“Oh, God,” I whispered, staring at the body, the corpse that, a few minutes ago, had been a living, breathing being. I’d killed him. I’d killed him. What did I do now?
An agonized groan interrupted me. I looked fearfully to where the other human lay sprawled on the pavement, gazing up at the sky. He was breathing in short, panicked gasps, and his eyes widened as I stood and walked toward him.
“You!” he gasped. His legs twitched as he tried to get up. Blood seeped from his chest, where he’d taken a bullet meant for me. He didn’t have long, even I could see that. But he didn’t seem to notice, staring up at me with glazed eyes. “Didn’t know…you were a vampire.”
The man gagged, blood spilling out of his mouth, running down to the pavement. His blank stare cut me like a thousand knives. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say. But that only seemed to push him over the edge, for he started to laugh.
“Sorry,” he repeated, as his head lolled to the side. “Vampire kills my mate, then says she’s sorry.” He collapsed into uncontrollable giggles, choking on his own blood. “This is…a joke, right?” he whispered, as his eyes rolled up in his head. “A vampire…joke? Jackal…would’ve…laughed…”
He didn’t move again.
I might’ve stayed there, kneeling in the cold grass, the smell of blood clogging my nose and mouth, except the sky over the hills was lightening, and my internal clock warned me dawn wasn’t far away. For a moment, I wondered what it would be like if I just…stayed aboveground. Met the sun, as Kanin once said. Would it burn me to ash? Would it take very long, be very painful? I wondered what lay beyond; I’d never been very religious, but I’d always believed vampires had no souls, and no one knew what happened to them when they finally left the world. It didn’t seem possible that I, a monster and a demon, could ever have a shot at heaven or eternity or whatever happened when humans died. If such a thing existed.
But if heaven existed, then so did…the other place.
Shuddering, I crawled into the grass and burrowed deep into the earth, feeling it close around me like a grave. I might be a demon and a coward, and I might deserve to burn, but in the end, I didn’t want to die. Even if it damned me to hell, I would always choose to live.
Though, for the first time since the attack that terrible night in the ruins, I wished Kanin hadn’t saved me, after all.
Chapter 11
The bodies were still there, stiff and waxy, when I rose the next evening. They had already attracted a flock of crows and other carrion birds. I shooed the scavengers away and, feeling it was the least I could do, dragged the bodies off the road into the tall grass, leaving them to nature. The vehicles they’d been driving had run out of fuel or electricity or whatever powered them, for their lights were dead, and they were cold and still. I wondered if I could’ve ridden one of them, but I’d never driven anything in my life, and the machines seemed very complicated even if they still worked. So I left them sitting on the side of the road as I continued my journey to wherever I was going.
Another night or two passed with no distractions. I walked through towns and settlements, all dead, all overgrown and empty. I came upon several crossroads, where other roads stretched away in opposite directions until they were lost to the darkness, but I kept to the road I was walking. I became used to the silence, the emptiness and the vastness of the sky above. The stars were my only constant companions, though I did see deer and small animals and herds of shaggy horned beasts roaming the plains. When the sun threatened the horizon, I burrowed into the earth and slept, only to rise and repeat the same thing the following night. Everything I did became habit: rise, shake the dirt out, face the same direction as the night before and walk. I didn’t think of the city. Or Kanin. Or anything behind me on the road. Instead, I occupied myself with what I might find over the next rise, the next hill. I sometimes imagined a distant city, sparkling with lights, or the glow of a vehicle, coming toward me. Or even the silhouette of another traveler, walking toward me in the darkness. Of course, nothing like that ever appeared; no lights, no vehicles, no humans. Only empty flatlands and the skeletons of what had been houses or farms. The encounter with the two men seemed a hazy, half-remembered dream, something that hadn’t really happened to me, as it soon felt as if I was the only person left in the entire world.
I didn’t run into any rabids, which was surprising at first. I’d been expecting to fight my way past at least a few by now. But maybe rabids only hung around cities and towns where their human prey would be. Or perhaps, like the bear, they didn’t bother hunting vampires. Maybe their prey had to be alive and breathing to catch their attention.