Chapter 6
Jordan
The beast is hungry, but not for food.
I sit on the bed, watching her. The infection sharpens our senses, letting us see almost clearly in pure darkness.
She’s frightened and confused. I guess I’m confused, too. What’s so special about her that the beast wants her? Maybe it’s my loneliness manifesting, excusing me from taking accountability for kidnapping her.
The first few weeks of the infection were a haze. I remember bits and pieces, but I don’t think I really want to know everything that happened. What I do remember is enough to break anyone’s brain.
Bloodthirstiness was all I felt. I ripped into survivors, but it wasn’t really me. It was the infection. The beast.
But, for some reason, the hold the virus had on me began to loosen. I started to get control of myself back, bit by bit.
I’m not cured—I can still hear and feel the beast in me—but it’s different. More subdued. It was as if I woke up from a lucid dream, suddenly surrounded by a horde of infected.
The problem is that the other infected didn’t seem to be experiencing the same thing.
Fearing my own safety, I had separated from the horde, sneaking away and hiding out in these lonely houses.
What else could I do? Survivors in the safe zones would shoot me on sight while the infected would rip me to pieces.
It was terrifying and confusing at first—why am I the only one experiencing the infection like this? Why aren’t there more of us who can speak and act how we used to? Never once did I encounter another like me.
Eventually, I stopped asking myself those questions. All it was going to do was drive me mad. Even though the virus had loosened the reins, there are still certain things I can’t control.
Like when I tried ending it all, time and time again. The virus won’t let me, stopping me from finishing the job.
I’m stuck.
As winter left us and ushered in spring, I began to feel…lonely. I was thinking about Sarah constantly—if she was alive, would I have gotten bit?
The loneliness mixed with grief nearly had me ripping my head open to remove my brain, tired of thinking of this, of her.
To distract myself from these thoughts, I’d stay a fair distance away from the patrollers, curious to see their pattern for securing the area, but not close enough for them to spot me. I wanted to watch actual humans again. To feel some semblance of humanity.
None of them interested me until her.
Her intoxicating scent drove the beast forward, but it keeps her for more. The forest green eyes, her silky skin. The strawberry blonde braid that falls down her back. The splattering of freckles across her face.
The confident front she puts up to hide the nerves under the surface.
I realize kidnapping a woman is a very bad idea, but it was either that or let her die.
But now what? I can’t keep her tied to the bed forever. And what’s to stop the beast from kicking back on and ripping her apart?
This is a terrible idea.
Keep, the beast growls, not liking my train of thought.
“Is—is everything okay?” she asks, voice meek.
I blink in surprise. “Yes.”
She stares in my general direction, fear still splashed across her face. “Okay, good. Good. So, um, can I ask…what do you want with me?”
“I—”
‘I don’t know’ seems like a terrible answer.
“You don’t know,” she guesses before I can think of an excuse.
I loose a breath. “No, I don’t.”
“Then why can’t you let me go?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “I would like to know,” she pushes gently.
“I can’t really explain it.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes close and she sighs, wincing as she tries to roll her shoulders. “Can you at least untie me?”
No, the beast snarls. “I’m afraid not.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You can wait till morning.” So other infected don’t find you.
Her eyes swing back to me. “I’m from safe zone two. I need to get back, please—”
“I don’t care,” I find myself snarling, shocking both of us.
Damn, that was harsh. I nudge the beast, but it simply shrugs in my mind.
Sighing, I decide this has been enough for today. I ease myself from the bed, looking away from her terrified and confused expression as I grit out, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”