Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

the difficulties he was having in favor of admiring the leg he was proud to still have. It was still muscled and strong-looking. It had to be some kind of miracle.
    “Are you sure?” I whispered, now doubting Peter’s triage and wondering if we could maybe save one more kid - the soccer star with his kicking leg and heart still intact.
    He nodded just barely. “Yeah. I’m done here with this life. You’re doing the right thing, putting us all out of our misery. We’ve been tortured enough. Just let us go.”
    I nodded, now no longer able to speak. He was so much braver than I would have been in his situation. I took some hiccuping breaths to try and get myself under control, resting my hand on his chest.
    He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in and out. I felt his body rise and fall with the effort.
    He opened his eyes again and said softly, “Don’t beat yourself up about this, okay? You’re a good person, I can tell. The world is a different place than it was before. You gotta do what you can to survive.”
    “Not like these guys did,” I said.
    “No. Not like these guys did. Never lose track of your humanity. That’s their problem. They’re not human anymore, they’re animals. They’ve just gone bad. Rabid. They need to be put down.”
    The sound of the door opening felt like my signal to go, so I drew my hand back and moved to stand. But the look in Julio’s eyes as he tipped his head back caused me to freeze in a half-crouched position, the grenade held down near my lower belly.
    “Oh, no,” he whispered. And then the last bits of his strength went into the scream that I knew I’d hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life, if I ever lived to have one again.
    “He’s here! Throw it now! Pull the pin and throw it!”
    ***
    I turned, moving the grenade behind my back so he wouldn’t see it.
    My eyes rose from the ground and made contact with Julio’s nemesis. The infamous Dave . Loco. King of the canners.
    He was big. He could have played linebacker for my school’s football team probably, his shoulders were so broad. He wore a blood and dirt-stained jersey, and his hair was long and greasy, kept away from his face in a ponytail behind his head. He smiled, and I could tell immediately that dental hygiene had not followed him into this world any more than personal hygiene had.
    “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Another dinner guest maybe?” He tilted his head to the side, looking me up and down with his eyes only. “Or maybe not. Maybe you’ve just come to join me. I’m getting tired of the little boys. Maybe I’ll try you on for size instead.” He took a step forward.
    My finger itched to pull the pin out of that grenade and throw it in his face. But I wanted to live, and I knew if I threw it so close to him, I’d be gone too.
    My eyes scanned the dimensions and makeup of the room we were in. Dave stood between me and the door. All the bodies that I could trip on were behind me. I had a knife in my moccasin and the grenade at my back.
    Chances are Dave had at least a knife and probably a gun in his pants somewhere. But he was stupid enough to think right now that he didn’t need them, and I had to let him delude himself for as long as possible. I had to close the distance between us and get him down before he brought either weapon out to use on me.
    I sucked in my gut as hard as I could to make my pants looser, using one hand to pull the back of my waistband out and the other to tuck the grenade inside. I prayed it would stay there, half in and half out, until I had exited the building.
    “Get your hands out from behind your back where I can see them,” he said in a menacing tone.
    I pulled them away quickly and put them out to my sides. “I’ve got nothing. Just tucking my pants in. They fall down sometimes because they’re so loose,” I said, smiling shyly. I was pulling on every single scene I’d ever watched in a movie where a girl acts innocent, trying to channel those actresses’ facial expressions and body language into my own through sheer willpower. “I’m hungry. Do you guys have any food?”
    The monster looked at me mockingly. “I might believe your horrendously awful acting if you hadn’t somehow managed to get all of my meat out of here before I arrived. So I know you ain’t hungry. You’re here to cause trouble. And guess what, bitch? You’ve found it.” He held out his arms and gave me a couple pelvic thrusts. “Now come and get your