The Hunger never stopped.
No matter how much Leah ate, no matter how many bodies she consumed, her stomach just kept demanding more. How many would it take?
But Leah had also been getting smarter. There was something about the heads that she craved most, and so she’d made a habit of going straight for them.
Leah had learned a lot in the time she’d been awake. There were two other types of people in the world: carnivores and prey. The carnivores were slow and clumsy, and were like her but different. They ignored everything she did. The prey were strange. They were fast and clever, and sometimes turned into carnivores if left alone too long. Only when eaten fast could they stay as food.
Leah was close to another meal now. This was a different type of meat. She could smell it. Perhaps this time, the Hunger would be sated, once and for all.
She’d wandered into someone’s backyard, with a white picket fence and pool by the door. The prey had long since abandoned it.
Leah found her prize. He was a dog, with dirty blonde fur and sad little eyes that watched her as she approached. Another carnivore must’ve gotten to him first, as the midsection had been sliced open, and he could no longer run. His tiny stomach vibrated with a rising zeal the closer she drew.
Her nostrils burned with the smell of new blood. The dog winced as she stroked it. She was so hungry…
“I’m sorry,” Leah said before sinking her teeth in.
Moans erupted behind, and another pair of carnivores entered the yard. Leah tried to hiss back, but the carnivores had caught scent of her meal, and would not be deterred. Frustrated, she made room, casually splaying out the lower half for the others while leaving the head for herself.
One organ at a time, the trio silently consumed their corpse. Leah found the taste different than what she’d been used to, but still not enough to satiate her hunger. Would it ever end?
A sudden pop went off, and one of her eating companions collapsed. The other rose to its feet, and Leah watched in horror as it met the same fate. She flew behind the small, wooden doghouse. It was the only cover in sight!
“I saw another,” a prey announced. “Be careful.”
“We gotta be quick,” another said. “Those shots will attract more.”
A group of prey walked into view. There were ten of them, all armed with guns and bats, scanning the yard. How had she let them get so close!?
One suddenly looked her way. He had a sweat-stained shirt and angry eyes. They narrowed right on her own!
“Over here!” he shouted before taking aim.
She shrieked and floundered into a bush. Everywhere she looked, there was only more fence. Where was the exit!?
The angry man closed in, gun in hand.
Leah threw her hands in the air. “Please! Don’t shoot m-me!”
The gun shook. “Holy shit, you can talk?”
Another strolled up. This one was big and dark skinned. “She’s not infected?”
The angry man paused. “No, she definitely is, Darius. Just look at her.”
“I was just h-h-hungry,” Leah said. “I’m s-sorry.”
“Ain’t never seen anything like this,” Darius said. “How the hell is that possible?”
“What are you guys doing?” a woman asked, bat raised. “Kill it!”
“I’ll l-l-leave!” Leah pleaded. “Please!”
The angry man shook his head. “We can’t just kill her, Amy. That’s murder.”
“Are you kidding me!?” Amy snapped. “That thing is not a person.”
But the angry man just drew closer. “What’s your name?”
Leah studied the prey in front. They were all watching her, weapons ready, waiting for an excuse to kill. Except the angry man. He didn’t look angry anymore.
“Leah,” she said.
He smiled and held out a gloved hand. “Hello, Leah. My name is Peter.”
* * *
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
The hollow bit into her arm, again and again and again, as Leah sat and stared. But no flesh was torn now that all its teeth were missing. Only bile leaked out and into the mason jar she’d left below.
It’d been a while since Leah had milked a hollow, and she’d forgotten how truly pitiful it was to watch. The hollow would bite and bite, salivating for the meat it would soon taste. But there was no taste to come, and nothing to let it know that her flesh was inedible. And so the hollow would get locked into an endless loop of trying to bite down, failing, and trying again as though nothing had happened, all while its saliva dripped freely out.
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There was no way out of it. The nerves in her arm and leg were no more, and she couldn’t go anywhere until the jar was full.
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
Leah blinked through the haze. The concussive force of the RPG must’ve given her a cerebral hemorrhage, as her sight was starting to go blurry, and she’d been drained hard. Hollowing would kick back in soon if she didn’t keep her mind busy.
“You’re probably wondering why I covered the rear,” she said to the hollow. “I knew it’d be the first place they’d hit once reinforcements came. Not my usual style, I know.”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
“Yeah, it was a fucking risk, but so was everything else. The whole op was fucked the moment they launched that drone. All I could do was try to even the odds, but still, there was no way we were getting out of that one. Not without serious luck, like Reno times a thousand. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.”
The hollow paused and met her in the eyes.
“Hey!” she snapped. “Don’t start thinking on me. One of us is already too many!”
The hollow looked back to her arm and bit down again.
“Thank you.”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
Tears began to form, but Leah blinked them back. “I really fucked up this time. Not here. Not today. Back in Aspen. I don’t know, the second I saw the blood and knew my skull had been cracked… I just lost my shit. I couldn’t believe that it’d almost ended there. My story over for good, all because I’d broken a fucking water bottle. Can he really blame me?”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
“I get it. It’s all my fault. The guy was just trying to find his family. Sure, it was a dumb, hopeless cause that’d never come true, but it was also the only thing that made him sane. I could see it, man. All those long nights he couldn’t sleep. All those times he stumbled on a rock. He needed that stupid dream to keep him in the fight. It was the foundation of his own Rez. And I tried to take that away from him.”
She sighed. “Not just Liam either. Mastermind, Kurt. They’re probably purged now, and the last thing they’d remember is me being a cold-blooded bitch. I built them both up, only to try to topple them back down. The fuck did I do that for?”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
“Yeah, you’re right. It was about hurting me, not them. All the shit I’ve done to survive, and it’s tainted my soul. What’s the point of coming back to life if my existence never changes? I’ll always be that fucking Hunter, and I don’t think I could ever be anything else. They all saw it. They knew the truth. I’m the reason that things are supposed to die.
“And for just a moment, that’s what I fucking wanted. I thought I could bait one of them into it. Thought I could poke them hard enough. But nope. Liam Fucking Fenix just had to let me go. He just had to tell me there was still a shot. And now he’s gone too.”
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
Leah shook her head against the waste of it all. “I won’t die here. Not like this. I’m going to make it out. No matter what it takes.”
She noticed that the mason jar was about to overflow.
“Hey!” Leah said to the hollow. It paused again for a beat, and the two made eye contact. “Thanks for listening.”
She rammed her knife through its ear.
* * *
“Cheers to my girl, Leah!” Darius said before raising his water bottle.
“Cheers!” everyone else shouted before taking a swallow.
Leah smiled weakly, the shredded muscles of her cheeks hidden behind the scarf she’d had since the beginning but had only recently started wearing. The group all smiled back, and it made her feel good.
She’d saved someone’s life today! Her, Peter, and Darius had gone out on a run to get Amy her medication. Leah was just supposed to have kept watch, but when she heard Darius screaming for help, she knew she had to act. Thank goodness, too. Any later and that zed would’ve bit him and not her.
Her arm didn’t work right anymore, but that was okay. Darius was still alive and healthy, and with the bandages that Jin had given her, Leah was feeling better already.
It had been weeks since she’d met these people, and learned what had happened. Some kind of virus that turned people into zombies had been released from out East. Then a national lock-down had been called right after, along with the internet and television being blocked. No one could figure anything out after that. Only through dropped leaflets and radio broadcasts could they get any kind of information about the outside world. Some places were doing really well, but Reno was not one of them.
That’s what made today so great. They’d heard a government announcement that the military was coming to Nevada soon, and would liberate the city from the endless hordes of zeds. If they could just hold out long enough, Leah could find scientists, and then they’d make a cure. That was what Jin said anyway, and he was a neurologist.
But it wouldn’t be easy. They’d already lost half their group in just the last few weeks alone. Tomas and Billie had been caught first by zeds after panicking in a fight. Then Jessi had been shot by a cop, and Lisa went down soon after, though hers was self-inflicted. Watching Oliver die was the worst. He was so young and had such a good attitude.
Peter strolled over and patted Leah on the back. “When this thing’s over, me and you are getting a drink.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah, really. I’ll pay the tab, and you won’t have to worry about wearing that scarf anymore.” He met her in the eyes. “It’ll be just like how things used to be.”
Her chest tightened. Leah liked the way he was staring into her eyes, as if she wasn’t a monster afflicted by this horrible sickness. Peter was looking at her for the person beneath.
And for just a beat, Leah felt human again.
* * *
Moans rolled outside, and Leah got the last of her tools together. She’d lucked out in what this general store had in stock. Duct tape would do wonders to secure her leg, and there was a pneumatic nailgun with a working pressurized tank that’d help with the rest.
Again she studied the half-empty mason jar of concentrated Hollowing, now that the water had been filtered out.
HBRS-15.21 – the most deadly contagion the world had ever seen. It could survive in extreme temperatures and proliferate without end, so long as a single one of its unbound pseudo-cells entered the human body first. There was nothing it knew other than taking dead cells and reanimating them, and it had been so effective with that role that its architects had fallen to its unrivaled might, creating a race of undead humans in the process. The rezzers. HBRS-15.21 was their gift, their curse, the anchor that weighed them down, and the wings that carried them into the sky. Their entire existence was premised on its design.
And that’s what gave her options.
Leah smeared the concentrated bile onto her wounds, with the most on her severed arm and matching stump. Soft cells could do anything, become anything, and there was no better source than infected saliva. Provided that enough was applied, entire muscular systems could be reformed.
When her wounds were sufficiently coated, Leah wrapped the duct tape around her leg. The first layer worked to stem the bleeding, while the second secured wooden planks in place. The extra fortification against her broken bones would hopefully keep her standing.
The arm came next. Leah pressed the nailgun into her flesh and fired. A hard thump resonated when each chunk bolted back together, and her dead arm shuddered in response. This was going to leave an ugly scar at the end, but a skinjob was a pittance compared to losing it entirely.
Leah stood back up, and her leg held firm. She raised her arm and watched it drop but not snap off. It would be days before she’d be able to use the arm again. Weeks before it’d be at full strength. And that assumed she hadn’t fucked up. The last time she’d had a limb reattached, it’d been back in the sanctuary of Pandemonium, with a troupe of doctors attending.
Here’s to hoping. The waning light of day fell as Leah stumbled out the door. She’d spent enough time here.