ᶜᴼᴺᵀᴱᴺᵀ ᵂᴬᴿᴺᴵᴺᴳ — ᴿᴱᶜᴼᴹᴹᴱᴺᴰᴱᴰ ¹⁶⁺ ᵀʰⁱˢ ᶠⁱᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿᵃˡ ᵈⁱᵃʳʸ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵃⁱⁿˢ ᵈᵃʳᵏ ʰᵘᵐᵒʳ, ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ, ᵇᵒᵈʸ ʰᵒʳʳᵒʳ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵈⁱˢᵗᵘʳᵇⁱⁿᵍ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉʳʸ.

10/04/1980

Dear Diary,

Our escape didn't exactly go as planned... In my defense, I think the flare gun wasn't working properly.
Jenny aimed at the doorknob, the room filled with light, the flare bounced behind us, and flames shot up against one of the walls.
“There's no fucking way I'm dying in a fire now!” I snapped. My hands kept pounding against the door while Jenny tried to stomp out the flames.
As soon as the door opened, someone grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out like I was a doll. I ended up at his feet, and I hate to admit it, but Dean's cowboy boots were nicer than mine. Dark brown and cream, clearly handmade. They were a little worn, but that had only made the leather softer.
Dean spoke while I was still at his feet. “Get up.”
I straightened up, fixing my hair a little. “So we had to set the house on fire to get you to open the door.”
He ignored me, as usual. “Calvin, is it out?” he asked.
His friend, the one in the orange T-shirt, came out of the storage closet with a wet blanket and just nodded. Jenny followed him with her arms crossed.
“There are three of you. Where's the third one?” I looked around.
Dean grabbed my arms, a rope in his hands. I pulled away, but he didn't let go of my wrist.
“What are you, some kind of creep who ties girls up?”
He stared at me blankly, running his tongue over his teeth. “I'm a guy tying up a cannibal. Who's apparently an arsonist now, too.”
I shook my head, clearing my throat while he tied a knot around my wrists. “Neither Jenny nor I are cannibals. We don't eat infected people, we eat humans.”
I clearly saw the confused look Calvin gave me.
“We're not human,” I explained.
Dean started pushing me back into the storage closet.
“No, wait!” I tried to push back, but he kept shoving me. “It's not like we want to eat you. I'm not even hungry right now.” I shrugged.
Dean shook his head. “You couldn't anyway.”
“I'm telling you, we're not human, so it's not cannibalism. We're made of more radiation than blood and flesh.” I caught Calvin's eye past Dean. He was leading Jenny toward another room. Jenny was talking to him, but I couldn't hear what she was saying.
“We probably eat flesh to reabsorb what we're missing. Blood, something human.”
Dean stopped me, gripping my shoulder. He exchanged a look with Calvin.
Obviously, my theory made sense.
Jenny had convinced the two assholes to let her go to sleep. She was exhausted after everything she'd eaten. And honestly, we hadn't stopped for a second since we escaped.
I was on an empty stomach, though, and I really wanted to steal Dean's cowboy boots, even if they would've been way too big for me.
I tapped my fingers on the table while considering whether I should reach over and grab a little piece of Mrs. Miller, just for a taste.
Calvin and Dean were sitting across from me. The stupider one had a cigarette between his lips.
“So you admit what I'm saying makes sense. We're not cannibals.”
Dean shook his head. “You're still a cannibal. What I'm interested in is the part about reabsorbing your humanity.”
Calvin leaned forward. “When you eat humans, do you feel... more human?”
My eyes kept wandering toward the body... The blood covering the table smelled so good... “Yes...” I mumbled. Then I shook my head. “I mean... no.” All I could see was that delicious red meat on the table.
Dean snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Fuck, you're a lost cause, aren't you?”
He got up and walked away with Calvin for I don't know how long. When they came back, though, I wasn't exactly presentable. Not that I'd been particularly presentable before, with my colander T-shirt.
I tried to wipe the blood off my face, but maybe my dirty hands only made it worse.
The asshole put a hand to his forehead like it was my fault. They're the ones who left me alone with Mrs. Miller. And anyway, you could tell she'd been dead for a few hours by then, because really fresh meat tastes completely different.
Calvin suggested something to me. Which I obviously said no to.
Running tests on me and Jenny. I nearly choked on air. Is he insane?
He suggested drawing some blood and wanted to add something else, but I stopped him. No more tests, no more of those tests...
How could they even think about taking me back there, even if not physically...
They'd put Jenny and me in separate rooms. Then Dean came to offer me a compromise, since neither Jenny nor I had agreed to help them with their fucking insane experiments.
He said they wouldn't let us leave unless he was dead.
“Shouldn't be too hard for you to kill someone, right?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Not for you either, if you're the one suggesting it.”
He shrugged. “You're not someone. You're something.” He moved a little closer. “You think your life is worth more than someone who isn't infected just because you're hungry.”
I moved a little closer to him. “Do you eat steak? Pork? Bacon? What makes your life worth more than theirs? What's the difference, then? Other than wanting to survive?”
That conversation somehow turned into an interesting recreational activity.
Remember the hay maze? The one next to the rotten pumpkin patch.
It's really pretty at night, even if it's definitely way too dark. There are scarecrows inside with smashed pumpkin heads.
Dean and Calvin use it to “train.”
That's why, as soon as he suggested it, I told him he'd have an advantage.
He gave me a loaded gun, a revolver with all six bullets.
“This is the trigger.” He nodded toward it.
I snatched it out of his hands. “I know what a fucking trigger is.”
He shrugged.
“Open the spinny thing.” I handed it back to him. “So I can see if it actually has all the bullets.”
“The cylinder.”
I insisted. “The spinny thing.”
Then he showed me his. Similar, maybe a little bigger. There was only one bullet inside, but I didn't trust him.
“You've got more in your pockets.”
He just raised his hands, inviting me to check for myself. His disgusting cigarette smell hit me as soon as I stepped closer. He stood completely still like an asshole while he let me stick my hands into his pockets.
“Two entrances. We go in from opposite sides and hunt each other.” He nodded toward the gun. “First one to put a bullet in the other's head wins.” He sighed. “I'll give you a one-minute head start. Maybe you'll figure out where the fuck you're going before I come looking for you.”
He gave me a flashlight, but I threw it over one of the walls to throw him off with the light. Sure, I couldn't see much without it, but that didn't matter. The thought of being trapped somewhere again... Jenny and I deserved our autumn summer, free.
I got scared a couple of times when I ran into those fucking scarecrows in the corridors... not that scared, though. I only shot one or two of them...
I heard him laughing after my shots. Really laughing.
He talked through the maze, but I couldn't tell where his voice was coming from.
“I'm guessing that since you became a cannibal, you've eaten someone you cared about.” I kept turning around, not knowing where to go. “And you don't feel even a little guilty? Or maybe you do, and that's why you're trying so hard to convince yourself it isn't cannibalism?”
A voice behind me. “How many people did you leave behind, Rose?”
I fired another bullet as soon as I turned around. I don't know where I shot, but it wasn't at him. He stepped out of the darkness, lit only by the moonlight.
“My name—” He cut me off, his gun now pointed at me. So I started running the other way. And he laughed again.
“Why don't you do what you did with the Millers? You didn't hesitate to bash Jonathan's skull in.” His voice followed me.
And then, while I was running, I crashed straight into him. I fired again and heard him grunt.
“Hungry?”
“Stop it!”
I was lying on top of him. He was gripping my shoulder, the barrel of his gun against my head, but I had mine pressed against his.
“You've only used three.”
I pulled the trigger. Fuck, I hated that fucking horrible sound. Fuck. Unbearable. Jesus Christ.
“Four.” I got up, leaving a hole in the guy's head.
I wasn't crying, my eyes just burned like hell. Probably the gunpowder or the hay.
The house was so quiet it felt like no one was there, but it was so late that everyone was probably asleep.
My hands refused to stay still, a tremor running all the way up my arms. I threw the gun into the sink as soon as I started washing my hands.
They were covered in dirt and blood, my nail polish completely chipped. I looked like a savage...
And obviously, my shirt was still full of holes.
Everything had holes in it.

Taffy