Soulless (A Zombie Erotic Romance) by Cerys du Lys Page A

them. I think it's the fact that I
can't give in no matter what. I have a doctor's appointment to go
to next week, afterall.
    The others around me stand up and
stumble forwards after the intruders. Men and women, regular, just
like us except with peach-colored skin(or tanned, or darker, it
makes no difference) rush through the city streets. They bash
through a storefront window with a baseball bat. The crashing sound
of glass makes me shudder.
    The others chase them with a speed
none of us knew we had. I watch them run, legs creaking, frantic to
catch the people breaking into the convenience store. The people in
the store yell at each other, screaming.
    "Hurry! Grab what you can and go! We
don't have much time!"
    I don't know what they're grabbing,
but I know why they don't have much time.
    Most of them make it out fine. A
younger man drags behind, though. When he went to jump out of the
front window, he cut his leg on the broken glass and fell onto the
concrete sidewalk. One of his group stopped for a second and looked
at him, trying to decide what to do, but when the rest of his
people run off to safety, he abandons the young man.
    The young man is stuck, limping. He
won't escape.
    I can't watch and I turn away. It
hurts; it's painful. I know why they do it and I'm tempted to do it
myself. The feeling of warmth and closeness like a lover's embrace.
Heat and intimacy.
    Except nothing they do is loving. They
are ruthless and vicious and in their obsession for warmth they'll
destroy the man.
    I hear him scream and I want to cry
but I run away as fast as I can. My feet slip on the sidewalk and I
stumble, hitting against the side of a building, but I keep
going.
    Why is it like this? Why?
     
    ...
     
    After I ate a can of warmed beans, I
felt better. It wasn't hard to get the can of beans, but it was
difficult to heat them. Fortunately, I knew of a place on the
outskirts of the city in a wooded area where there was a house with
a gas generator and a microwave. I knew it wouldn't last forever,
but it suited me for now. If I used the generator sparingly and
made trips to get gas in the middle of the night, I could sustain
myself for awhile.
    That's how I imagined it going, but it
didn't always work like that. The problem was that, while the warm
beans slipped down my throat easily and warmed me up, filling my
stomach with a soothing heat, it never lasted. While eating them, I
felt wonderful, though. I felt human and alive, like myself once
more. If I flipped on the TV--if there was anything actually on
TV--and sat on the couch, propping my feet up on the coffee table,
maybe I could forget about all of this for awhile.
    The beans kept me feeling warmer for
half an hour or so, but then the chill crept in. I didn't have
enough energy or beans to keep eating forever, though. It also
didn't help that I felt like I'd eaten a Thanksgiving dinner after
only half a can of the things. I could only eat once a day at most
without feeling wretched and sick. Most of the time I ended up
going two days in between meals.
    For now, for a little while, I felt
nicer, though. I walked through the hallway to the master bedroom
and grabbed a bathrobe off the back of the door, slipping my arms
into the sleeves and tying it into place. Finding a book by
Nicholas Sparks on the bedside table, I snatched it up and fell
into bed. I slid beneath the thick blankets, hoping to keep warm
for a little while longer, then opened to the dogeared page in the
book and began reading.
    I read for a few minutes before the
chill started. My feet grew colder and I started breathing slower,
more shallowly. I felt tired, so tired, but I wanted to read a
little more. I needed to know what happened to Ally and Noah. Did
everything turn out fine? It was darker outside than I remembered,
but I could still read. I needed to, desperately desired it, and
yet...
    I folded the corner of the page I was
on and carefully placed the book on the bedside table once more.
Curling my knees up