Dog Blood

vehicle, the metal still hot, most of its paint scorched away, shards of glass grinding into my belly. I drop down onto the ground and lose my footing when it’s farther to fall than I think. I get up quickly, breathing hard. The air out here is bone dry and foul smelling.
    Ellis darts away, and I follow her, moving out from the shadow of the crashed Land Rover and into the open. I look along the highway in both directions. It’s a single mass of stationary vehicles now. Many of the Unchanged drivers and their passengers are dead. I can see them wedged behind the wheels of wrecks, others with their bloody faces smashed up against windows. Some have survived. One of them emerges from the back of an overturned truck a short distance away. Before they’ve taken more than a couple of steps away, Ellis has attacked. She jumps onto a car, then leaps at the disoriented Unchanged man, landing on his back and smashing him down to the ground with incredible brutality.
    A pack of fighters races past me. They’ve been waiting out here in the wasteland, and now they pick their way through the convoy like vultures, stripping the meat from Unchanged bones, hunting out the survivors and tearing them apart. Up ahead a Brute thunders along the road unchallenged, making kill after kill after kill. Any Unchanged resistance is quickly crushed. Even those who try to run are chased down and killed.
    Ellis lunges at another one and disappears from view. I swallow hard and force myself to move. Leg hurts. I look down and see that there’s blood dribbling down from my right knee. My trouser leg and boot are stained wet-red.
    “Ellis, wait,” I try to shout, my voice nowhere near loud enough. I find her on the ground beside a jeep, leaning down over another body. She looks up at me, and a chunk of bloody flesh drops from her mouth. Was she chewing it? I reach out and grab her wrist before she’s able to get away. “Too dangerous here. Need to get under cover. Come with me…”
    She pries my weak fingers off and crawls away, searching for the next kill. She brings down a dazed, blood-soaked woman who’s already half dead. She pulls her down to her knees, grabs a fistful of hair, and smashes her face again and again into a charred car door, denting the paint-stripped metal more and more with each impact. I haul myself toward her, using other wrecks for support. Up ahead the towering mushroom cloud is beginning to fade and lose focus. That makes me even more afraid. Soon the air will be filled with poison if it’s not already. I throw myself down at Ellis again and wrap my arms tight around her. The pain in my bleeding knee is unbearable, but I have to ignore it. Ellis is all that matters.
    “You have to come with me. We’ll both die if we stay out here.”
    She puts the soles of her bare feet against the misshapen car door and straightens her legs, pushing me away. Overbalanced, and with one leg already weakened, I fall back. She bites down onto my hand, drawing blood, and I let go. She stands over me, one foot on either side of my body. I look up at her, covering my eyes against the fine dust and ash, which is falling faster now. I reach up and snatch her hand again as she sees another Unchanged and tries to run. I won’t let go. I can’t let go. She screams and pulls and kicks at me, but I won’t let her go.
    “Stay with me, please…”
    Ellis drops down onto my chest and stares into my face. What’s she thinking? Does she understand any of this? Another Unchanged trying to drag itself to safety distracts her, and she starts to move. I grip her wrist even harder.
    “Don’t go.”
    She clenches her free hand into a fist and hits me. I try to stop her, but she hits me again, then again and again and again until my face is numb and my eyes are almost swollen shut. Too tired. Can’t fight back.
    I feel her get up.
    There’s so much I need to say, but I can’t get even the first word out. I’m aware of her looking down at me, breathing hard, my blood on her hands.
    “Ellis-” I start to say, but she isn’t listening. She looks up, then sprints away. I turn my head and watch as she disappears into the maze of crashed vehicles, searching for her next kill. All I can do is watch her go.

41
    COLD.
    Body shaking.
    Breathing in dust.
    The fighters are long gone. Ellis is long gone.
    Empty.
    Everything’s lost.
    Still lying in the road, curled up in a ball. Stomach churning, legs and arms aching. Head pounding. Throat dry,