Twilight

Leon staggered across the makeshift bridge to the rooftop Courtney was on and then collapsed, sitting weakly with his back against the wall. His arms hung lazily at his sides and he let go of his gun. He started coughing.

Groaning and gritting her teeth, Courtney grabbed the sides of the heavy metal grating and lifted it enough to drop it down into the alley. It whistled as it fell, then came down hard on the skulls of several zombies, crushing them upon impact. Now it didn’t matter how many ghouls came up the fire escape—they still wouldn’t be able to cross the chasm and get to their meal on the other side.

Courtney went to Leon and knelt in front of him. She said, “They’re all over the humvees. They’re everywhere. But we might be able to cross the next rooftop and find a way down somewhere else.”

He lifted his weary head, eyelids halfway closed, forced a cough to stay in his chest by swallowing it back down, and muttered, “You can, but I’m just going to stay here. Sorry.”

She reached into her belt and pulled out the syringe Dane had given her. She displayed it to Leon and said, “You’re going to be okay. This is the Cure.”

He forced his eyelids open and replied, “Says who? Says Dane?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think he was telling the truth.”

“And what if he wasn’t? What if it causes me more pain?”

“Leon—”

“—No,” he interrupted. “I’m dying, Courtney. I don’t want any more complications. I just want to go easy.”

Courtney dropped the syringe and put her palms on his cheeks, forcing him to focus on her eyes. She sternly told him, “Leon, yes, you are dying. And you will die unless we take a chance that Dane was telling the truth.”

Leon weakly shook his head side-to-side.

“Leon, please,” Courtney begged, “Let me do this. Let me at least try to help you.”

Leon, seeing wetness forming across her eyelids, asked, “Why?”

She swallowed hard. She knew there were a lot of reasons why she didn’t want him to die and she knew she didn’t have time to discuss them all. For starters, it would take both of them working together to even have a chance of escaping this dead city. If one died the other would probably end up like the leather-clad corpse on the next rooftop who had swallowed his own shotgun. Besides that, she wanted to tell Leon that maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all and that she thought he died once already and she didn’t like it. On top of that, there weren’t many decent guys left in the world to pick from. She didn’t want him to simply fade away.

So she stated, “I don’t want you to die.”

He sighed and turned his head. He mumbled, “It might be too late anyway.”

“But it might not,” she quickly replied.

“And suppose it is the Cure,” he pointed out, “Are you sure you want to use the last of it on me?”

She gently turned his head so he was looking at her again and very sincerely replied, “Yes. Every drop of it.”

He stared into her eyes and she stared back.

After a moment he whispered, “Okay, we’ll give it a try.”

With a breath of relief, Courtney pulled the cap off the needle and—after seeing how long and thick it truly was—commented, “I think it has to be injected straight into your heart.”

“What?!”

“Your heart,” she repeated. “You know, like an adrenaline shot?”

“You’re using a lot of guesswork here.”

“But it makes sense. By injecting it directly into your heart it would spread the dormant infection through your bloodstream a lot faster. Don’t you remember Dane’s lecture?”

Leon weakly shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, “Dane was full of shit about a lot of things.”

Courtney motioned for him to lean forward, then she unzipped his wetsuit in the back and pulled it off his shoulders, minding the bandaged bite wound, and tugged it off his arms.

His torso was no longer just pale—it was turning blue.

Courtney ran her finger over his chest, using it to feel for the area where his heart was beating. When she found it she memorized it before pulling her hand away.

She hoped it wasn’t too late.

She sniffled and wiped her eyes, clearing her vision. Her breath was beginning to flutter. She forced herself to stay strong just a little longer.

She took aim with the needle and reeled it back. She knew she would need a lot of force and momentum to pierce his breastplate.

She whispered, “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

With one powerful stroke she drove the needle into his chest and pushed the plunger. Leon’s head fell back and his mouth opened and he screamed long and loud—so loud he drowned out the moans and groans of the dead city.

His body startled convulsing.

She pulled out the needle and tossed it, then wrapped her arms around him to hold him still. His body shook for several more seconds, then gradually the shaking subsided.

She let go and studied his face, almost expecting him to be dead, but he was still very much alive. Actually, nothing seemed to change at all.

She asked, “Do you feel any different?”

He paused as he evaluated his condition, and replied, “I can’t tell.”

Courtney sat down beside him and leaned against the wall as zombies on the adjacent rooftop started moaning and hollering even louder, angry that they could no longer see their would-be meal. She situated herself close to Leon and let her head rest on his shoulder. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, locking her fingers.

They had a nice view of the setting sun from here.

After a moment Leon said, “If I’m still alive in the morning we’ll see about getting out of here.”

“And we’ll know the Cure works,” Courtney added. “We can go back to the ship and search for more. Later, of course.”

“Oh, hell with that,” Leon tiredly replied. “Somebody else can do it.”

“Good idea.”

He turned his head to face her and added, “But if it doesn’t work you’re going to have to shoot me. You know that, right?”

Courtney sniffled and nodded slightly. She whispered, “I know.”

Together they watched the sun go down. Aside from the riotous noise of all the moaning and groaning and shuffling feet of the thousands of undead surrounding them, it was a perfect twilight.

And she didn’t take it for granted.

END