Page 86 of Uncontrolled

“Allie?” I jam my palm against hardwoods sticky with my blood. Quiet confusion wrinkles her forehead as she raises her palm to her chest. “Allie?”

Eyes unfocused, she twitches forward a half step. A droplet of blood slides from her left nostril as she coughs, the noise wet and hesitant.

“Oh no,” she says. Even before it’s out, she crumples.

Crawling across the few feet that separate us saps my strength. I can’t draw more than agonized pants of air. I swear she sees me, but when I move to help her, she doesn’t blink. “Wake up, Allie.”

She has to live. If she dies, and it plays out like last time, it’ll take far more than three hours before she regains consciousness. There’ll be nothing she can do for me.

I promised I’d come back to her. I cannot break my promise. The last thing I do on this Earth can’t be lying to Allie. Not after everything.

Reaching, I run the fingers of my good hand through hers. I squeeze her hand three times. “I love you. Don’t give up,” I murmur. “It doesn’t end like this.”

On the floor beside me, Allie is still and quiet. She doesn’t squeeze back.

Allie

The softest touch tickles across my lip. I’m distantly aware of my open mouth, a fragile buzzing noise, the taste of blood. My throat burns, parched. I flutter my lashes and my dried-out eyes instantly flood with tears that track from the corners, sliding past my temples and into my hair.

I’m trying to remember where I am, what happened, how scared I should be, except all I want to do is go back to sleep. The crawling sensation drifts across my lip, rings my nostril. A second one, no heavier than a raindrop, lands on my cheek. The buzzing stops.

Flies. I’m covered in flies.

Gasping, I rocket upward into a sitting position. The cell phone resting on my chest clatters to the floor. I snatch at it. It’s mine. When I touch the screen, the time blazes green. Almost nine.

There’s a body on the floor to my left. She’s my age, her dark hair splayed around her. The flies gave up on me and are crawling into the open cavities of her mouth and nose and ears. A shiver of revulsion runs through me.

My head throbs. Nine p.m. I’m missing time. Almost seven hours’ worth. My palm rises to my chest. There’s a hole in my shirt.

Oh my God, I think. I’m missing time because I was dead. I’m missing time because…

Christopher.

Panicked, I whip to the right while the memories flood me. There’s enough ambient light from the last dregs of sunset that I can see him on the floor a couple feet from me. He’s on his back, one hand reaching for me.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no, no.” I’m crawling toward him as I do the math in my head. Seven hours have passed. Three hours is the maximum cut off to resurrect someone and I don’t even have the supplies.

I start to say his name but it’s a gravelly croak so I give up on talking. It’s obvious by now he won’t answer. The second I touch him, the slight chill to his skin tells me all I need to know. Seven hours. He’s gone.

My head hangs, my throat clogged with tears. All I had to do was stay alive. He took the pain meant for me. All I had to do was stay alive long enough to save us both and I couldn’t even do that right.

Thoughts tumble through my addled head. Did I get to say goodbye to him? I search for a memory and find nothing but darkness.

I promise I’ll always come back to you, he said.

Sadness wells inside me. Then anger.

“Liar!” I scream at his corpse. It echoes through the empty house, leaves me feeling more alone.

“No,” I say, the word going high pitched as it morphs into a plea. I smack my hand lightly against his cheek. “Come back! You have to come back!”

His head lolls to the side. The first sob crushes through me as I throw myself over him. A thought pokes at my brain. The gasping sobs taper as I sit up to stare at him. I move his hand, the one stretched toward where I lay dead. In disbelief, I take his chin in my fingers.

His head wiggles easily.

He’s not stiff.

His skin would have chilled relatively quickly, even if it took longer for his core temperature to drop. If he’s been dead seven hours, though, rigor mortis should have been well set in by now. I shift onto my knees to get a better look at him.

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