Cure by NobleLycanthrope

The bite is festering, burning to the touch and rimmed with pus. My whole arm is swollen and red, so thick that it's like having a tree branch for a limb. I can feel the disease creeping through my veins like poison, setting my nerve endings on fire, making the fingers on my other hand twitch. 

I don't have long now, maybe a day or two before the disease reaches my brain. And then...

Well, I guess I won't be my own problem anymore.

"Tim. Timothy, stay with me buddy." Dad shakes me, hard, sending a cascade of trembles down the whole length of my body. I must have stopped walking. It takes me a moment, but I'm able to focus my eyes back onto his face, and my mind snaps back into clarity.

I fight to keep it.

He tries to swallow down his tears, but one still manages to trail down his cheek. "We're almost there."

I nod, because my throat is thick and it's too hard to speak.

Almost there. Almost there. Just keep lifting your feet. Moving them forward. I won't shuffle like one of them.

Not until I am one.

A hot wave of determination clears away my weariness, and I march with a renewed sense of energy. I won't stop. Maybe there's hope. Maybe I can fight it off. Be the first one to survive a bite. Dad walks behind me, so that he can watch me constantly without having to look over his shoulder.

I won't let him down. He fought so hard to protect me, I can't give in now. I won't.

This road... it's familiar. I turn my head and search for landmarks, but nothing on the highway stands out. Pine trees, crashed cars, and silence. There's been signs we've been approaching the coast for many days now; the humid smell of saltwater on the wind, sand mixed with the soil, a stray seagull...

I finally figure it out. Our summer home.

He's taking me to our summer home, the happiest place of my life. My eyes fill and I stumble over a blurred bit of debris in my path. Nothing will give me peace as much as seeing the sun set over the ocean one last time.

I swipe my eyes with my good arm and push for a faster pace. Maybe it will make the infection spread faster too, but I'm willing to make that choice.

"That's our exit," Dad says. "We're only a couple hours away now. Tim, on your left!" His sudden shift of tone makes me freeze in my tracks.

A figure stands in the medium's pine trees, slumped crookedly. It was once a man, a grocery store clerk if judging by the clothes. But it doesn't watch us like a grocery store clerk, or a man; in fact, it doesn't even watch us like an animal. There's no understanding in its eyes, not even the light of hunger or insanity. Alive in body, but entirely brain-dead. Reactionary, but only just.

My heart freaks out just as much as the first time I saw one. It doesn't matter that I'm already infected and technically have nothing more to fear. I've seen hundreds and still have the same visceral fear.

"Keep. Walking." Dad growls.

I pick up my feet and start to move, eyes locked on the zombie.

Sometimes they won't give chase. There's no logic there to tell me why this is so, only that that's how things are. Unpredictable, but it's not like today's humans are any different.

It makes a low squeal, and my heart jumps, making my infected arm pulse with pain. They make sounds a lot, but none of them mean anything. It's just air, moving over constricted vocal chords as they breathe. Then, it starts to shuffle, feet dragging through the pine straw.

The movement prompts me to panic bolt for the nearest crashed vehicle, a jack-knifed semi-truck that had somehow managed to stay upright. Putting a barrier between myself and a pursuer has proved itself a tried and true tactic. There's always the hope with a zombie that it will somehow get stuck on obstacles in its path and I'll be able to escape long before it gets unstuck. I don't even glance back until I hear Dad's yell of rage.

He's holding his ground against the zombie's charge, baseball bat at the ready.

"Dad no!" The horrified shout tears my throat. You don't have to protect me anymore! Save yourself!

But my worry is unfounded. Dad knows exactly what he's doing.

He waits until the last moment, when he crouches and swings. The muscles in his arms and back are trained for this, calling back all the experience of his days of a major-league hitter. The zombie's legs are swept to the side from the blow, the sound of the impact punctuated by a loud snap. It hits the ground and scrabbles on the asphalt, but Dad easily steps back out of its reach, confident that it will not be regaining its footing to chase us another day. After a moment, it stops trying to get at him and goes into a sluggish, energy-preserving mode, doing nothing besides holding its head up and staring blankly.

In the end, it'll probably starve until non-functioning, but it's been apparent from day one that zombies can't feel any sort of pain or misery, so that's no concern to us. It's better not to take extra risks; disabling or trapping them and letting nature take its course is usually the safest route for us humans.

Dad walks around it proudly, bat resting on his shoulder like he just got back from giving his team the fourth home-run of the day. "Let's go."

I nod and manage a smile, feeling a warm pride for him despite the throbbing in my veins. The encounter has worn me out a bit, but I pick up the same quick pace as before. There's always something motivating about thinking about our vacation home, pushing me to finish my homework or chores quickly; maybe this time it will motivate me to beat this infection.

We reach the town of Lycanville in about an hour, heads on a swivel. Towns are always the most dangerous locations, with the highest population of zombies and traps left by other people. Dad and I survived by living out in the woods for as long and as often as possible, letting the worst of the worst pick each other off with a misguided sense of 'survive at any cost' that only ever leads to evil.

Living like that takes away any point of living at all.

But the streets of Lycanville are strangely quiet, and clean. There's no sign of zombies, or people, or cars, as a matter of fact. It's like someone has come and hauled them all away and cleaned up all the trash.

It makes Dad uneasy. Usually we'd stick to the middle of the streets, as far from hiding places for zombies and traps as we can, but here he makes us stick close to the buildings, especially the ones with any sort of overhang. His eyes are always flicking up to the town square's clock tower.

"I feel like we're being watched," he mutters, noticing my questioning look. "That's a prime spot for a sniper."

I nod in understanding.

It's so quiet, but I can hear the echoes of traffic and shop music in my memory. On that corner was an ice-cream shop. They once had the best banana pudding flavor. Right beside it was a little boutique that sold hand-colored bow-ties. Dad used to buy exactly one every year, wear it for a couple weeks, then lose it in the packing when it was time to go back for baseball season.

I'm glad to see that neither little store is very busted up.

"Someone's been doing a lot of cleaning up," Dad whispers. I glance to see what he's looking at and notice an empty grass lot, covered in long dirt mounds. My heart sinks a little. Dad sees my face an quickly tries to remedy things. "At least they've been laid to rest and given graves. Someone even planted flowers. That's respectful."

I nod and turn to give one last look, and to my surprise, a pair of deer walk out of the open door of the building beside the lot. They lower their heads to graze on the thick grass as though they don't even notice us.

"Wow," Dad says, loud enough that I'm sure they can hear.

One lifts its head and shakes its ears at us before returning to its grass. They aren't afraid.

I've always been glad that the infection isn't zoonotic, so that no other animal besides humans can catch it, but any animal could still be attacked by zombies. These are acting like they haven't seen any aggressive people or zombies in a long time. Perhaps they've learned the difference.

Dad touches my shoulder and I keep walking.

The deer suddenly blast past us, snorting. I turn back to the lot in a panic, expecting a zombie, or worse, a mob of them, but instead I only catch a silver flash of something galloping past on the adjacent street. A big dog?

"Go, go!" Dad says quietly but urgently, and I immediately pick up a quick jog. Every step sends a jolt of pain shooting down my arm, but I'd rather push through the pain than sit around and put my dad at risk. "There, let's get off the street!"

A power pole has fallen onto one of the buildings, providing a possible yet slippery ramp onto the roofs. I crawl up the metal trunk, having a harder time as I get higher, but at least we can be sure that no zombie would have the coordination to make it up after us. I'm only able to use my good arm to help, but I'm emboldened by the fact that the pole is wedged into the corner of the building firmly, so there's no chance that it will turn and throw us off, and I manage to scramble onto the roof within a few more seconds.

Dad hauls himself after me, and we both roll flat onto roof and peer down into the street. A few minutes pass, with no sign of anything or anyone below. Still, the feeling of being watched lingers.

My bad arm throbs as the adrenaline fades, and I close my eyes against the pain. Sitting still is making my body grow stiff and sore. A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I think I might throw-up.

"Tim?" Dad asks softly.

I open my eyes and manage a weak, "I'm okay."

He nods, but I can tell from his eyes that he doesn't really believe me. "I think we can climb down, but let's just take it easy the rest of the way, okay?"

I lift a shaky thumbs-up with my good arm.

Getting down is more of a struggle than climbing up was, and Dad has to grab and steady me several times. Once I'm back on the road, I want to do nothing more than lay down on the hot pavement and sleep, but I know that that's a bad thing, so I force myself to start walking immediately.

Dad guides me down the streets, telling me where to turn and what streets to look out for. I'm amazed he remembers the way so exactly; though I suppose he's driven here every year for at least fifteen years. If only the apocalypse could have waited a couple more years, I could have been the one to drive us. Now I'll probably never get the chance.

I can't let myself think that way. Instead, I try to turn my focus to the distant sound of the ocean. The roar of the waves are just audible now, promising a high surf and windy beach. A good kite-flying day.

Then the house is in view.

"There it is!" Dad says. It's the same voice he used year after year, just as excited as always for his 'beach time.' It strikes me as nostalgic and bittersweet, but I make sure he can see me smile. He pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket, sending them jingling. Honestly, I'm surprised to see he still has them all... car and house keys, even the one for our shed. I had no idea that he'd been carrying them this whole time. I guess it never even crossed his mind to ditch them. I'm glad though, because it means we won't have to break into our old summer home.

There's a few shingles missing and some other very minor weather damage, but other than that the house looks untouched. It's pretty small and humble in appearance, so I guess no one thought there would be anything of value inside.

...Then again, most of the town looked comparatively untouched as well.

"Looks secure, but I want you to wait on the front back porch just in case," Dad says, falling back into his more serious persona.

I make my way around the side of the house without protesting. Our outdoor furniture is thrown all around, but unbroken. I pick the cleanest looking chair to flip over and take a seat. I can see a tiny blue sliver of the ocean sparkling through the buildings from here.

Three seagulls spot me and swing down to stand on the porch railing. I'm surprised by their boldness, as they cock their heads expectantly. I'm used to gulls coming close, but usually they don't stay in one place for long when humans are around. This close, I'm able to see the swooping dark feathers that outline their eyes, perfectly pointed like a girl's eyeliner. "Your makeup is on point today," I manage to rasp jokingly, remembering hearing similar comments every day back in the halls of school.

Those were the days, when the most we had to worry about was whether a compliment was backhanded or not. Nice shirt. Not! How stupid it was, looking back.

The gulls finally decide that I have no food for them and take off, cawing like they're irritated at me. Dad opens the door behind me. "All clear. You, uh, want to come in?"

I shake my head. "I want to go to the beach."

"We can do that."

It feels like its so much effort to lift myself out of the chair, so hard to move, like every part of me down to my very thoughts is growing heavier by the moment. But I won't stop. There will be plenty of time to rest when I'm dead.

I remind myself every step of the way that it isn't far until I'm finally there.

The wind rattles the sea oats; the reeds make a perfect cover, and the noise could easily mask the sounds a zombie makes. I glance from side to side as we walk across the boardwalk, expecting one to reach through the railing for us at any moment. One never comes, and I begin to wonder...

Are they afraid of the ocean? I don't think they're capable of fear, so rather, repulsed? Or does their lack of sense result in most of them being swept out to sea and drowned?

Whatever the reason, I'm beginning to feel more relaxed than I have in a year. It's not safe, and I shouldn't allow it, but I'm tired.

I kick off my boots and walk barefooted out onto the sand, and I'm quickly struck by the fact that mine are the only human footprints on the beach. Mostly there are dog tracks. Massive dog tracks, as wide as my own hands, with massive claw marks that dug deep into the sand as they ran.

I kneel on one knee and put my hand beside one of the prints. "Dad?"

"I don't know. That's... not normal."

We move closer to the shore line, and I catch sight of one of the prints being washed out by the waves. It seems we just missed one of the giant animals. Dad watches my back, and lets me stand in the ocean for a long, long time. The spray bounces up and stings my arm like being stabbed by needles, but I let it.

Pain means that I'm still me.

...

I wake up before the sun rises, freezing and burning, heart pounding sluggishly but so, so hard. Chills race over my skin and sweat pours down my face. I feel like I'm being run down by something unstoppable, a train derailed and bearing down on me. My thoughts are harder than ever to grasp, and it occurs to me that I do not have much time left.

Then I hear it.

A low wail, starting deep and growing into a ethereal howl that reaches for the heavens. A distant voice answers after the first falls silent, then a chorus picks up the tune, harmonizing with tones that synchronize with the vibrations in my gut. The song fades.

It was beautiful, for a hallucination.

My head pounds a little more painfully every second. It's so alarming. I'm slipping. I don't want Dad to find me once I turn, I don't want to hurt him. So I make the hard decision. I leave, stumbling my way outside as quietly as I can. It's a relief to close the back door behind me. The cool air feels nice on my skin, and I stagger towards the beach. The sand will be nice to lie on.

The relief doesn't last.

I'm not alone.

There's a low snarl from one of the neighboring houses, and a zombie climbs out from under the porch. Another joins it from out of a decorative bush.

"No!" I whisper. I try to run, slamming off the sides of houses, spinning, spinning, the boardwalk under my feet, the sand hits me and I roll. The tide washes across my body, the zombies lurch, throwing sand into my face, the grit crunches between my teeth.

Something comes streaming out of the sea oats, silver and snarling and fast. Teeth, white and piercing, flash in the dark. The zombies fly through the air from the impact.

The salt is burning my arm, burning my eyes. I can't see, I'm being dragged further out. I spit and sputter, but before my head goes under, something grabs me by the shoulder and I am yanked from the ocean's greedy pull.

There's hot breath in my face. Golden eyes loom over me, topped by sharp ears and with even sharper fangs below.

It's a wolf.

I'm compelled to reach up and touch the oily fur, overcome by the power in its presence. The plumed tail waves, and like any old friendly dog, it turns its face and swipes a long tongue over the wound on my arm.

The world fades out, those vivid golden eyes the last thing to go.

...

"Tim! Timothy, oh my gosh!" Dad is shaking the crap out of me.

My eyes pop open, and I sit up. Sand falls from my hair and clothes, and I instinctively reach up to swipe it from my face. Wait! My fingers—they work like they should. My whole arm is a normal size!

The bite has scabbed over and dried, and faded to a less angry mottle of colors, white and pink and a bit of purple bruising.

Most importantly, I'm not brain-dead.

Tears fill my eyes. "Dad," I croak, throwing my arms around him.

He's weeping too. "It was the sea! The sea has cured my son!" He pushes me out to hold at arms length, laughing and crying at the same time. We're both such a mess. "Maybe it was the salt!"

Or it was the wolf. I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a pathetic, "Maybe."

"Can you stand?"

I push myself to my feet, relishing in how easily the movement comes and how loose my muscles are in their response. My mind is as sharp as the edge of a blade, and my senses are strong, especially my nose. I can smell a gull flying overhead before I ever see it. It's easy to get lost in thought, concentrating on the messages the wind carries for me.

"Tim?" Dad asks. He's smiling, but its still a tiny bit worried.

I shove his shoulder and take off for the ocean, laughing.

We must spend at least an hour out there, splashing and playing like a couple of kids at a water park before I get hungry.

While the infection had been raging, I could barely eat. Now, my appetite has returned with a vengeance. I'm hungry enough to eat a whole horse by myself. Raw. Actually, anything with meat sounds pretty darn appetizing.

"Do we have any more packets of the Hamburger Mac?" I ask.

Dad's eyebrows shoot up. "I brought a whole bundle with us in the backpack. I thought you were sick of them, though?"

"Eh, I could go for one. Or three."

"Alright then. Let's go get dried off and make some lunch," Dad says.

There's a bounce in my step as I follow him back to the house.

I almost start drooling at the smell when we finally get the food to start cooking. It's so overwhelming, that I actually have to leave the house to keep from going crazy. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The rails are lined with seagulls. They squeak and call expectantly to me, flipping their heads back, pecking and fighting one another, and just generally making a chaotic scene.

"That food's mine! Get out of here, get!" I race at them an flap my arms, and the gulls lift off, screaming indignantly at me from the air. "What idiot taught you that people will give you food, anyway?"

"That would be me."

I jump and whirl at the voice. I hadn't heard anyone approaching.

A massive gray wolf sits at the bottom of the steps. Its muzzle cracks into a massive yawn. "Seagulls make for fun, if not needy pets. A girl can't be picky, when dogs are scared by you."

Maybe I'm not completely better after all. I rub my eyes, and when I lower my hands, the beast is gone, like a vapor evaporated away by the sun.

Dad opens the door behind me. "Food's ready."

"Coming," I mutter. I should probably tell him about these hallucinations, but I won't yet. Maybe they'll go away on their own, and then I'll have needlessly worried him.

I practically inhale my first bowl of the Hamburger Mac over the stove, along with my second. I manage to slow down enough to make it to the table with my third, but it doesn't take long for me to stand back up for the fourth.

"Whoa! Take it easy there, you don't want to throw up," Dad warns me.

He's right. "I'll eat this one slowly," I promise. "I'll take it outside and... bird-watch." Aka, fight the seagulls over it.

Dad snorts. "Whatever. Just keep an eye out for any shambling trouble. Or people." His face darkens. "Or mutated dogs."

"I will, I will!" I say, backing out the door. I barely get it closed before the other voice pipes up.

"That for me? You shouldn't have!"

"Gah!" I whirl around. The wolf is right behind me, tail patting the deck.

"No really, I shouldn't. I just had a big ole venison steak yesterday... well, if you insist!" It leaps up, knocking the bowl from my hands and well, wolfing down the contents.

I blink. "You're real."

The wolf lets out an unladylike burp, then sits back heavily on the deck. "So are you. Imagine that. Look, we're getting distracted here, and I really need to teach you how to run quads before the horde you guys attracted arrives. The pack will be annoyed if you don't help clean up your mess."

"I—the pack? What is going on here?"

The wolf shuts me up with an intense golden stare. "Congratulations. You're a werewolf, Harry." It yawn again, breaking off eye contact before languidly scratching an ear. "Or whatever your name is."

"Tim," I choke out.

"No time, your dad is coming," the wolf says, jumping up and baring its teeth. "Get rid of him and follow me." It leaps over the railing and dodges out of sight.

The back door opens. "Feeling better now, Tim?"

I turn back to Dad. "Er, yeah, just dropped my bowl." I use that as an excuse to hide and rearrange my shocked expression as I pick it up.

"Listen... I just wanted to tell you, I am so glad your alive. So glad," he looks like he's back on the verge of crying again, but my thoughts are on the wolf and so this is just coming off as awkward for me. "I thought... I mean, I really thought..."

"Yeah, me too," I say, trying to hurry this along. "But I'm okay now, so..."

Dad nods. "Yeah. Yeah, well, we just need to be careful." His face hardens. "Listen, I'm really concerned about those paw prints. I'm not sure I've ever seen feral dogs that big before. I don't want you wandering off alone, especially in the middle of the night."

"Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm." I nod emphatically, intending to disobey literally as soon as I can.

He sits a hand on my shoulder, eyes softening. "I'll always try to protect you, son."

A guilty lump forms in my throat. "I know, Dad. But you don't have to, anymore."

He clears his throat. "Well, I think I want another bowl full. Want me to take yours?"

"Sure, Dad. Thanks," I say with a smile. As soon as the door closes behind him, I take off like a shot.

I make it to the street, where the wolf decides to pounce and knock me over. "Took you long enough," it growls in my face. It bristles and pulls its lips back into an intimidating smile. "Now get up and run. If I catch you, I bite you."

My heart pounds. This is real, and something tells me it isn't bluffing. I'm beginning to regret my choice to leave Dad now. As soon as its weight leaves my chest, I'm on my feet and bolting down the road. The wolf's paws pound on the concrete behind me. It's on my heels in an instant, snapping at the back of my legs with viscous intent.

I'm not nearly fast enough. I stumble and fall towards the tarmac, hands out, fully expecting to receive a bad case of road-rash on my face.

What happens instead is a little too fast for me to fully comprehend. My bones stretch and compress, pulling and snapping into place. My skin erupts into itchy brush, seemingly consuming my clothes entirely to be replaced with long, oily fur. And I'm no longer running, but galloping, hands pulling me forward, feet pushing me with powerful haunch muscles.

I panic, and flip head over heels off the road. My snout hits the dirt painfully, making my eyes water.

The wolf has skidded to a stop, laughing at me.

I glare back, wrinkling my nose. Then I swipe my tongue over my teeth, and my eyes widen. They're huge. I'm overwhelmed by the impulse to chew something up with them. I stand up and shake off. My skin is loose, like a dogs, rotating around my body from the force of my shake.

Last night, I was dying.

Today, I'm a wolf.

Slowly, a sense of euphoria takes over, drowning out any sort of confusion until I'm left with nothing but a sort of glow-y, float-y sort of feeling. The sun on my fur and the sound of my fur and the smell of the nearby beach—

It's amazing.

The other wolf steps forward, finally done laughing at me. "I, Selena, welcome you to the pack, Tim." She tips her nose back and howls, a light airy sound that fills my soul with a strong sense of community and pride. My voice joins, and I can hear others take up the call all around the town, one by one.

"Tim! Tim!" A distant panicked voice yells. Then: "No, get away from me!"

The howl dies short in my throat. Dad.

Guttural shrieks follow his voice with the wind, which also carries a disgusting sickly stench. Zombies. A lot of them. Dad is in danger.

I'm lit up by rage, fire pouring down my veins like liquid sun. This must be the horde Selena was talking about. Before I even have a chance to think about what I'm doing, I'm bolting towards the sounds.

It's the first time I've ever run towards zombies instead of away.

It's like I'm invincible.

Selena is right beside me, her shoulder brushing mine as we race towards my summer home. Others join us, pouring out of the streets and leaping out of the bushes, but they let me lead the way, lending their strength and pushing me to move even faster.

Dad is pinned against the house, being swarmed from every side. Every swing of his bat puts a zombie out of commission, but its not enough. Bites line his arms, blood dripping from the open wounds to ground.

The smell of it makes me furious.

We hit the horde like an unstoppable flood, bowling over zombies and knocking them flat under the weight of our bodies. I spin and knock the legs out from under one before leaping to its throat and clamping down with my jaws. I don't even break the skin, just lift and shake until I feel the bones snap between my teeth.

Then I'm on to the next one.

I grab it by a leg and yank it to the ground, where my Dad finishes it off with a powerful blow. I turn for another, but find they're already dealt with for the most part. The pack have made quick work of the horde.

Dad slides to the ground.

"Dad!" I leap to his side, trying to look him in the eye. It seems that its hard for him to lift his head.

"Tim?" He asks, eyes wide. "Is that really you?"

I dip my head. "Don't worry, Dad! We're going to take care of you." I step back and stand tall. "You don't have to protect me anymore. I can protect you now."