Better off Undead

Chapter 58: Death Wish

Eli stumbled back into the room with the dining table and the trail of dead zombies. He could barely still walk, but somehow he made his way across the room to the table. He leaned up against it, trying to catch his breath, trying to stop his mind from reeling, trying to stop his vision from spinning.

He felt like he was dying. Or, perhaps, already dead. Maybe without knowing it he had become just another species of undead wandering about this necrotized planet.

Or maybe he was just too rapidly running out of the few things that made him still feel like life was worth living.

As his vision cleared, he realized that a body was lying on the floor beneath him. This body was not like the others. For one thing, its head and skull were entirely intact. For another, it had a large wooden shaft sticking out of a bloody wound in its chest.

This, he realized, had to be Michael.

"You... bastard," he said to the motionless corpse. He staggered over to the body and dropped down to his knees. Reaching out, he wrapped his fingers around the spike and wrenched it with all his strength until it came loose.

"You bastard!" he shouted, and drove the spike back into the dead creature. "You had her and you destroyed her!" He pulled the weapon out and drove it back in over and over as he continued shouting at the lifeless vampire. "You ruined her! You hurt her! How could you do that? You bastard! You bastard! You... you..."

He dropped the spike on the ground and collapsed next to it, his chest heaving from exertion.

"How could you?" he said one last time, to the ceiling.

He lay there, exhausted, for what seemed like ages. He didn't move, even when he heard a door open and close, and the sound of footsteps moving across the floor.

"This the last one?" a growly voice asked.

There was no verbal response, but a sound of movement that Eli took as a shrug. Two faces appeared above him, looking down on him with their shark-like teeth bared.

"Get him up," said the one that had spoken earlier.

They reached down and pulled him to his feet. The one on the right held him while the one on his left began searching him for weapons. He immediately found the two wooden spikes, tossing each away over his shoulder as if disgusted by even the touch of them.

"What's this?" he asked, pulling out the bottle of water from Eli's pants.

"Water," Eli croaked. "My water. Please. I... I'm so thirsty."

He reached for the bottle, but the vampire pulled it out of his reach. The creature spun off the cap and sniffed uncertainly at the air above the open top. He cast a look at his companion and shrugged. The second vampire shrugged back.

"Maybe it's poison?"

Eli's hand snaked out faster than even the vampires expected and knocked the bottle free from the creature's grip. The bottle itself bounced harmlessly off the crouching vampire's chest and then fell to the floor, but the water splashed out as it went, spraying the vampire with its deadly content.

The creature fell away, hissing as steam rose up from its body. Eli used the momentary distraction and dropped to the floor, grabbing for the spike that had killed Michael. His felt it in his hand, and his fingers started to close around it.

Something like an eighteen wheeler plowed into Eli's guts, hitting him with enough force to completely lift him off the ground and flip him sideways through the air.

He collapsed on the ground, coughing, rolling, and clenching his teeth through the pain. In the corner of his vision, through the blackness creeping into the edges of his vision, he could see the vampire that had kicked him – a kick of truly inhuman and unexpected strength – making its way over to him. He tried to will his body into action, to get up, to run, hell, even to scramble on all fours. Anything. But the pain was too great.