If You Close Your Eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all

Beca stared in disbelief at the snarling face before her. Gone was the bright sunny smile-though, truth be told, the smile had been gone for days-only to be replaced with gnashing teeth and frothy pink spit that dribbled and sprayed through cracked and bruised looking lips. The wide grey-green eyes were now dulled and cloudy and no longer looked at Beca with any recognition. And the long, blond hair was falling out of its ponytail, the hair matted and tangled and flying around with the snarling and lunging that ...thing was doing.

Beca Mitchell had known Aubrey Posen for the last four years. They had gone to school together. They had lived down the street from each other. They had never been close, never had more interaction other than a nod to each other in the halls of their high school or a polite wave at the mall. But when the world, and life as it had been known, all went to hell, Beca and Aubrey had found each other one cold night ten days ago and had stuck together, hiding and running and scrounging for food in abandoned buildings and homes. It wasn't ideal, by any means. Beca and Aubrey learned quickly that they knew nothing about living without electricity, or running water, or how to find food other than snickers bars and stale Cheezitz from broken vending machines. But they had each other to share in their misery, and in this frightening new world, that had become a blessing.

Beca's life before had been filled with school, friends, shopping, gossiping, and trying to maintain her 3.7 GPA so that she could get into college the next year. And now...now all of that seemed so trivial and far away. What was the importance of a calculus midterm when her calculus teacher had tried to sink his broken and bloody teeth into her back while trying to break into the cola vending machine in the front hall of her high school? What was so scandalous about the Valedictorian doing the nasty with the PhysEd coach, after seeing her being torn apart by a bloody, ghoulish hoard of Kindergartners that had banded together into a pack of thirty. What was the point in researching colleges when she was too busy wondering where her next bit of food was going to come from, or trying to stay hidden from the monsters that wore the torn and rotting faces of neighbors and classmates and friends...and family. What was the point in planning for the future…when every day was now spent just trying to survive?

But having Aubrey with her made it slightly more bearable. It was sort of nice to have someone to complain with. It was comforting to have someone who understood the sudden fits of crying and panic and nightmares. It's strange, how close you feel to someone after a few days running for your life and nights of hiding in fear in the attics of abandoned houses, Beca had mused to herself at one point.

She often wondered just how long she and Aubrey could continue on in such a way. Days? Weeks? Hours? Would they slowly starve to death or would they be torn apart and devoured by one of those things? For every corpse they found, rotting in some squirreled away hiding place, and every puddle of entrails and half eaten pieces of what used to be a person that they had to step over...Beca couldn't decide which way to die was worse.