell. "It's easy not to feel. You don't get hurt that way."
"You also don't get to be happy," he countered.
"There's not much happiness going around nowadays," I replied. The snapper was crawling now. "But just because I can't feel, doesn't mean I'm not going to fight. I'm going to survive, to keep you guys safe. There's something out there happening."
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"The snappers," I explained, "They're faster, stronger. Some of them out there were the usual, but others were able to pull one over on me. I didn't really think much of it while I was leading them out of the cafeteria, but after that I ended up in an alley. There was a big one. He had no bite marks or anything of the sort. He came out of nowhere. He was almost faster than I was, and he was far stronger and violent. I had to take out his ankle so he would fall. But even when he fell, he was unfazed and crawled toward me. I managed to kill him. I just whacked my machete into his head...over and over again."
"What does this mean?" He asked after a while. I looked at him, my eyes serious.
"It means," I started, "That the Snappers are mutating."
We both sat and stared at the snapper crawling in the street now, silent as the information sunk in.
"That's why Lucy was so strong when she turned," Liam said. "I never saw on thrash around like she did, but then again, I haven't seen a lot of people change."
"I have," I said. "And I've never seen one like that. But either way, this changes things. We're going to have to make a better defense than the doors and boarded windows. The baby will cry, and it'll attract snappers. We need to find a solution."
"I think this is something that we should discuss with the group as a whole," he replied. "But Lease, I just want you to remember that I am here for you, and I always will be."
"Don't say that," I said. "You don't know that for sure. We all die, Liam, and we all leave the one's we care about alone."
"When someone leaves, they aren't leaving their loved one alone," Liam said. "They're always with us, alive in our hearts, all around us. That's life, Lease. People will walk in and out of your life, but it makes us stronger, it shows us that we can live without depending on someone."
I processed his words, considering them.
"I guess it just matter's how you look at things, I guess," I replied, putting the car back in gear. I could tell Liam wanted back the old Lease, and he wanted to fix me, but there was nothing to fix. I was reborn from the blood, gore, and loss I've experienced. This is me. I was no longer Elise Alice Gordon, I was just Lease, a survivor. The old person I was is dead, and that's that. It's funny how sometimes to rise from the ashes, you have to let go of the old you to become something new. Of course, the ghosts of my mistakes would undoubtedly follow me, but I wouldn't let them control me. That was the difference between the old me and the new me; I learned to let go.
But what had that cost me?
Inside, I knew the answer. It had cost a part of me that made me human. But I knew, someday, may it be a few days from now or a few weeks, if I made it that far, that the part I had sacrificed would regrow. When it regrew, it would be different. It wouldn't be something that I needed to keep me going, it would be of my own free will. All these days I'd depended on having someone there to care for me, to bring me back when I thought I was lost, and to make me strong. Now, I realized something that most people never learn in their lifetime: you don't need someone else to give you strength, because the strength you need is inside, it's just up to you to open your eyes and find it.
Now, I drove forward, my eyes wide open, crushing the head of the snapper I had seen in the distance.
#
Liam and I walked back into the hospital, our expressions solemn. We saw all the snappers that lay on the floor, and we knew that in a few days we'd have to work on picking them up and cleaning the place out like we did before. It was as if time slowed, walking past all of them. I saw myself, bashing them in with my machete, almost tasting the bitter flavor of death a few times. It made me feel old, watching as I began to become undone.
I blinked away the vision, continuing forward with Liam down the hall. Before we went down it, I stopped him.
"Look," I said, staring up into his eyes, "I don't want to discuss things yet with the group. I want a few minutes to myself to think about how to approach the situation and I need to talk with someone first."
Liam nodded, and I saw a look flash through his eyes before he turned away from me, walking to the cafeteria doors. I followed behind him, not wanting to have to speak any more than I did.
I wondered then if things between Liam and I would go back to how they used to be. He said he understood that people changed, but I just wish that he would stop looking at me like I was some sort of wounded animal.
Give it time, I thought to myself. There was no going back to the way things were, only a new relationship could start between him and I.
I walked into the cafeteria and inhaled the scent of bleach. I looked at the floor where Walter's body had laid after I killed him, and I saw that it had been scrubbed clean. It was weird, staring at the spot where someone had died days before at your own hands. It gave me a strange feeling, and I had to force myself to look away.
I walked over to the old spot I used to sleep at when I first arrived here. I didn't go exactly to the spot though, because I stopped a few feet in front of it.
"Hi," I breathed, running my fingers along Craig's hair that brushed his forehead. Before, I probably would have been crying by now, but instead, I looked at him with a smile. "We had a good run, you and I."
I almost expected him to answer me after I spoke.
"You know," I said, moving myself so I was sitting on the bed next to him, still looking at his face. "You helped me more than I can say, Craig. You brought me back after Noah, when I was in that apartment building. I still don't know what it was that made me let you in, but there was something about you that I knew was good. I know, I know, it's crazy to say that you can see good in someone you'd just met, especially in the current situation, but I did, Craig, I did."
I sighed, looking over to where Jackal sat, his back to me, holding the baby that I hadn't even seen yet.
"You helped save that old part of me," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "You brought me back on track, and even when I told you to go away and didn't talk to you, you never once stopped believing that I could come back. But the truth was, I was just in shock. I thought I was gone, but I was just a little lost and confused. But the truth is, the person I used to be would have never survived on her own if you didn't help her."
I looked away from Jackal and the baby, looking back down at Craig.
"I didn't come over here to just thank you," I said, the back of my fingers barely grazing his cheek. "I came here because I want to say goodbye."
I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the words I was about to say.
"You were the glue that held me together all those months ago," I started, "We were together for four months. Every time I needed someone to be there, you were right there. You knew when not to ask questions and you took care of me, helping me every step of the way. When Lily and Lucas went, I hate to say it, but I was grateful that it wasn't you. Then you got bit, and I had to cut off your hand. It was a last ditch effort, and I thought it worked. But then you lost blood and I went out to get you help on my own, and I met others.
"They weren't like us, they were people who hadn't so much as gone outside since the whole damn thing started. They took us in, though, and a very strong, nice woman helped you. She tried to bring you back. I held on for a long time, thinking that someway, somehow, you would come back. You always came back. You were the one person who was always there for me from the day we met. Even after I found out that you were brain dead, I still had hope that you would come back."
I could feel the pain in my chest like I had felt at Lily's grave, and I realized now that there wasn't much difference between then and now.
"I've changed, Craig," I said, feeling a chills run down my body. "I died somewhere along the way of coming to terms with our world. Other people get to come back from hardships, but the old me is never coming back. Instead, I rose from my own ashes and became someone new. I've been thinking about things, and I realized that I could have never gotten to this point without you. So now, I have to let you go."
I held his face in my hand.
"I realized now that you helped make me strong," I whispered. "All those times you helped me, you made me stronger inside, I just never realized it. Now that you're gone, I know I can carry on without you."
I smiled.
"Goodbye, Craig," I whispered after I kissed him on the forehead. Then, I got up and took one good last look at him. I wasn't going to say goodbye to the dirt with Craig, I was going to say goodbye while at least part of him was still here, and that's exactly what I did.
When I turned away, I felt something, like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. It was unnerving at first, but I let it go as I realized that my feet were taking me to Jackal and the baby.
I stopped abruptly, looking to see if anyone noticed that I was walking toward Jackal. As I looked, I saw Abbey standing beside me. Her eyes looked bloodshot and her hair was a greasy mess. She just stood there, her face blank, staring at me.
"Are you okay?" I asked her, half concerned and half a little wary of her.
She muttered something under her breath.
"What?" I asked her. "Abbey, I can't hear you."
She stopped muttering and her eyes flashed over to the doors. I glanced at them, but didn't see anything. I looked back at her and she was smiling, almost giggling.
"Abbey?" I breathed, backing away.
"They wanted to play a game," she said, putting a hand over her mouth, letting out a loud giggle. My body froze.
"Wh-What did you say?" I asked her, trying to keep my voice steady.
"They made me do it," she said again, still smiling. She grabbed my hand, putting a small, cold, metal object into my hands. I looked down at it and my heart dropped. It was the zippo lighter I used to set the snapper's on fire. I looked up at her and she put a finger up to her lips and made a shushing sound, as if asking me to keep a secret. Then, she skipped off into the bathroom.
I was speechless. This was impossible. I started toward the bathrooms after her, but then I heard a yell.
I turned on my heel to the source, gasping as I saw the scene before me. The kitchen was on fire, but not just any part of the kitchen, the part where we stored the food that we didn't have rationed for the week. I ran over to it, but Liam was already over there with a fire extinguisher. I slowed to a few steps behind him. Darlene was waving away smoke so that the fire alarm didn't go off, and I realized she must have been the one who was yelling.
The fire was out in less than a minute, but the damage done was irreparable. Almost all the food was burned and melted, and no longer good. Some of it was still okay, but nowhere enough the amount needed to sustain us. I realized what this meant. But before I could think it, Darlene grabbed me by the arm.
"Please tell me this is a dream," she pleaded, staring at the pile of what would now be considered trash.
"I wish I could," I breathed.
Liam looked at me, and our eyes held the same expression, because we both knew the truth of the situation.
Either we find more food and bring it back to the hospital, or the all the people that had been sheltered for the past months would have to return to the outside world.
And both of us could only hope for the first one.