It was only a matter of time now until the end.He let out a sigh and turned away from the gathered men, and spotted Zahra standing off to the side of the room, staring at the proceedings with a look approaching terror plastered on her face. “Psst,” he whispered, trying to let the noise of the men working cover up the sound as much as possible, and waited for her to notice. She didn’t. “Psst. Zahra. Zahra, come here.”Slowly she turned to face him, her expression becoming much more doubtful as she did.“Zahra, cut me free.”She shook her head. “I’m not really so sure that’s such a great idea,” she replied, but she was at least matching his hushed tones.That was something. “Zahra,” he continued, leaning as far forward as he could against his restraints, “I trusted you in going into the town. Now I need you to trust me. I need you to cut me free, and then you need to run. Like. Hell.”She stared down at his bonds, but then something occurred to her and she looked back at him again, h
The darkness felt like it spun on into eternity, and he dreamed of hiding inside of it forever. But slowly he crawled his way back out, opening his eyes with what felt like a Herculean effort.The light seemed so bright and he closed his eyes again. Being back in the darkness made him feel like he was spinning and falling. He didn’t like the sensation and opened his eyes once more.“Joe, better get down here. He’s awake.”The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, filling the air around him with more sickening, dizzying whirls. His brain felt fuzzy, he decided. Like, literally fuzzy. Like mold. Or a peach. Or Fuzzy Wuzzy.A face appeared before him, leaning over him, and for the first time he realized he had been staring at a wooden ceiling. And now he was staring at some woman’s face.“How are you feeling?” the face asked, and he realized it was the same voice that had spoken a moment before. “Fuzzy,” he answered. And then after a moment he clarified, “Fuzzy Wuzz
He started away, but stopped and turned back. “Oh, one last thing Gabriel . The description of your rescue I got, it made it sound like this vampire was pretty dead set on getting you over all the others. Did you… did you know this vampire?”“Yes.” As the words came out, Gabriel ’s head drooped into his chest. “Before she was a vampire. That…”He took a deep breath and swallowed, barely able to wrap his head around the words, let alone speak them. “That… was Jake.”Not much later Claire brought him some actual food, which he gulped down gratefully. He realized with some remorse that he hadn’t eaten since before the car crash, which was before he’d entered the cave. And that, according to the timGabriel ne Joe had given, had been five days earlier. He’d been living on just whatever Claire pumped into his I.V. since then. Gabriel couldn’t imagine going nearly six days without food. Before the outbreak he’d almost never gone six hours without food. He realized somewhat depressingly th
They sat in silence for a bit, just looking around at the world around them. The view from here was actually quite beautiful, Gabriel had to admit. And he hated that about it. It seemed so wrong for the world to be so beautiful when everything was so messed up out there. “So what do you think?” Claire asked, cutting into his thoughts. “About what?” he asked. She motioned in front of her, at just everything around them. “Of this. Of… everything. Does this seem like a place you can stay?”Gabriel snorted. “I’m not shopping for houses.”Claire chuckled. “I know. But in a sense… you are. You… you said you had lost everything.”“I didn’t say that,” he protested.She simply shrugged. “Okay, maybe not that exactly. Maybe that just seemed like what you were saying. I mean, really, where is there for you to go? What’s really left out in the world? Here you can have a place. A purpose. A community. You’re safe here. I know you can’t see it from here, but there’s a security fence around thi
In a flash Cassius was on Gabriel , holding him up by his shirt collar. “Who did you hear this from?”Claire stepped forward, wrapping both her hands around just one of Cassius’ arms. “Stop that!” she demanded. “He’s injured.”Cassius ignored her and shook Gabriel hard. “Who have you been talking to?”“A guy named Gabriel,” Gabriel answered. “Ring any bells?”The preacher’s eyes and mouth went wide with surprise, and for a long moment he just stood there, frozen.“Wait, Cass, isn’t that…?” Joe started to ask.“You know Gabriel?” Cassius asked instead of answering Joe. “Where is he?”“Gone,” replied Gabriel . “Taken by the vampires.”Cassius let go of Gabriel and his shoulders slumped. “Then he’s probably already dead.”“Wait, Cassius, is this true?” Joe stared at the preacher with a look that was somewhere halfway between horror and betrayal. “Have you really known about the vampires this entire time?”Cassius turned away from Gabriel , but kept turning past Joe. He stared primaril
“This is great and all,” Danny suddenly interjected, “but I think I’m still unclear on why this is important.” Everyone turned to look at Danny, not a few with looks that seemed to suggest he was stupid. “I’m serious,” Danny continued. “Even if the vampires are real, it doesn’t seem like they’re all that interested in bothering us, so what’s the big deal?”“That might be changing,” said the man Gabriel recognized from the caves. “If the creatures were holed up in the caves as Gabriel ’s story suggests, then they’re not anymore. So maybe they’re hunting us now.”“Is that possible, Cass?” asked Joe. “You should know these things better than anyone.”Cassius nodded. “I’ve never known the creatures to leave their holes except to feed. Feeding for them isn’t so different than the zombies, just the need seems to arise less often. But once they get hungry, they will stop at nothing to feast.”“It’s worse than that,” added Gabriel , but instead of continuing he paused and took a deep breath
“I’m telling you, you go to that place, the only thing you have to look forward to is death. You’re better off here. Just keep your heads down, hide out, and maybe they’ll never come for you. That’s the best thing to hope for.”There was a long silence marked only by the sound of some uncomfortable shuffling. Claire stepped forward so she could get a better look at him. “But… Gabriel … you went into the caves. You tried to make a difference.”“I was wrong, okay?”Gabriel shouted the words so loud that Claire took a step back.“I was wrong. I was an idiot and I was wrong and people suffered because I was wrong. I suffered because I was wrong. The world is worse off now than it was before, all because I had to go play hero. Well there are no heroes. There’s only the living and the dead and you’re either one or the other. You can stay here and stay alive or you can go out there and join the ranks of the dead. Those are your options. I don’t care which you choose, but if you choose deat
“Gabriel !”Sturdy hands wrapped around his upper arms and shook him. He turned his head and his clearing vision made out the image of Joe standing in front of him. “Gabriel , get it together. We have to go. Now!”Gabriel nodded his head and tried to take a deep breath, and then found himself taking several quick gasping breaths. Was he panicking? He didn’t have time to panic.With as much certainty as he could manage he nodded his head. “Right,” he agreed, “let’s go.”They each turned and ran off in separate directions.This had all been worked out in advance, each person memorizing a map of the town, studying it, learning each street and alleyway. They’d all settled on a divided running path before they ever stepped foot outside of the base. So Gabriel knew where to go.Or he thought he did.Though he hadn’t been willing to admit it with the others, he had never been particularly good with maps, not great at visualizing the 2D images with 3D spaces. So it wasn’t that surprising w