Half-Dead 1:12 Caroline

Memory was a funny thing. For as long as she could remember (which, admittedly, wasn't that long anymore) Caroline had been blessed with an excellent memory. Yet here she was, living in a shack in the middle of the woods with a stranger in the middle of winter, and one of her last memories was of the heat of August beating down on her and warming up the leather seats of her Jaguar.

From what Mantis had told her, it was the beginning of March and she was in New Hampshire. How she got there was a mystery—she remembered the bite, the drive, the butterfly but then nothing until she woke up in the cave. It was as if she had been in a coma for seven months.

To his credit, Mantis was patient. He answered her questions as well as he could, although far too many were answered with "I don't know." Caroline was much more concerned with the pull in the back of her mind, the lure that made her heart leap with eagerness when he approached or spoke to her in much the same way a dog celebrates its master's arrival.

It made her sick.

It was day three and she nibbled a bit of raw deer that Mantis had brought back from a hunt. He'd sternly instructed her to stay in the house and she had, instead discovering the phone and finding the line dead. Now, he cut another piece of meat off the doe and offered it to her. With an uneasy smile she declined.

"Best get used to it," he said gruffly, "We don't have gas or electricity so eat what you can. It's not nearly as nice rotten and I'm feeding the horde the leftovers anyway."

"Can't you build a fire?" The meat was slick with blood but she took a larger bite—it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be, and her teeth cut through the tough leg muscle easily.

Mantis looked surprised but thought about it as he butchered out the tenderloin. "We could, that's true. Couldn't build one before with these things." He shook his head. "I don't really see the point, though. It's not bad at all fresh and raw."

She was quiet and took a few more bites of meat. "…Mantis?"

"Yeah?"

"What are we?"

He looked surprised. Confused. "You been living under a rock, girl?"

He thought she didn't know anything about zombies. Ha. If only he knew. "No, but—"

"There were some weird news reports talking about special zombies right after the outbreak—called 'em Half-Deads." His blade sunk into the thigh of the deer and he drew it back, the surface slick with blood. "'Spose that's what we are. At least, we certainly ain't humans anymore." He looked at her over a broad shoulder. "Where'd you come from, anyway? You remember?"

The hand that wasn't dripping blood found the ID in her pocket and she ran her fingers along its edge. "I—well, there was a lab—"

"A lab—d'you mean the Facility? People burned the place after the outbreak, you know. A little catharsis for you."

"…I don't know. Maybe." She clammed up and accepted the next piece of meat he offered her.

~~~

"And, well, I just thought that maybe if we hunted separately we could bring in more prey."

It had been a week since Caroline woke up and Mantis's expression was unreadable. In the pocket of her hoodie her fingers raced around the edges of her ID, the sensation quelling her nervousness, if only slightly.

He thought it over for a bit, leaning back in the abused wooden chair. "No."

The answer shouldn't have surprised her—he wouldn't let her out of his sight for more than a few minutes at a time—but she was still taken aback. "But Mantis, we could cover so much ground—"

"I said no." He rose slowly from the chair, his face twisted into a grimace. "If we hunt, we hunt together. We're better as a team anyway."

"Why?" the word slipped past her lips even though she tried to clamp down on it. She'd seen him lose his temper and, although she knew he wouldn't hurt her, also knew that making him angry would get her nowhere.

Mantis shook his head and snorted. "You could get lost, or injured, or you could run into that Crow Bitch and then where would you be?" The unspoken part of his words hung in the air. Or you could run off. She had tried a couple days ago, when he'd taken her hunting—that was the cause of him losing his temper. "Don't think that the humans will only notice the human part of you. They'll see your eyes and your feet and they have no qualms about filling us with bullets."

"I can take care of myself, Mantis." Her hands left her hoodie and she crossed them in a gesture that was either impatience or anger.

He leered down at her and scowled. "I haven't seen how you cope with bullets but the last two times you tangled with the Crow Bitch you came home with your tail between your legs, peck marks all over your arms and absolutely no zombies." He stepped into the small kitchen and filled a bowl with water from the shack's rainwater reserves. They didn't have any glasses anymore, not with how his clumsy talons so easily dropped them. "That is not what I'd call 'taking care of yourself'."

"I've already told you, I was stupid then." The anger was threatening to slip into Caroline's voice but she swallowed it down. Her hand unconsciously reached up to cover one of the irregular scars that dotted her upper arms as her hoodie suddenly felt far too transparent. "You have no idea how I can hunt now."

"You can't even carry home your kills," he said, exasperated. This, unfortunately, was true; yesterday they'd gone hunting and Caroline had caught a healthy buck. She had only dragged it a quarter mile when Mantis took pity on her struggle and dragged both their catches home.

"That's why I'd go with some zombies," she said, eyes tracing the lines of his feet against the scratched, dingy wood floor. "You said you used to send me out hunting."

"Yes. Then. Now, I don't know what to do with you." He sat back down and gingerly worked the bowl to his lips, taking a long drink as he mulled it over. Caroline watched from her perch on a stool. "You're in a class all your own now, Girl. And that means people are interested in you—a regular zombie gets ignored. Zombies like us? We're special. Dangerous. And that makes us desirable."

"Desirable?" She couldn't imagine what anyone would want with Mantis—between his constant paranoia and his bad temper she had trouble convincing herself to stay with him in the first place.

His eyes flicked from the bowl to her and he shook his head. "While you were gone this other Half-Dead swooped around again. Called himself the Cat, said he was collecting zombies or making an army or some other horseshit." He set the bowl down and rose uneasily, scowling at her. "He's bad news, girl. If you see him come around you run and find me, understand?"

"How will I know it's him?"

A sharp laugh barked out of Mantis's throat. "Oh, you'll know. Son of a bitch couldn't shut up when we had our little chat. When he wasn't making promises he was talking about himself. Pretty little thing like you? You'll be lucky to have any ears after he's talked them off." He gave her a look and his face set in a grimace. "Hell, you might even recognize him. You and I ran into him once, maybe a week before you left. Wanted to eat you."

Recognize a stranger? She hardly recognized Mantis, and apparently her world had revolved around him.

"You hungry, girl?"

She jerked upward, startled out of her ruminations at Mantis's question. "Wh—sorry?"

He frowned, eyes boring into hers. "Are you hungry? You look it."

Caroline shifted uncomfortably. She hadn't wanted to say anything about the twisting of her stomach, but he was more observant than she'd ever give him credit for. "I—a little, to be honest."

Mantis smiled and said "Come on."

She followed him out the door uneasily, a little concerned with the smile that had worked its way across his lips. But, of course, her uneasiness vanished when he gestured to the horde and said. "Your pick, sweetheart."

A smile darted across her face as her brain rolled in the possibilities. Maybe he'd changed his mind. If that was the case (and as her mind picked over his words she grew more confident that it was) she'd need a strong one, one that could easily carry home a kill. "Um…" The claw on her thumb found its way between her teeth and she chewed on it thoughtfully, her eyes scanning the four biggest zombies they had. "That one."

"Him?" Mantis gestured and Caroline nodded. "Oh, I agree. That one eats way too much. Good choice, girl. Go get him."

Whatever that was supposed to mean. She trotted over to the burly stage three and stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out the best angle of approach.

Mantis watched from the porch of the shack and seemed to pick up her confusion, a silly grin crossing his face. "It's not hard, sweetheart. You just gotta make him want to follow you."

She wanted to snap 'and just how am I supposed to do that?' but instead sighed and glared at the tall zombie. "Er… zombie. Come here." She pointed down at the ground in front of her and the zombie gave her a vacant look.

To her irritation Mantis began to laugh. "Girl, I know you can do better than that."

Despite herself she scowled at him and returned to the zombie, clenching a fist in anger. "Come on, get your stupid ass over here. We're going hunting."

The zombie cocked its head at her and let out a click. He was an ugly son of a bitch, missing his nose and the eye and ear on the left side of his face.

"Yes, you. Come. Here."

The zombie took a tentative step towards her and Caroline tried to coax him further. "Come on, come on."

Mantis clearly thought this was much funnier than Caroline did. He leaned against one of the beams propping up the roof of the porch, laughing. She shot him an angry look that he didn't see as he blinked away tears, his face split into a broad grin.

The zombie finally left its position and plodded along behind her, particularly when it saw Mantis up ahead. The man pushed himself off the pillar and got a better look at the zombie, circling the dumb creature while Caroline sat on the porch. "Good work, girl. I knew you'd get him over here eventually."

Despite her irritation she smiled, relieved. "Thanks, Mantis, I—"

A gasp of horror is what cut her off when Mantis stepped back and a blade lunged forward, catching the zombie squarely in the chest and slicing upward violently. The creature fell to its knees and Mantis pulled the blade out of it with a sickening squelch. Another blow caused the creature's head to fall to the ground, mouth agape, eyes already glazed but now truly dead.

"I—what?" Caroline managed to squeak out from her position pressed against the door.

"You said you were hungry," Mantis said, one of his blades chopping savagely into the dead zombie's arm. "Here, you want this arm?"

"N-no!" She clutched her knees to her chest, trembling. "That's—that's—"

Mantis scowled at her for a moment before realization dawned on his face. "Girl, I know you just woke up, but you're going to have to get used to this."

"I—I can't. I can't eat that. That's—that's just wrong. I'm not—I'm not a cannibal."

He scoffed, muttering, "You ate it just fine before."

The smell hit her nose and she almost retched—not from the scent of blood, but from the feeling of want that rose up from her stomach.

"You're gonna get cravings for the horde eventually, sweetheart," Mantis said. He cracked open the skull of the dead zombie, revealing a writhing mass of worms amidst pockets of remaining gray matter. He pinched a few and dropped them into his mouth, swallowing them with a satisfied smile. "It's better you eat one of 'em now and not slaughter three or four of them later."

Some part of Caroline wanted to snatch the decapitated head out of his talons and greedily down the whole mass of worms but she sat in shock, watching him. "But you—you just—"

He got down on one knee in front of her, leveling his eyes with hers. "Girl… The world doesn't work like that anymore. If you don't control yourself now, you lose control later." He sighed. "These things aren't human anymore, girl. And neither are we. We can't follow the same rules as before and expect to survive." He rose and returned to the dead human, carefully carving out a large chunk of leg. He stripped the skin from it as he brought it over to her, tossing the flap of tissue aside. Wendigo worms, barely visible, wriggled and slipped in and out of the flesh. "Here. If you put it in a lineup of meat, you wouldn't even recognize it. Try not to think of where it came from. Trust me, it helps."

What could she say? Or do? She took it from him with shaking hands and he returned to the carcass, his blades sinking into the body with dull thuds.

It smelled so good. She closed her eyes and let the scent wash over her, alluring and just as tempting as the remains of her cocoon in the cave had been. Her gut told her to eat it.

She took a bite.

In time she sat by Mantis's side like she'd done as a normal zombie, pulling the meat off of bones with her teeth, caught up in the feed. The parts of her that were revolted were shoved to the back of her mind, replaced by an eerie calm and something primal that lurked in her brain. Something in the scene resonated with half-formed memories from her dark period—memories of safety. Of contentedness.

It was a double edged sword. Here, she sat with the man who knew most of the answers to what happened to her in this place, who she only barely recognized from the strongest whisp of memory that lurked in her missing seven months. He was, for lack of a better word, a friend.

And yet she didn't know him. And some small part of her whispered darling, you don't want to.