Hungry
By
Amber White
This short story is a work of fiction. Any relation to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
The events and characters of this story are based on and the novel Watch The World Burn.
The gun felt heavy in her palm. She was terrified.
‘Why is this happening?’ She thought. ‘Why now? Why us? And where is he? Is he safe? Oh, God why?’ It became a chant, barely escaping her lips. “Why? Why? Why?”
Gravel shifted to her right, making her jump. People were walking closer. They were careful, not like the shuffling steps of them.
“We’ve got a survivor!” Someone said. It was a male voice. He sounded urgent.
She cowered lower into the wreckage of the car.
“Ma’am?” The person knelt down a few feet away.
She gripped the pistol tightly in both hands, aiming wildly at the figure.
A rustling sounded around her, several guns being leveled at her hiding place.
“Don’t come any closer. I’ll shoot!” She cried.
The figure swatted it away easily. “Don’t worry, we’re here to help.” He said.
“Help?”
“Yes, but you need to put your weapon down,”
A flashlight beam illuminated the figure from behind. She gasped at the sudden brightness, and shielded her eyes. She peeked out at him. He was in his mid-thirties, wearing camouflage pants and a matching long sleeved shirt under a heavy looking vest, pant legs tucked into light brown boots, hair hidden beneath a helmet. He was laden with guns and canisters.
She threw her pistol down, letting him slide it away from her, checking it before handing it to someone behind him.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“Special Forces, Ma’am,” He said.
“Like the military?”
He nodded. “You want to climb out of there?”
She slid out from under the twisted metal, looking around nervously. There seemed to be a whole team of them, but no sign of him.
“Do you need medical attention?” The mas asked, helping her to her feet.
She shook her head, still searching. “Did you find anyone else?”
The men looked behind them, at a body strewn across the pavement.
“Link!” She wailed, running to him.
She elbowed her way past the soldiers trying to stop her. Falling to her knees, she clung to the unmoving body of her boyfriend. She sobbed, holding tightly to him, praying he was all right.
“He’s gone!” One of the men growled, trying to pull her away.
She held on, unwilling to accept what she knew was true. It was too late. Lincoln had died saving her. She kissed his lips softly. They were cold.
It took three soldiers to pry her loose.
“Was there anyone else here with you?” The first soldier she had seen asked.
“It was just us. Then those . . . people came. He tried to fight them off while I hid.”
“Did they look sick?” The soldier who had first tried to pull her off Link asked, voice intense, eyes narrowed.
She nodded meekly.
“Were you bitten or scratched? Did you come into contact with their blood?” His fist tightened around the grip of his assault rifle.
“No,” She squeaked.
“Sir, we need to keep moving. There’s a safe location up ahead,” Another soldier said.
The first one seemed to be in charge, because when he motioned once with one hand, the others fell into formation.
“Stick close to me,” He said, catching the girl’s gaze.
They moved with starling precision, rapidly covering the distance between where they found her, and the cement building half a mile away, checking every corner; every car along the way.
People were already inside the building, which turned out to be an old gas station. They entered through the rear, which was promptly locked and sealed behind them. The soldiers spoke briefly with a couple people in a circle, then left out the front door, ordering her to stay behind.
They kept her gun. Not that she wanted it. Link had pulled it off of one of their attackers, forcing her to take it and hid while he used another gun to fight them off.
‘Rural America, where everyone has a gun,’ she mused. ‘At least it’s not like the city, where it’s mostly gangsters and criminals.’
“Are you ok?” Someone asked.
She started, looking around to see who had spoken to her. It was a woman, slightly older than she.
“I’m . . . fine.” She said.
“I’m Stephanie,” The woman said.
“I’m Steph,” She said, smiling slightly.
Stephanie returned the smile. “Come sit with me. I’ve got potato chips. We can talk,”
Steph followed her to the side of the room, where they sat in small fold out lawn chairs in front of the freezer.
“I’m staying away from the beer,” Stephanie said. “It’s safer,”
“I don’t know, people can get pretty rabid about their ice cream,” Steph replied, pointing her thumb at the shelves of ice cream behind them.
“That’s exactly why I picked out this spot," Stephanie smiled brightly. “So why don’t you tell me what happened to you out there? You look like hell, and I know I’d want to talk about it if it were me. Help to make sense of it all,”
Steph looked down at her hands. They were scratched and bloody, resting on top of scratched and bloody legs. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“I was with my boyfriend. Link was taking me to this little romantic place by the lake. He’s good to me like that. Or, he was.” She paused. Stephanie patted her arm. “We hadn’t been listening to the radio until we saw all the traffic. It was too late to turn back, but he saw a side road and went for it. He really wanted us have that vacation. Anyways, another car came out of nowhere and hit us. We flipped over. I was so scarred. We both got out and went to check on the other car. They attacked us!” She trembled.
“But you made it out ok.” Stephanie said.
“Link fought off the guy that was grabbing him. He saw a gun and shot him in the leg, but the guy didn’t stop. He sounded like a hungry animal. He shot the arm of the man grabbing me and she let go. I ran around the car to get behind Link. Oh God, they chased us! He shot them so many times but they kept attacking until he hit them in the head. He pulled another gun off of the passenger, and shoved it into my hands. When other people started coming toward us, we knew they wanted to hurt us. He ordered me to hide in our car, and I did. That was the last time I saw him alive,” She sniffed.
Stephanie pulled her into a hug. “You’re not alone,” She whispered. “Most of us have lost someone to this already,”
“But what is it? Why did they attack us like that? Why didn’t shooting them stop them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really knows.”
“Is this why the military is here?”
“Yes. They were sent here to protect us.”
“Then they must have some idea what this is,”
“If they do, they aren’t telling. It wouldn’t help knowing now, though.”
“You’re right.”
Stephanie hugged her again. “But that whole Special Forces team was cute, wasn’t it?” She said, winking.
Steph couldn’t help herself. She laughed, but the reality of just losing the love of her life was too much, and it stifled the humor.
All this time, with the soldiers, with Stephanie holding her hand, no one noticed the blood on her lips, or her increasingly bad cough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been hours since she had said good-bye but sh
e could still taste him on her lips. Not even her violent scrubbing in the bathroom could remove his blood, or the blood on her wounds. Blood that wasn’t altogether hers. It was already in her already flowing through her veins and mouth, spreading.
The pain wasn’t bad at first, she hardly noticed it, but soon it was worse than anything she could have imagined. She writhed, screaming, on the floor. The people around her edged back in fear, contemplating running.
“What’s wrong with her?” Someone asked.
“Oh, God, she’s sick!” Someone else shrieked.
Those two small words started a stampede. People bolted for the door. An employee locked himself in the break room behind the counter.
Steph stopped moving, falling silent as her vision went black.
Everything was different. The first thing she noticed was that she wasn’t in pain anymore. She couldn’t feel anything at all, not even the broken bottle she accidently cut her hand open on when she got up. The shards dug deeply into her palm and fingers, but she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel her fingers grasp the pieces as she pulled them out.
“Hello?” She tried to call. It came out a short moan.
‘Where was everybody?’
She shuffled to the door, unsure of her feet which were completely numb. She stumbled a few times, catching herself on the shelves, scattering food everywhere.
‘When was the last time I ate?’ She asked herself.
She was hungry, but the food around her looked and smelled disgusting. She wanted something else. She wanted meat. Raw meat.
Steph found her way out the front door, instincts telling her to head right, away from her overturned car. There were more cars to the right. They would all be facing her, and all full of meat.
They weren’t. They were mostly empty. She had walked