Cured [ManxMan]

Chapter Sixteen

I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of me, and barely had enough time to lift my arms to keep the zombie from getting its teeth into me. In the ten months since the apocalypse started, I'd killed more zombies than I could count, but I'd never been this close to one. She was a woman once, her hair long and stringy, falling around both of us. I still had my gun in my hand but couldn't get the space between us to aim. Her face was too close to mine, her rancid breath making me choke.

I didn't hear the gunshot, only felt her weight fall limp, saw the dim light left in her eyes fading to nothing. This was not the first time I'd seen death, not with the state of the world for the last ten months, but it was the first time I'd stared death in the eye, and it stunned me enough for me to lay there, holding her corpse inches from my face, for a moment longer than I should have.

"Topher!" Mattie's voice pulled me from my shock. I shoved the dead zombie off and sat up, the world spinning and moving too slow, or maybe I was moving too slow. Mattie stood fifteen yards away, his gun still raised, his eyes on me, Kiara and Ajay behind him, each with a hand on his shoulder. Even with the distance between us, even with the fog I distantly recognized as shock clouding my mind, I could see the horror and fear in their wide eyes, Kiara with her free hand over her mouth, Ajay not looking at me, and Mattie... Mattie, who stood frozen, his gun shaking in his hands. Mattie's reaction was the most telling.

My eyes fell from my friends down to my own hands, my arms... the blood on my left forearm. My blood... from a bite. A zombie bite. I hadn't felt it happen, didn't feel it now, but it was there, and we all knew what it meant.

I was infected.

I glanced to my left, away from my friends, where a dozen zombies had gathered and were gaining ground. When I imagined my death—a common occurrence since the apocalypse—I always thought it would be to something like that, a herd, their numbers overwhelming, not to a single zombie surprising me. I thought, if I was going to lose my life, it wouldn't be to an accident, it would mean something, giving my life for something.

Something like saving my friends.

It wasn't easy to get back to my feet. My hands shook, and my legs shook, barely able to hold my weight. I checked the clip on my gun, double-checked the safety was off. I took a deep breath, shook myself to steady my nerves. Maybe you couldn't fight off shock with sheer willpower, but I was going to try. Besides, I only needed a few minutes.

"Hey Mattie?" I called, turning to find my friends still in the same position, except Mattie had lowered his gun. "Sorry we couldn't have that celebration." His amber eyes glinted with tears, and more welled in my own eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I didn't have time left for tears. I took another deep breath and smiled at him, one last time. If this would be his last memory of me, better to be smiling than crying. "Don't watch, okay? And... I love you."

I turned my back on them, facing the approaching herd. Their distraction with their last meal had bought us a few minutes, but they were gaining steam now. I raised my gun, setting my feet to take my last stand.

"Wait! Topher!" I paused, glancing back. Mattie had shaken off Kiara and Ajay and taken a few steps closer. He stood with his hands loose at his sides, his gun holstered at his hip. It was hard to meet his eyes, hard to see his face crumpled in pain. His eyes flickered from me to the herd behind me before settling back on me. "Please."

"Our time is already up." I said, holding my left arm up as proof. "Please, let me finish this my way."

His eyes searched mine. He took a deep breath, his chest shuddering. "I love you, too," he said, softer than before, almost too soft for me to make out with the distance between us.