Endure by Carrie Jones Page A

at me. “I thought I’d do more good killing than riding around in an ambulance most of the time. I don’t know. I just . . . When she died . . . You have no idea how hard it was not staying tiger,” she says. “I just wanted to stay feral and kill and not think. Still want to.”
    Sighing, I close the pizza box. “Not thinking sounds very nice.”
    “Not thinking is for wimps,” she says after a moment. “I was a wimp.”
    “You were in pain.”
    She scoffs. “You’re supposed to battle through it, not give in.”
    “Maybe that’s how you had to battle through it,” I say. “It wasn’t the right way or the wrong way, just the Betty White way.”
    That’s enough emotion for the both of us. Nick and I are scheduled to canvas again tonight, but he’s not at the house at six, so I plow the driveway and shovel the steps for the eight thousandth time and head out alone. Then all hell breaks loose. Literally. It starts when I smell that same horrible smell—rotting and death. And it continues with a fist to my head and a fall into the snow.

FBI INTERNAL MEMO
    The incidences of lost children seem to coincide with an influx of visitors to the town. All hotels are filled to capacity, which I have been assured is highly unusual for the month of December. Are these two things related? —A gent W illis
     
     
     
    “Get up!”
    Broken and silent, I’ve fallen onto the snow, knocked down onto the ground between the tall pine trees. My vision blurs and shifts, but if I squint really hard I can see a half-rotting human foot as it gets ready to place another kick.
    It smells of death.
    It smells of vanilla.
    This is what’s been following me, and this is not a pixie. This? I have no idea how to fight this. I don’t know what this thing is and I don’t have time to wonder about it because one more kick might kill me, break me forever. Blood gushes out of a cut on the back of my head, pooling into the snow. That’s where it struck first. That’s what knocked me down. It was a surprise attack. I must have twisted as I fell, because even in the moonlight, I can make out the rotting skin. The monstrous thing is standing on two legs, barefoot in the snow. It pulls the other foot back to kick me again. This foot isn’t rotting at all. It looks female somehow. Maybe it’s the black toenail polish and slender toes.
    “You need to fear!” it/she roars at me. “How can I tell what you’re made of if you are not afraid?”
    I roll to the side. There’s been another blow to my stomach. The knot of it slows me down. I lift my head an inch as the next kick goes just shy of my ribs. I have to get up. I have to . . .
    Another kick knocks my breath away. I am dying. I must be. In the distance, a squirrel chatters its horror at the scene. The world smells of decay and pine, snow and blood. From somewhere far away comes the sound of a heavy animal running on the crisp snow.
    I need to breathe, to live, to figure out what is happening, but I don’t know how.
    The creature pulls back her foot again, then pauses. If I could focus, I would maybe know what has caught her attention. I shift my gaze sideways. She is giant sized and definitely female, the kind of female that would star on naked Web sites if half of her body wasn’t rotting like she was some sort of zombie. To make it weirder, half of her is pale and half is dark like she’s two different races.
    I must gasp or recoil or something, because her expression changes.
    “I know. Not very attractive,” she says.
    I struggle, trying to get up while she snorts her disdain.
    “You are so weak. Hardly a worthy opponent at all.”
    “Just kill me then,” I mutter, and fall back into the snow, too tired to move, too tired to care.
    She crouches down, stares into my face. Her eyes are a mere three inches from my own. The wind rushes by both of us, lifting a patch of skin from her cheek. “I do not want to kill you.”
    I swallow hard. “Just toy with me?