A Different Virus: Heartfire

Chapter 9

I woke slowly and my mind was foggy with sleep. Every breath was full of pain. I was on the ground, but I was outside the fence. What had happened? I opened my eyes and blinked rapidly at the bright light as I tried to look around, wincing at the pain in my neck. I was rewarded with a view of branches. It looked like I had crawled under a thorn bush.

I reached to grab my backpack, and pain exploded down my arm as a thorny branch snagged some injury on my wrist. With a gasp of pain, I instantly pulled my hand back. I cradled the injured hand and saw an angry-red bite mark. Memories from the night before flooded through my mind. The screams, the blood, the zombie trying to pull me through the window, the bite, Kailey, Evan, the Swift, running...

I tried to control my breathing to keep the panic at bay. I was a ticking time bomb.

I used my other arm to grab my backpack. My muscles were burning with a pain I had never felt before. Even breathing was painful. I managed to pull one of my water canteens out of my pack, thankful that I hadn't drank it all yesterday.

I hoped the water might help hydrate my body and ease the pain. After emptying the canteen, I lay on my back, hoping the pain would subside. From the position of the sun, it was early afternoon. I had slept well into the day.

And I was still alive.

How long did I have? Despite the fiery pain in my muscles, I didn't have a headache. My mind wandered a bit, trying to escape the agonizing pain and still-lingering grief. The bite didn't go deep, and I was healthy. It may take the full seven days. But I had burned a lot of energy fighting and running myself into exhaustion. I had no clue.

It wasn't something they had ever covered in Zombie Training. We were just told to get anyone who was bitten to a safe distance if we could and, if possible, put a helmet on them so that they weren't a threat. No one wanted to kill a friend, but as I had learned, the second someone fell into the seizures, all rules were gone.

With some difficulty, I pulled a bandage out of my backpack and crudely wrapped it around the bite mark in the limited space under the branches, hoping that the covering would keep things from brushing against the painful injury.

I lay there for several more hours. At this point, I doubted I could even walk due to the pain. I was starting to regret running so hard for so long; my body was loudly objecting to what I had done to it last night. The pain was not abating. In fact, it was getting worse.

I had to bite my lip to keep from making any noise. I had never felt pain this bad, and neither had my entire body hurt at one time. Every single muscle ached and burned. Every beat of my heart was painful.

       Time is variable.

Every second was a gift, every second was a curse. I was still alive – and on the verge of death, life seems incredibly precious. I had fought this long to live.

Every second spent in the pain and knowledge that I had less than six days left to live was a curse.

Then the situation got worse. I heard the familiar moaning sound of a zombie. It was approaching and obviously able to smell my pain-induced sweat. I had to move. I may be on death's short notice memo, but being eaten alive by a zombie was not on my bucket list.

I crawled out from under the thorny bushes slowly; each movement felt like torture. The pain was almost unbearable. I wanted to drop into a ball and curl up to wait out the pain. There was no way I would be able to go far. Was there a tree I could climb? I had the hammock in my backpack...

I stood up with immense difficulty as my muscles felt like they were being burned with a hot poker. I finally got a good look at where I was, but I didn't recognize this field with its numerous blackberry patches.