Bite Back Harder

There is no honorable way to go anymore. Either you become one of them, or you die trying to get away. Say what you want about trying to protect people, but the minute you become one of them, you’ve just made their position that much worse. Those of us who are left have done our best to evade them, but we only have so much time before we’re found.

The crumbling, weed-ridden excuse for a shelter looms grey and covered in shadows. How it manages that in a city full of sun and glass, I have no idea. But it is shadowed nonetheless, and wind whistles through the cracks in the building so loudly, I can hear it from where I stand staring down the broken road. The light reflects off the black and yellow, causing it to waver like water further on. Light footsteps echo between the buildings and then Corey is behind me.

“We have to go,” she says in that whispery voice of hers. “There were signs.”

My head snaps up. “You’re sure? I thought they all cleared out of the cities after everyone left.”

She nods, a pained look passing over her face for a moment. “I’m sure. Broken glass in all shades of blue. You know there isn’t a single building like that in this city.”

I glare at the ground, head swirling. They weren’t supposed to come back. They left once they thought they had consumed everyone in the city. We knew they were smart, but we thought that at least they wouldn’t bother to double check. Corey and I slip over the boulders that block the path to the shelter. Then we hear it. A crunch of broken glass, and a barely audible purr. We freeze, glance at each other, and then dart through one of the faux stone entrances. A sliver of the view is visible from the inside, and there it is. A translucent creature in all shades of blue, with gorgeous pale eyes and long hair. Its perfectly shaped hands are pressed against the window of what used to be a jewelry store. It still has the features of its former human. A shock runs through me, and I think my brain stops working. It’s Jain.

My former twin sister glances around for any signs of life, and then slips through the glass as though it is water. I hear those high-pitched purrs of delight again as she walks around touching all the jewels she likes and changing to match them. My throat tightens and I look away, blinking rapidly. Corey is still watching in fascination.

“I didn’t think it was true that they could change colors,” she signs when not-Jain reappears through the window in shades of orange. I watch not-Jain admire her hands in the sun, then glide off with trails of salmon glass replacing the blue.

“Apparently they can,” I sign back with numb hands. I watch until not-Jain has been gone for ten minutes, then slip out of the boulder, Corey following closely.

“What’s a zombie doing out here?” She hisses.

“I don’t know,” I reply quietly. “We may end up doing more scouting than usual.”

The entrance to the shelter is covered in pieces of clear glass from the windows that the wind broke last week. It’s eerily barren inside, and the wind is much louder compared to outside. I glance at Corey warily, and she shrugs. I pause in the hallway. Something is wrong. Doors stand askew, three-quarters off their hinges and the remaining ones just gone. I back up slowly. Corey notices and starts backing up too. We disappear into the walls this time, watching for any signs of danger.

“Animal, maybe?” Corey signs. I shrug. The last time our group saw any creature dangerous enough to be a problem, it was dead by the time Corey and I got back. Something scrapes in the hallway, and both of us tense in preparation. Around the corner, broken glass clinks. Corey and I gaze at each other in alarm, then watch as another zombie, this time clear, comes around the corner, purring softly.

Corey slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle a squeak of alarm. How did it find us? Did it get to the others? Then I see the face and my hope crumbles. It is one of the others. Once known as Sasha, a little girl with the brightest smile and warmest heart you’ve ever seen, now reduced to a mindless mound of walking glass. My vision blurs and something cold slips down my cheek. If they got to Sasha, there was no hope for everyone else; we all unconsciously protected her first. I rub my eyes with the back of my hand, not wanting to think about it anymore.

“We have to go,” I sign to Corey. “It’s Sasha.” Her eyes widen, and she nods, brows drawing together. I glance at Sasha again, and then Corey and I turn and run soundlessly in the other direction toward the exit. Then I skid to a stop, and Corey smacks into me.

“What?” She signs, frustration lining her face, and then she sees them.

There are seventeen, one more than there should be. And all but one are members of our survival group. They do nothing, just stand there staring at what used to be Sasha. All their purrs mix into a low rumble, sending chills skittering down my spine. Corey taps me on the shoulder, and I turn.

“Why are they all clear? Shouldn’t they all have different colors?” I want to smile. Leave it to Corey to notice details like that in a life-or-death situation.

“I don’t think so. Everyone takes the color of the one that bites them.”

“Then how are there other colors?”

“Maybe they changed. You know, like the one we saw in the jewelry shop not twenty minutes ago.” I’m watching not-Sasha again. She’s systematically scanning all the rooms for traces of other people. When she runs out of rooms, she growls in frustration, a hideous sound like shrieks like glass grating against itself. She walks over to the group by the door, and they all turn in unison, walking out the door with glass crunching under their feet.

I don’t realize that I’ve been holding my breath until my lungs start to burn. I quietly release it and turn to Corey. She stares at me helplessly, and it hits me that now the two of us are alone. With no group, we’re as good as dead. We climb the stairs in the walls to the top of the building, sitting just under the roof and by a window through which we watch the zombies trek through the city, changing colors when they find glass they like. Corey leans her head on my shoulder.

“What now?” She signs. I shrug. There’s not much we can do anymore. The sun says it’s about six o’clock, so any other zombies in the city will be out and about in a matter of hours.

“Hello?” A voice whispers through the echoey walls. I jump to my feet, whipping around with my hand on my knife. “Is anybody there? Did they get everyone? Am I-” The voice breaks, then continues softly. “Am I alone?” I recognize the voice, and I give Corey an “it’s okay” look. She nods and lowers her pistol.

“It’s okay, you’re not alone,” I whisper back. “We’re up by the roof, Logan. Come here.” My voice is scratchy from lack of use and probably not all that comforting, but Logan appears by us a few minutes later nonetheless. He’s a mess. His camouflage jacket is slashed across the side, his pants have holes torn in the knees, and he has mud or blood in his spiky light blonde hair, but I can’t tell which.

“What happened to you?” Corey asks softly. The older boy sighs and sits down, prompting us to do the same.

“A zombie found its way into the shelter,” Logan begins. “I was distributing food packets to the younger kids, and I guess it heard somehow. We heard the broken glass before we saw it, and I started rounding everyone up and trying to get them in the walls. But then that thing got through. It stood there, just watching us. Its eyes were empty. Like, there was nothing behind them. Just hollow glass and the promise of broken dreams. Then it gets this really awful smile. We could tell just from that smile that it wanted to annihilate us all. It launched itself at us, and we all tried to kill it somehow. We shot it, stabbed it, tried to smash it, you name it- but everything bounced right off. It all barely left a scratch.

“The fight was over almost before it had even started. It bit everyone in that room except for me. I managed to escape into the walls without any of them noticing, but I betrayed them. I didn’t even try to help. And now look where we are.” Logan’s melodic voice breaks at that last part, and he grimaces. “I didn’t even try to help,” he repeats, sinking his head into his hands.

I scoot closer to him and start rubbing his back. “You couldn’t have done anything,” I reply softly. “You said it yourself-- nothing was working on that thing. And you couldn’t have been much help if you had become one of them. You did the right thing, because now we know how these things work.”

Logan looks up. “We do?”

Corey finally chimes in. “More or less. We know that regular weapons can’t kill them. We probably need a glass cutter of some kind. Or we need to get them on high ground and let them fall. Given that they’re glass, they’d probably shatter.” Logan nods, but his pale blue eyes are still shadowed.

“Hey,” I say softly. “It’ll be okay. I promise. We just need to find a glass cutter.”

Half an hour later, we find ourselves at an old appliance shop. Everything is stark white, and Corey’s dark skin stands out against it as she glides silently down the aisles. I watched until she returned with two small glass cutters.

“There were only two?” I sign. Corey nods, face pinched. I nod back, and then we go to the front of the store and rejoin Logan. “Did anything come?” I sign. He shakes his head, and we turn to leave. Then the scrape of glass sounds. Corey and Logan go rigid, and panic grips my heart like a vice. The three of us retreat back into the appliance shop. Crackles and soft purrs echo through the abandoned building, growing closer every second. We watch the door like deer in headlights, hiding in a shadowed corner and trying to breathe as little as possible.

A green glass head appears through the doorway. It glances around, trying to spot any sign of life that it can extinguish. We do not move, do not breathe. We watch as four more heads pop around the corner- orange, blue, purple, and red. My fingernails dig into my arms at the sight of the orange one; it’s not-Jain again. Purple also surprises me. Apparently not-Sasha changed colors. A piece of my heart crumbles a little more. The four of them turn to move on, and that’s when my shoe slips on the tile floor.

I do not fall, but the squeak is deafening. The zombies freeze, turn, and enter the store. My heart is pounding so loudly, it’s a wonder they didn’t find us right away.

“Time to test these glass cutters,” Corey signs, handing one to me and keeping one for herself. Logan stares at her in disappointment, but she just shakes her head. “Stay here. You have the best instincts- you’re most likely to survive.” Corey and I count to three and then creep out from our hiding spot. We sneak to opposite ends of the store, and I am immediately cornered. The orange and blue ones stagger closer, glass crunching under their feet like fallen leaves. I back up until my back touches the wall, then I run. I dash around the store, trying to draw the attention of the other two, not wanting Corey to be caught. But it’s too late; the other ones are chasing her already. Green gets too close, and glass shrieks as Corey swipes her arm through the air. Green’s gentle purr becomes the grating scream that not-Sasha gave earlier.

I wince but continue to run, wishing I had just scouted a little more carefully this morning. None of this would have happened. We would all be safe at the shelter, all twenty of us. Not-Jain grabs my arm, and I squeak a little. I scrape my glass-cutter against its arm, but my fingers fumble and the tool falls from my grasp. Not-Jain snarls at me, teeth glinting orange in the dim light. The zombie yanks my arm hard enough that I fall against it, my teeth accidentally crashing into its shoulder. The ground comes up to meet me, and a burst of white fire blinds my vision. I lie there, waiting to become one of them. I have failed. I thought I could protect them, but Lady Luck has turned her back on me. Slowly, my vision clears, and I have still not been bitten. I look up to see a very confused Jain standing over me. “Bailey?” She whispers. “Where are we?”

I cannot move. I am frozen with a mix of emotions, only a handful of which I can actually name. Then the blue zombie screeches behind me, and I remember where we are.

“I’ll explain in a minute,” I reply, then stand and face the blue zombie. It glares daggers at me, then lunges. I catch its wrist and bite it before I can think. The blue slowly starts to gain a darker brown color. The creature shrieks in horror, but a few moments later it’s Talia. She stares at me with the same confusion as Jain. I blubber a laugh, then grab the two of them in a hug. “I know how to beat them!” I exclaim, my words slurring together into an indistinct mess. “Come on, we can cure the zombie bite.”

“Wait, you still haven’t explained what’s going on,” Jain interrupts. Then, seeing my pleading look, she sighs. I’ve missed that sigh. “You’re so dramatic. But fine. How?”

A mischievous grin spreads across my face. “We bite back harder.”