WILLA, стр. 42
“But if they keep making more of their kind, there’ll be too many.”
“For a while, but surely, they’ll die out when they run out of food.”
“Do they do that in the books you’ve read?”
He sat there for a long time before saying, “No. But again, that doesn’t mean they won’t.”
Another lengthy silence followed.
“How long can we stay here before we need to move on?” I asked, breaking the quiet, as I snuggled into the blankets and pillows of the bed he’d made for me.
“A week, maybe two. I’ve been scouting the neighborhood around my granddad’s house. I don’t think anyone alive is still there, and the dead seemed to have moved out of the area. I’ll keep scoping the area while you heal. I think if we pick a few houses throughout the neighborhood to hide supplies and stuff inside, we might be able to stay for a while. That part of town is a bit ritzy, so people passing through the city might scavenge those homes first, but if we pick houses along the shoreline, maybe survivors won’t go that far into the neighborhood. I don’t know.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. Better than anything I’ve come up with.”
“Good. Get some sleep. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
29.
The next day I was asleep when Tanner left. He’d closed the doors in the small grocery store and shut out the lanterns we’d had on the day before to make it look as if the place was empty. Waking in that kind of darkness had been more terrifying for me than being surrounded by a horde of zombies. There hadn’t been even the faintest sliver of light for me to see by when I’d finally opened my eyes.
Momentarily forgetting where I was, I began to hyperventilate. For the better part of a year, zombies had plagued my nightmares. All my barely conscious mind could think was that the room was full of the creatures, waiting for me to illuminate my presence.
Eventually, my memories surfaced. Reality flowed back into my awareness. Zombies wouldn’t need the light to find me because I hadn’t had a proper bath in days. The creatures would be able to smell me. If there had been one in the room with me, it would’ve already attacked.
Calming my breathing, I switched my thoughts to trying to figure out where I was and what had happened to me. I could smell. Moving my hands, I reassured myself that I could feel. My disgusting morning breath told me that I could taste. The only thing I couldn’t do was see. I felt as if I’d fallen into a void. The idea that it’d only been a mere second since I’d opened my eyes meant nothing to my brain because while every one of those seconds ticked by, an eternity slipped away, and I was alone in it.
Tears began to roll down the sides of my face and into my ears. I didn’t make a sound, though. I couldn’t bear hearing myself in the void.
What happened?
Had I turned after all?
Where was Tanner?
Why had he left me?
I had to have turned if he’d abandoned me.
I didn’t feel like a monster. I felt like myself, just as I had the night before. I was on the pallet on the floor.
Blankets still covered my body.
The wound on my arm hurt like hell.
Those realizations eased my panic some.
I was still me. I was almost sure of that anyway. I was merely blind—that was all. That was not a good thing to be in a world full of zombies. At least, I was still human.
I’d be a burden to Tanner, though. Even more so than I was at present. I’d need to leave him before I got him killed.
Leave how? I questioned my inner voice. I don’t even know where Tanner’s exit is. I saw no way out last night when I could see the room. How am I going to find it now?
I shifted ever so slightly to move one of my legs out from under the covers. When I did, my hand brushed what I hoped was a radio that Tanner had left for me to communicate with him if I needed it. I jerked it to my face, nearly braining myself with it, hit the button, and all but screamed his name into it.
“What? What’s wrong?” he said back, but he was whispering.
“I think I’ve gone blind,” I said through my tears.
There was a long silence, and I worried that my loud mouth had gotten him discovered by zombies or humans.
“Why do you think that?” he asked, sounding calm.
“I can’t see...anything. Not even my hand.”
“Shit,” he said, and I started to panic all over again. “Willa, calm down. You aren’t going blind. Willa,” he whisper-shouted in an attempt to get my attention through my rambling.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not blind.”
“I’m not.”
“No.”
“Then what’s happening to me? What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything aside from shutting you in the stock room. I sealed it so that passersby couldn’t see inside. I’m sorry. When I turned out all of the lanterns, it must have made it too dark inside. You’re fine as far as I know. I’ll be back in a bit. Just calm down. You should have a flashlight near your right side where the radio was. Do you feel it?”
A flashlight. Damn it. How was I supposed to know?
I felt around on the ground beside me until I had the object in hand. I flipped it on with a sigh of relief.
“I found it,” I said, feeling ashamed. “I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot. When I woke, I couldn’t see a thing—and I mean nothing. I thought I’d turned or that something had happened to my sight. I was terrified. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m on my way back. Breathe.”
The radio went silent. I crossed my arms