Page 44 of Rebirth

When I turn around, He’rox is still standing there. I gulp, looking at him, beats of silence passing between us that make me aware of nothing else around us. Just me and him.

“Which way?” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer, simply turns his head in a direction off to my left and I jerk my chin in a nod. Adjusting my pack, I take one last look at the carcass at his feet before heading off.

I’m down the little rock incline that led up to the cave in just a minute before I reach the tree line. Only then do I glance behind me. My breath stutters in my chest as our gazes lock and I force another lump down my throat.

This whole trip is giving me more questions than answers. Everything I thought I knew about, well, everything seems inconsequential and useless.

I pause at the tree line and He’rox stops walking at the same time.

He’s perfect again. The blood I was sure stained his chest has disappeared.

He doesn’t move to catch up with me and I frown slightly before turning and pushing into the tree line. Leaves and twigs crunch underfoot as I walk, the only sound in this silent expanse. Glancing behind me once more, those ice-cold eyes meet mine as if he hasn’t taken his gaze from me the entire time, and a delicious shiver moves like a lance through me.

I grab hold of it and snap it in two immediately at the same time that I notice He’rox slows his pace slightly, keeping the distance between us.

I frown again but say nothing as I turn and continue making my way through the forest. Here in the middle of the thick, the little light of morning that had begun to lighten the darkness seems lost. I stumble for a few hundred meters, hoping I’m going the right way until I give up and get my flashlight from my pack. Powering it on, I keep going, the cloying vines and low-hanging branches brushing against my skin like ghostly fingers. Any sense of comfort I’d felt on my journey here is gone.

There’s been the thrill and anticipation, anxiety and a bit of dread, around what we’d discover. Now all that’s been replaced by a lingering sense of unease.

But I keep moving forward, flashlight beam dancing ahead of us. Every time I stop and glance behind me, He’rox stays a few paces at my back. The entire time he remains there, never walking at my side or even before me as he had before.

It’s obvious it’s on purpose.

Every time I look back, shining the light his way, just to ensure he’s there, those predatory eyes are locked on to me like I’m a target. He’s staying away from me, yet close enough to ensure I know he’s still there.

I don’t dare break the silence to ask why.

But even though I know he’s behind me, his presence greeting me every time I glance over my shoulder, once I face forward again, the darkness and stillness around me swallow me whole. He’rox makes no sound. Almost as if he isn’t there, and I’m slowly beginning to wonder if he’s part of my imagination.

Am I still in my bunker, slowly going insane? Is this all really happening? The mass of pulsing veins embedding themselves in the earth beneath my feet? The zombified deer that tried to kill me. And him. The alien that I was mad enough to kiss.

I don’t fucking know anymore.

The morning light is slowly creeping in, lightening underneath the canopy, but I keep my flashlight on, deciding to let it guide me for a few more minutes. And with good reason too. Without it, I might have missed the massive log that was in my way.

Head down, I clamber over it and just on the other side, as soon as I lift my head and my light, I’m faced with two sets of eyes as wide as my own.

The man squints, raising his hand against the light and I’m knocked back into my senses.

People.

I never expected to meet anyone out here.

Scrambling with my flashlight, it almost slips from my fingers as I flip the switch and the light dies.

“Sorry,” I start. “I didn’t see you there.”

It’s a man and a woman. A couple, it seems, based on the way she quickly grabs on to his arm. There’s hesitancy in her gaze. Suspicion in her narrowed eyes.

They’re wearing packs like I am. The only difference is that theirs seems overburdened, as if they’re carrying their entire lives on their backs. And probably they are.

“You shouldn’t walk around with a light like that.” The man jerks his chin at my flashlight. “May draw the wrong attention.”

I flash him a small smile and nod.

His gaze jerks behind me and I stiffen. Shit. He’rox.

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