Chapter 10

A layer of fine ash coated my body and turned the world gray. Everything happened too fast. One moment I was sitting in psychology, filling a requirement to graduate, and the next moment I was in a forest, all alone.

The first of the scabs found me, and I didn’t care. I sat and didn’t move. Its kick to my shoulder knocked me over, and I didn’t care. The scab ripped the rifle from my back and dragged me across the pavement by my vest, and I didn’t care. I felt nothing and collapsed into myself. None of it was my fault.

When the breach opened, it wasn’t my fault. When the beasts came, it wasn’t my fault. When the sirens blared, and they ignored the missiles, it wasn’t my fault. And when I couldn’t heal anyone else, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t deserve the blame for their deaths. Nobody had the right to blame me. But whose fault was it?

It was Mike’s fault; he left me. It was The Order’s fault; they fled when things became difficult. It was the government’s fault; they never prepared and kept the truth hidden. Every one of them was at fault. What did I do wrong? What did Lia do wrong? We trusted them, and we shouldn’t have. They betrayed us. All of them betrayed us. Everyone betrayed me.

The scab quickened its pace, and soon two more arrived. No different from any other scabs. Two males, one female, and each of them wore no clothes. Rotten bags of flesh and bone that lost their fight to hold on to the little humanity they had left.

The new arrivals pulled my legs from my chest and lifted me. Festering hands that carried me as if they’d toss me into a mass grave. Mom and dad swung us when we were children, with father taking our legs and mom holding our arms. The scabs weren’t my parents, though. They had no right to lift me from the ground.

None of them had the right. To lift me, to kick me, to hurt Lia, to mock me, to cheat, to lie, and leave us behind; none of them had the right. I wanted them dead.

They needed to die.

The scabs carried me awkwardly and stumbled with no coordination. I kicked one in the face, and all three lost their balance. Before I hit the ground, I twisted my body enough to land on my side, and I pulled the mace from my vest. The female scab leaped onto my back as I stood, but she was too light to stop me, too small, and her arms couldn’t slip under my helmet for a chokehold.

I spun and bashed a scab’s head, caving his skull and knocking him to the pavement. The other male pulled me to the ground and fell on top of me. The raccoon didn’t give me much essence, but it gave me enough to overpower him. I locked my legs around his body and grabbed his throat with my free hand. My fingers weren’t long, and my palms weren’t wide. They didn’t need to be, though. My tiny hands were large enough to dig into his thin, decaying flesh. To grab his throat and clench his windpipe.

The female clawed at my helmet, but I ignored her. One scab above me, one below me, the three of us locked in a deathmatch.

I constricted my legs tighter and squeezed my hand as hard as I could. Scabs were no longer human, but they needed air like everything else. They needed food; they needed water; they needed a place to live. Scabs lost their minds, but they still knew fear.

The male scab gripped my arm and tried to wrench it from his throat. My fingers dug deeper. They tunneled through his soft neck until I tore the skin, and his body convulsed.

Saliva mixed with old blood from its crusty mouth dribbled down its chin onto my visor like bubbly motor oil. When his body dropped, no longer fighting, and my hand cramped from locking so long, I released my legs and pushed him off.

The female scab below me continued to scratch my vest until I thrust my hips in the air and drove my feet into the ground. Her body slid across the asphalt like a sled, and the skin ripped from her back. Once I freed myself from her grasp, I twisted to all fours. She tried to get up, but I held her to the ground and put my knee across her throat.

The skin on her face fell from her skull like a wax statue in the desert, and her muffled cries didn’t stop my knife from going through her decaying eye.

Like a hammer and nail, I pounded the mace into the butt of the knife, three, four, then five times until the point struck the pavement. The blade dulled from my lack of maintenance. The priest had a small stone for sharpening, but I didn’t know how to use it. One more thing I should’ve learned instead of watching dance competitions.

I ripped the knife free using both hands and wiped the gore on my pants before sheathing it back to my waist. I killed three scabs, but more would come. After strapping the rifle to my back, I turned my attention towards the town. The flames hadn’t crossed, they wouldn’t. But they grew taller. The wind still blew from the south, and the fire started northwest of the town. Whatever lived in the church was too dangerous to deal with.