Kira trudged along the highway, resisting the urges to scream. Abandoned cars laced either side of her and heat blazed on her back as the sun slowly set over the horizon. She had hit her head hard climbing through a pile up of cars and now her headache was only increased by the heat and reeking in the air. 

The smell of gasoline was thick in the air, almost covering the smell of rot, smoke and death. 

A corpse stared back at her; shallow face seemingly perfectly preserved resting calmly. 

The young woman looked away and kicked at a piece of metal in her way. 

Her clothes were torn, covered in blood and meant for motion. A gun was strapped to her thigh, a pistol. The hot summer days had been pressing in hard and clean water was getting scarce.  

She was the only one left, out of thousands of people she was the only one left in her small town of Maple Meadows, in West Virginia. 

But all of this was trivial compared to the pain in her mouth. 

Of course. Of course, with all her luck, she got braces three months before the apocalypse.  

The sun beating on her back, heat making the newly formed scabs itch across her body, screaming at her, telling her that She should stop trying to survive the apocalypse and scratch them, so they bleed again. The itching screamed almost as loud as the wires stabbing into the soft skin on the insides of her cheeks. 

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and ripped her backpack off. Sweat beaded on her brow and in a futile attempt she tried to wipe it away. Her hand came back with blood. Bright crimson, wet, hot. She had hurt herself climbing through that pile up of cars. 

 She was out of bandages. Crud. 

Crud, crud, crud. 

Stop. Focus on the problem at hand. Her head didn’t hurt as much as it could, she was fine. 

She tore through her supplies. A change of clothes, mouthwash, toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, toothpicks, her extra rifle rounds, her pocketknife, Slim Jim’s, protein bars, canteen, painkillers, bacitracin, soap, needle, thread, and finally wax. 

She wiped blood from her face as She took the wax strips from the tiny container and broke off two pieces. She tasted blood as she shoved them behind the wires, protecting the soft skin of her mouth. 

The world had fallen apart at the seams. And to her knowledge Kira was the only one left, she was the only one she could trust, there wasn’t any room for anyone else. And in all of this blood and death and ash and ruin, she got stuck with braces during the apocalypse. 

In addition to shivering in her camp at night, too afraid to move, she was stuck with metal brackets in her mouth. In addition to living alone she had to brush her teeth three times a day. 

All she wanted to do was yank them out of her mouth and then survive the end of the world in style, with straight, braces free teeth. 

She turned around and forced herself not to scream in surprise. 

An infected was stalking around thirty feet away. The first rule of the apocalypse, where there was one there were many.  

Humanoid lumbering creatures that hunted people and infected them.  

The infected started turning gray, and then their skin started flaking off and scabbing, and finally their hair fell out. They were turned into mindless hordes who only wanted to spread the infection. They spread it by contacting your blood, most often they would bite. But they weren’t zombies. Zombies were slow, stupid, uncoordinated. These were smart, fast, strong, and they worked in clever droves. 

It stuck its head into one of the windows of a broken car and Kira took a step back, unslinging her rifle from her back. She brought it up to her shoulder and squinted through the scope, silently wishing she had a muffler. 

If she shot it dozens more would appear, hearing the gunshot. Could she risk it? She didn’t get a chance to decide. 

The infected glanced up with cold dead eyes and an eerie smile crossed its face. It grinned at her with rotting teeth. 

Kira forced back a laugh, it had braces. Bright neon pink. The laughter was manic, panicked, and barely held back. It was just something you didn’t see. Rotting skin, dead eyes, broken flesh, and bright neon braces barely holding together black teeth. 

Kira backed up holding her gun straight.  

The zombie let out a cry and launched forward.  

A shot rang out and Kira couldn’t stop the cry of alarm ripping through her. She hadn’t fired. 

The infected hit the ground and Kira dove under a car, panic racing through her. 

“Hello?” 

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t move. Barely breathing she shuffled around aiming her rifle at the pair of boots that appeared in her line of sight. 

“Are you okay?” 

Blood dripped into her eye, and she blinked, reaching up to wipe her forehead with a filthy hand. 

“I’m not going to hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t have shot the walker.” 

Can’t trust anyone. That was the problem. In a broken world, where you don’t know what the heck is going on you can’t trust anything. 

It could be aliens, or zombies, or the Nazis. You can’t trust anyone. The person could just want her to come out so he could eat her brains or something. 

Kira fingered the trigger, debating whether or not to shoot. Shoot him, or it, in the leg and bolt, leaving him to die by the hands of infected. 

But what if it was a human? What if it was someone she knew, or someone that could tell her where her family was? Crud, what if it were an orthodontist? 

Finally, no longer able to wait, Kira shuffled from out of under the car and crouched there, using the burning metal as cover as she peaked at the person who had shot the walker as he called it. She choked out a sentence hating her voice for shaking, “I’m coming out. Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” 

He didn’t respond, just stood still as she pulled out of the shadows and into view. He was holding a gun. 

“Drop the gun.” Dust and grime swirled in the air around them. The sudden gust of wind seemed to hide the shaking in her voice, but she felt the tremors shake her body. 

“I’m not going to do that.” He growled the words out, slowly calmly. 

“I’ll shoot.” Would she? Would she be able to end a life? Her head spun. 

The boy still didn’t move, “I’m not putting down my gun. Are you okay, I saw blood?” 

“Put the blasted gun down or blood will be the only thing you can see!” The threat fell from her mouth in a weak tremble.

He seemed to sense it. “I’m going to turn around.” 

“Don’t move!” Her voice cracked. 

He stopped halfway. “What’s your name?” 

“Get on the ground!”  

“I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“Shut up and get on the ground!” Kira raised her gun higher and yelled hoarsely, “Just shut up! I’m going to come closer. Don’t move or speak. I will shoot.” 

He spoke like he was trying to get a child to put a shard of glass down, calmly. “Okay.”  

Kira took a couple steps forward. “Get down on your knees and drop the gun.” The words were strained, like she was being strangled. She was terrified. 

His voice shifted from the calm tone. “I already told you I’m not putting down the gun.” He growled the words even as he lowered himself to a knee. 

Kira placed the tip of the rifle against his head. “Put it down.” 

He lowered it down slightly.  

Kira relaxed and let out a breath. That was a mistake. 

Immediately the man launched up, tackling her and trying desperately to wrestle the gun from her hands.  

Kira gasped as he pressed down on the gun, holding her down even as she desperately tried to squirm away. He slammed her down, and her head cracked against the asphalt. 

Kira’s vision went black, and the gun was yanked from her grip. She blinked her eyes open to stare into dark eyes the same color of maple syrup.  

The boy pressed the cold barrel of a pistol to her gut. 

Kira froze. She looked up and met the boy’s maple syrup brown eyes, before letting her arms drop. 

Her head screamed at her, and she felt the bruises form around her shoulders.  

She studied the boy’s face. He was human. And a teenage boy. He looked to be around Kira’s age, maybe 17 or 18. His face was diamond shaped, a sharply defined jaw, large golden brown doe eyes, a soft smile of concern playing at his lips. His brown curly hair was thick and full, and she found herself wanting to reach out and run her hand through it or wipe the dirt from his cheek with her thumb. 

Despite the pain she was in and the gun against her abdomen, she couldn’t help but wonder at the strangely perfect boy. He had the kind of looks that would make the girls at her school mentally ill. The football player who was also good at chemistry and told the other football players to leave the female bookworm alone, and everyone knew and loved.  

Maybe it was the headache or the sheer ridiculousness of her situation, but a giggle escaped her lips. 

The boy raised an eyebrow, “Oh, I hope I didn’t hit your head too hard.” 

Kira tried to raise a hand to her mouth but failed due to her arms pinned under the rifle he still held in his free hand. 

“Are you okay?” 

Kira shook her head taking a deep breath shaking out of the teenage girl, but still wanting to wipe the dirt from his face. “Yeah.” 

“Are you gonna shoot me or can I get off? I try not to get on top of young ladies often.” 

Kira forced back a blush and a laugh, holding her breath as she nodded. 

Slowly he swung off her. 

Kira stayed there, gripping her gun to her chest panting heavily.  

The boy grinned. He had perfectly straight white teeth. “Do you have a name?” 

Kira sat up and immediately felt her head swim. He grabbed her arm, steadying her. 

Kira ripped her arm away and forced herself up. “We need to move.” 

“Hold on, you’re bleeding. Sit back down.” 

“No shot.” Shot. The gun. The infected. Kira’s vision went black. 

Strong arms caught her and slowly started lowering her to the ground. Kira squeezed her eyes shut against the pounding in her head. “We need to get out of here.” 

“Why?” The boy asked. 

Kira cleared her throat and stood, biting back a scream. “Where there is one there’s going to be dozens more. That gunshot will have told them all exactly where we are.” 

The boy held her up. “Are you okay?” 

“I think I hit my head.” 

A pink blush rose to his cheeks. “Sorry.” 

A shuffling groan echoed around them, and Kira let out a whimper. “Too late.” 

They shuffled into view. Peeling gray skin rotting over their bones. 

Kira forced herself away, “There’s a pile up of cars, around 30 yards back, if we make it there, we can climb to the top and hide.” 

The too perfect boy nodded, “K. Can you run?” 

“Yeah, my head just hurts.” 

That wasn’t true. Her head didn’t just hurt. It screamed, screamed like a pressurized can filled with Mintos and coke, like at any moment her head would explode and leave her brains smeared on the pavement. 

But she didn’t really have a choice. 

The world swam in and out of focus as the boy broke out into a run. Kira followed, slower. He paused, jogging in place, and glanced back at her. His face furrowed in concern, and he jogged back, pulling her pack away and grabbing her gun, before placing his fingers through hers. 

Okay. That was smart. She was hurt, he was probably stronger anyway, and faster.  

But why hold her hand? Why make sure she was okay, when, not two seconds ago, he had a gun pressed to her gut? How did he get here? How did he get his teeth to be so ridiculously straight? 

He was talking. What was he saying? Kira forced herself to focus. She still couldn’t make it out. 

And then they were climbing. He was pulling her along, yelling.  

And then he was holding her rifle and firing at the horde. Whenever he hit one, two more took its place.  

Finally, she was able to make out what he was saying, “Climb!” 

Something clicked and Kira started scampering up the pile of cars, before she fell. She slid down into a car-free pocket on the road, crying out in pain as she landed on her ankle wrong.  

The boy screamed as he fell through, and Kira tore her gun away. Lying back, she panted heavily.  

The boy leaned back his chest rising and falling. “I don’t think they can get us from in here.” Unearthly moans still echoed around them, sending a chill through them both despite the heat. 

Kira closed her eyes and choked out, “Why did you help me?” 

He didn’t respond. He crawled over to her and pushed her hair back from her forehead, studying that gash that she hadn’t noticed earlier. He grabbed her pack from his back and grabbed one of her water bottles.  

“It’s not bad. I think most of the damage came from me tackling you.” 
he smiled sheepishly, “Sorry about that.” 

Kira shook her head, “It’s fine.” She tried to get up again, silently hoping he would push her back down. 

He did. 

The boy took off his jacket. Why was he wearing a jacket? It was like 98 degrees out. The jacket was in good shape, surprisingly, just like his boots, it seemed brand new. He pulled a blood red bandana from the pocket. He folded the jacket up and gently placed it under her head. “Just stay down. Let me help.” 

He used the water bottle to clean his hands and then soaked the bandana in the clear water. He knelt down next to her head. 

Kira didn’t try to pull away as he gently trailed the cloth over her forehead, wiping away the dried blood. Kira winced. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Kira barked out a laugh, “Did you cause the apocalypse?” 

“Not to my knowledge.” He gently smiled at her. 

Kira swallowed back a terse remark.  

He let his hand rest on her forehead. “Do you have bandages?” 

“I don’t.” She had used her last one a couple days ago. 

“You’re still bleeding.” His voice was soft, gentle, like velvet, or butter. 

Kira closed her eyes, and shifted around, burying her face in the jacket. It smelt like mint. It instantly soothed her headache, cooling the heat in her head and almost vaporizing the gasoline smell. 

“What’s your name?” He was whispering, his hand resting on her neck. 

“Kira.” 

The boy pulled his hand away, “I’m David. It nice to meet you, Kira.” 

She closed her eyes, finally giving into the pain and fear, falling asleep, her head burrowed into the peppermint jacket of a beautiful, doe-eyed boy. 

David smiled at Kira. He wasn’t alone anymore. How many days had he desperately wanted to hear someone else’s voice? To see a smile that wasn’t his own? To feel the warmth of someone else’s hand? 

He wasn’t alone anymore. 

He sighed. Putting the pack under his head he lay back studying the girl. She was pretty, long golden-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and coffee brown eyes. David resisted the urge to brush a strand of stray hair from her face. 

David closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m really glad you tried to shoot me.” 

Kira opened her eyes to pain. Everything hurt. Everything was on fire, ripping through her. She turned her head into the jacket and fought not to scream.  

“How are you feeling?” 

She jumped. She had forgotten. She had forgotten about the perfectly teethed boy who had saved her life last night.  

“Sorry.” David tilted his head and gave her a soft smile, “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

”It’s the apocalypse.” Kira rubbed her tongue over her braces. “I was jumpy before the world went cookoo.” She spun her finger over her temple.

David laughed lightly. “Yeah.”

They sat there, both thinking the same thing. What now?

Kira needed more supplies. She stood up and glanced around. Her head screamed at her, telling her to lay back down, and she swayed slightly on her feet. David grabbed her arm, steadying her.

Kira grabbed the pistol strapped to her thigh before she could think and brought it up.