Prologue

She dreamt that she was drowning.

Sinking. Clutching. Choking on a red fiery haze. Running. People reaching out to her, calling out her name. Zoe. Zoe! They were almost on her, they were grabbing her, they were pulling her under...

And suddenly Zoe wasn’t dreaming anymore, and someone really was grabbing her, someone really was calling out her name.

“Zoe!”

She lashed out into the dark, and a split-second later the sound of bone crunching bone could be heard.

“Shit, Zoe,” came a voice from the darkness. A little lamp beside the bed clicked on. “I think you broke my nose.”

Zoe’s eyes widened when she realized what she had done. “Jesus. I’m s-s-sorry, Murray,” she said, her sentence interrupted halfway through by a violent, though short-lived, bout of coughing. “You know you shouldn’t wake me when I’m having a nightmare.”

“I know, hon,” Murray said, pushing a piece of dark brown, almost black, hair from her face. “But we have to go.”

She just stared at him. “Stop fucking around, Murray,” she finally said. She turned away from him and burrowed back under the blanket. “We’ve got a few more days here at least. Let me...” She coughed some more. “Let me go back to sleep.”

Murray put his hand on her arm and turned her back over. She glared up at him. “Look at your pillow, Zoe,” he instructed.

“What?”

“Damn it, Zoe, just look at the pillow.”

She sat up and did as he said. “Oh, shit,” she muttered. The once-white fabric of the pillow was now speckled with red. She pressed her fingers to her lips, and when she glanced down at them she saw that they, too, were speckled with little dots of blood. “Shit,” she said again.

She climbed out of bed. Murray helped her dress, as half the time she was doubled over, coughing up more blood onto the beige carpet. “Can you walk?” Murray asked once she was ready to go. Zoe nodded, and Murray handed her one of the backpacks that held all of their possessions, which she slipped over her shoulders. They crept quietly down the stairs–they weren’t the only ones in the building, and they didn’t want to wake the people who had taken them in–and out into the night. The street was empty, but Murray and Zoe took no chances. They stayed close to the shadows as they made their way through town.

By now they were used to traveling at night. Zoe always led the way–her eyesight was infinitely better in the dark–pulling Murray along behind her by hand. They both knew that she could have moved faster without him, and he’d offered to stay behind several times, but she would never let him. “And besides,” she’d say each time he’d try to argue, “who would take care of me if I didn’t have you?”

It was almost dawn by the time they reached the very slums of the city. “Surely there’s an abandoned something around here,” Murray said as they moved past run-down apartments or stores or little houses with peeling paint and decrepit chain-link fences.

“There’s...” Another pause, another bout of coughing. “There’s no one in that house over there,” Zoe said, pointing to a little house with several broken windows and what once might have been a doghouse in the small patch of yard.

They hurried to the house–the sky was already starting to lighten–and climbed over the fence. They didn’t want to open the gate in case it creaked. The door of the house itself had glass panes at the top, two out of the six broken. One was, luckily enough, by the doorknob, and Zoe was able to reach inside and unlock the door.

The first thing Murray did upon entering the house was inspect the rooms. The house only had three–a large one which tripled as a kitchen, dining room, and living area, a room that might once have been a bedroom, and a bathroom which looked more unsanitary than anything he’d ever seen in his life. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that. He moved to the living area, the only place with recognizable furniture. Upon investigating the couch he found that it was one with a pull-out bed, which was most fortunate, because he’d never let Zoe lay on that death trap in the bedroom.

Once the mattress was pulled out, he turned to talk to Zoe, but found that she was not standing near the door, where he’d left her. Instead, he found her in the little bathroom, leaning over the dirty toilet, spitting blood into the bowl. Sighing, he moved behind her and scooped her dark hair away from her face. When she was finished, Zoe wiped away the flecks of blood with the red-streaked handkerchief that she always carried. Silently he led her back into the living area. He gently slipped the backpack off of her and dropped it beside the couch. Then, he picked her up in his arms and laid her out on the dingy mattress, covering her with a moldy blanket he’d found on the back of the couch.

He started to move away, but Zoe reached out and touched his arm. “How much time do you...” She coughed again, covering her mouth with the handkerchief. “Do you think I have?”

Murray almost lied. He could taste it on the tip of his tongue. A lot of time, honey. You’ll be fine. But he promised he’d never lie to her, and he’d always keep his word. At least, he’d always keep his word to Zoe. “Not long,” was what he said.

Zoe nodded in agreement, her grip slackening just a little. Murray moved to leave again, and once more her hand tightened on his arm. “Wait,” she said. “Lay down with me. At least until I fall asleep.”

Murray just looked at her. He really shouldn’t. He tried to stay awake when she was asleep; someone had to keep a look-out for any trouble. But he was so tired, and she was looking at him with her huge green eyes and he knew that even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to say no.

He said nothing, just nodded, and crawled onto the mattress beside her. She offered him half of the moldy blanket, but he shook his head, and tucked it around her. Soon, both of them had drifted into fitful sleep.

Neither of them had noticed the neighbor that had been watching through one of the unbroken windows. The neighbor who, even now, was running back to her own woebegone shack of a home, clutching a print-out from the local police station of their faces, and mentally preparing what she’d say to the 911 dispatcher when she called them.

So this is one of those stories that you write, and then fall absolutely, irreversibly in love with. I've already gotten the next two, and part of the third, chapters written. Whether or not anyone ever sees them besides me depends on what sort of reaction this gets. As always.