This Isn't the Zombie Apocalypse

10. In Enemy Territory

I'll admit it: That caught my attention.

A little over a year ago, I had been shot and killed; a little over a year ago, I had started my never-ending run from Death.

A little over a year ago, I had heard a promise, a promise that I sensed was coming true.

Throat dry, I croaked, "What?" If all of those things happened to me, what had happened to Ana? Did she face the same problem? For some reason, I doubted that: Hers was similar, yes, but not quite the same; something was different. Switched. She wouldn't have reacted to seeing Death the way she did if her situation was the same.

Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Ana jerked her head toward her house. "Later, inside," she told me. "I don't... I don't want my parents to hear anything."

I didn't bother with it, instead choosing to allow my thoughts to take over. Question after question whizzed through my head, and all of them either had no answer or made no sense. It was all too crazy—my life was too crazy.

Ana, limping with exhaustion while I followed closely behind with my mind off in another world, made her way to the Renee's home, and before too long we were there, the door creaking open ominously. Mr. Renee stood in the hall with his arms crossed, Mrs. Renee glaring right behind him. "What do you think you were—" he began in a shaky, furious voice, but Ana waved them off.

"It's complicated," she told them. Then she slid past her parents and walked off to her room without another word. Mr. Renee sent a dark look my way, something akin to a deep loathing, as I went past them as well, following the sounds of Ana's heavy steps. I fleetingly wondered why she was so against telling them anything. Ana looked over her shoulder to glare at me, as if she knew what I was thinking, but merely shrugged.

A twisted sort of feeling coiled up in the pit of my stomach: I was calm at the moment, not really feeling the burning hatred I usually felt around Ana—maybe because of pity or curiosity—but what if it came back? What if I suddenly felt it shooting through my heart, boiling in my blood? I tried to console myself, say it was only a friendly fight, that I only disliked her as I did because of our situation, but I knew it wasn't the truth. For some reason beyond anyone's comprehension, we... hated each other, just like that, as simple as that. We weren't meant to go about doing things as we had. Something was wrong.

I hadn't thought about it before, only felt the stinging emotion, but now that I was, it became even more complicated—and only one factor, one piece of proof, that fit into Death's promise would allow it to make sense.

And I had a feeling I was about to be told that evidence. That tonight my suspicion would become fact. I hoped it wouldn't—prayed, wished, made promises that I wouldn't murder Ana so that my karma would be positive—but I knew. Really knew, deep down inside, that this was going to be the deciding factor of my destiny.

(It sounds cliché, yes, but that's the truth for you.)

Much too soon, I was opening a plain white door that led into a softly lit room. Large posters and pictures of the human body and some of famous doctors were tacked to the wall. Hanging in a picture frame by a hospital-white bed was a gold medal and picture of a younger, healthier Ana holding an award that read 'For Helping In MEDICAL ASSISTANCE' given to her by, what I deduced was, the school nurse. Medical supplies—stethoscopes, gauze, even Band-Aids—were littered about the room, some scattered on the floor, others spread haphazardly on a desk stuck in the corner. A laptop sat on the desk, tabs opened about cancer and the effect chemotherapy has, overload on iron which was called hemochromatosis, and another about a specific heart disease that probably no one had.