Find Me At The End

A HOLY PLACE TO STARVE

Still in the destroyed city of new york, linda was completed confused.

Where could" the end" be ?

The words from the mirror still lived in her memory like a broken record. Find me at the end..CO... Cole had written that before the carrier took him.

But what did " the end" mean? The end of the street? The end of the city? The end of the world itself?.

She stood in the middle of the empty road hopeless, the diamond ring warm against her finger. Around her, new york looked like a corpse. Building stood with broken windows,Cars sat abandoned in the middle of the road, doors hanging open. Dust covered everything, as if the city had been sleeping under a dirty blanket for years even though only one night had passed.

The nightmare still settled Inside her. She could still feel her teeth in her neck, still smell like rot of zombies, still see the vampires black eyes. She pinched the skin on her leg hard enough to leave a mark. Real pain. She was awake. This was not another freaking scary dream.

She started walking.

She had no direction in mind, only the desperate need to keep moving. Staying still felt like waiting to die. After about 30 mins the light began to change. The Sun began to sink. Shadows grew longer. The air turned cooler. Evening was already falling, and the thought of being outside after dark made her stomach twist.

She could not go back to the apartment. The carrier had been there. Those torn black wings, those empty eyes, the way it had looked at her under the couch, the memory made her walk faster. She needed a place to hide, a place to sleep, even if only for a few hours. Somewhere she could close her eyes without feeling like something was about to drag her away.

The street remained silent except for the sound of her own bare feet on the dusty floor. No birds. No wind. No distant sirens. Only her breathing and the soft scrape of her steps.

Then she saw the church.

It stood on a quiet block,its Stone walls dark with age and dust. The heavy wooden door were fully opened as if people forced themselves out of it. A small cross still hanging above the entrance of the church. Titled to one side. Linda stopped and stared at it for a long moment. Churches were supposed to be safe. Holy. Protected. She did not know if she still believed that, but the alternative was sleeping on the open street with carriers somewhere in the city of new york.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The air was cooler a d smelled of wood, candle wax, and dust, the alter was scattered with dust covering the cross and the candle on it. Linda walked slowly down the centre while, her eye moving from corner to corner. Nothing moved. No shadows that did not belong. She grabbed a wood, close to the church chair incase she needed to run, and sat down. Her body ached. Her feet were cut and dirty. The pink night dress was a little more than rags now.

She closed her eyes.

Sleep came faster than she expected, heavy and dark.

She didn't know how long she had slept off when a sound woke her .

Footsteps.

Bam.

Bam.

Slow. Heavy. Coming from the front of the church door.

Linda's eyes opened, fear from the previous day and the nightmare slammed into her once. She sat up and so fast her head bang. Her hand shot out and closed around a large piece of broken glass that had fallen from one of the windows. The edge was sharp enough to cut. She gripped it tightly, ignoring the way it bit into her palms, and rose to face whatever was there.

Ealier she has pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She did it again now, hard. The pain was real. This was happening.

The footsteps kept coming. Closer. The sound echoed off the stone walls. She saw the shadow first, it was large, stretched and moving between the the walls. Whatever it was, it was big. Linda raised the glass, ready to fight, ready to die if she had to.

The shadow moved into a thin beam of light.

A rabbit hopped into view.

Linda's breath left her in shaky rush. She almost screamed from the sudden release of fear. The animal was small, thin,its fur covered in dust. It looked as lost as she felt. It sniffed the air, nose twitching, then took another hesitant hop toward her.

""Poor animal," she whispered, her voice cracking. " You must be all alone too."

She lowered the glass and slowly reached out. The rabbit did not run. It let her pick it up. its body was warm and light in her arms, the first living warmth she had felt since Cole disappeared. She held it against her chest and sat back down in the floor. For a few minutes she just stayed like that, listening to the tiny heartbeat against her own.

Then her stomach growled.

The sound was loud in the quiet church. Hunger hit her all at once, sharp and painful. She had no eaten since the night of the engagement. Her body was running low on sugar, pure fear and adrenaline, and now it was demanding fuel. She looked around the church. Empty hall. Dusty floor. Nothing. No leftover food, no forgotten bags, nothing she could use.

The only living things left was the rabbit in her arms.

Linda stared down at it. The animal looked up with a dark and trusting eyes. Her throat tightened. She did not want to do this. The thought nade her feel sick. But the hunger was stronger. If she did not eat, she would be too weak to keep moving. Too weak to find Cole. Too weak to survive whatever was hunting in the city.

With trembling hands she closed her fingers around the rabbit's neck.

She looked away from when she did it . The small body jerked once then went chill. Tears ran down her face. She whispered " I'm sorry" over and over, though the words changed nothing.

There was no way to make a fire. The church had no working lights, no matches, nothing. She had no choice

She ate the rabbit raw.

The meat was tough and warm and tasted of blood and fear.she forced herself to chew and swallow, gagging more than once. Every bite felt like a betrayal, but she kept on going until there was nothing left. When it was over she sat on the floor with her back against the pew, arms wrapped around her knees, and cried silently until she had no tears left.

Sometime later, tiredness took her again.

Early the next morning, light filtered through the broken Windows. Linda woke stiff and sore, but the raw meat had given her small measure of strength. Her head felt clearer. Her legs no longer shook when she stood. She left the church without looking back and stepped out into the dry, dusty, empty streets.

Her breath echoed in the silence. The city looked the same, abandoned, grey, waiting. She walked with more purpose now, though she still did not know where she was heading to. The ring on her finger caught the weak sunlight now and then, a tiny flash of life and hope in the dead world.

After a long time she stopped in front a large deserted mall. The glass doors were shattered and hanging open.

Inside looked dark, but the promise food and drinks was too strong to ignore. She needed supplies if she was going to keep searching for "the end".

Linda stepped through the broken doors.

The air inside smelled of dust and plastic. Weak light came through the high Skylights, illuminating overturned displays and scattered shopping bags. She moved carefully careful, eyes scanning every shadow, and began searching for anything useful, bottles of water, packaged food, anything that had not spoiled.

That was when she heard a voice.

"Help... help us..."

It was faint, but unmistakably human. Linda froze. Her heart began to Pound. She turned towards the sound.

An old man and a little boy stood near a refrigerator.

The man looked to be in his sixties, thin, with grey hair and a deeply lined face. The boy could not have been more than six or seven. He stood half hidden in the old man's legs.

" We woke up alone in the whole Street," the old man said, his voice shaking. " A weird creature has been chasing us. Please...help us."

Linda felt a rush of relief so strong it almost made her knees weak.

Other people. She was not the Only one left.

"There are people like me too," she said, stepping closer. " I woke up alone as well. I have been looking for anyone..."

She stopped.

The old man was carefully holding his coat over the little boy's leg, as if he was hiding something. When he noticed Linda staring, he gave a tired smile.

His name is Cole, " the old man explained. " He's allergic to humans."

Allergic to humans?

The words sounded wrong. Linda felt a small, cold seed of suspicious take root in her chest. Allergic to humans? What did that even mean? And the boy's name is Cole. The same name as her fiance. Council? Or something else?

She kept her voice calm. " Allergic to humans? I have never heard of that."

The old man nodded as if it were the most normal thing in the world. " It's rare. Very rare. That's why I keep him coberd8. The slightest contact can make him sick. Please... give me a hand. Help me stand up. I need to find a nearby pharmacy. My grandson needs medicine ".

He held out thin hand toward her.

Linda hesitated for a moment. The relief of finding other people still stronger than the quiet wrongness she felt.

She stepped forward and stretched out her own hand to help him up.

The moment her fingers touched his skin, everything changed.

His hand was cold. Not the cold of a person who had been outside too long. It was deep, unnatural cold of something that had been alive in the way humans were alive. And under that cold, she felt a texture that did not belong to human flesh, something smooth and slightly yielding, like wet rubber or skin of a creature that only wore a human shape.

Linda eyes lifted to his face.

The old man's smile was still there, but no longer reached his eyes. The little boy came out of the coat, and for a fraction of second his eyes reflected the light in a way no human eye should.

They weren't human.