Chapter 156: I’m Not Who You Pretend I Am

In a heartbeat, I was awake.

Then I blinked.

My eyes moved across the dim room. Band posters on the wall. Books stacked crooked with sticky notes hanging from the pages. Papers from old assignments spilled across the desk and floor like I’d left in a rush and meant to come back.

It was my room.

Not a version of it. Not close enough to trick me.

My room.

And the worst part was how normal it felt.

I swung my legs off the bed and sat there for a second, breathing hard through my nose. My chest hurt like I’d sprinted upstairs. I ran a hand through my hair. It came back clean. No blood. No dirt. No sweat slicked into knots.

I stood and looked in the mirror.

A tired face stared back. But clean. Young. No cuts worth noticing. No hollow look in the eyes yet. Just some Highschool senior who needed sleep. Boxer shorts. A wrinkled shirt from sleeping in it.

I looked healthy.

I hated that immediately.

Then I smelled it.

Food downstairs.

Sweet soy sauce. Fried garlic. Oil. Teriyaki chicken and noodles from China Wok.

“Looks like Mom ordered Chinese,” I muttered, trying to sound casual.

My own voice sounded wrong in the room. Too careful. Like I was trying not to wake something up.

I headed downstairs fast, skipping the steps that creaked out of habit. My hand brushed the banister. Smooth wood. Familiar.

Then another smell hit me halfway down.

Faint at first.

Wet copper.

Rot.

It slid under the food smell and swallowed it whole.

I stopped moving.

My stomach dropped so hard I thought I’d faint.

The living room came into view.

Bodies.

Everywhere.

The couch was tipped over and pinned beneath two corpses folded in ways joints shouldn’t bend. One man’s jaw hung loose on a strip of skin. A woman’s arm had been torn off and tossed near the TV stand like garbage. Blood covered the carpet so thick it looked painted. Dark. Sticky. Old in some places, fresh in others.

Gunshot holes in walls. Teeth on the floor. Fingernails.

I stared so long my eyes burned.

No.

No.

I knew some of these faces.

Even ruined, I knew them.

The recognition came in flashes. Not names. Feelings. Moments. The sound they made when they died.

I turned left toward the dining table.

A man sat upright in a chair with a knife buried in the side of his neck. His throat had split around it. Blood had dried in rivers down his chest. His eyes tracked me.

Across from him sat a woman with both eyes gouged out. Black holes sunk into her face. One forearm bent backward on the table with bone through skin.

Then it hit me so hard I gagged.

These were people I killed.

Every person I’d stepped over. Every trigger I’d justified. Every body I never looked at twice.

I backed up. My heel caught a loose board and I crashed down hard.

My hands slapped the floor.

They weren’t clean anymore.

They were scarred. Bloody. Nails torn. Knuckles split.

My shirt was soaked red.

“No,” I whispered.

The man at the table smiled around the knife.

“Survival, right?” he gargled. Blood bubbled at his lips. “That what you called it?”

The eyeless woman turned her head toward me.

“You never even learned my name.”

Her voice came from the holes in her face.

Behind me, something dragged across the carpet. I turned.

A body with its stomach cut open crawled from behind the couch, intestines trailing like rope. It propped itself on one elbow and looked at me.

Then the stomach itself moved.

The split flesh puckered and opened wider like lips.

“Was it worth it?” it asked in a wet, cheerful voice. “Did eating one more day fix you?”

I screamed and crab-walked backward into the wall.

More voices started. Everywhere.

From under the bodies.

From mouths full of blood.

From holes in chests.

From a severed head near the stairs.

“You shot me while I ran.”

“You begged me to trust you.”

“You watched.”

“You lied.”

“You liked it.”

“No—”

“You did.”

The man with the knife leaned forward. “You think there’s a road back from this?”

The stomach laughed. Flesh slapping together.

“You think because you feel bad now, it counts?”

The eyeless woman reached for me. “Come sit with us.”

The room started shrinking. Walls pulling inward. Bodies twitching. Fingers scraping carpet.

I covered my ears. It didn’t help.

“You are what happened to us.”

“You carry us.”

“You don’t get to wake up clean.”

I screamed as loud as I could.

My body jerked forward. My eyes flew open. Hands in my hair so tight it hurt. Tears running before I understood where I was.

Dark woods. Cold ground. Bedroll under me. Fire nearly dead.

Not my house.

Not my room.

My chest heaved like I was drowning.

“Hey— hey— what the fuck is going on?!” Naomi’s voice snapped through the dark.

I flinched hard. She was already grabbing for her rifle, turning toward the trees, then toward me.

She dropped it when she realized.

“Jesus Christ.” She moved in fast, kneeling in front of me, grabbing both my arms. “What the fuck’s the matter with you? Why are you screaming?”

I couldn’t answer. My teeth chattered. My eyes kept darting around camp like I expected bodies to be sitting there.

“Infected’ll hear us,” she hissed, shaking me once. “Look at me. Look at me.”

I tried. Her face kept slipping into the man with the knife.

I gagged and looked away.

Across the fire, Lila shifted in her sleeping bag and pushed herself up on one elbow.

Then, she had already been walking towards us.

“Baby…? What’s going on???”

“You wanna get it together and not tell the whole forest we’re here?” Naomi muttered. Then she got a better look at me.

Her tone changed.

My face was wet. Blotchy. Sweat-soaked. Breathing broken.

“…Jesus Christ,” she said quietly. “You dream about the boogie man or something?”

I didn’t think. I didn’t speak.

I barely could.

Lila was suddenly beside us, close enough to touch, her body looming, a face full of concern despite how much we’d argued a few hours ago.

She was there despite it all.

She always was.

I couldn’t help myself then.

I couldn’t help myself slamming myself into her, arms around her so hard she let out a small sound of surprise.

For one awful second I thought she’d shove me off.

She froze instead.

I felt her heartbeat jump against me.

Then slowly, carefully, her arms wrapped around my back.

Naomi stared at us from the firelight, breathing hard, annoyed and concerned in equal measure.

I buried my face into Lila’s shoulder like a child.

My body kept shaking.

She rubbed one hand between my shoulder blades. Once. Twice.

“It’s okay, sweet pea..” she said softly, her breath grazing my ear.

“Everything’s gonna be okay…alright?”

It wasn’t.

I knew it wasn’t.

But in that moment, with the smell of smoke and dirt and her hair in my face, I let myself pretend it was.

—

The camp Adrian, Naomi, and Lila had abandoned in a rush barely looked like a camp anymore.

It looked like something picked clean.

Bill’s people moved through the clearing with the tired focus of survivors who knew better than to waste anything. Packs were dumped and searched. Blankets shaken out. Cans rolled through dirt. Spare rounds counted and pocketed. A rusted pistol with no magazine was tossed aside, then picked back up by someone who figured maybe it could still be useful later.

The fire pit had gone cold.

The bedrolls were trampled into mud.

Even the trees around the clearing looked roughed up, bark chipped from bullets and blades.

Nobody spoke louder than they needed to.

The chaos from earlier had burned itself out. What remained was business.

Carson lay a few feet from the dead fire, knees tucked under him, hands dug so deep into the dirt his nails were packed black. His shoulders shook in uneven bursts. Sometimes from sobbing. Sometimes from rage. Hard to tell anymore.

He barely looked up when Bill stepped near him.

“Why didn’t you do it, Bill…?” Carson whispered. His voice sounded shredded. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

No answer.

Carson lifted his head.

One eye had gone half red already, the white of it webbed with angry veins. The other was getting there. Tears and mucus ran over cracked lips. Sweat made mud on his cheeks.

He looked terrified.

More than that—betrayed.

Bill let out a slow breath through his nose. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something folded tight.

He crouched and opened it carefully against his knee.

A map.

Roads marked in pen. Towns circled. Supply stops crossed out. A route stretching north. All the way to Canada.

Carson blinked hard, trying to focus on it. Then his eyes widened.

“That theirs?” he asked.

Bill nodded once.

“Those fuckers found out the same thing we did,” Bill said. “Canada. Safe haven rumors. Protected zones. Maybe real, maybe bullshit.” He tapped the map. “Either way, they’re heading there.”

Carson’s jaw trembled. “Then go after them.”

Bill looked at him for a moment. Really looked at him.

Then he lowered himself until he was face to face with the younger man.

“I promise you,” Bill said quietly, voice flat and certain, “for your sake, I won’t let them know peace. None of them, you hear me?”

Carson swallowed hard.

Bill’s expression darkened further.

“Especially that psycho blonde bitch that infected you with that disease.”

Something in Carson loosened.

His mouth twitched, then lifted into a real smile. Small. Weak. But real.

It was gratitude.

Pure and ugly and human.

“Yeah,” Carson whispered. “Yeah…”

Bill reached forward and pulled him into an embrace.

At first Carson went stiff from surprise. Then his arms slowly rose and wrapped around Bill’s back.

For a moment, the clearing disappeared.

No scavenging. No crying. No men searching bags in the background. No infected somewhere out in the trees.

Just a dying man being held like he still mattered.

Carson shut his eyes. His breathing steadied.

“Thank you,” he said into Bill’s shoulder.

Bill’s hand patted once between his shoulder blades.

Then he drove the knife upward into Carson’s stomach.

The sound was soft. Wet cloth tearing.

Carson jerked once.

Bill held him there, one hand over the back of his neck so he couldn’t fall away.

Carson’s mouth opened, but no scream came. Only blood. A dark ribbon spilling over Bill’s coat.

His eyes fluttered wide in shock, then slowly settled on Bill’s shoulder again.

Bill eased the blade free and slid it in once more, lower this time. Clean. Practical.

Carson sagged.

There was barely any fight left in him.

Just that same faint smile, still hanging on his face like he couldn’t quite let go of the comfort first.

Blood pooled from his lips.

His fingers twitched once against Bill’s jacket.

Then relaxed.

His eyes closed.

Bill held him another second before letting the body slump sideways into the dirt.

No one in the camp said a word.

Some looked away. Others didn’t react at all.

Bill stood, wiped the knife on Carson’s shirt, then folded Adrian’s map and tucked it back into his pocket.

He looked north through the trees.

“Pack up,” he said.

The men froze for half a beat, then moved faster than before.

Bill glanced down one last time at Carson’s body.

“You were dead already,” he muttered.

Then he started walking.

Behind him, the cold camp came alive again with footsteps, gear, and the sound of people preparing to hunt.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep