Chapter 8
The Present
“How much further?” I asked as we passed a landing with a giant nine painted on a door.
“Just one more set,” Xavion said.
“I thought you weren’t trying to kill me,” I huffed, slowly trudging up the next step.
“I’m not.”
“Doesn’t seem that way,” I grumbled.
“Trust me.”
Trust a stranger I’d just met? Who saved my life?
Why not? It wasn’t as if I had other plans. He was also the first non-crazy person I’d seen in a while.
Here was to hoping he didn’t plan to have me for dinner later. As in slice me and dice me. I’d met a cannibal once. A cute one, who had sex with me for a month before he tried to make me into a meal.
Needless to say, we broke up when I killed him.
“We needed to go this high to find a level untouched by the scavengers,” he stated, holding open the door for the tenth floor.
Which was something I knew from my own excursions. People went for the easy marks first. I was guilty of the same. As supplies grew sparse, I learned to be more fit. Just not fit enough to do that many floors so fast.
“Have you been living here long?” I asked, wondering if it was safe now to remove my own mask. Xavion didn’t seem bothered.
“A few weeks. I moved once I’ve cleared an area.”
“Cleared it of what?”
“Monsters.”
Pretty sure he didn’t refer to the first type of monster I ever met, the wannabe rapist. “Do you mean mutants?” I asked to clarify.
Remember how some humans survived the virus but changed? I might have forgotten to mention they didn’t turn into zombies but some freaky, mutant version of a person and a spider.
Hideous, as you can imagine. Mandibles poking from human lips. Eyes multi-faceted. Fingers fused.
And gooey.
“Mutants. Monsters. Same thing.”
“You hunt them on purpose?” The very idea seemed…nuts. “You have a death wish?”
His lips twitched. “More like the less there are, the safer it becomes for everyone.”
“Have you met other people?” In some of my fantasies I stumbled across a trove of human survivors. They’d have figured out how to restart society. To make flour and bread and how to grow things without killing them.
“Yes.”
“And?” His one syllable answer didn’t satisfy.
“And most of them were a lot less trusting than you.”
A dig about me being dumb? I couldn’t tell, and he had turned from me to enter a door he’d just opened. No lock. Then again, what was the point if he wasn’t home?
Entering, I was struck by how normal the place looked. Tile floor from the entrance leading into the kitchen. A breakfast bar overlooking a large open living room space and, at the far end, a bank of windows overlooking the city.
“You don’t cover your windows!” I exclaimed. He had kept the flashlight shaken and illuminated our whole trip up.
“I’m usually out hunting the monsters at night. Besides, they hunt more by sound than sight or even scent.”
I had to ask. “Why don’t you wear a mask outside?”
“Why do you bother?” he countered.
“The plague—”
“Has already infected you. Everyone on the planet got it.”
I shook my head. “Did not. Obviously, or we wouldn’t be talking.” I almost rolled my eyes.
“Oh, you got it all right. A mask can’t stop it. Nothing can. It’s in the air. It’s on our skin. In the water we drink.”
“I think I’d have noticed if I’d gotten sick. I’m neither dead or one of those things.” My lip curled.
“There is a third outcome.”
My brain, which had wondered about it before, had my lips saying, “Immunity.”
Chapter 9
Past to present.
I knew from the news reports just how deadly the virus could be. I’d seen it when the internet still worked. But I had hoped that those of us who managed to stay alive would be better than the movies. Better than the books about the apocalypse.
Surely, we wouldn’t become a world of Mad Maxes.
I was so wrong.
There was something ironic about the fact that, of the few who survived, the lucky ones just had to be the sort who didn’t mind meting out violence. Why wasn’t it ever the kind and gentle souls who survived the apocalypse and restarted society?
Because goodness doesn’t have the cold lack of empathy to survive.
I learned after my first assault that being nice hurt. I also learned Lady Macbeth was right. The bloody spots never came out.
I killed. The survivors I encountered left me no choice. Given my lack of skill, it was often bloody, noisy, and messy since I always cried, snotted, and puked.
Having lady balls didn’t mean I lacked a heart.
Things could have been different for those I had to murder. They just needed to respect the fact I had a right to safety and liberty. History likes to repeat itself, and women always did get the brunt.
There was a spot of good news though. The most depraved didn’t live long past the first and second year. The problem with being an asshole to everyone? At one point, someone got tired of it.
Like the guy who called himself El Raido. He captured me and Katia. When I saw what he did to her, I had already readied myself for my turn. He never suspected, and the pen jabbed him in the neck before he flung me off.
I hit the floor so hard I bit my tongue bloody. El Raido staggered, hand to the pen. No blood.
That didn’t start spraying until he yanked out the pen holding it in.
I looked like that girl in the movie after the bucket of blood dumped on her. I emerged, and his thugs thought I was a monster.
Good if it meant they left me alone.
As the worst despots in the city died and their henchmen drifted off to other neighborhoods, the people I ran into tended to be more decent—even the cannibal until that final fatal act.
I made a few friends the first few years of the apocalypse. Some only casually. Fitting in somewhere wasn’t easy. It turned out that sometimes I preferred being alone. Especially when the group didn’t divide things equally. The leader? He didn’t go out. He stayed inside with his two concubines and expected us to bring him back the goods.
For what? Why should I scrounge for people who meant nothing to me?
Sharing wasn’t something anyone did well anymore making Xavion’s decision to take me to his lair a big deal. I noticed that while nothing was locked on the way in, he did secure his apartment door, even wedged a chair under the handle. Once he’d reassured himself we were safe, he offered me a sealed bottle of water.
Clean. Water.
It had to be a dream. It was also a distraction. “You didn’t answer my question. Are we immune to the plague?”
“I am.”
I put my hand to my face shield. “Meaning you don’t know for sure about me.”
“You must be immune too. Masks don’t do shit.”
“What makes you think I’m not a mutant?”
He grinned. “If you are, then you’re the sexiest one thus far.”