Love Revived A Zombie Romance

Something Lost

As I take off walking through the house leaving Bie and Jack to act weird together. Pain snakes through my arm and I sit on the couch. It's sometime in the afternoon so sunlight filters in allowing me light to see. I decide to have a look at my arm, unwrapping my makeshift sling slowly. As it loosens my arm shifts and moves a bit causing me more pain. It’s then when I notice that my sling dress is dark with wet in spots. Wait…

I loosen my sling faster and my arm drops to my lap and I suck in my cheeks to bite them to keep from screaming. Blood, I realize, blood is soaking it, my blood. f**k, I throw my head back on the couch and thats when Bie comes in. I hadn’t noticed I was crying until I locked eyes with Bie and feel a tear slide down my face. I hear Jack's footsteps just behind him but it’s Bie’s face that keeps me frozen in place.

His eyes that were just locked with my own have now drifted down to my arm and his nostrils flare. My heart hammers within my ribcage and adrenaline courses through my veins, but my body remains locked up. Before I can move I hear a loud bang that echoes in my ears and watch as blood, or something like it soaks Bie’s chest. His eyes go wide as shock paints his beautiful face. I feel the splatter of his maybe blood warm and chucks of him hit me as I watch him fall to his knees. He blinks slowly at me, his mouth moving but no words come out. I watch with terror as he falls to the floor face first and unmoving. Dead.

I…I just sit there frozen solid by shock and terror at what just happened. Jack comes from out of the hallway with the shotgun in his hand and runs to me without dropping it. “Gwen, are you okay? I have you, it will be okay.” I start to shake, new tears stinging my lashes.

“What the f**k Jack? What the actutal f**k?” Is all I can get out.

Jack’s hands are on me checking everywhere and everything on me. “I saw him go after you in the hallway and the way he touches you. Gwen it’s predatory like. You were not safe. He is just a–a wild human playing with you. Can’t you see that? Gwen you hit your head when you fell from the roof. You have been sleeping for days, days! You are not seeing straight.” I nod feeling far away. It’s just like Jacob all over again. I shot him in the chest. I shot him. I shot him. I shot him. I shot him. I don’t realize I am saying this out loud until Jack shakes me. Shooting pain through my unbound arm and bringing me to the present.

I blink at him coming back and watch his face contort to wide eyed fear as he looks down at my arm. “Gwen”, he says my name slowly and I look down seeing my arm covered in blood and swollen. “Gwen, we need to get you back to the colony now.”

“Okay.” Is all I say trying not to look at Jaco– Bie’s body laying on the floor. Death fills the room like a dark cloud and echoes in my soul. All my hope is gone. I had not realized how much I invested in Bie or how much I cared for him. I– I was only just coming to terms with it. I fight to hold back tears at all the memories as I mourn silently the loss of him and what could have been. He was sweet and caring and could have been so much more. But now he is a dead husk on the ground. The possibilities stripped from him.

Jack helps me up from the couch. The movement sends pain through my arm and upper body. I hiss, “Gwen are you okay? I have some more medication in my pack.” I mutley allow him to guide me pass the pool of blood coming from Bie’s body and back into the back bedroom. He sits me down on the bed and digs through his pack, taking out two pills this time and handing them to me with some water. I take them without looking, I feel nothing but pain and numbness. “We have to clean your arm.” Jack says holding one of Bie’s water jugs he got for me. Seeing it brings fresh tears to my eyes but I hold them back nodding.

“Can you move down to the floor?” He asks and I do so. He slowly takes my arm and I move with it trying to limit the pain I am in. When I find myself lying flat on the ground with my arm outstretched I don’t move or say anything. When the water hits my broken swollen skin of my arm it feels good. I relish that feeling and close my eyes. I listen to Jack walk around and leave and then come back.

This time when Jack touches my arm shering pain screams through it. My body tries to jerk away from it but Jack holds me still. His knee on my back pressing me to the floor. I scream out in pain as something sharp rips through my flesh just above my elbow. My eyes see nothing but black spots clouding my vision and I can hear the sounds of my screams and cries as I listen to my own flesh and bone being severed from my body. The last thing I feel is betrayal that Jack would do this to me before everything goes black.

When I awake I am in a house that smells of death. Sweat coats my forehead and I again awake to the same ceiling as before. The first thought that screams in my head is not the loss of my arm and the pain from it, no it’s just that Bie is gone. He would be up and walking around if he wasn’t. So he was more human than I thought and Jack didn’t care, doesn’t care. Turning my head I lock eyes with him and jolt back. He is lying in bed next to me.

“You are finally awake. I was worried you lost too much blood, but I cartelized your…arm.” He says his eyes flicking down and then back up to meet my eyes.

I don’t care about the pain so I jolt up at his words in anger and yell at him. “You took my f*****g arm, my f*****g ARM Jack and you f*****g BURN ME too. I would say you are adding salt to my wounds but I am sure you would do something like that too.” I look at his shocked face and I don’t back down. You think you know someone and they cut off your f*****g arm, my f*****g arm is GONE and he burned me.

“I saved you!” He says sitting up. “From turning into a mindless zombie or whatever super zombie you dragged around with you. Its blood was all over your wound. It needed to be done and you should thank me for saving your life. If I hadn’t come back for you, who knows what would have happened to you.” My breaths come in and out of me hard while I glare at him.

“Look, I will level with you. I know you have a soft heart but you were being played. He could have got into a colony and let other zombies in, who knows, he could have infected everyone or tried to eat everyone, try to eat… you.” I look away from him with a frown present on my face while he keeps talking. Reaching out he brushes a lock of my hair from my face and tucks it behind my ear. “I saved your life Gwen. Can’t you see that.”

I turn my head to the other side and notice… I notice my arm laying on the ground, just left there to riot like Bie. Tears don’t prick my eyes, they cascade down and over my lashes like a waterfall. Right next to my arm is a bloodied sword, my sword, Jacob’s sword. He used it to cut my arm off. How– how could he think he saved me when he mutilated me and killed Bie. I don’t say anything to him and plan silently. I have to break away but as that thought enters my head pain snakes up its invisible arms over my missing one and remaining limb. How can I even feel that?

A day goes by and I don’t eat or drink nor do I speak a single syllable. Jack keeps his distance, but tries to feed me and make sure I do not go hungry or thirsty, but I am once again trapped in a house full of death only this time it’s personal. After the third day I break and eat something making Jack smile, but the rioting corpses are not helping the overall mood in the house. I don’t bother getting up and spend most of my time sleeping or crying, whichever wins.

On this day Jack comes in with a smile on his face and a plan that comes out of his ass. “We are leaving Gwen. I don’t want you suffering anymore than you already have. We have a truck coming for us, we just have to get to it.” I blink confused, a truck? I never thought to radio the colony for help but then again we must be in rage for them to even hear us. “I have packed your things and we will leave right now.” Wait right now? I am still sad and, and I haven’t said goodbye to Bie.

I can’t get a word out before he grabs me halling me up out of bed. I am on my feet for the first time in days and sway a bit. Jack is there to catch me and hold me steady but I don’t feel thankful for his help. I feel resentful and rage towards him. He tried to make me think he would go along with my plan and then cut off my own f*****g arm with my sword. I. Will. Never. Let. It. Go. “You are okay Gwen. I have you. Lean on me if you need to.” And because I am weak in body not spirit I do lean on him. The pain that comes from my arm and my heart seems too much to bear but somehow I am doing it.

After a moment I am good so I shift my weight off of him and go to grab my pack when Jack snatches it before I can even bend down to reach it. I look at him exasperated, “I am not dead you know.” I speak to him for the first time in days and he smiles at me winking.

“Yeah because of me.” Augh this asshat. Has he always been this annoying? Heading to my sword I hear him tisk and take that as well. Clenching my teeth I just let him take it. If he wants to carry everything he can. He stops and thinks for a moment but whatever stops him he doesn’t voice and heads for the door. When he opens it I expect to be hit by a wall of death but I am greeted only with the metallic smell of old blood.

Jack lets me go out first and follows behind after a bet. We are headed to the living room. “They said they would be here soon. We should hear their truck when they pull up.” He says as if I didn’t hear him on the radio with them. I want to roll my eyes but I stop myself as we approach the living room. I feel somber. You would think the smell of death would grow stronger but it remains the same as if death is following me, lingering on my skin.

As we enter the living room I don’t dare look at Bie laying face down on the floor. That is what I tell myself but I find my head turning of its own accord looking down at his lifeless body. He lays in a pool of his own blood, now slightly dried into the carpet. My heart lurches for him at the sight and the memory of him being shot blurs with Jacobs making me feel as if I have lost him again.

Something between and sob and a sigh involuntarily leaves my lips when my eyes lock on the hole that is cratered in Bie’s back, but it is not what catches my eyes. It looks much smaller. Did I imagine it being blown into a bigger hole? It’s hard to see with all the blood soaked into his once clean clothes. I don’t notice that I have stopped until Jack gently pushes me forward and I hear a truck approaching us from the outside. Our rescue, that's what I wanted right? But something along the way changed. I changed.

As we approach the door I turn my head back one more time to Bie’s body. Good bye friend. I think but in my heart I know we skipped being friends and were something else, something deeper… As I turn back to the door Jack is beside me opening it, I give one last look and something catches my eye, a twitch, a movement of Bie’s hand.