Smolder by Abigail Livinghouse (best young adult book series TXT) 📕

I ran through the streets as fast as I could, my arms pumping at my sides and my gangly legs taking the longest strides I could manage.

Funny, I had begun my young life running and now I was continuing my adolescent one running too. For some reason I just found that ironic. My pursuers never really showed themselves to me, and I never expected the threat to be so . . . devilish. I mean, I knew they were the bad guy of course, I'm not stupid. But to appear so enticing and yet be so dangerous, it should be a crime. Well actually it was.

"So tell me sweetheart, if Seattle is infested, where else can we go?" My girlfriend Terese teased me as she leaned against the alley wall.

I paced back and forth rhythmically, shaking my head. "I'm thinking about it, don't rush me."

She laughed, closing her eyes and throwing her head back. "You never do have a plan."

I scowled at her remark but said nothing. She never had any faith in me, always undermining my decisions. You think that didn't piss me off just as much as my lack of planning did her?

The underbelly of Seattle isn't exactly the place you would expect to find two teenagers, but there we were. Terese and I had met a few months ago and decided to travel together. She was very good at camouflage, and it came in handy when we spent nights in the forest. Lately we've been moving around nearly every day and I could tell it was straining her. Terese wasn't the kind of person to be told what to do, and I on the other hand enjoyed giving orders. So you could see where our little setup would clash at times.

I naturally was a leader, and I usually knew exactly where we were going and what we were going to do next. For the past few days I've been drawing a blank, and it's really gotten on Terese's nerves.

"Give it up, Siren." She said after I passed her in the alley way for about the hundredth time. "Just admit that you have no fucking clue what you're doing." She finished with a nasty curve of her pink lips.

I stopped in my tracks and turned to look at her, at her long raven black hair, her tiny figure curled into a ball, and her brown eyes leering at me. She could be so sweet when she wanted to be, but nine times out of ten she is usually pissed off about something.

"Don't you think I'm trying here? I don't see you doing anything except sitting on your ass. And speaking of which, why don't you take the stick you have shoved up there out and stop being such a whiny bitch?" I know that was bitchy of me to say, but seriously she was getting on my nerves too. She wasn't thrown off by what I said anyway, she seemed to completely ignore the fact that I had said anything at all. That was when I had had enough.

I didn't grant her another word from me, instead of turning around at the beginning of the alley way while pacing, I just walked right out and onto the streets.

I don't really look around much when I travel anymore, there's no point. You see the same things wherever you go. Destruction, old remnants of what once was a great and prospering civilization, and a bunch of Half Deads walking around. It's easy to tell when someone is a Half Dead, it's when the virus that killed off more than seventy five percent of the earth's population has infected them and they are nearing the end. Their skin has hollowed out, they have become nothing more than a mere shell of what they had been before, but their eyes are what gives them away the most.

Half Dead eyes are glazed over with a film of white over them, usually bloodshot. If a Half Dead's eyes are white completely, then they have been around for awhile. When you look at a person and see an empty gaze of nothingness, then you know that even though they are still walking, that they are truly dead inside. Their bodies are just waiting to catch up with what their soul has already come to terms with.

Half Deads rarely attack humans unless bothered by humans first, so don't go around poking random Half Deads with a stick just to see what will happen, because you'll get your throat ripped out.

After Half Deads kill a human, they usually eat them, trying to consume the life they saw walking around, the life they crave to get back. I wouldn't call them the trademark "zombies" because they don't attack us upon sight and eat as a source of nutrition, they do it if they're provoked and so that they may be able to get their lives back.

Unfortunately there is no cure for the Plague, so if you're infected by a Half Dead's bite, then I'm sorry to say that you're pretty much SOL.

I have survived on the streets and on my own for six years now, since I was twelve. My parents were scientists, they worked to find a cure for what was destroying the human race. They required fresh Half Deads in order to experiment on and well, let's just say I saw them walking around the next day not exactly "with it" if you know what I mean. A few weeks later and I never saw my parents alive, Half or otherwise, again.

I first traveled with my only sibling Cassandra for about two years before we ran into a herd of Half Deads, not really knowing what to expect, and since Cassandra was only a kid at the time, she completely freaked out. We made a run for it, but a Half Dead managed to jump on her and get a nibble out of her shoulder before we got away. I lost her just shortly after, and she joined the herd that had attacked her.

Since then I've moved on my own, quietly and discretely. I didn't bother searching for anyone I knew. I liked to keep barely any ties with anyone, less feelings to get hurt and less time spent feeling like utter shit when it turns out you can't protect them like you thought you could. When I met Terese she seemed to handle herself strongly and was quite happy by herself, but she was low on food and sick with the flu. When the world ends you don't exactly have luxuries like hospitals and flu shots anymore.

I took care of her until she got better, and over that time our relationship grew stronger and we began to see each other differently, as more than just friends. We didn't ask one another to become girlfriend and girlfriend, it was just a quiet decision that we made simultaneously. There wasn't a big fuss like there used to be back when there was social networking and all that bullshit. No, just me and her together and that was it.

I almost forgot, one more thing to know about Half Deads is that once they are half dead, then they are completely gone. There's no trace of their former self inside of them anymore. People have tried to awaken the human in Half Deads before, and there is no use. You'll just get a blank stare and painful silence. Also, Half Deads don't last too long. About two months at the most before they die off, but recently I've been noticing the same Half Deads wandering around the area frequently, and Seattle isn't the only place that I've seen this. So maybe things have changed since I've received my last update, but that is all I know about what has ravaged our world.

Terese and I usually move together, and we don't run into other humans very often. Sometimes we'll see someone picking a gas station clean or a small camp set up somewhere, but we never bother to come in contact with them. They're trying to survive just like us, and if they asked us to join them or if we offered to have them with us, then it would only be more mouths to feed and extra baggage on both of us. Again, pointless.

I moved into another alley way that led to the right and sat down behind a dumpster that didn't smell too bad, it would be decent here for one night. I grabbed a few random things around me like cans and some newspaper, setting them up into a little ball in front of my legs. I positioned my fingers close to the little setup and snapped them. A small blaze flew from my tips and landed on the bundle. It caught quickly, and burned with a pleasant warmth as I held my hands near it.

Now, I've never been a strong believer in magic, but there are some things in this world that even I can't explain.

I ate one of my last packets of trail mix before falling asleep, wondering about Terese as I dozed off. She hadn't even bothered to come looking for me, I would've thought she had the decency to at least try to find out where I was. Instead, I was left lying alone here on the cold ground with my little blaze down to a simmer by now.

I wasn't sure how long I'd slept, I didn't own a watch. It's been years since I've even seen one. I estimated about four hours before I was awakened by the rustling of newspapers and cans being kicked. I opened my eyes and looked around me, seeing nothing but the alley way. I was hoping that it was just a Half Dead wandering through, but when I heard voices my hopes dropped. Fuck.

I curled up in to the corner aside of the dumpster, making myself as small as possible. If things got bad I had an escape route out the back way of the alley, but that would involve me being seen first. Instead of making a break for it and blowing my cover, I listened to what the two people were talking about first.

"There's nothing here, it's a wasteland just like everywhere else!" Someone muttered,