pass out, somehow finding the pain comforting.
"No, I can't? I can't," he managed to scream. "Why must I do this? Why me? Why my Cheryl?"
But the only answer he got was from the pelting rain against the window, stronger now.
Slowly but surely Frank became calm again, his heart returning to a steady rhythm. He let out a long, hissing sigh before returning his loving gaze back to his wife with her head still cradled tenderly upon his lap.
Her eyes were now fully open. She was staring directly at him. How he loved those eyes. Those dark, seductive eyes.
Then her mouth, whose lips he had kissed so many times, suddenly twitched once? twice?
"Darling," she said.
Even though her words sounded gravelly - constricted - it was clearly her voice. Cheryl's voice. The torn area of skin across her throat bounced up and down on each syllable, and an audible organic clicking sounded from deep within.
"Darling? my darling?"
Even though he should have felt horror, even though he should have been stunned by what he was witnessing before him, Frank could not help but smile warmly back at her.
"Darling? Oh, my darling?"
Then, through his periphery vision, he saw the blade of the knife glinting in the last of the day's light. If he cautiously reached out now, he could pluck it from the carpet and finish what he promised he would do.
Cheryl's right hand was moving now - he could feel it more than see it. Soon, the other hand began to twitch, her fingers slowly opening and closing. Awakening. Becoming ready.
Frank squeezed his eyes tightly shut, blocking the vision before him, attempting but dismally failing to summon the strength to complete his task. He felt that he had no right to destroy her. It was his fault she was in this mess.
His mind painfully returned to the early hours of that morning when he and Cheryl were helping their small group load cans and packages of food onto a truck. Although the supermarket they were emptying had previously been ransacked, the best items already taken or spoilt, there were plenty more goods that were edible or usable. Whilst he was aiding her with the last of the boxes within the back of the vehicle, a sudden burst of gunfire and chaotic shouting from the other four members of the group echoed across the loading bay. Before they knew what was happening, a horde of the walking dead appeared, seemingly from nowhere.
They were both trapped. Foolishly, to make it easier for him to manoeuvre the boxes, Frank had earlier removed his automatic pistol from his belt and placed it in the front cabin of the truck. He watched with a sinking, sickening heart as the creatures came crawling inside towards them while he stood powerlessly behind a stack of cartons.
But Cheryl had a gun, but Cheryl only had six bullets as opposed to his eight. Being such a good shot - something that had came as a surprise to both of them when she first picked up a gun - his wife knocked out the first five of the undead as they scrambled chaotically into the back of the vehicle. Within a few seconds, they both made it safely to the doors of the truck where only two more of the rage-filled abominations lurked. Frank managed to punch one aside, but Cheryl had to use her final bullet when one pounced upon her.
But the slug passed through the previously deceased woman's chest. If the assailant had been an ordinary human being, the wound would have been fatal. As Cheryl continued to pull the trigger of her gun, hearing the dry 'click, click' from the empty chambers, she watched helplessly as the creature opened its mouth wide.
Frank, after beating the other attacker to the ground, turned in time to see his beloved wife's face spray-painted in her own arterial blood. He froze at what he saw, the image before him not yet registering - refusing to register - within his brain. Even after she collapsed onto the hard ground, even after the ravenous creature above her began chewing on the flesh it had torn from her throat, Frank refused to acknowledge what he was witnessing.
Then all he could remember during the blur of events that followed was when he half carried, half dragged his wife into the building where he now sat. What had happened between those times he could not recall. What had become of the other four members of the group he did not know. Or did not care.
"My? darling," it continued.
On the carpet, still shining dully in the rapidly failing light of the day, the knife waited.
"Love? My love?"
NOW!
Frank snatched the blade from the floor and brought it back up to his wife's left eye, stopping a fraction of an inch above the iris. Cheryl, or who was once Cheryl, appeared not to notice and continued to stare benignly up at him.
"Love?"
He was concentrating hard, focusing on what he must do, playing out the sequence of events within his mind to help prepare him for the grisly task. "I've got to be strong," he repeated like a chant in barely audible whispers while the knife stayed poised at the ready. "I've got to be strong?"
"Kiss me," she asked him. Her hands steadily inched towards his transfixed face, one slipping behind his head. "My darling? Kiss me!"
So, what would be the harm? Frank eased the blade away from her eye but never removed it completely. He could feel her hands now touching the flesh of his face and neck - hands as cold as ice. As cold as a grave.
"Kiss me, my love," she continued to say as she gently attempted to force his head towards hers. "Kiss me?"
"Okay," he muttered, then more strongly: "One last kiss, my darling." Frank allowed his head to inch forward, although he kept the deadly point of the knife aimed at the soft flesh of her eyeball. "One last kiss, then it will all be over."
"Kiss? Yes, kisssss?"
Her breath was foul, but he failed to acknowledge this just as he failed to acknowledge the blood seeping from each corner of her mouth on every gurgled word she spoke. Without a further thought or hesitation, he pressed his lips to her cold lips and opened his mouth to hers, not consciously aware of the strong coppery taste of the congealing red mass pumping from within. Her left hand was continuing to pull his head into hers while her right softly caressed the rough stubble of his cheeks.
Yes, he thought as his tongue explored the wet, sticky cavity. Yes, my darling. One last kiss? just like we used to kiss before this shit happened to the world. And oh, you always were so passionate? so arousing.
The knife began to ease forwards again, his fingers around the haft tightening into a fist. But Cheryl's mouth slipped away, smearing blood across his face like cheap lipstick. She began to tease the delicate flesh of his neck with her lips before her tongue slithered like a bloated slug towards his trachea.
"You were always so sensual, baby," he muttered dreamily as she bit hard into his throat. "Always so warm."
Frank's blood began to run gently at first, but as his wife bit harder and deeper, the flow became darker and stronger. There was pain, but it was just a mild love bite, wasn't it? How she used to tease him with her love bites?
"Yes. I remember the time we first kissed each other, under that old tree outside your mother's house." His voice was becoming a thick gurgle now, but Frank was far away, on a young moonlit evening with the girl of his dreams within his arms. "You gave that tree a name, didn't you? What was it now?"
Cheryl drew away, eagerly licking away the crimson liquid from her lips. The pupils of her eyes are now completely dilated, and the former whiteness of the sclera now a deep red. Between her teeth, visible traces of his flesh hung like tiny rags when her jaw hinged open wide.
But Frank noticed none of this. Frank only noticed the gentle caress of his wife and the oh, so lovely feel of her warm breath against his skin. The knife slipped from his failing grasp and dropped back to the carpet for the final time with a dull thud.
"I remember clearly," he said with a smile that pulled the gaping wound across his throat to one side. His hand now came around to the swell of her breasts and began to tease her in the area she always found the most sensual. The light was failing at an incredible rate now as his vision began to swim, but it
mattered not to Frank Collins Jnr, for he was now at another place and another time.
"DARLING!" it suddenly screamed frenziedly before tearing out the remainder of his throat like a starving wolf.
"Yes, one last kiss, my darling before we go," he managed to utter indistinctly as he hugged his wife whilst she fed. "And we can both tango together."
Forever.
# # #
By Adam Patterson
2012
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