Everyone stared down in shock. It was one thing to know someone had the Wager, and another to watch it knock someone to the ground before their very eyes. Perhaps they hadn’t truly expected anything to happen. It was difficult to imagine that such a seemingly healthy person could be so suddenly and completely taken out.
Cassandra was the first to react. “Sophie,” she breathed, sliding to the floor in a single motion to kneel over her daughter. “Oh, my girl.”
She pressed the back of her hand to Sophie’s cheek and picked up her limp hand. “She’s not breathing,” she choked. Tears sprung from her eyes.
Noah shared a glance with his remaining friends. Should we tell her that’s normal? I would feel kind of bad if we got her hopes up for nothing.
None of them said anything, so he kept his mouth shut.
Travis joined his wife on the floor. He gently took Sophie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Get up, Soph,” he murmured. “Come on. You’re strong.”
At that moment Sophie’s eyes flicked back open.
It took everyone a second to notice, as she made no other bodily movement. Her eyes were unfocused and absolutely still. Cassandra let out a shout of excitement, only to immediately fall back into concern when there was no other sign of life.
“What’s happening now?” Travis asked suddenly, peering close at his daughter’s face. He gasped. “Oh, it’s awful. I can’t look.”
“Let me see,” Cassandra commanded fearfully. She pulled him away and gave a cry of her own at what she saw.
Blood was beginning to trickle from every orifice on Sophie’s expressionless face, pooling in her eye sockets and streaming down her cheeks. Cassandra leaned away in horror, nearly falling over as her daughter’s body twitched and began shaking in small, violent jerks.
“What’s happening to her?” Brian demanded.
“She failed her Wager," May murmured.
“It’s like it’s melting her brain,” Leah said in dismay. “How horrible.”
The shaking grew weaker and weaker until Sophie lay still once more. The carpet around her head was stained in a dark splotchy halo.
“No,” Travis said, trembling. “Why did this happen?”
His wife leaned into him with disbelief across her face. They clutched each other like a stranded man at sea would clutch his only buoy.
Noah looked on with a frown. He had just met Sophie a few hours ago, but so much had happened in that time that he felt like he had just lost a childhood friend. He glanced at May, who really had known Sophie. She had a fixed look in her eyes, an almost angry twist to her brows. She seemed to be mumbling something under her breath.
Noah tilted his head toward her, trying to pick up her words.
“You’re not gone,” she muttered. “You can heal.”
Noah’s eyes widened and shot back to Sophie, then to her parents mourning beside her.
So subtly he almost thought it was his imagination, her bloodied face grew gradually gaunt, her eyes and cheeks sinking marginally into the holes in her skull. Blood no longer ran freely and was beginning to dry and crust along her skin like a dark red webbed mask.
Her eyes twitched nearly imperceptibly as her eyelids started working in small increments to clear the red gunk obstructing her vision.
Noah’s attention shifted to her splayed-out limbs and he saw her skin was tightening like shrink-wrap around her bones. She slowly took on a starved appearance, though nobody else appeared to notice the change.
Sophie finally managed to clear her eyes sufficiently to view her surroundings and she stared wildly about the room with horribly bloodshot eyes. There was no recognition in her gaze, only a terrible urgent need.
“Get away,” Leah yelled in surprise, rising hastily to her feet. Before anyone could react or figure out what, exactly, they were supposed to get away from, Sophie reared up with such force as though someone had shoved her to her feet.
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“Sophie!” Cassandra cried gleefully at her daughter’s miraculous revival, but the word morphed into a scream as Sophie lunged teeth-bared towards her. She sank her teeth into her mother’s shoulder and her momentum carried them both right back down to the floor.
Travis gaped in absolute bewilderment at the sudden turn of events.
“Help your wife, you idiot!” Leah yelled, diving forward to grab Sophie’s narrow frame and attempting to pull her gnashing jaws away from Cassandra. Sophie was just weakened enough for Leah to be able to yank her out of biting range, though not so weak as to allow herself to be completely dragged away.
“What is she doing?” Travis spluttered. “Sophie, stop it!”
“She’s a zombie,” Leah said in a distracted voice. “She’ll eat you too if you’re not careful. Help me get her off your wife, will you?”
The man took a hesitant step forward. Sophie was straining desperately against Leah’s restraining grasp, lurching forward over and over in mindless repetition and falling just short each time.
“She needs to eat something,” May said. “Do you have any pets?”
Travis turned his traumatized gaze on her. “What?”
“A dog, a cat? Maybe a horse?” May said optimistically.
“Ducky,” Travis said slowly.
“Unless it’s an unreasonably large duck, it won’t be enough,” May said.
“She’s our kitty,” Travis said.
May blinked. “A cat is still too small.”
“She’s a pretty big cat.”
“Well, where is she?” May glanced around. “Ducky might need to be sacrificed.”
“She’s outside somewhere,” Travis said. “God knows where.”
“I think the cat duck is a lost cause,” Leah ground out. “Would anyone mind lending me a hand? Sophie is half an inch from eating her own mother right here.” She swiveled suddenly towards her brother. “Brian! You’re the one with the insta-win towel method! What are you waiting for?”
“Oh!” Brian yelled, jumping up. “Come on Noah, we can be useful.” He set his backpack down beside his sister and knelt down to fish frantically in its pockets. He furrowed his brows, finding only empty space where he knew he had packed them.
“They’re not here,” he muttered.
Noah decided not to tell his friend about how he had stealthily taken the towels out of the backpack and thrown them into the woods while he wasn’t looking.
Brian settled for pulling out a white tech shirt. He sidled closer to Sophie, holding the shirt tensely in front of him as he waited for an opening, and looked back when his friend didn’t appear next to him. “Noah?”
“If I get any closer, I’m helping Sophie with her meal,” he said honestly. “I don’t think you want me to pitch in here.”
“Oh,” Brian said. “Maybe stay right there then. Good, uh, self-awareness.”
Noah nodded, sheer restraint putting a twitch in his eye. “Let me know if you want me to help, though. I’d be very willing to take part.”
“Don’t worry, I have it covered.” Brian tried to wrangle the shirt around Sophie’s head, but she noticed what he was attempting to do before he could succeed and shrieked angrily in recognition of the tactic they had used to subdue Noah. She ducked away and grabbed the sleeve, trying to yank it away.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Brian growled. He smacked her hand aside and quickly dropped the hem of the shirt around her head.
They watched her expectantly, but she easily shrugged out of it and turned her attention back to Cassandra.
“What?” Leah said, sharing a glance with Brian. They both then looked at Noah.
“Hmm?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like this is my fault?”
“You’re the one who demonstrated that we can’t function in the dark,” Brian said.
Noah shrugged. “The room is too bright. It only works in perfect darkness; you have to turn the lights off.”
Brian threw his hands up. “If we shut off the lights we’ll be just as incapacitated as Sophie.”
Travis looked over with an attentive look in his eye that made Noah nervous.
“That’s right,” Leah muttered, oblivious to Travis listening in. She sighed as Sophie continued pulling dumbly against her hold like a rabid animal. “What can we even do now?”
Travis trembled in the corner, clenching and unclenching his fists as he watched the events unfolding in his living room. He finally seemed to make up his mind about something and turned on his heel, stumbling out of the room.
“Hey!” Brian yelled. “This is your family, you coward!”
A moment later Travis returned from the kitchen with a chef’s knife in hand.
“Woah!” Brian choked, completely taken aback. “Who are you planning on using that on? Your daughter?”
“My daughter’s dead,” he said sadly.
“I don’t think you understand what’s happening here,” Leah said quickly. “You’ll only make it worse if you hurt her more. It’s better to try incapacitation.”
“Yes,” he said. “With a knife.” He raised the blade forward. It was shaking like a maraca. “I have to be strong for Cassy.”
Sophie managed to snag a small bite while the siblings were distracted. Cassandra screeched wordlessly, trying to pull away, but she couldn’t break Sophie’s grip.
Leah yanked Sophie’s head back. The crazed girl snapped at her angrily before turning back to strain her jaws towards her mother.
“All you need to do is get yourself and your wife out of here!” Leah yelled at Travis. “Do you want to murder Sophie?”
Travis’ knuckles were white. “Look at her. It’s just like you said. She’s- she’s a zombie. She’ll just attack someone else if I run away, and I can’t let my feelings put others in danger.” He pointed the knife at them. “Move aside. You think I want to do this? Don’t make it any more difficult for me.”
Brian turned to look at Noah. “Stop him,” he said quickly.