Blood Ever After

7

Tyler stared.

Charlotte stared back at him.

"Tyler," she appeared to mouth.

Soon all three survivors were walking through the alleyway.

"Where are we going?" Tyler said, looking left, right, all around him. "I have a friend out here somewhere still.... She's ... she's gone mad. She wants to ... to kill them all."

As though on cue, they heard a scream, seemingly from around two hundred meters away, on the other side of the dark building they walked beside.

Their feet made clattering noises on the debris, the sides of the building they passed tattered and torn, like a giant had come along and ravaged it.

Nelson's armour clanked as he walked, the man trying to keep up, rising and falling with each step.

"Quiet. They're up ahead." It was Charlotte. Tyler noticed her hair had been washed of the dirt and grease that had marred it back when they'd last been together. Seeing her dressed in her casual clothes, he felt those familiar stirrings in the pit of his stomach.

***

They soon all wandered back.

Behind them, Brett strolled, twirling a small pocketknife around in his fingers. "Can I kill another one, Nelse? Can I kill another one, like I did before?" He was smiling, blood sprayed over his face. "I'm a killer, Tyler! I'm a killer!" He flipped the knife in his hand, caught it, did a three-sixty on the spot, before appearing to look for other lingering undead.

Nodding back to the kid, Nelson, from beneath a silver helmet, said, "Miss Prick saw mus mwhen mwe mwere mlooking mfor mwhoever was making mhose msounds mout mhere."

Hannah glared back at her younger brother. "You don't ever follow us again, boy, or I'll rip you a new butt-hole, got it?"

They were walking toward what appeared to be a giant complex of apartments, disappearing into the night sky. In this area, no bodies lay on the ground, no figures staring from the darkness.

"Mone mon, mets move morward."

The five continued, those windows of the apartment black, the facades darker still.

That night, they remained in the apartment.

Nelson stared out the window.

Hannah rubbed her hands all up and own Tyler's back as he sat shaking on the couch. "You are going to be okay, my honey princess, my soft marshmallow baby." She kissed his face, and Tyler tried to writhe away, but couldn't. He kept scratching his eyes. A glass of water sat before him on the coffee table, which she used to continuously pour more and more water over his eyes.

Dim light made its way into the apartment, the furnishings new and untouched, like no one had even ever lived in here. Smell of fresh paint.

Staring out, scratching his chin, Nelson said, "There is no life here, Tyler, none at all .... which only leaves one option."

He turned back to stare at Tyler, then back out the window again, this time staring east. "We take your little trailer you're working on, Tyler, then head off to Ocean Bay. It's our last hope."

They remained there two days. The large glass windows revealed the town in all its destructed glory.

Looking out the bedroom window one night, Tyler saw the state of the industrial area. The large broken pipes, toppled to the ground. Trucks sat upon sides, windows scattered, cars banged into buildings, old blood dried on the ground. A tear sat in his eye.