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It wasn’t supposed to be like this, not from what they’d tried. The General had immediately shot R, and they’d run from the city, escaping Boneys and other Corpses that had come along hunting for them. Hunger ran through R’s veins, teeth grinding as the delectable smell of Julie’s humanity wafted over his nose. A few abandoned cars still had gas in them, and Julie had shoved him into the passenger seat of one, dodging bullets and grabs from the incoming hordes of armed humans and zombies. The last thing R saw before they sped off along the city’s roadways was the angry stare of Julie’s father, disappointment in his eyes as he shouldered his rifle and fired.
Julie swerved the car, hissing as the round pierced her shoulder, spraying crimson droplets across the dash and shattered windshield. Glass had flown all over them, and R groaned, the sweet scent of living flesh making his stomach rumble once more, insatiable with need to consume once more.
“Just hold on, R. Let’s find a safe place to rest first, then we’ll deal with it.” As if it would be so simple, staving off the instinctual craving to feed until he felt bloated and satisfied. He wouldn’t eat her brain if it came to that, preferring Julie alive—or undead—rather than completely gone. But first, they had to make it out of the city and into the countryside without him turning into a feral mess—it would be a bad look to violently attempt to eat the girl he liked, after all.
What felt like hours passed by until they finally ran out of gas, ducking into an abandoned neighborhood far enough away from the city that Julie considered stopping for the night. Her bleeding had slowed down, but she seemed worn down, the chase from the city as well as the subsequent falling out between Julie and her father taking its toll. R frowned, pressing his fingers to the wound—clean, it was empty of a bullet but Julie was in pain, and he grunted quietly. “D-didn’t…keep you safe. S-sorry. We’ll…find…medicine. F-fix this.”
“Not your fault my dad can’t see reason.” Julie huffed it out, red staining her pale cheeks. “Ever since he had to shoot my mom, he stopped being himself. I just wish he would have heard us out.”
“M-me too. F-feels bad.” R placed his hand over his chest, smearing the bits of Julie’s blood across his stained shirt. “Let’s…r-rest.”
“Agreed.” She’d covered their tracks, hidden among old shuffling marks from previous hunts moving towards the city, and R followed her into one of the unlocked homes, nearly tripping over the furniture that had fallen over near the doorway. It was a miracle that Julie had managed to get the door open in the first place, and she was busy searching for anything to use in lieu of finding any leftover first aid measures.
R decided right then and there that he’d do what he could for Julie, although he wasn’t sure if it would work. “J-Julie.” The kitchen knives glinted in the low evening light, and he pointed towards them. “Use m-my blood. Not…quite…a corpse…anymore. S-shouldn’t…turn. N-not dead.”
“You’re not quite alive either, though, R.” But she couldn’t really argue with his logic, and this was uncharted territory; it was better than having a horde of hunger-frenzied zombies on her hands though, and she could see R starting to lose some of his coherency the longer he was around her bleeding flesh. “Still, it’s better than nothing. You won’t eat me, right? And if I die, you’ll teach me how to be a corpse?”
“No eat…Julie. But t-teach…to be d-dead? Yes.” A smile quirked on his lips, remembering how they’d had similar conversations days ago. The flash of the knife across her palm was clear, and she took his hand, doing the same slash. It was quick, and only slightly painful, though R couldn’t really grimace in his current state. Julie slapped their palms together, tying a ratty strip of tablecloth across their hands to hold them in place.
“Funny…they used to do this when people got married. At least, some people did. I only know a little from history books.”
“M-married?” R had just resumed dating with Julie, and marriage seemed to be a bit fast in their circumstances, but it was acceptable.
“Yeah, let me tell you about it…”
Julie led the conversation, sitting them down to let her arm rest and to let the blood mix, and she explained everything—from what she’d previously dreamed of for her own marriage, the meaning of handfasting, and how things were complicated since R didn’t have a last name, or any name for that matter aside from the single letter. She fell asleep holding R’s hand, head resting against the back of a mattress she’d positioned to hide them just in case.
When morning came, R had woken with a start, his mouth feeling sticky and dry but the hunger for flesh had subsided. Julie was softly snoring, and R wrinkled his nose—something about her smelled off in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. “Julie?”
Her eyes fluttered open, hoarseness creeping into her voice. “R? What time is it?” She stretched, and noticed their hands were still tied, before cutting away the bandage and noticing that the wound had started to scar just slightly. It was raised and an angry red, but no fresh blood flowed from it, and R didn’t feel the need to sink his teeth into her as badly as he had yesterday. “Huh. That’s odd…I feel hungry. Really hungry.”
R felt his heart sink, before Julie continued, standing up to rinse her hand off with a bit of water, the supplies they’d stolen coming in handy for the moment. “I could eat a whole bowl of oatmeal right now. And bacon. I’d kill for some bacon.” Her eyes turned towards his, and R noted the slight discoloration of Julie’s normally oceanic blues; they were lighter now, like the sky, or the color his had been when he’d stared into the airplane’s mirrors.
“M-maybe bacon isn’t s-such…a good idea. Oatmeal, though…” He stood up, letting Julie rinse his hand with the chilled water, before nodding his head towards the kitchen. “Let’s see…if w-we can f-find some.” He felt hungry too, but not for bacon or meat, just hungry in general. Maybe this would turn out to be an interesting turn of events for them both? Especially since they were married in a way, if he was understanding it correctly.
Scavenging the house led to finding a bit of oatmeal, and there were clean enough bowls to use, albeit covered in dust. Spoons were a bit harder to find, but there was a bit of luck within one of the drawers, and Julie had procured two plastic spoons with a grin. “Gotta love when people leave things behind.” Quietly, they sat as the water boiled—an improvised stove from some flammables in a steel bowl and a pot settled in the middle—and R squirmed, thinking of the possibilities of what would happen since they were basically married.
“S-so…we’re m-married.”
“In a way, yeah. Doesn’t change my mind about you, or what’s happening to the others out there.” She’d obviously made up her mind, delight crossing her features to find a can of mandarin oranges that were slightly over the expiration date, and R shrugged, wondering how she managed to love him so effortlessly. Especially after he’d eaten her ex.
“W-we should…keep m-moving…after we eat.” It wouldn’t be long before the General caught up with them and if he was angry before, he’d be even worse now that Julie had infected herself with corpse blood, on top of eloping with a corpse. “Keep you safe.”
“Keep us both safe, R. We’re in this together. And we might find others like you, who are changing.” The idea of finding people turned her stomach, mouth watering at what it would be like to take just a little bite from Nora’s arm, or to bite into someone like R had, with gusto. “I might be becoming like you, so it stands to reason I need to learn how to be a zombie.”
“Not…changed. Is pretty…fast. You’re s-still human.” R mumbled, his fingers reaching out to touch Julie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. She was still warm, still very much alive, but the mention of meat earlier had him concerned. “We stay…together. E-exhume the world.”
They left after breakfast was finished, R’s heart thumping in his chest awkwardly as his now wife picked out another car, shoving the rest of the food they’d found into a series of pillowcases, alongside some blankets, towels, and other amenities he hadn’t considered. “Come on, R, let’s go before they catch up. We’ve got a long way to go, and all the time in the world to get there.”
He climbed in next to her—grateful that she was driving, because he still had a lead foot when it came to vehicles—and they sped off into the distance, just as the sound of armored trucks and boots on the ground thumped behind them. They’d make it out alive, together, one way or another, and Julie would show them all that she and R were meant to be together, that there was hope for change even in a world filled with death.