The Cure for Sleeping

Chapter Four

For the next two days, all I can taste is blood. My peanut butter has a delightful coppery taste to it. The saltines I'm eating by the box now have the added pleasure of stinging like crazy. Is my mouth bleeding because I haven't flossed for the past month? No, it's just my freaking lip again. Thea slapped me hard enough that my tooth went halfway through, leaving a lovely wound that I probably should have gotten stitches for.

I knew that there was a reason I never liked fairies.

It's Saturday morning, and instead of sleeping in or watching cartoons, I pack up my meagre possessions to leave. It's not much: a sleeping bag, half a jar of peanut butter, matches, and my phone. I know that it's stupid –all those phones were abandoned in cars for a reason, there's no signal anymore- but I can't stop hoping for it to ring. A call from Mum, yelling at me for being away so long; from Raegan, my best friend from home, asking why I haven't phoned in forever. From Briony, my older sister launching into her old routine when I pick up.

What are you calling for, bird?

God, I miss her. I close my eyes, hands stilled over black zippers. There are so many things that I want to do: drink Briony's mad coffee creations spiked with whiskey. Have our nightly dance parties from when she would come home from Uni. Ride the horses, giving Blue and Nola their carrots. Stop myself from begging mum to let me visit Briony in America.

Instead, I'm in New York City, thousands of miles away from Australia. Staying with a lost sister whilst the world curls in on itself.

I run my hands through my hair and check my watch. My five minutes are over. Moving on.

I check the knife in my boot. I know, I'm a walking cliché, but I have nowhere else to put it. You can't exactly stick an eight-inch butcher's knife in the pocket of your jeans. Besides, the straps climbing up the sides of the hiking boots makes a good halter.

I stand until I hit the roof supports, trying to stretch the cramp out of my right calf. Since the disaster that took place after my stay at the apartment, I've taken to hiding myself better. Last night, I slept in the roof of an abandoned house. There's a crawl space leading up from a hole in the kitchen ceiling, and it made a pretty good den. Though it smells vaguely of weed.

I wiggle my way over to the opening and stick my head out. My hair falls like a cloud around me, auburn strands escaping their braid. Pushing my bag out into the kitchen, I drop down after it. I land on my feet, for once.

My plan for the day is simple, and becoming very routine –hunt down food, find a new hiding place, and don't get bitten.

I've chosen to head out in the early morning today, before sunrise, in the hopes that the gangs will all be sleeping away their liver damage. The gangs were one of the first things to happen after the outbreak. It only took a few days into the mass panic for people to start taking advantage of it. I suppose that says something about human nature.

As people were flooding the roads, running for their lives and being torn apart by Insomniacs in the streets they grew up in, the gangs were looting. As the number of the living dropped, they staked their grounds –spray paint now guards the buildings that they've claimed. I've been avoiding these like the plague, but I've seen the results of those who aren't as wise. Heard them, too. There's no traffic now to drown out screams.

The city is a deep blue before dawn. My knife is in my hand as I slink down side streets. I don't have a destination in mind –I'm not familiar enough with the city for that. But I figure that if I choose a direction and stick to it, I'll eventually find a little grocer or corner store that hasn't been raided in the past month. Like following the river downstream. That's a thing, right?

I pause at every corner –ears strained and eyes closed– before I turn. I don't know much about Insomniacs, since we never had the chance to learn, but I've been told that their hearing isn't the best. I figure that this is just an attempt to even the evolutionary playing field; their eyesight is much better than mine. Especially in the dark.

This is why I'm standing still, eyes clenched shut, when I hear the laughter. Instinctively, I press back, flattening myself against the brick corner of an apartment block. Next, it's a scream, a full-lunged thing that shatters the dawn silence. The bottom drops out of my stomach. They're around the next corner.

My hand is scraping at the wall beside me, nails chipping as I scramble. I find a metal pipe, heavy and thick with joints. I yank against it with my full strength as the giggles dissolve into frantic muttering, several voices joined like a chant. There's an alcove above me, framing a window.

I wrap my hands around the pipe, take a deep breath in, and climb, scaling the side of the building. My arms ache holding my weight. My palms are sweating, slipping against the metal and dropping me down a few inches.

But I can hear them getting closer.

I swing my legs into the empty air, planting my toes in the six inch wide alcove. I shimmy forward, hauling myself into the nook. Crushing my back against the glass, I smother my shaky gulps with a sleeve.

On the ground, not ten metres away, a man bursts at a run from the intersection. He's middle-aged, with greying hair and wire-framed glasses. He throws a glace over his shoulder, eyes wide and terrified. There's a wet patch on the front of the man's pants. One of his legs is dragging slightly, but he's running as fast as he can.

Just not fast enough.

They're right behind him, three of them. Pale skin covered in purple veins like lace, red tears dried to brown on their cheeks, pupils dilated to black.

Insomniacs.

A woman catches hold of the man's arm, her laughter manic and childlike. He screams again, the sound torn out of him. She jerks him towards her and he stumbles. His leg collapses under him and the man falls, but the Insomniac keeps dragging. She wrenches him around in a circle, skipping and twirling as if they were in a ballroom instead of on a ruined street. The males catch up to her, and she growls at them, baring teeth stained red. She yanks the man to his feet, as easily as if he were a child.

The man is sobbing now. These are great, heaving breaths, the kind that hurt your chest and leave you dizzy. The woman smiles at him. Then, she sinks her teeth into his shoulder.

The man arches his back, a howl escaping as he fights, but Insomniacs are strong. There's no point to his struggles –he's already been bitten. He's already lost. The woman tears her teeth out along with chunks of flesh, blood dribbling down her chin like a muzzle. Then, she drops him. The man hits the pavement in a mess of twisted limbs, blood flowing like paint.

The woman stares at him for a moment, watching as his breathing grows shallow, laboured. Then, she leaves. Skips on her merry way down the street with the two males following like attendants.

I don't move as the man grows still. I don't think I can.

So, I stand in my alcove and watch as bruises bloom the dead man's skin like storm clouds rolling in. As his veins bloat and darken, spreading like lightning under pale skin. As he begins to twitch, to jerk.

The man rises at the same time as the sun.

When he stands, the movement is controlled, almost graceful. His face is blank as slate, no hint of the earlier fear. A bird takes off from a tree further down the block, and the man's head snaps forward. He takes a step.

And takes off. He's heedless of his broken leg now, moving faster than he did when fighting for life. A killer.

A hunter.

I stay motionless for another ten minutes, counting off the seconds in my head. Six hundred seconds for him to move away. That's all I'll risk.

When the count reaches zero, I inch down to the ground, working motion back into my frozen limbs. Step around the blood spatter on the concrete, painted bright by the golden morning.

And keep moving.