Magic and Decay by Rachel Higginson

to wipe the blood from my
neck onto my clothes. The dirty, contaminated, infected
blood.
    My blood.
    Fear snaked through my stomach and wrapped around my
heart. It squeezed and squeezed and choked the life out of me.
    I felt the change immediately. I felt my blood die in
my veins. There was life and then there wasn’t. I was a living, breathing,
thinking person and then… I wasn’t.
    My skin turned chalky with sweat. Saliva pooled in the
back of my throat and I nearly choked on it. I struggled to make my throat
move, to force the slimy spit down my deadening muscles.
    Oh, god.
    I was a Zombie!
    What now? Was this it? Is this where I died?
    Not at Nix’s brutal hands or in the middle of some
ancient Greek war? But like this?
    This is what I got for hating my beauty all my
freaking life. Was this the Universe’s way of proving a point?
    Fine. I’m vain. There. I said it. I’m incredibly
vain. I hate my beauty, but I like it too!
    I didn’t want to lose my looks this way. I didn’t want
to start rotting like a corpse before I ever died. I didn’t want to smell bad
and not be able to think.
    And I really, really, really didn’t want to change my
diet from whatever it was before to brains.
    My limbs locked tight and my heart slowed to nearly stopped . I shot Ryder a pleading look and felt the tears
slip from the corners of my eyes.
    He looked horrified. He reached for me, but Reagan
grabbed him before he could get too close.
    “You can’t,” she told him in a broken voice. “She’s
already changing.”
    A sob hiccupped in my throat and more tears slipped
from my eyes. No. No! This couldn’t
be happening!
    The bite on my neck burned like hot coals. The Zombie
had gone right for my neck. He’d pinned me to the ground and savagely attacked
my body. He’d cut gashes into my skin all over and I hadn’t known he’d actually
bitten me until I stood up and realized the wound on my neck hurt more than any
of the others.
    But now I couldn’t feel anything else. I wanted to
scream in agony, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. I felt the life drain out of
me. Whatever made me human, whatever pieced together my soul seemed to seep out
of me through my feet. My thoughts started to rush around and crash into each
other.
    And then the worst of it.
    The first hunger pain for flesh.
    My new friends stood around me and they looked…
delicious.
    I locked eyes with Ryder and pleaded with him to
anchor me, to keep me grounded. My mind was on the verge of floating away and my
body already betrayed me.
    I felt a trickle of drool fall from the corner of my
mouth, but I couldn’t do anything about it! I couldn’t even wipe it away.
    More tears leaked out of my eyes, the only sign that I
could still feel.
    And all the while my neck screamed with pain. Would I
feel this forever? If I lived beyond the next few minutes would I always suffer
from this pain?
    Only there would be more of it.
    Eventually, my skin would begin to decay. My bones and
muscles would become exposed. Every part of me would rot and slowly peel away
and I would feel every moment of it.
    “Ryder,” I croaked.
    He shoved Reagan and Hendrix off and rushed to me. He
pulled me into his arms and pressed a kiss to my pasty forehead.
    I tried to shake my head, to warn him off, but he just
held me tighter.
    “I’m not letting you do this alone, Red. This is my
choice not yours. You left me once before. I won’t let you leave me again.”
    “Ryder, move out of the way!” Hendrix shouted at us.
“I’m going to shoot her, Man. Let me put her out of her misery before it really
begins.”
    “You’re going to have to shoot me too!” Ryder turned
me into him and shielded me entirely with his body. I would have wept if I
could have, but the tears had dried up now and I couldn’t even blink.
    I needed to blink!
    The not-blinking was really starting to freak me out!
    “We’re not going to shoot you! Move out of the way!”
Reagan sounded panicked and I didn’t blame