Where Has It All Gone?

How Far Is Too Far?

"I-I'm alive! I promise please don't shoot!! M-my boyfriend is asleep at our camp I can show you! His name is Corey! We've been out here for two years on our own, please, if you have a camp, we can work to earn our keep. We'll stay out of your way and stay wherever you put us and comply with all your rules. Please just help us." I begged, still on my knees, back to the stranger and still with my hands on my head.

I could only imagine how I must've looked: my once beautiful, long, bouncy bright red hair was now a dark brown, limp and greasy, my clothes and shoes soaked and in tatters, my face, hands, arms and legs covered in dirt and sweat. I hadn't showered in 3 months. I assume the only untouched part of me were my eyes. Hopefully still the same piercing summer sky blue they've always been and always will be... that is...until the day I'm bitten. Then they'll start to fade into an ugly green when the fever hits, then the green will be replaced with a dark purple right before I die. Finally, when I come back, my pupils will be red and the rest, darker than black. I've seen it to plenty of people we were, at one point, in a group, travelling the country side, with.

It's always the same thing.

Me and Corey are always the last survivors of the group. We eventually assumed we were, in a way, cursed with the power to kill off our group members without actually killing them ourselves.

But hopefully that's in the past. Anyway, he had been standing over me, gun to my head, for what felt like forever until he finally said, "Stand up, keep your hands on your head, and turn around slowly." I did as I was told and he shined an LED light in my eyes and I could feel my pupils dilating, shrinking back against the sudden brightness of the light. When he clicked it off, I rubbed my eye until it focused. Then ideas able to get a good look at the man. Boy, actually, he wasn't much older then me but had a deeper voice than Corey, that's for sure. He was wearing a crisp, white v-neck t-shirt, blue farm jeans, dusty cowboy boots and, to my surprise, a baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat. He had broad shoulders, blond hair and ocean blue eyes that seemed to glow through the pitch blackness of night. Maybe it was the fear behind the skeptical gaze in his eyes that made me stare for so long, but it clearly made him uncomfortable because he said, "Ahem..." I snapped out of my trancelike state as he continued talking. "...I live on a farm with my uncle and my four cousins y'all could stay at if you'd like. We've got room in the barn and the house. Where is this camp of yours? You said you had a boyfriend back at a makeshift camp right? My name is AJ, Jacob Alexander by the way." His voice was softer now that he realized he was talking to a living girl instead of a roamer. He kind of did that babbling thing guys do when they're talking to a pretty girl. I smiled and disregarded the odd way he said boyfriend, like it was irrelevant that's had one. "Yeah it's back this way..." I began walking north of the net when-

Snap!

I quickly drew my sword, the boy drew his revolver and we stood back-to-back, unaware from what direction the sound came from and figured it was better not to be caught from behind.

Snap. Crack.

It was getting closer, coming from the trees. I snatched the pocket light from the boy's key chain and shined it in the direction of the figure that just burst into the clearing.

It was Corey.

I didn't realize how the situation looked until saw the look on his face. Then it dawned on me: here I am, in a clearing in the woods, at night, when we were supposed to be sleeping, with a boy he didn't recognize. "My God I cannot get a break... this is Corey,AJ. AJ, this is Corey...my boyfriend."