Page 3

Jack clutched his gun. After the Cessation, the definition of a human crumbled with society. You couldn’t be a zombie and a human. There were the healthies and there were the zombies. Human was taken out of the equation. Easy to understand when everyone had a pending expiration date.

Twilight lit the sky for scarcely a minute then gave into the night and its tyranny of cold. He gave into his thoughts, his regrets, and as another cough worked into a storm inside his chest, he thought about Faye. Jack covered his mouth, stifled the loudest part of the cough, then jumped. The gun slid forward with his surprise and hit the metal barrel causing a deep thunk to echo.

"Sorry to startle you, Mr. Meacher, the first chaser is on his way back. We have an alert on the tracker, and in a couple of minutes, we should have the quarry’s position. With the return and everything, you have a little over ten minutes to get ready." The guide spoke softly, squeezing Jack’s left shoulder and looking around as if he didn’t want any else to know why they were there.

"Alright, thank you. I understand." He mumbled.

The guide nodded, taking in Jack’s selection of gun, attire, and judging it all, and him, before turning and walking away. His guide, Ted, was a tall, muscular man, probably a fighter, or something equivalent before the world changed. Jack could only imagine how Ted’s talent and build helped in the world of the preserve. Smoke from the fire swirled in front of him, burning his eyes and making them water. His eyes, now slits watched the blurry back of Ted disappear.

In ten minutes, all would become real. An entire life summed up to meager minutes, trackers, alerts, and a position, he thought. Jack grunted and swung the gun back to his hand. This is what he paid for, the information, and approval to find then kill the quarry, his wife, legally. He knew he should have taken her to the hospital once the sickness came on, but how do you do that. How do you tell the woman lying next to you, her expiration date just blasted a vein inside her head and now she was bleeding and every minute she stared at him was another minute closer to becoming one of those things.

You don’t, a voice inside his head told him. You hide her, you love her, and then you let her die in her own time.

He was quick to argue back, the voice rising above the other, that isn’t how it happened. She got loose, killed someone, ate him, and ran, stumbled away.

And you let her go, coward, hoping the law wouldn’t know she was your problem, your wife, your secret.

Jack shook his head back and forth, then shook it harder trying to dislodge the accusing voices taking over. He was there to end her suffering and make it right.

"Mr. Meacher, this way please." Ted the guide said.

His name sounded foreign coming from Ted and he didn’t like it. But, how had the time passed so quickly? A rise started in his belly and he remembered the way Ted had said, quarry, as if that’s all Faye was, and had been. At the same time another cough seized his chest. Jack, while staring at the fire waited for the feeling to go away. Its flames reached above the soot-blackened rim, higher and higher, until a breeze knocked their greedy fingers back into the barrel. September wasn’t supposed to be cold- brisk, maybe, not cold. It felt as if it knew what he was going to do, and what his intentions were, it acted like death, cold.

It’s your conscience. It’s reminding you murder is against the law. It always has been, it always will be. The Cessation didn’t make it right.

"Mr. Meacher. It’s time." Ted’s voice reached through his thoughts.

He wasn’t murdering her- he was making it right. He didn’t have the chance before, or couldn’t do it before. He had it now. He could end it now. Turning around, his eyes followed the slow path away from the fire, and away from the warmth. When his brown eyes, the ones Faye looked into first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night, looked at Ted, Jack wondered what would happen if he shot him instead.

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