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"Nee...dy..."
Her hand was clasped over her mouth, her heartbeat racing, too loud. The stench was becoming more and more difficult to bear with each footstep taken in her direction, rotten and bleeding carcass.
She'd ran, she'd walked, she'd stolen cars, and yet every time she rested, even for a moment, Jenny called for her.
"Nee... dy..."
The virus had spread fast. Jenny had been the first person she'd met that had been contaminated. A party, a fire, a van, leaving her behind when she shouldn't have -a cadaver coming back to her.
She'd seen thousands of zombies, now. Hungry, so hungry, fast decomposition, worms crawling their way through the skin, limbs melting off the joints, a cloud of flies busy on a lonely corpse, left on the side of the highway. They lost their mind quickly -quicker and quicker-, they adapted, the plague was in the water they drank it was in the air they breathed it was in the blood that was spilled and it came with the vermin lurking in the now abandonned houses.
Some made it to safe places. They had wealth, or support. They built underground, they locked everything, they made fortifications from garbage. She'd been there, at first, in makeshift camps, terrified, hands so dry they bled from constant washing, Chip with her, and every night, she would hear her.
"Nee... dy... Nee... dy..."
The people on night watch would shoot towards the sound, but everyday, it started again.
She made the place unsafe. New arrivants wouldn't make it to the gate. And no one could sleep, when Jennifer got in sudden frenzies, throwing herself against the walls, and the Needy became more desperate, more hateful, the last word she knew, and she said it in every possible way.
So she'd left. The others had promised to distract Jennifer, just long enough to give her a head start, but as soon as her scent no longer lingered on the tents, the voice was back.
Chip had gone with her. Two weeks after leaving, they'd seen a gas station on the side, abandoned. They'd stopped, just long enough to grab food, find gas, anything: she'd been filling plastic bags, and she heard a scream, screams, and she'd rushed, and Jennifer had looked up, Chip's blood dripping down her chin, her nails deep into his skin.
"Needy", she'd said, almost like when they were human. Like they were children still, and mom said they could play together.
She'd ran to the car, and left them behind.
No one survived on their own. When there was no more oil and no more cars to take from, she went on foot, she took abandonned bicycles, anything that gave the illusion she'd put distance between her and Jennifer. She barely slept, in cupboards and windowless rooms, and every time she woke up, she feared seeing her on the other side of the door.
But she'd grown so tired.
There was a barn, like the one they'd gone to once, on a holiday to Jennifer's grandma's, but this one had no cattle, probably eaten already. It still smelled of it, and she'd locked the door as well as she could, hidden in a stall.
Jennifer had found her, and she no longer had the strength to run.
"Nee... dy..."
Jennifer's change had been fast, deteriorating so quickly. Needy had found her over an emptied stomach, a classmate's dead eyes contrasting Jennifer's bright ones.
"Needy", she'd croaked, and she'd dropped what she'd been holding, she'd began crawling her way towards her, slowly, "Needy, I was so hungry..."
Most of them lost their ability to speak long before they began feeding. But it took her days before her sentences shortened to just one word, to just Needy. Needy had abandoned her long before that, too scared to do it, to kill this creature pleading for her life so sweetly. Even when Jennifer's vocabulary became her name only, and she followed her everywhere she went, she didn't do it.
The footsteps were closer, closer, slow. Her free hand was holding her knife so tightly, it was shaking.
The smell, putrid. She'd woken up to it one day, opened her eyes, sunlight shining through the car's windows, and Jennifer was standing there, just standing there, looking at her through glass she could easily break. She'd screamed and struggled to turn the keys, drive away, but Jennifer had done nothing, simply stared at her as she left, immobile in the rearview mirror.
She closed her eyes, and tried to remember early february days, Jennifer with her locker overflowing with roses every colour, her perfume sprayed on the little Valentine's card she made for Needy, "so you know what it's like too". What a fucking bitch. She'd kept that letter in a box, and eventually, the smell went away. Jennifer had always been the only one to get her something for Valentine, a cruel reminder that no one else would, a sweet reminder that she remembered her always.
The footsteps stopped. Creaking. Behind the thin skin of her eyelids, she could see movement.
"Needy", said a voice, so close.
She used to say Needy in so many ways. Demanding, you have to do this, Needy, because we're best friends, that's what best friends do. Whining, Needy, you're so not-cool oh my god. Satisfied, pleased, thanks Needy, you're the best, you know that right? Scared, did you see this, Needy where are you, this isn't fucking funny, come on! Begging, come on Needy, just this once, please?
Loving. This was the rare one, the one for the best days, when it was just the two of them, watching TV late at night when their parents weren't home, laying more or less on each other, or when she'd said something Jennifer liked, or when they'd stayed awake for too long and the sun was shining and they were the only one in the world, and she got a tired "love you Needy" and she'd be too exhausted to not say "I love you too".
She opened her eyes, slowly.
Jennifer had always been the most beautiful person she knew. It was A Truth, like the sky is blue or grass is green. Sometimes, as kids -as teens- she'd just stare, lost in how lucky she was that someone like Jennifer even spoke to her. Every boy wanted her, every girl was jealous of her, and everything about her was perfect, from manicured toenails to plump lips, including shiny hair and dreamy eyes.
The woman sitting in front of her had skin peeling off. Her hair was missing in places, a fight she won but barely, and her whole face looked as though it was slowly melting, like a painting with too much water mixed in. Her jaw hung low, teeth ripped out, and the clothes she wore were torn, useless for a body that no longer felt temperatures.
"Oh, Jennifer", she breathed out.
"Needy", said Jennifer, and she had a weird spasm, kind of like she was about to retch, but her smile stretched further, and she raised a hand, fragile fingers patting her hair gently.
She was sitting in a semi-squat, like that one time she found her crying in the toilets, hair ruined by one of the boys in their class, and she'd picked out a hair clip, sticking it in shortened strands, saying it looked way better like that.
Her other arm was hugging her knees, and her nails were broken or ripped out, leaving behind naked, decomposing skin.
"Why do you keep following me?", she asked, as Jennifer kept caressing the side of her head. "Why? And why aren't you, like, eating me right now?"
"Needy", repeated Jennifer, almost like a verse in a song, a lullabye.
There was blood smattered on her clothes, on her face. Food -human- remains stuck in the soft wool of a pink jumper. She'd fed, recently.
"Why do you keep following me?", she repeated, more of an echo than an actual question.
Jennifer kept petting, humming lightly.
She let her do it.
There was no one else left, after all. No parents. No Chip. She'd never really had other friends, anyways. There was only Jennifer.
"Needy."
"Mh", she answered.
"Needy."
"Yeah. I'm here."
"Needy."
She didn't reply, and Jennifer kept saying her name, a neverending echo.
There was no more running away, now. No fighting back.
She raised her own hand, and pushed a sticky strand of hair away from Jennifer's face, tucking it behind her ear.
"I'm sorry I left", she whispered. "And, and I love you, Jennifer. I'm sorry."
The knife laid on the floor, in the hay.
She reached for Jennifer's hand, hesitantly.
There was no more running away, now.