Bite

Hailey, the Zombie

Hailey was trembling, staring up at me with white, wide eyes. Her fingers searched automatically for the hole in her shoulder. When she felt the wound, her eyes got even bigger, and she screamed again. She tried to wriggle out from beneath me, but I slammed a hand down onto her neck. She couldn't leave, this was my game. They had to understand what was really going on here. It wasn't serious, it was just one bite.

To further my charade, I snapped my jaws at her, and growled. She'd figure it out, I knew she would. When she saw my eyes, she'd see what I really meant. In fact she'd probably be a better person in the long run—better to learn a hard lesson from someone older and wiser rather than really getting killed.

Getting killed was something that stupid people do—and she wasn't dead. That's why it was good to be bitten instead. She wanted to survive, didn't she? I gave her the key to surviving the apocalypse—the same gift my father gave to my mother. She would get it, I knew she'd understand. Any minute now.

Wayne had let out a curse word.

I let Hailey wriggle under my strong hand, placed strategically just above the collarbone so that I wouldn't accidentally strangle her by being too close to the esophagus. That'd, unlike my current position, would be much harder to explain. Oops, sorry guys, I guess it was death by asphyxiation, instead of the actual danger—zombies. Awkward, right?

And yet Hailey was still struggling beneath me, and Rayford was walking towards us slowly. He was close enough to see exactly what was going on here, but when he got close enough, he didn't say anything. He just picked up his hand gun from the conference table, and then backed up again.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Oh god. They thought Hailey was a zombie. They thought my bite would turn her. That's not fair to her—okay, okay, bad joke, I knew it. I should have listened to myself. They'd shoot Hailey, afraid she'd turn into a zombie, and it would be my fault.

I had to stop them. It was my stupidity, not hers. She was an idiot but she didn't deserve to get shot for it. I clumsily got to my feet. I was unable to get my bearing at first, still pain ridden from that damn ankle. But I knew I had to put myself between them and Hailey before it all went wrong.

As soon as my hold was released, Hailey scrambled like a little rodent, scurrying behind me till she was leaning against the window, hugging her knees. She was crying and trembling, and I realized my efforts to bite her properly were sort of wasted. Perhaps I should have bitten her more than once?

For a moment, I was distracted. Maybe I should try biting her again—no! I told myself. You've ruined this once, you might ruin things again. Leave her alone, she's learned her lesson.

"Shoot her," Pedro said quietly. "Rayford, I know—she was your neighbor—and all—but you got to shoot her. Now."

Hailey wasn't his neighbor, I was! What was he talking about?

I looked down at my broken ankle, and the light turned on. Oh my god, these idiots thought that I was the zombie.