Dog Blood

Ellis lunges at another one and disappears from view. I swallow hard and force myself to move. Leg hurts. I look down and see that there’s blood dribbling down from my right knee. My trouser leg and boot are stained wet-red.

“Ellis, wait,” I try to shout, my voice nowhere near loud enough. I find her on the ground beside a jeep, leaning down over another body. She looks up at me, and a chunk of bloody flesh drops from her mouth. Was she chewing it? I reach out and grab her wrist before she’s able to get away. “Too dangerous here. Need to get under cover. Come with me…”

She pries my weak fingers off and crawls away, searching for the next kill. She brings down a dazed, blood-soaked woman who’s already half dead. She pulls her down to her knees, grabs a fistful of hair, and smashes her face again and again into a charred car door, denting the paint-stripped metal more and more with each impact. I haul myself toward her, using other wrecks for support. Up ahead the towering mushroom cloud is begi

“You have to come with me. We’ll both die if we stay out here.”

She puts the soles of her bare feet against the misshapen car door and straightens her legs, pushing me away. Overbalanced, and with one leg already weakened, I fall back. She bites down onto my hand, drawing blood, and I let go. She stands over me, one foot on either side of my body. I look up at her, covering my eyes against the fine dust and ash, which is falling faster now. I reach up and snatch her hand again as she sees another Unchanged and tries to run. I won’t let go. I can’t let go. She screams and pulls and kicks at me, but I won’t let her go.

“Stay with me, please…”

Ellis drops down onto my chest and stares into my face. What’s she thinking? Does she understand any of this? Another Unchanged trying to drag itself to safety distracts her, and she starts to move. I grip her wrist even harder.

“Don’t go.”

She clenches her free hand into a fist and hits me. I try to stop her, but she hits me again, then again and again and again until my face is numb and my eyes are almost swollen shut. Too tired. Can’t fight back.

I feel her get up.

There’s so much I need to say, but I can’t get even the first word out. I’m aware of her looking down at me, breathing hard, my blood on her hands.

“Ellis-” I start to say, but she isn’t listening. She looks up, then sprints away. I turn my head and watch as she disappears into the maze of crashed vehicles, searching for her next kill. All I can do is watch her go.

41

COLD.

Body shaking.

Breathing in dust.

The fighters are long gone. Ellis is long gone.

Empty.

Everything’s lost.

Still lying in the road, curled up in a ball. Stomach churning, legs and arms aching. Head pounding. Throat dry, lungs scorched. Warm wind gusting. Swirling sky black above me. Light’s fading. Stench of burning meat is everywhere. Been here for hours, facedown on the asphalt.

Heavy footsteps.

Someone standing next to me. A soldier? Stay still. Don’t move.

“Found one,” he shouts, face hidden, voice muffled by a gas mask.

“Worth taking?” someone shouts back.

“Not sure.”

He kicks me in the gut to see if he gets a reaction, forcing air out. I look up but don’t move. I feel the Hate rising.

“Well, has it still got two arms and two legs?”

“Yes.”

“And is it breathing?”

“Think so.”

“Then chuck it on the truck.”

He bends down, grabs hold of my shoulder, and picks me up. He hauls me across the road, feet dragging in the dust.

Have to try to fight. It’s all I’ve got left. Everything else is lost.

With what feels like my last breath, I straighten my legs, stand tall, and wrestle myself free. Unarmed and uncaring, I shove the soldier away with all the force I can manage. Caught off guard, he slams face first into a wreck. I spin him around and rip off his face mask. I need this fucker to know how much I hate him when I kill him.

He throws me back. Much stronger than me. I fall, my injured knee giving way. I wait for him to attack, but he picks me up again.

Is this how it ends? Is he going to kill me now?

Wait. He’s like me. One of us.

“Easy, tiger,” he grunts, pushing me forward again. “Save it for the Unchanged.”

Too tired to protest. Filled with relief, anger, and pain.

He leads me through the highway chaos, then picks me up and puts me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes when my legs buckle again. Can’t fight. Can’t react.

I open my eyes and lift my head. Hard to see anything. More soldiers wearing gas masks, all of them dragging or carrying people over this way. We reach a flatbed truck, and he pushes me up. Grabbing hands reach down and help me. I scramble up, then fall back against the side of the truck, struggling to breathe. Dust and dirt grind into my cuts and burns, but I’m too tired to care. Too tired to feel the pain.

Empty.

For half a second I try to look for Ellis, but I know she’s long gone. I look around at the faces of the people crammed into the back of this truck. They’re all like me. They’re all fighters. No longer people, just fighters. All of us conscripted into what remains of Ankin’s army or another force like it.

I was stupid to believe I could sidestep this war, that I could escape from it with Ellis. What’s left of the world is now entirely governed by the Hate, and I have to be ready to fight and to kill until the last trace of the Unchanged is wiped from the face of the planet. Only then will the situation change.

My daughter is gone, lost long before I found her. Now all I have left is the Hate.

Exhausted, I close my eyes and let the darkness swallow me up.

Need to rest and recover and be ready for what’s still to come. No choice. No option. The hardest battles loom large on the horizon.

David Moody