Wolfeater

“Hopefully nothing too allegro for my taste, you know quick steps give me nightmares,” you replied with a smile as you took off your outer layers and started doing floor stretches. Your calves seized up a little when you pancaked your stomach on your knees, a soft involuntary groan escaping your lips - working those dead pointe shoes was certainly taking a toll on your body.

Miss Irina managed to figure out the stereo, this time without even asking for your help, and started playing a new waltz song, one you hadn’t heard before. You gave her a surprised look as she restrainedly marked some new steps in the center, catching your eye through the rotting mirror, a mischievous smile playing on the corner of her lips.

“Terry found this new CD on the town patrol yesterday. I was just dying to show you!” She said with a glint in her eyes and barely containing her excitement as she soared past you, dancing.

You couldn’t help but feel intoxicated by her enthusiasm, your smile mirroring hers as you went through your stretching routine, massaging your sore adductors.

“Alright, enough small talk. We’re gonna do a full barre today… and no pointes for now.” She commanded as she stopped by the stereo again, searching for the plié track.

You took your place by the barre and the class began. It went on as normal, although Miss Irina really went to town with the new combos, her creativity noticeably renewed by the fresh songs. It was really fun, though - a healthy challenge after weeks of the same choreographed class.

Halfway through your frappés, you thought you heard far away gunshots over the frenetic music. It was fairly unusual for the village to have to use guns, being so secluded in the woods that hardly even infected bothered you. So you brushed it off and continued the sequence, picking up speed - it was probably just a small pack of runners that had come a little too close for comfort. 

But the shooting continued. Closer now, harder to ignore. And then came the screaming and a loud dry thump of something heavy collapsing.

Miss Irina and you glanced nervously at each other before rushing to the front window and crouching by the windowsill to see what was going on, the music forgotten in the background.

Through the fogged glass, you could see the heavy wooden gate that once protected the village lying torn and crushed on the ground as trucks rolled over it, engines roaring, horns blaring as they barreled toward the square. Men leaned out of the doors with vicious grins, firing at anything that moved. They had come in force.

You didn’t recognize any of them - Hell, you didn’t even know there was another settlement close by! But clearly these people had not come in peace, and you had to think fast if you wanted to survive.

It took a few moments for Miss Irina to process what was happening. When she did, she sprinted away, muttering something under her breath that you couldn’t quite catch.

You watched her disappear inside the house, still crouched by the window, unsure of what to do. Did she want you to follow her? 

Looking back at Main Street as you racked your brain for a plan, you saw the men climbing out of their cars and splitting up to enter the houses of the village - guns in hand, their gait confident and unnerving.

But only the sight of three broad men heading towards Miss Irina’s house managed to finally snap you out of your inertia. 

“Fuckfuckfuck,” you cursed, words as frenzied as your hands that fumbled in the pockets of your hanging coat, searching for your switchblade. Clutching it like your life depended on it, you quietly slipped out through the back door just as the men loudly made their way inside.

Your eyes never left the house as you blindly walked backwards on Miss Irina’s backyard, making sure your steps were as silent as humanly possible. Yet, by being so focused on the danger in front of you, you failed to see the threat that approached from behind. 

It came in the form of two big, hairy hands grabbing your waist and latching your neck in a headlock, cutting your airflow and suffocating your voice. They took you off the floor, dangling you against an expanded stomach like a plaything. A prickly beard poked your cheek and a foul breath sickened you as you heard a thin, grating voice mutter in your ear with disgusting pleasure: 

“Never thought I’d see a ballerina again in my life. I always wanted to have one.”

You tossed and kicked, trying to wriggle free of him as he sneered and groped you with his repulsive thick hands. He was much too strong for you, though, and the more you flailed the more lightheaded you felt. 

Beginning to lose hope as your movements became more and more erratic, you tried to resign yourself by thinking that it wouldn’t be as bad if you were unconscious - at least you wouldn’t feel any of it, right?

And just as your body started to relax, giving in to the darkness that was slowly taking shape on the edges of your eyesight, you remembered the switchblade still secured in your grasp. With what little energy you had left, you pressed it open and stabbed the man on the leg with all your might, not even caring where the blow would hit. 

He softened his grip, yelling in pain, and you took the opportunity to squirm free of him. Not even taking a moment to catch your breath again, you turned around and lodged your blade on his neck, aiming for his throat. 

But it wasn’t enough. No. 

You toppled him over, ignoring the gurgling noise he was making as he suffocated on his own blood. He tried to fight you off, but the adrenaline made you stronger and you sat on top of him, knees pressing his arms to the ground. Holding your blade with both hands, you raised it above your head and stabbed it again and again and again on his neck, his chest, and his face. 

“I hope.. you like.. this fucking.. ballerina!” You growled between jabs. 

By the time you were done, he was nothing but pulp. 

You looked between your blood soaked hands that shook uncontrollably and the man’s slashed face as you panted, trying to assimilate what you’d done. You had never killed a human being before, and the shock of realization ran through your body in an electrifying wave. 

“Oh my god… what have I-” you started to form the thought, but were interrupted by the sound of voices and steps getting louder, coming in your direction. 

This wasn’t the time to come to terms with what you’d done. You had to come up with a plan - and fast!

Looking frantically around, you realized you were kneeling just under the tree of your childhood - the one you used to climb when you wanted to hide from the world to get lost in your own thoughts. You rushed to it and started ascending effortlessly, the memory of the right steps coming to you like second nature.

Just as you had sat down on your usual spot, barely hidden by the dry and snow covered skeletal branches, you saw Dawson run past you on the ground, his tiny seven year-old legs hardly keeping the pace. He was trying to put as much distance from a group of men who lightly chased him, squawking in enjoyment at his despair, when he got cornered by another group of thugs that came from an alley between houses. 

They grabbed and dragged him inside the studio, being joined by the men that had finally caught up to them. With the back door open, the little boy’s screams filled your ears, cutting through the new waltz song that now played on Miss Irina’s stereo. You couldn’t see what they were doing, but you certainly could imagine what was happening - the feeling of self preservation clashing furiously with the will to protect him.

Ultimately, though, you didn’t do anything. 

You just sat there on your tree, red tainted knuckles turning white from holding tight on the branches, shivering with cold, tears blurring your vision as you watched the vandals wreck havoc in your village, laughing and kicking at the maimed and bloodied bodies of the people you had lived with and loved your whole life. You stayed there as you saw them leave Juliet’s house, bloody hands buckling their pants back up. And you continued there when the screams died out, hearing as the invaders planned to come back with bigger trucks so they could bring the livestock back to their camp and burn your village to the ground.

By the time you decided to climb down, it had started snowing - the clear blue skies replaced by heavy gray clouds that matched the gloomy silence that cloaked the once lively village. You didn’t know how much time had passed since they left. It felt like you had been perched on the tree for hours, the minutes dragging by, but it probably was much less. 

Only the howling of the wind and the melancholic adagio playing in Miss Irina’s studio could be heard by your place under the tree. The man you had slaughtered still laid on the ground, a thin, pinkish snow layer shrouding his corpse as you passed by him. Your legs and fingers felt stiff and your body shook violently, but you couldn’t decide if it was because of the cold or out of shock. 

It took you a little while to realize your feet were taking you to your parent’s house, your mind still clouded by the visions of the atrocities you had witnessed. The snow soaked your canvas slippers, freezing your toes, making it painful to walk, but you pressed on, wanting to put as much distance from the studio and the music as possible. 

You stopped when you reached your parent’s back door. The whole world had gone silent - even the wind had ceased blowing and the snow now fell quietly, piling on top of your shoulders, while your cold outstretched hand hovered above the doorknob, hesitating. You were scared of what you were going to find when you opened the door. Part of you wanted to turn away and leave, never knowing what actually happened to them, keeping a tiny spark of hope that they might still be alive. But the other part of you desperately strained your ears and held your breath, fervently wishing to hear the muffled sound of their voices. 

You didn’t. 

Swallowing hard and picking up courage, you turned the doorknob and slowly opened the unlocked door, making your way to the living room where you could see a big puddle of blood already starting to dry.

And though you wished to bridge the distance between your parents lifeless bodies as fast as possible, to hold them against you and cry their losses, your feet - again acting at their own accord - took you slowly to the center of the room, revealing the gruesome scene to your bewildered eyes in an almost unnerving pace.

They were lying on a puddle of their own blood - pale skinned and glassy eyed; your dad’s arms loosely around your mom on a last embrace, like he had tried to protect her in their final moments. You looked at them on the floor and you wanted to touch them. Close their eyes and hold their hands. Say your goodbyes. 

But you couldn’t do it. 

You just stood there, frozen, cold dried tears pinching the skin of your cheeks, watching over your dead parents for what felt like days.

It was a low shuffling sound breaking through your stupor that finally got you moving. You stepped over your parents instinctively, soaking your slippers in their blood, in order to hide behind the couch. Silently, you reached over for the forgotten knife beside your mom’s cold hand and listened intently to the sound of soft footsteps entering the kitchen from the open back door, inching closer to where you crouched. Your breathing accelerated as you gathered up the courage to defend yourself again, fingernails etching in your palms as you waited for the right moment to attack, when you heard a familiar voice whispering out your name. Miss Irina’s voice. 

Shooting up from where you were squatting, you didn’t think twice before climbing the sofa and running into the open arms of your ballet teacher. Relief washed over you at the sight of her blood-smeared face, the tears you couldn’t bring yourself to cry finally breaking free. You both cried in your shaky embrace for long minutes, all of your losses and fears combined into the rolling tears. 

Miss Irina recomposed herself first. “Go put on some warm clothes, we need to run. They’ll be back soon,” she said, holding you at arm’s length and wiping the tears from your face. 

You nodded and obeyed her in silence, your throat feeling too dry to say anything. The bloodied soles of your slippers left a trail behind you as you slowly climbed the stairs to your room for the last time in your life. I’m never gonna walk these corridors again, you thought mournfully, or run my fingers on this chipped guardrail, or listen to dad’s snores early in the morning through the door of his and mom’s room…

By the time you reached your room, your vision was blurry again with the flow of tears that you just didn’t seem to be able to control. All you wanted to do was curl up on your bed and wait for the invaders to come back and torch you down with the house. 

But you forced yourself to obey Miss Irina’s orders, putting on pants, sweaters and boots - you didn’t bother to strip out of your bloody ballet attire, though, not even the useless, sheer crepe skirt. 

You left them on. A quiet reminder over your skin of who you were and everything you were about to lose. 

As you were leaving, your eyes landed on the framed picture of the village’s community on the wall. It was taken during one of last summer’s barbecue - everyone was smiling and happy. You could see yourself in the warm hug of your parent’s arms while Juliet and Eric held hands and eyed you with mischievous grins, under the watchful stare of Mrs. Alonzo, Juliet’s aunt. And even little Dawson was in the picture, running and beaming from the water gun Mr. Johnston pointed at him. You caressed the photo over the glass one time before grabbing the frame and smashing it to the floor. The broken glass nipped your fingers when you took the photo to stuff it into your backpack - the last memory you would ever have from home.

Miss Irina had already looted what was left of the kitchen and your parent’s tiny armoury when you reached the ground floor landing. She split the resources between you, handing over a couple of guns, ammo and a machete. 

“Do you wanna go anywhere before we leave, darling? This is your last chance,” she asked softly with her hand on the back door handle. 

You responded with a light shake of your head. Lingering would only make it hurt more, and you didn’t think you could take any more pain without breaking.

Miss Irina nodded with a sad smile, understanding. Then she opened the door to the cold wintry breeze that waited outside and grabbed your hand, and together you left the village that had been your safe harbor for so many years - for good.

***

The two of you wandered the woods for weeks, both losing count after the fourth or fifth day out. Miss Irina had vague information about a settlement in Seattle, the closest city from your village, and an even vaguer sense of direction. Luckily, your dad had made a point of teaching you celestial navigation, so you could easily identify the cardinal points and follow the stars to your destination. Miss Irina said the city was northward, so that’s where you were taking her, but you had no idea what you were going to find when you reached it. The closest you had ever been to a city was the small town 10 km from your village, which you’d visited twice on patrol - and it looked tiny even for you.

It was obvious that, as the younger and more able-bodied of the two, most of the defense was expected to fall on you. There was just one small problem, though: you sucked at it. 

In hindsight, it had been incredibly dumb and privileged of you to not have learned how to fight or shoot just because you thought you would never really need it. 

Actually, scratch that. 

You were taught how to fight and shoot, but you simply never took it seriously. You mainly watched Eric and Juliet from a distance during shooting practice, annoyed at how loud the guns were. Not even being cleared for patrol duty changed that - there were hardly ever any infected to kill, and stealth was pretty much always the best option anyway. And combat fighting was basically an excuse for you and your friends to grope and hump each other in plain sight. Fun, but definitely not efficient. 

Now, out in the woods, you quickly came to regret your recklessness: the fact was that you were an absolutely terrible shot - and being pressured and scared made it so much worse. You couldn’t hit a target to save your own life, let alone Miss Irina’s. And you couldn’t practice your aim either, having both to save every single bullet you had for emergencies and try your best not to attract attention from infected and other humans alike. 

Relying on the skills you already had, stealth and close contact attacks became your go to - and you could manage them alright. But after a few close calls, you realized the best strategy most of the time was to just remove yourselves from potential danger as quietly and quickly as possible.

Surprisingly - and despite her slight shortsightedness - Miss Irina turned out to be a fairly good shot for a former principal ballerina of the Oregon Ballet. She saved your ass a couple times during those close calls, but her age was taking a toll on her, making her hands less steady. 

The food lasted a good while with a ration system, but it ultimately ran out, forcing the two of you to scrape by with berries and small animals you managed to trap sometimes. Hunger was a faithful, yet demanding companion. It depleted you of your fat and muscles, leaving you weak and bony, with little energy to do more than walk a few kilometers per day and desperately look for food anywhere. 

Miss Irina also carried the hunger in her gaunt face, her once shiny eyes now opaque and lifeless. She never complained, though. Not even when your traps came out empty and the berries you managed to pick barely amounted to a handful. She was always kind, encouraging and hopeful, saying things would get better come spring or when you reached the city - whichever came first. 

***

It was slightly warmer when you finally slipped into Seattle through a collapsed wall that had probably belonged to the FEDRA QZ. But things didn’t get immediately better the way Miss Irina had promised. 

The city was eerily quiet, wrapped in a foreboding stillness like it was holding its breath, waiting for something. And yet, despite the uneasiness it stirred in you, you couldn’t help but be dazzled by the vastness of it all - you didn’t even know buildings could be that tall.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t linger on those thoughts for long. Weak and starving, your focus quickly narrowed to one thing: finding food before you ran out of energy for the day.

Your first instinct was to raid the abandoned buildings, certain that there would be plenty of supplies left behind. Instead, every place you checked had already been looted to the bone. Still, you and Miss Irina didn’t give up easily, and together you combed the edges of the city in silence for hours, wearily working your way inward.

You ran into only a handful of infected and no other survivors at all - and the deeper the sun sank toward the horizon, the heavier that absence began to feel.

Were the rumors about the settlement false? Were the two of you alone in this empty city? You thought grimly after another failed attempt at looting. It was hard keeping negative thoughts away after so many frustrating hours. Your hands had started to shake, legs dragging as if they were filled with lead. You were burning through what little energy you had left - either you found food soon, or you were done for the day. You couldn’t keep this pace much longer.

“Look, that restaurant looks promising.” Miss Irina’s voice broke the gloomy stillness, startling you. She was pointing at a short, small building a few paces across the street from you, the name of the establishment long gone. “The windows aren’t broken and aren’t those bottles of liquor on the bar? We should check it out, maybe our luck is turning,” she said with a hopeful smile, like she could feel your faith was faltering. 

“Yeah, maybe it is…” you murmured unconvinced, but crossed the street to examine the diner more closely. 

Standing at the door and sweeping the place with your eyes, you quickly came to the conclusion that it looked like every other place you had explored so far: dusty, abandoned and barren. Some booths had been rearranged into a sort of hideout in the corner, dirty blankets strewn around, and the bottles of liquor Miss Irina had seen were empty and scattered about, like someone had squatted here and had a field day with them a very long time ago.

“Let’s check the kitchen, there’s gotta be something there,” Miss Irina whispered from behind you, softly pushing you to start making your way to the back, refusing to lose hope. 

You walked toward the gray swinging doors in the far corner of the restaurant, brain foggy and disinterested. This is useless, there’s nothing in here, you concluded in silence. You’d do this kitchen search to appease Miss Irina, but what really concerned you was where you were going to spend the night. Maybe you could use that hideout in the dining area. There was this metal pipe on the previous building that you could use to bar the-

“Shh!” Miss Irina hissed and pulled you to hide behind a booth with her, her eyes alert and sharp. “I saw something… a shadow. Behind the bar.”

You waited in silence with her for long minutes, ears straining for the slightest sound, but there was nothing. Blindly, you reached over the table, fumbling for a napkin holder to throw in the direction of the supposed shadow - an attempt to lure out a possible infected - but the restaurant continued quiet, with only the sound of metal clanking on the floor echoing in the stale air. 

“Maybe you imagined it,” you reasoned after a while. “We’re very tired, let’s just check the kitchen and call it a day. Maybe we’ll be luckier tomorrow,” you said, getting up and resuming your walk. 

Miss Irina nodded reluctantly but stayed crouched for a few more seconds, eyes squinting in suspicion. Then she got up and followed you to the back, her footsteps in sync with yours. 

The kitchen was bigger than you expected for such a small diner, but it was dark and grimy, the metal countertops and the tiled floor splattered with old, brown blood. The two of you decided to split up to scavenge the tattered, empty space, each looking for scraps of food on cabinets and drawers on separate sides of the room. 

You’d already emptied most of the cupboards on your end, turning up nothing but rat droppings and spiderwebs. Reaching a set of drawers, you decided this would be your last try - you were done. 

And funnily, by being so used to finding nothing for so long, when two protein bars tumbled out as you yanked one drawer open, your brain lagged behind your eyes. For a second, you didn’t even recognize what they were.

Trembling hands snatched them up, clutching them like they were about to run away. You turned to call out to Miss Irina in glee, ready to celebrate this small win when a scream and a gunshot ripped through the silence.

You pivoted to see her pressed against a countertop, desperately trying to fight off a creature gnawing on her neck from the back, the fungi on its face growing upwards, in a way you had never seen before. 

“No…” you whispered in disbelief, trying to convince yourself you were imagining this scene. 

This couldn’t be real - but it was. 

Miss Irina’s screams were real. 

And you had to fucking do something!

“NO!” You yelled, taking your gun without thinking and shooting at the infected. Unsurprisingly, you missed all of your shots, and didn’t hit Miss Irina by a miracle. The shooting startled the infected though, and it pushed off of Miss Irina, making a run to hide behind the kitchen island. 

What the fuck was it doing? This wasn’t how an infected was supposed to act.

“Come out you little fucker…” you muttered through gritted teeth, grabbing hold of your machete. You could hear it scurrying away from you. 

You started to crouch after it, blood boiling with rage, your one-track mind fixed on destruction, when Miss Irina’s weak voice cut through your eagerness and distracted you. Her lips were pale and she had one hand pressed against her neck, the wound bathing her in blood. 

Divided, you contemplated your choices for half a second before hurrying over to help her lie on the floor, watching her blood pool under her just like your parents’ had done. 

“We don’t have much time…” she said with difficulty. 

“I know - just hold on, please! I need to finish this, we’re not safe!” You said, desperation edging into your voice as you struggled to focus on her and track the infected at the same time. Your ears were so strained you thought you caught distant voices and the low rumble of a truck engine, but you hardly had any brain power left to process that along with everything that was happening.

“I just want you to know how much I love you,” Miss Irina said, grabbing your hand and drawing your attention back to her. “And how much I want you to have a long, happy life.” Her voice grew weaker, your eyes got blurrier, the infected groans sounded louder. 

“Please, Miss Irina, stay with me,” you pleaded with a choked voice, “don’t leave me, please.” 

“You’ll be alright, darling. I know you will…” 

As she pronounced those words, the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. From the corner of your eye, you saw the infected lunging toward you, taking advantage of the moment you’d looked away. 

You swung your arm more by instinct than by conscious thinking, feeling the reverberation on your shoulder as the blade of your machete lodged itself so deep inside the infected’s skull, it almost split it in half. 

Finally safe now, you didn’t give yourself time to feel relief. You immediately turned your gaze back at Miss Irina, grabbing her cold, limp hand in yours as she fought the infection with all the strength she still had. Your tears rolled freely as you caressed her face with your hand, smudging her bony cheek with blood, whispering for her to stay, to not leave you alone...

A bullet brushing past your nose made you aware of your surroundings again. 

Grief riddled, you grabbed your gun from its holster and blindly shot at the place you figured the bullet had come from, hearing a loud yelp as you finally managed to hit something. An angry female voice yelled at you to drop your weapon, and since you didn’t have any more bullets anyway, you did.

You didn’t try to fight her anymore. 

In fact, you didn’t even look up at her as you heard her footsteps getting closer. 

Your gaze focused back at Miss Irina’s form and you continued gently stroking the older woman’s cheek with bloody fingers, watching through blurry vision as her breathing became more labored.

You didn’t have it in you to fight anymore. It was pointless. Everyone you’ve ever loved was dead, and you were ready to join them.

The barrel of a gun softly pressed against the base of your skull when the woman approached you, the smell of pine and gunpowder invading your nostrils. 

“Step away from the infected,” she commanded with a firm voice.

You stayed put. She pressed the gun harder against you. 

“Get away from the infected with your hands in the air. Were you bit?”

Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t answer. You felt like your body was frozen in an overwhelming wave of hopelessness and sorrow, only being able to sob uncontrollably and watch helplessly as the faces of the people you had lost flashed in your mind in a sickening motion.

Miss Irina’s otherwise still hand twitched in yours, and a low, wet shriek slipped from her throat. The infection had finished its work. You were now really alone in the world. 

Your ballet teacher’s infected form didn’t have a lot of time to live, though. The woman behind you blew her face off just as she was stirring to sit up, her blood and brains spraying your face.

Still, you didn’t move. 

“Hey!” The woman snapped, growing impatient at your lethargy, “fucking get up now!” 

But the only thing you managed to do was drop your head lower, offering her a clear shot, and plead in the smallest of voices, the sound almost drowned by your crying: “Kill me too.”

You intertwined your fingers with Miss Irina’s and closed your eyes, holding your breath as you waited for the end to come… 

But it didn’t. 

Instead, you heard a new set of footsteps approaching the kitchen and calling out to the woman in a thick Spanish accent. 

“I think this section is clear again, Abs. Let’s go back to the Base, I’m fucking starving and I heard we were having quesadillas de pollo toda-" he stopped mid sentence, watching the scene. “What have you got there?”

“I don’t know. I think she’s in shock,” the woman murmured. “And she seems to be alone.”

You heard a scratching sound.

“Didn’t Isaac say no more strays?”

The woman hesitated before talking, “we needed help once too, remember? She looks harmless.”

They still hadn’t decided what to do with you when you heard a third voice calling out for them from the outside. “Hey you two, shift’s over! Let’s go back home, I’m hungry!”

Making a decision, the woman pocketed her gun and grabbed you by the arm. She picked you up like a ragdoll and silently started making her way out of the diner. 

You didn’t stop her. You just let yourself get carried by this girl, quiet tears rolling down your face as you rest it against her strong shoulder, the heat of her body and her close embrace unknowingly consoling you.

The woman’s companion whistled low as he followed behind her, an amused grin on his face.

“Ooh, someone’s looking for trouble. Good thing you’re Isaac’s golden girl, they would never allow me to bring an unauthorized snack like this back home,” he chuckled.

The woman groaned and muttered something under her breath that you couldn’t quite get. You were outside now, and she asked her friend to hop onto the truck and grab you so she could climb up herself.

Still limp and unbothered, you changed arms, not making the slightest effort to help any of them out. The man sat you down on the bench of the truck, propping you against the rear panel of the driver’s cabin as if you were boneless.

Soon enough the engine started and the truck got moving, unceremoniously taking you away from the last thing you had from your previous life.