the infected had been attracted to the next town over.
Since Katie and I had already cleaned these houses out of food, I knew I needed to go farther. It took hours to cross the fields and find another house. My adrenaline sang through my veins the entire time I crouched in the bushes and watched the place.
The dream fragmented, showing me bits of what had happened. Me walking into that quiet house. The scratching noise coming from a back room. Me blocking that door. Me cleaning out the cupboards and packing food in a child-sized backpack.
The dream solidified again, settling on the moment where I was back in the messy kitchen of the house in the abandoned subdivision.
I opened a can of fruit and drank the juice. My stomach cramped and gurgled. I knew I needed to pace myself and set the can down. My hand shook as I wiped the juice from my mouth. I was tired. So tired. I glanced at the fading light in the window. I hated nights. Especially without Katie there. My throat closed, and I forced the thought away. But I couldn’t escape my guilt and shame. It carved a hole in my middle every moment of every day.
I sniffled and wiped at my face again as I walked forward.
I could feel my fear build and tried to stop moving. My dream-self didn’t listen.
Katie was standing in the middle of the room, her back to me. Her shirt was ripped and dirty and marked with blood. So much blood. I could see the bite marks covering her skin. I knew what she was even as hope bloomed in my chest.
“Katie?” I whispered.
She slowly turned, her milky eyes locking on me as her mouth opened and closed.
A sob escaped me.
She started forward.
“Forgive me,” I rasped a moment before I plunged the knife I still gripped into her chest. She didn’t die. Her hands locked around my biceps, and she lunged forward, mouth open.
I jerked the knife free and stabbed it right into her gaping maw.
She dropped to the floor, the blade pulling free as she fell. She didn’t move.
I dropped the knife and stared at my blood-stained hands. Infected blood. My sister’s blood.
I’d killed my sister. She’d come back for me, and I’d killed her instead of joining her like I should have the first time.
A tear splashed onto the center of my right palm, cleaning away the red.
I would never be clean again.
The pain of what I’d done ripped through me.
I wailed, and the dream shifted.
My mom hugged me, her hand running over my hair.
“The heartache will fade.”
I remembered the moment. It was after my first boyfriend, ever, had dumped me in middle school. I’d been about the same age as Katie had been when she’d died.
“It will never fade,” I said between sobs.
The dream drifted away, and I woke with wet sheets sticking to my face. My guilt would never fade, and neither would the pain of killing my sister.
Sobbing and shaking, it took a moment to realize the feeling of the hand on my head hadn’t faded. It was real and continued to stroke over my hair. I turned toward it, desperate for the comfort it offered, and found Merdon leaning forward in his chair. He had crossed the distance with just his hand, to comfort me.
Our eyes met. His were missing the typical judgmental disapproval. He didn’t speak. His gaze held mine steadily as his fingers moved again, lightly smoothing over my hair.
Everything hurt. My body. My thoughts. My heart and my soul. It all ached for what I’d suffered and what I’d done to my sister. I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop. And, his gentle touch was slowly soothing away the worst of the edges.
I didn’t question what I was doing when I pulled back the covers. I didn’t stop to think what might happen when I crawled from bed and into his lap. All I knew was that I desperately needed to stop hurting.
He didn’t touch me for a moment as I settled my weight against his hard chest. It rose and fell in a slow rhythm that further calmed me. I blinked, feeling the wetness of my lashes on my cheeks as my sobbing slowed and my breathing hitched.
His hand found my head again and continued its slow, stroking path over my hair.
I knew I should tell him to stop. This kind of touching always led to some type of emotional attachment for them.