All of Me

It was always cold in the mountains. But the cold meant safe. It meant freedom, even if it meant hiding among the frost-covered pines alone.

Here, the air was still fresh when Addie stepped outside the old abandoned hovel she claimed as a home. For it was more a home than any other place she had known since the Rot came.

The Rot came with silence, steady and unknowingly. Until one day she, like many others, found their loved ones, friends, neighbors transforming into something right out of a folktale. They craved blood, and soon the scent of death became inescapable.

Addie had fled from city to city, town to town, in search of answers, a reason why she had lost her parents at only 15 years old. Her parents, like others, had been taken away, forced into facilities to figure out what and why humans were becoming something otherworldly.

Those who were left were scrambling, testing, raiding.

Answers only came months later; months too late. After months of her parents being away, she received a call; they escaped, only to die at the hands of law enforcement. This silent virus, they said, took weeks to fully infect. Those infected would then begin to crave blood, like they had been starved for centuries.

They named the virus The Rot. Due to the fact that it seemed to rot the brain from all logic and reason.

Addie then buried her family and then marched on. She told herself to find others who could help. But when the world is in shambles, sometimes the world can be cruel, too.

So, now, fifteen years later, Addie finds safety in solitude and freedom in the chill of the mountains. Only leaving for necessity if she must.

And today seemed to be like any other. The sun was high, and wildlife, in its ever-growing abundance, patterned around her as her eyes stayed focused on deer tracks in the snow. The reserves of meat were running low, and it was only a matter of time before winter fully hit at its peak. It was time to stock up, or she would be suffering as she did her very first winter here. Bruised, battered, cold, and starving. That year had been one full of betrayal, and she knew she would never forget.

The tracks continued west of her cabin, leading her to believe the deer was straying from the group in search of more food. So, when she finally spotted it, she held her breath, steadying the old rifle in her grasp to aim. One breath, and a trigger pull, and the bullet flew, shooting the deer right where Addie needed it. The deer was down in seconds with barely a sound.

Addie heaved the rifle back on her shoulder and took confident steps forward, ready to secure her meal tonight and add the rest to the meat store she built.

The hair on the back of her neck raised, and she stilled next to the carcass. Something in the air was strange. Good or bad, her gut couldn’t tell her. So, she kept her head on a swivel and her ears open for any disturbances as she secured the deer to a makeshift sled.

Everything seemed normal on the walk back. Yet, the feeling of something lurking nearby had her heart racing and her mind thinking dangerous thoughts. It wasn’t hard to go back to a dark place when she had once been there before. However, she kept the ideas at bay and reminded herself that she had never seen another person up the mountain this far north. Nor one infected. The last she knew, all infected were captured on site, and with nothing out here for them, it would be strange to see one here.

The point of being this far north was to be away from the death and the dangers people pose when left with little power or all the power. Addie wanted none of it, and she was adamant about staying that way.

So, when she heard a snap of a twig, she froze. All the hair on her body rose with the quick beat of her heart. She couldn’t help but be transported back in time to when she was younger and in a small city, staying with some new friends. However, one of them hid a secret that almost cost her her life.

Addie attempts to quell her racing heart, reminding herself she isn’t there in that room, with that thing. Her eyes search around her, the snow blinding amongst the tall trees. When she sees nothing, she takes a deep breath, fixing her grip on the sled’s rope, and books it back towards the cabin. She needed safety, and that’s where she kept all her weapons.

A thud and groan have her stopping, panting as she turns her head on a swivel. Her eyes widen when she spots it. A body lying unmoving in the snow, not too far from her. She hesitates at first. Not sure if she should approach. For the sake of anything she doesn’t want to approach. Addie would rather head back to the cabin, forget what she saw, and make the stew she has been picturing since gunning down the deer. A tender, spice-filled stew was all she wanted in her empty stomach.

But the human part of her, the part that still cared and carried all her empathy, wondered if the person was injured. If maybe they were escaping the madness as she had done. But the memory of betrayal clung to her like a slick sweat after a nasty sickness. Could she really put herself at risk like that again?

Another groan came from the body deciding for her. Addie rushed towards the body covered in horrible winter gear. Feeling broad shoulders, she pushed away the involuntary blush and rolled what seemed to be a man over onto their back.

The bright sun gave a clear view of the man’s angular and sharp jaw line, his lips chapped from dehydration and the frigid temperatures. She wondered how long he had been wandering around out here, as the dark blond hair covering his face, eyebrows, hair, and stubble was all coated in a thin layer of frost. He seemed almost dead by the looks of it.

Addie couldn’t help but sigh, wondering what kind of trouble this man would bring her. She already didn’t have enough food, hence the hunting, and now there would be another mouth to feed. Yet, seeing his face screw up in pain, she couldn’t help it. The helper in her wanted to do something. So, she dragged his body over towards the sled and heaved his body on top of the dead deer.

“Hope you don’t mind the smell,” she said to the unconscious man as she began to pull the sled again, having to put in a little more effort from the added weight.

The smell of venison stew filled the tiny cabin. Warmth from the fireplace made the cabin cozy on cold days like this. Addie stirred the stew, taking a small sample with the spoon and smiling when the broth came out just right.

“You have a beautiful smile.”

Addie dropped the spoon, and it clashed to the ground in a metal clang. Whipping her head around, her eyes met gorgeous, bright blue eyes that seemed to pierce her soul and freeze her in place.

The man was no longer unconscious, sitting up in the only bed in the cabin. How long had he been awake? Better question, how long had he been watching her, she wondered?

She didn’t reply; instead, she gathered two bowls and filled them with hot stew.

But then Addie stilled herself. The act of bringing him the stew caused her heart to want to beat out of her chest. She tried willing it away, pretending she was calm as she pushed herself to walk toward him with cautious steps. But it didn’t cease. Because as long as he continued to have his eyes on her, she couldn’t calm the electrified nerves buzzing under her skin.

So, when she handed him the stew, and he reached out to take it, she couldn’t help the word vomit leave her mouth, “Are you one of them?”

She cringed immediately, “I mean—”

“Yes.”

His voice was deep, but soft as he answered her honestly, holding the warm bowl of stew in his hands. Addie stared at him in shock. “But I assume you knew that was a possibility, or you wouldn’t have tied me to your bed.”

Addie swallowed hard, checking over the restraints she had put on his wrists, simple rope to the wrought iron headboard. He could easily break it. However, he hadn’t. Not yet, anyway.

“I-yes.” She took a seat further away from him.

Distance, she needed distance.

He chuckled and used the spoon, moving around the chunks of meat and veggies, “I don’t blame you. You have every right to take precautions.”

All Addie could do was watch him, unable to eat, unable to take her eyes off him, waiting for the other shoe to drop and her life to slip through her fingers.

Then she saw it. The strange, infected man lifted the stew to his mouth and ate it. Curious, she was. Not once had she ever seen someone infected be able to eat regular food again. Had things changed? What was she missing?

His eyes caught her staring, and she looked down into her stew, her appetite no longer there.

“I won’t harm you. So, please eat. You have my word.”

At that, she couldn’t help but let out a humorless laugh. “Your word. That’s not easy to believe.”

Addie looked up in time to see him smile. And there she saw it, elongated canines. Yet, for some odd reason, instead of fearing what those fangs could do, she wondered what they would feel like grazing against her neck with his lips on her skin.

The thought had her looking back down at her bowl and scooping some up and shoving it in her mouth. She hoped the heat she felt on her neck didn’t reach her face, and she wondered if she could say it was from the cold if asked.

But he never did ask. Instead, they continued to eat in silence. Until the questions raging in her mind became so loud, he spoke up, “My name is Issac Chantry, if you’re wondering.”

She snapped her eyes up from her now-empty bowl. Issac’s eyes lingered on her, like a predator watching its prey. But her bowl was empty, and she had questions, so she took the chance he so willingly seemed to offer.

“Why are you up so far in the mountains?”

His eyes locked on hers, full of mirth, “I needed a change of scenery.”

She scoffed and stood, taking the empty bowl he held out, “Really now? And how is it you can eat this?” She asked, pointing to the empty bowl.

Without hesitation, he answered, “Modern medicine.”

“Bullshit,” she countered.

He quirked a brow and smirked, “You’d be surprised what has happened over the past several years, Addie.”

She takes a step back, her face void of everything, “How do you know my name?”

Realizing his mistake, his smile falters, “I-”

“How do you know my name!”

She turns around and rushes towards the rifle leaning against the side wall near the door. But the snapping of dry, rotted rope catches her attention, and she looks back to find Issac. She screamed as he grabbed her, hoisting her legs around his waist, pinning her to the wall away from her only weapon within reach.

So she does the only thing she can. Addie uses her weight, trying to fling herself away, hitting him, pushing him, trying whatever she can to get away. But the effort is fruitless as he doesn’t budge. Instead, he grabs her wrists, slamming them to the wall on either side of her head.

“Enough!” Issac’s eyes glow with something furious, and she stills, her chest heaving from fighting against him. But he is like a brick wall. “Calm yourself, I can only control myself so much.”

Addie hears it in his voice, the strain. As if he is trying to fight something back, something primal within him. Then she sees it, the worry in his eyes as they dart around her face, before he closes his eyes and hangs his head low between them.

“I can’t control the thirst when your heart is beating like a mad rabbit. So, please, just…stop.”

Addie takes a few deep breaths, continuing until the rush of blood in her ears settles enough for her to finally speak, “How do you know my name?”

Slowly, he raised his head to meet her questioning eyes, “I’ve seen you. When you visit the town at the mountain’s base.” A slight redness comes over his cheeks, and Addie is stunned, “I couldn’t help but ask around. The little old lady, Betty, I think her name is, told me your name. Told me you probably lived up here, but she wasn’t sure.”

“So, you thought to what, see if it was true?”

He nodded, swallowing hard, “Yes, but I got lost. I’ve been wandering for days before you found me.”

Then it hit her, how long has it been since he last fed?

“You said medicine helps you eat regular food now? What—how does that even work? I thought the infected needed blood.”

His eyes drooped and looked away, “I still need blood. However, I don’t need it often to survive.” He locks his eyes with hers, “I was a doctor. When I became infected, my colleagues caged me and used me as an experiment. They wanted to save me by testing on me. Now I’m one of the first to be given the experimental drugs to rehabilitate us.”

He slowly lets go of Addie’s wrists, rubbing his thumbs over the redness he had caused, “Some are calling us Neo-humans, superhuman, others are calling us vampires, but either way, most of the infected can live normally now. New laws have been put in place, and the craving for blood we all felt when we were first infected has been quelled with something scientists have been calling a semi-cure. Allowing us to still be us…just with modifications.”

Addie takes all the information in, really in, because the proof was literally before her. She had never been in the same room as an infected person and been able to say she was safe. Years ago, the friends she had made had kept one of their infected friends, thinking that if they just gave them blood, they would be okay. But at that time, all the infected wanted was to feed, and Addie had found herself trying to escape death at the hands of an infected who wanted more blood than her friends were giving her, causing her to slaughter them all and almost kill Addie until someone shot her right in the head, saving Addie’s life.

His hands moved to her waist, holding her steady against the wall. Something else was willing him to keep her there. Her hands, still shaky, cupped his face, and she couldn’t help but see him. Truly see the man behind the vile infection that changed her world.

“Why me?”

A smile broke out on his face, and one of his hands reached up to gently push back some of her fallen black hair, “Because I saw something so brilliantly beautiful, and I told myself I’d be an idiot not to try.” Issac’s smile droops a little, his eyes not knowing where to look when he spoke again, “I went from almost becoming another infected casualty to having a second chance at life, and I don’t want to squander it anymore.”

At that, Addie smiled at the sincerity in his voice, carried with such a weight she couldn’t help what she did next. Addie’s hands pulled him close and quick, not giving him a moment to think before she kissed him.

Dangers be damned, because he was right. What she had been doing these past fifteen years wasn’t living, it had been surviving. And this right here, with his warm body snug between her legs, felt like living.

Issac kissed her back with a hunger, grinding against her, causing her to gasp so he could consume her mouth with his. They couldn’t help the sounds of satisfaction that left them both as Issac continued to grind his hardening length against her aching core.

Addie weaved her fingers through his soft hair, no longer frost-touched from a few hours before. She whimpered as he left her mouth and trailed his lips down her jaw to her neck. He paused slightly, panting some, as they both were.

“When’s the last time you fed?”

Her question had him locking eyes with her, “I’ll be okay…for now. But I will need to, soon, but not before I do this.”

She gasps as his hands grip her thighs tightly, carrying her to the bed across from the fireplace. A laugh leaves her as he plops her on the bed, causing her to bounce. Issac crawls over her, settling himself between her legs. Addie aches for him more, feeling all of him on top of her.

“Addie, will you have me?”

He looks to her, waiting for her to accept him, all of him.

She grazes her fingers from his temple to his chin, wondering how life can change in the blink of an eye.

“Yes, Issac,” She places feather-light kisses all over his face before locking on his bright blue eyes, “As long as you will have me, too.”

And he did, as she did. High in the mountains, where the cold now brought peace and warmth. They found solace in each other with a life worth living instead of merely surviving.