The bite is festering, burning to the touch and rimmed with pus. My whole arm is swollen and red, so thick that it's like having a tree branch for a limb. I can feel the disease creeping through my veins like poison, setting my nerve endings on fire, making the fingers on my other hand twitch.
I don't have long now, maybe a day or two before the disease reaches my brain. And then...
Well, I guess I won't be my own problem anymore.
"Tim. Timothy, stay with me buddy." Dad shakes me, hard, sending a cascade of trembles down the whole length of my body. I must have stopped walking. It takes me a moment, but I'm able to focus my eyes back onto his face, and my mind snaps back into clarity.
I fight to keep it.
He tries to swallow down his tears, but one still manages to trail down his cheek. "We're almost there."
I nod, because my throat is thick and it's too hard to speak.
Almost there. Almost there. Just keep lifting your feet. Moving them forward. I won't shuffle like one of them.
Not until I am one.
A hot wave of determination clears away my weariness, and I march with a renewed sense of energy. I won't stop. Maybe there's hope. Maybe I can fight it off. Be the first one to survive a bite. Dad walks behind me, so that he can watch me constantly without having to look over his shoulder.
I won't let him down. He fought so hard to protect me, I can't give in now. I won't.
This road... it's familiar. I turn my head and search for landmarks, but nothing on the highway stands out. Pine trees, crashed cars, and silence. There's been signs we've been approaching the coast for many days now; the humid smell of saltwater on the wind, sand mixed with the soil, a stray seagull...
I finally figure it out. Our summer home.
He's taking me to our summer home, the happiest place of my life. My eyes fill and I stumble over a blurred bit of debris in my path. Nothing will give me peace as much as seeing the sun set over the ocean one last time.
I swipe my eyes with my good arm and push for a faster pace. Maybe it will make the infection spread faster too, but I'm willing to make that choice.
"That's our exit," Dad says. "We're only a couple hours away now. Tim, on your left!" His sudden shift of tone makes me freeze in my tracks.
A figure stands in the medium's pine trees, slumped crookedly. It was once a man, a grocery store clerk if judging by the clothes. But it doesn't watch us like a grocery store clerk, or a man; in fact, it doesn't even watch us like an animal. There's no understanding in its eyes, not even the light of hunger or insanity. Alive in body, but entirely brain-dead. Reactionary, but only just.
