“Reseat the batteries,” Noah suggested. “Sometimes that works.”

Brian shot him a disgruntled look. “You want to try that? Have your fingers magically regained their fine motor function?”

“Ah, right. Never mind.”

“I’m just glad I thought to bring along a spare. Leah, protect that thing with your life.”

“Of course,” she said stoically. “We can pick up new batteries tomorrow morning at the Corner Market. We’ll have to convince someone in town to install them for us.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the store is closed,” Noah said. “I definitely infected David.”

Brian shook his head in disappointment. “I liked David. Why’d you have to get him?”

“Oh, like any of us had any clue what was happening.”

“I don’t even know where else we could go to get batteries,” Leah admitted, ignoring Brian’s teasing. “I go to the Corner Market for everything.”

“I’m sure there’s another viable place somewhere around town,” Noah said, although he had no idea where that might be. He was just as reliant on the Corner Market as every other Oakridge student.

“This light better not give out tonight,” Leah said threateningly, shaking the remaining flashlight as if she could scare it into proper behavior. “It’s pitch-black inside the mausoleum; we’ll be trapped if the light happens to die overnight.”

“Uh, I really don’t like the idea of that happening,” Brian said worriedly. “Maybe one of us should stay outside while the rest of us investigate.”

“And sleep outside, too?” Noah shook his head. “We have to be careful about where we sleep. I mean, people generally are, but with the way we are now, we especially can’t afford to leave ourselves out in the open like that. I’d say it would be a better idea to leave the door cracked all night, but then animals might get in and we’d be no better off than if we were outside.”

May looked at Brian. “Did you bring any candles and matches?”

He grinned in surprise as she jogged his memory, pleased at his own foresight. “Hey, I did! There’s our solution. We’ll have to keep a careful eye on the light to make sure it doesn’t go out, but it’s still safer than relying on a couple of old batteries. We can take shifts or something.” He furrowed his brow. “Although, I’m not sure how good the ventilation is in there. I’d hate to give us all carbon monoxide poisoning.”

His three companions stared at him.

“We don’t breathe,” Leah said.

Brian blinked at her and then rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, yeah. It’s been a long day. Although in my defense, it’s super weird that we’re just casually not breathing without any issues.”

Noah focused on his own lack of breath for a moment and tried to inhale. He honestly couldn’t tell if he was filling his lungs with air or not without the sensation of air moving past his lips. He held a hand to his mouth and attempted to exhale, but of course he didn’t feel any breath on his deadened fingers.

His friends watched in concern as he struggled to produce a breath. It was such a similar action to breathing that it should have been easy, but no matter how hard Noah tried, he couldn’t tell if he was expelling any air.

“I don’t think I could breathe if I wanted to,” Noah finally said, his tone neutral. He looked at Brian. “You’re right that it’s super weird. Oxygen is needed for our cells to perform cellular respiration. It’s needed for life!”

“I’ll take your word for that,” Brian said with the obliviousness of someone who had probably failed ninth grade science.

Noah rolled his eyes. “It’s basic biology. If we aren’t using oxygen to produce energy, then what are we running off of? What’s our power source?”

As gross as it sounds… flesh?” Leah suggested tentatively.

Noah shook his head. “None of you have eaten anyone yet, and you’re all functioning fine. Me and Sophie only got hungry when we were injured, which implies that whatever mysterious energy is fueling our usual activities doesn’t contribute toward regeneration. As soon as we get hurt, our own bodies suddenly become up for grabs, and we start shriveling away unless we can get ahold of something to eat.”

Noah nodded to himself, then paused with a confused expression. “Except, that doesn’t make sense either! Energy from food can usually only be utilized by cells when in the presence of oxygen, so I have no idea how I’ve managed to gain energy from digesting a whole raccoon and a bit of a person when I haven’t had breath or a heart rate since lunch.”

“Maybe we’re breathing through our skin,” Brian said excitedly. “Like frogs!”

Everyone else gave him an incredulous look.

“Hey, frogs are cool,” Brian protested.

Noah pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can agree with that, but there are so many reasons why it’s unlikely that we have suddenly gained the capability to perform cutaneous respiration. And even if we had, it wouldn’t help us without proper circulation. How do you think oxygen gets to your cells?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Look, just because you’re a bio major doesn’t give you the right to shoot down my epic ideas,” Brian complained. “We don’t know anything for sure. Would you have thought we could even be alive right now? This conversation in itself is a miracle of science. Don’t tell me something can’t happen just because it’s ‘unlikely’.”

“You’re right,” Noah admitted. “Maybe we are breathing through our skin at this very moment. Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow and have completed our full transformation into frogs! It’s unlikely, but anything’s possible! Right?”

“Now you’re just being facetious,” Brian grumbled. “Forget I said anything. What were you talking about? Digesting things?”

“There’s no recovering that train of thought, Brian. You’ve taken us off those tracks and dismantled them.”

“No, no, you were saying you couldn't understand how you had digested anything without a source of oxygen.”

“Brian, you don’t need to do this. The conversation is over.”

“Maybe you haven’t digested anything,” May murmured to herself.

“Whatever do you mean, May?” Brian asked with a pleased grin. “Do speak up.”

She looked over hesitantly. “Well, I’m not saying I have any idea what digestive insanity happens when one of us eats something- I mean, you ate a raccoon; that’s not normal- but maybe the food is being used in a completely different manner than usual. Some way that optimizes it for healing somehow, though I have no idea how that would be. I’m no bio major.”

“I bet Insight could figure it out,” Brian said.

“Not that you would ask them,” Leah said with a sharp look at her brother.

“No, I’m just saying.” He squinted ahead and groaned. “Guys, we’re at the cemetery. We missed the trail to our mausoleum.”

“No way,” Leah complained, but he was right. The light traced the contours of the gravestones ahead of them.

“Well, let’s go back, then,” Noah sighed. “It’s how we found the trail the first time anyway; with any luck we’ll stumble across it again in the same way.”

The four of them turned around and headed back the way they’d come.

“Should we be worrying about running into those wolves again?” Noah asked. “They’re probably long gone, right?”

“Actually, we should definitely be worrying about running into them,” Leah said nonchalantly. “Wolves sometimes roam the same area for multiple nights in a row. They could be stalking us right now.”

They all looked behind them, but the trail was empty.

“Or,” Brian said pointedly, giving his sister a disappointed look, “they could be several dozen miles away by now. The pack probably isn’t around.”

“I can’t hear any howling,” May said hopefully.

“Wolves don’t howl when they’re tracking prey,” Leah informed her.

“Okay, let’s stop with the ominous wolf facts,” Noah said.

She shrugged. “They’re either here or they’re not. Nothing I say will change that.”

“Yes, it will,” Brian admonished her. “The universe will punish you for pushing your luck. You’ll summon a whole new pack of wolves to our location.”

“I think I see our junction,” Noah interrupted excitedly.

“Hey, you’re right,” Leah said, shining the light forward. “Sweet, we didn’t waste our time coming out here.”

“We need to go to the right,” May said before anyone had a chance to ask. Noah was glad she remembered; he was too ashamed to admit aloud that he had forgotten the correct direction.

They wordlessly filed onto the right path. After they had been trudging along for a minute, Leah’s flashlight alarmingly began to sputter a little. Their surroundings flashed in and out of darkness, making Noah feel dizzy.

Leah smacked the light and it stopped flashing, although it was about half as bright as it had been. “I think this one needs new batteries, too,” she said. “Brian, can you get those candles out now? This thing could die at any moment and I don’t want to find out the hard way if the trees let enough moonlight through their branches for us to see by.”

“Yeah, give me one second,” Brian said. Leah shined the light at him as he dropped his bag to the ground and dug around in one of the pockets, coming up a moment later with two tea light candles and a matchbook. All three items looked completely unused. He struck a match and lit one of the candles, then handed it carefully to Noah. “Don’t let the wax spill on your hands.”

Noah nodded and watched the small pool of liquid grow around the wick as the wax melted. It was strange to be leery of hurting himself for a reason other than pain.

Brian quickly lit the second candle for himself and let the match burn almost to his fingers before pinching it quickly with his other hand. He tossed the small stub of cardboard to the ground, zipped up his bag and stood up.

“Turn off the flashlight,” he told his sister.

“You sure?” She seemed nervous about it, but she did as he requested.

For a split second their eyes struggled to adjust to the dimmer illumination of the candles, everything going black except the two weak flickering points of light. Before they could begin to lose sense of themselves, though, their sight crept reluctantly back until they could all see each other once more. It was a warmer, more fluttery sort of light, but it would serve their purposes until they could get new batteries.

Noah had never relied on a candle as his only source of illumination, and he was pleasantly surprised by its brightness. He’d only ever seen candles burn in a room already lit with electrical lights, and it undersold how much light such a small flame could put off.

“I have a couple more candles, so we should hopefully be good until morning,” Brian said. “We can keep the flashlight close at hand if there’s any emergencies. But there won’t be any, right, Noah? You’re not going to drop your candle.”

“Of course not.”

“I’d light more candles for May and Leah, but I don’t have enough to be careless with how we use them. I’m trying to be at least a little conservative here.”

“It’s okay,” May reassured him. “We just need to stick close together and we’ll be fine.”

They walked along the trail until the clearing came into view, and they slowed down as they moved towards the mausoleum. The stocky structure was nearly invisible until they were right in front of it.

“We made it,” May said quietly.

“You didn’t expect us to?” Leah asked with a small smile.

“I half expected it to have disappeared,” she said. “Not for any real reason, I guess.”

“Let’s just get inside before the wolves can make a surprise return,” Noah said.

The door was still missing its handle, which would have been quite a problem if it hadn’t been left slightly ajar.

Without another word, the four of them slipped inside.