by Castle, W. A
I look back at him and take in a shuddery breath. “I need to get out of here,” I tell him shakily. “I need to get out.”
“What are you talking about?” Ulises frowns.
I sigh. I need his help getting out of here. No one will let me just walk out of here without an explanation and I can’t take anyone with me because no one can know what I’m going to do. But Ulises knows to an extent what I’ve done. He and Clara saw what I did to that soldier when Clara and I were almost kidnapped.
I look at him trying to figure out how to tell him. I shut the door completely and turn back to him. “Don’t freak out.”
Ulises takes a step forward, “Freak out about what? What’s going on?”
“I need to drink flesh eater blood or I’m going to completely lose it,” I decide to just put it out there.
When he just looks at me blankly I elaborate, “When I went into town that time I got shot, I killed… a person. He was a soldier that was about to kill two survivors when he saw they couldn’t take them with them to a VIO facility. And one thing led to another and I drank a flesh eater dry and that eased the insatiable thirst I have. But that was so long ago and the thirst is back and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t eat and I can’t sleep, I’m going to snap. I need to get out of here and kill a flesh eater.” I stop for breath after spilling everything out. I wring my hands while I wait for his reaction.
“One, one thing led to another and you just drank a flesh eater dry? How does that even make sense?” he scoffs.
My heart is hammering in my chest. He is angry. He won’t help me-
“Look at you. You look like you’re on something. Are you on something? If you are I can help you with that,” he says.
I can’t believe what he’s saying. He doesn’t believe me, tears of frustration burn my eyes. “Fuck you. I can’t believe that for a second, I thought you would help me. I’ll do it without your help.” I wipe my eyes angrily and turn away from him already turning to the door.
“You’re going to do what?” he asks.
“Get out of here. Find a flesh eater and drink its blood. I know how fucked up it sounds but it is what it is.” I go for the door.
“Wait,” Ulises reaches for my arm and then places his palm on my cheek, “damn it this is insane. But…” he searches my eyes, “I will help you.”
My eyes widen in surprise, “So you believe me?”
“I’m not sure I believe you, but I’m also not sure I don’t, not believe you. But I will give you whatever you need, even if what you need is flesh eater blood.”
We both jump when the door opens and Jax and Trevor walk into the room.
“What’s going on here?” Trevor asks looking between Ulises hand on my face and my teary eyes. I look up at Ulises. No one else can know about this. I will lose Jax and Trevor’s friendship if they find out I’m turning into a monster. But Jax is my best friend and Trevor and I have a connection. If Ulises didn’t turn on me, why would Jax and Trevor?
Ulises takes a step back from me but keeps my gaze. “Tell them,” he says.
I look at him in shock. I look back at Jax and Trevor but I can’t make myself tell them.
“Maddie?” Trevor asks calmly.
“Maddison?” asks Jax.
Well heck, I can’t, not tell them now. “I was asking Ulises to help me get out of here and find a flesh eater... so I can drink its blood…”
“What?” Trevor and Jax ask in unison.
“I have tried to ignore the ever present thirst I have. And it’s gotten to the point where I can’t sleep, and I haven’t eaten anything because I can’t keep anything down. I need flesh eater blood.”
“So, you’re saying-” Jax begins to say but is cut off by Trevor.
“Wait, so all the time’s I’ve asked you how you’ve been doing you’ve lied to me.” Trevor scoffs, “And when you need help you didn’t think you could come to me?”
“Or me?” Jax looks offended. And seeing both of them hurt eats away at me.
“I was afraid-”
“Of what?”
“Of losing both of you! I was afraid once you found out I am a, a freak you would stop…”
“You don’t trust me,” Trevor says coldly. He’s looking at me in a way he has never looked at me before. Even when he didn’t know me he wasn’t this cold.
“I do trust you, Trevor!” I yell after him when he turns and walks out of the room. “Trevor!” I cry after him but he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t turn back to look at me. Ulises puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me from running after Trevor.
“Let go, I need to talk to him!” I try shaking him off.
“Give him time, he’ll come around,” Ulises says but he lets go of me anyway. I turn to Jax but he has a hand over his mouth and he’s looking at the floor. Jax risked everything to come to me and bring me here and I have let him down too.
“Jax,” I reach out to touch him but he jerks away.
“I need time to… I just need time.” And he walks away too. My face crumbles and I cry. Oh no.
“They’ll come around,” Ulises whispers, wrapping me in a hug.
“They won’t. And I don’t blame them for hating me. I’ve been reduced to something that can’t function without flesh eater blood. What does that make me? I’m the thing that eats the things that eat people? I’m a monster!”
Ulises shushes me and presses my head to his chest, “You didn’t choose this Maddie. Our reality keeps changing and yours has changed more than the rest of us. But we will help you. Jax and Trevor will get over their selves and come back.”
“What if they don’t?” I look up at him.
“Of course they will,” he wipes the tears from under my eyes.
“How can you say that? You don’t know…”
“Do you really not know? You don’t see the way they look at you? They love you. They are in love with you.”
I shake my head, “What? No. Trevor just likes me and Jax is my friend, besides, he and Clara have a thing going on.”
“All I know is what I’ve seen. But independently of whatever they end up deciding, I will help you.”
“You will?” I look up at him, “Will we go today? There are still a few hours of day light left, we don’t have to go far,” I say. I’m crushed but have I hope, nonetheless. The end to my thirst is so close it almost hurts.
“No, tomorrow. We’ll go with the group that’s heading out tomorrow and then we’ll break off from them.”
I bite my lip as decide on how to tell him this, “I don’t think I will last until tomorrow, Ulises. I need to drink now.”
Ulises’s forehead scrunches up. “You’re not exaggerating, are you?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“Fuck, okay. We’ll head out now. Go pack a bag and tell your people. I will go tell the others I’m not going scouting with them”
“We’ll be back in a jiffy, back in time for you to go with the others tomorrow.”
“You really think I’m going to head off right now that you need help? No, I’ll stay here. We can scavenge while we go on our flesh eater finding quest.”
It’s a little past midday when we head down the mountain. I’m barely holding it together as we get down to the highway. We head the opposite direction from where we saw those lights a week ago; we don’t want to go looking for any trouble.
We ride for about twenty minutes when we come across two flesh eaters in a huddle in the middle of the road. I sit up trying to get a closer look at what the flesh eaters are huddling over. They’re eating someone. How- Why would anyone travel on foot out here?
Ulises stops the car far away from them and gets out of the car with his gun out. I get out of the car after him and I pause as I try to send mental feelers out. The two flesh eaters pause their eating and cock their head in my direction. I don’t sense a Shrieker around so that means I can control these two.
“Don’t shoot them,” I call out to Ulises who turns his eyes to me, “I can keep them fr
om attacking.” I focus my attention on the two flesh eaters and slowly walk towards them.
“Stand up,” I call out to them and they follow my orders at their own pace. One is missing her right arm and a big chunk of her chest, the other looks to be not maimed just bloodied. I motion for the mainly unharmed one to come closer to me and tell the other to stay put.
“Maddie,” Ulises says nervously from behind me. The moment Ulises speaks the flesh eaters whip their heads to him but when I concentrate again they focus on me once more.
“Don’t distract me Ulises, I’m still new at this,” I say referring to keeping their attention on me and not on attacking.
I reach out for the flesh eater; I can almost feel the refreshing blood coating my mouth and throat. I hear Ulises move behind me when the flesh eater is nearly face to face with me, but I’m too enthralled to be too distracted by him.
Aware that this is Ulises’s first time seeing me feed and this being only my second time feeding I don’t want it to be as messy as the first time. I wipe at the flesh eaters neck with my shirt sleeve and then gently bite into it. The flesh eater makes a sound but I tell it to keep still and it does. I suck hard as my teeth break the skin, its blood floods my mouth and I swallow. I moan in relief, the thirst begins to ebb the more gulps I swallow.
“Hey, are you folks okay?” someone yells.
My concentration is broken when I startle, and both flesh eaters awaken from their stupor. I tear my teeth from the flesh eater in my arms and I scream when it lunges at me, blood spurts all over the place as I wrestle with it. Ulises is there in a second throwing the flesh eater off me. Shots go off and there’s a lot of yelling. I’m disoriented when I fall to the ground.
“Are ya’ll alright?” I hear someone ask.
I swallow that last bits of blood in my mouth as Ulises kneels besides me and wipes my face clean. “Strangers,” he mutters in my ear and I nod.
“Yeah, we’re fine, that was a close call, thanks for the help,” Ulises calls out to the two strangers that are standing next to the pile of human chow the flesh eaters had been munching on when we got here.
“Damn it, that’s Wilma’s jacket. Fuck!” one of the men says in distress.
“Where are ya’ll from?” the other man asks after sparing a glance at the crying young man.
Ulises pulls me up and covers me with his body as he wipes off the last bit of blood from my mouth. “From L.A, what about you guys?” Ulises stands in front of me slightly trying to keep me out of sight without being too conspicuous.
“Down the road away, you might’ve seen the town if you took highway two south. I’m Liam, this here is Erik,” Liam points to Erik who is wiping his tears away and walking over to us.
“Ulises,” Ulises shakes Liam’s and Erik’s hands.
“I’m Maddie,” I wave at the strangers from behind Ulises. I’m still shaky and thirsty, that flesh eater on the ground still had plenty of pints of blood left. It’s a chore to keep my eyes from the dead flesh eaters, what a waste.
“Where are you guys heading? You’re a bit far away from Los Angeles,” Erik asks. He looks about a decade younger than Liam. Erik still has a baby fresh face. He can very well still be a teenager.
“We’re trying to find a safe zone free of flesh eaters. There’s too many of those things around,” Ulises points to the dead flesh eaters on the ground. “Do you guys know of any safe zones or any CDC camps?”
“Well,” Liam shares a look with Erik, “Our town is pretty safe. We haven’t had a flesh eater anywhere near our walls in a few weeks.”
“You guys have a town with walls?” I ask intrigued.
“Well, fences. We’ve taken over the high school and created a town there. Do you folks want to come and rest a bit? You look like you’re a second away from passing out,” Liam says referring to me practically hanging off Ulises, “we don’t have a lot but we can make room for two more.”
Ulises and I look to each other. We had decided as a group to stay away from that town we saw on our way to the mountain, it seems wrong to make this decision without consulting the others.
“Well,” Ulises begins to say but I pull on his arm to stop him from talking.
“I’m still thirsty,” I raise my brows and give him a significant look. If we go with these men we will have to abandon the reason we ventured out of the property in the first place.
“You’re thirsty? We have water, I’ll go get some from the truck,” Erik runs back to the truck parked a few yards away.
“Oh no, you don’t have to. We’re fine…” I begin to say but Liam shoots an undecipherable look at Ulises that has me shutting my mouth with a snap. I focus on the man, but my heightened senses don’t pick up anything abnormal on him. Such as adrenaline that would mean he is getting ready to attack us or something.
Liam looks back at me, “Are you okay, miss? You look a bit… gaunt. Are you… safe?” he looks at Ulises and then me.
“Hey just what are you trying to say, man?” Ulises puffs up.
Erik comes back with a few bottles of water and stops short when he sees the tension between the two men.
“Look at her. She looks like she hasn’t eaten in days, she’s thirsty. Put your ego aside, man, she needs to rest and gain her strength even for a few days, then you folks can keep going your way,” Liam says with concern. Erik steps forwards and hands us the bottles.
I open one immediately to clear my mouth but in my haste I end up choking on the water.
“Maddie!” Ulises taps my back to help me cough up the liquid stuck in my lungs.
“I didn’t know things had gotten so bad out there,” Erik says looking pale, “You guys must come to town with us, there’s a doctor there that can give you a checkup.”
I straighten up at the mention of a doctor. Now we definitely can’t go there. “We have to go,” I say pulling Ulises back to the car.
“No, no, I promise we mean no harm,” Liam says waving his arms in front of him and taking a step back.
“I know, and thank ya’ll so much for your help, but we have to go, thank you,” I say as I walk back to the car quickly and get in. It makes me feel like the most ungrateful person but if a doctor checks me they will immediately know something is wrong with me.
“If you folks change your mind go to the high school and mention my name, Liam,” Liam calls out as Ulises starts the car.
“Will do, thank you guys again,” Ulises says as we start to drive away.
“Are you okay?” Ulises asks once we’ve left the men behind.
“Lord,” I say leaning over, holding my head in my hands, “I’m fine,” I say after a breath, “but I’m still thirsty…”
Ulises hands me a bottle of water, “Drink this for now. When we were planning our scavenge we circled a few of the bigger towns to check them out. I’m thinking, bigger the town bigger the chances we run into a flesh eater. I’d say that’s a good thing right now.”
“This is the last time I go so long ignoring my needs, I’ll tell you what. I need to find a way to drink a flesh eater every few days, at least one a week.” I open the water bottle and chug it down. The liquid spreads across my chest and into my belly.
Ulises clears his throat. “You need to tell the others. This isn’t something you can keep hidden for long,” he gives me a side glance.
“I can try,” I begin to say but Ulises cuts me off.
“Keeping this a secret is what led you to almost biting me in the supply closet,” he snaps and I immediately feel so guilty, “enough with the secrets and with the sneaking around. If people want to leave after they find out the truth then so be it, but if you keep depriving yourself like this because you’re afraid of people leaving then you’ll going to end up killing yourself.
You think no one has noticed the bags under your eyes or the strange way you’ve been acting lately? If you had ended up biting someone do you think I would have let anyone kill you? No, I wouldn’t. It would have been a bloodbath. So if
killing a flesh eater every once in a while keeps things from ending in a blood bath I give my vote to you feeding. And I’m sure given the chance the others would agree too.”
I sit in silence for a while digesting his words. “Fine, I’ll tell everyone the moment we get back. Fuck,” I rub my forehead, and a breathy laugh escapes me, “So a blood bath huh?”
Ulises barks out a laugh, “Yep.”
We make it to the town he marked on his map and drive around for a while looking for flesh eaters but there are none in sight so we stop in front of a Superstore to resupply.
“Jackpot,” Ulises mutters as he turns off the car.
I look around when I get out. The parking lot has quite a few cars but most look to have been here a while if the crust of dust on them is anything to go by.
I get a prickle of uneasiness when we near the big glass doors, they’re broken and there’s blood smearing the jagged edges. I look up at Ulises.
“What do you think? Flesh eaters or people?” he asks.
“What does it say about me if I say I rather deal with flesh eaters than people?” I ask dryly.
“At least I know you’ll be able to keep the flesh eaters at bay, people on the other hand…” he trails off.
“I can control them unless there’s a Shrieker around,” I give him a nervous shrug.
“Fantastic,” he mutters under his breath as he steps through the broken glass, “Careful with the sharp edges,” he gives me his hand to help steady myself as I enter.
The building still has electricity though some sections of the superstore are dark and other parts are flickering giving the whole place a haunted feeling. I swallow hard as Ulises hands me a knife as he surveys our surroundings.
I jump in surprise when he bangs his own knife against a metal pole, the sounds reverberates around us. I give him a what-the-fuck look.
“Anyone here?” he bellows out.
I try to send some mental feelers out and I make contact with a few flesh eaters, I don’t sense a Shrieker though. I lift my nose up in the air and try to smell any humans, I sniff a few times until I notice Ulises’s stare.
“There are flesh eaters in the vicinity and my sniffer is picking up something else but I can’t tell what it is.”