To The Death

Awesome, Lennox thinks. They put me in the tree because I’m crazy.

She looks down between the branches to see her team, the Blue Team, giving her shouts and gestures of encouragement from the ground.

“You can do it, Lennox! Just keep looking!”

She rolls her eyes and grabs for another branch.

To celebrate the end of the first week of the retreat and bond for the weeks ahead, A.C organized a team relay race that involves accomplishing various challenges all over the island. He informed the retreaters of this early in the morning, and they’ve been going ever since.

Lennox’s team assigned her the tree climbing portion because she’s the only one not really afraid of heights. But now she suspects it’s just because she’s got a reputation as the crazy girl and no one would really care if she fell and broke her neck. It’s only been a day since her freak-out in the caves, and already, everyone knows about it. Most of the retreaters treat her with a polite distance, like she’s had a death in the family or something. But there are a few—like her siblings and Zacky—who think it’s hilarious and take every opportunity to make fun of her. In a way, she’s glad A.C decided to reach new levels of annoying and put together this huge activity. At least Robyn and Kingsley and Zacky aren’t on her team.

She adjusts her harness, which is very similar to the ones used during the ropes course, and eyes the next branch. Her objective: find the flag. Each team is responsible for locating a flag of their team color, and then completing the last leg of the race by making their way to the finish line near the base of the volcano. Thankfully, she’s already spotted the blue flag—she just has to grab it, and return to the ground.

As she shifts her weight to the next sturdy-looking tree limb, a branch snaps somewhere nearby. The sound makes Lennox’s heart palpitate. She closes her eyes, tells herself it’s just an animal, and nothing more. There are no moving dead bodies. None. What I saw before was just an illusion, and I need to get more sleep. Now stop worrying and get the damn flag.

It’s only a few feet away, tied to a branch just above her head and fluttering back and forth in the breeze. Close now, she picks up her pace. She’s practically walking from branch to branch, and the only thing holding her back is the wiring on her harness, so she removes it. It’s not that high up, and besides, she’s almost there.

Another branch snaps. Lennox curses despite herself. She fights back a scream and tries to slow her heart rate. She doesn’t want to be the girl who cried zombie. All she wants is the stupid flag. She presses on, telling herself, It’s an animal, It’s an animal. Then, the flag is just within reach. Sighing with relief, she reaches for it, stretching up on her tiptoes. Her fingers don’t quite reach. She stretches more, more—

A large mass lands suddenly on the thicker branch next to the one on which the flag has been tied. Lennox looks up into the face of a man, or what used to be a man, perched on the branch like some kind of monkey. His face is skinless around the mouth and eyes, and the small bit of flesh covering his nose hangs off like a scab begging to be picked. His head rotates sideways, looking at her.

The sound he makes—a cross between a roar and a moan—startles her off balance, and before she can even think to scream, she’s falling.

Branches beat at her on the way down, whipping the air from her lungs, snapping her wrist after an attempt to break her fall. She lands, luckily, on a tall bush. Distantly, she hears her team shout with concern and rush over to help.

“Where’d she go?”

“That bush! There!”

The Blue Team descends. They’re incredibly nice retreaters, but they’re also drinking a bit too much of the NRF Kool-Aid.

“Lennox!”

“Oh no, are you okay?”

I just fell out of a tree, you idiot. Of course I’m not okay.

She tries to push herself up and is rewarded with a shooting pain through her right wrist. One of her team members helps her into a sitting position, and she takes inventory of her injuries. Her wrist is starting to swell and bruise and doesn’t seem to want to move very much. Her legs are covered in scratches, some nastier than others.

“Your nose is bleeding!” one team member shouts.

“Is it?”

Now that they mention it, there is a slight throbbing. She touches her face with her non-injured hand and it comes away dark red.

“Awesome,” she says darkly.

Some time later she finds herself being carried toward a small cabin behind the main pavilion. The door opens to reveal a tall, dark-skinned guy built like a string bean, with violent orange hair styled into a Mohawk and multiple facial piercings. He smiles and lets them in.

Lennox is vaguely aware of her nose bleeding onto her shirt as her team deposits her on one of the cots inside the surprisingly bright room. It smells ultra-clean, and for some reason this comforts her, so she relaxes onto the pillow. A minute later, a man with light brown hair in a ponytail appears and lets her team know she’s in good hands. A few of them glance at her anxiously like they’re going to insist they be allowed to stay, but then the orange-haired kid ushers them outside and the room is blessedly quiet.

“Hello, Lennox,” says the ponytailed man.

Behind his black wire-rimmed glasses are kind grey eyes. Lennox feels instantly at ease.

“Are you a doctor?” she wonders.

“Veterinarian. But A.C has me look after anyone who gets hurt. It seems that finding an actual doctor wasn’t high on his list of concerns when he started this retreat.” A look of annoyance crosses his face, mixed with something else—distrust, maybe—but then he smiles. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I fell out of a tree.”

“How did you fall?” asks Gregory. He’s holding her wrist in a light touch, frowning at the bruises.

“I didn’t jump, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy.”

“I know you didn’t jump. Your teammates said they saw you fall. I would just like to know how.”

Well, I heard some noises, and I knew it was probably zombies, but I ignored it. Then a zombie stuck its face near mine and scared the shit out of me. Satisfied?

“I just lost my balance.”

“Were you not wearing a harness?”

“I took it off ‘cause it kept getting tangled in the branches. I was trying to save time. Trying to win.”

The orange-haired kid appears again, holding a basket of various medical supplies.

“This is Ronnie, by the way,” Gregory explains. “He’s my assistant. He’s going to clean and bandage the cuts on your legs.”

“Okay.”

“Getting back to the accident—could you not have accomplished the same objective while keeping the harness on?”

“Probably. I was just impatient.”

Gregory nods, and sets her wrist down on the bed. He briefly examines her nose.

“Well, Lennox,” he says a few minutes later. “Your wrist is broken. Your nose, however, just seems to be badly bruised.”

“Spectacular.”

“I’m going to put a cast on your wrist, and give you some ice for the nose.”

“Okay.”

About halfway through Ronnie bandaging her cuts and Gregory putting the cast on her wrist, the door to the cabin flies open. In rush Robyn and Kingsley.

“Lenny! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Stop shouting, Robyn. We’re in the infirmary.”

“It’s a cabin with cots, Kingsley,” Robyn snaps. “Suck my dick.”

Robyn hurries to an unoccupied side of the cot and kneels.

“Are you out of your damn mind?” she wonders.

“Possibly.”

“Someone from your team said they saw you take your harness off! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“I wasn’t, but maybe now I should,” Lennox says darkly.

“Let her breathe, Robyn,” insists Kingsley.

“Yes,” agrees Gregory. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask the two of you to wait outside until I’m finished treating her.”

Robyn grumbles, but eventually allows Kingsley to lead her outside.

After maybe twenty minutes, Gregory announces that he’s finished. Ronnie bandages her last cut a moment later, then leads her over to the sink to wash the blood off of her face while Gregory gets ice. Lennox takes the bag of ice gratefully, along with the pain pills Gregory hands her.

“Thank you,” she says.

“No problem. You’re free to leave whenever you feel up to it, or you can stay as long as you like. Ronnie and I will be in that room over there if you need us.”

Once they’ve given her some privacy, Lennox hobbles over to the main door—the injuries are making her legs stiff—and lets her siblings back in.

“So what on earth happened?” Robyn demands. “And don’t tell me you just fell. I’m not stupid.”

Lennox sits on the bed, glad to give her legs some relief. She considers lying again, but decides she can’t really do any more harm by telling the truth. They already think she’s lost her mind.

“A zombie was following me, and it startled me, so I fell.”

“A zombie?” repeats Kingsley.

“Yes.”

Robyn and Kingsley exchange a look.

“Lenny—”

“I know, I know! I’m crazy! Believe whatever the fuck you want—I know what I saw, and I’m not lying.”

“Lenny, zombies don’t exist—”

“Then what the hell was that thing? Oh, that’s right. You didn’t see it. I did.”

Kingsley sits on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you’re not just…stressed out?”

“Or still suicidal? You haven’t really gotten any happier since we’ve been here.”

“So being depressed makes you hallucinate zombies, now?” Lennox says mockingly. “Good to know.”

“I don’t know what being depressed does to you! Because you never talk about it!”

Robyn’s face is slowly approaching the red hue of her hair.

“I do so talk about it—”

“No, Lenny. No, you don’t. You just sit around and sulk and then you get all pissed off when people can’t somehow sense that there’s something wrong. How the hell are we supposed to help you when you don’t tell us anything?”

“Why should I tell you anything?” Lennox screams. “Up until a couple of days ago, you hadn’t talked to me for over a year. Some sister you are.”

“Hey.” Kingsley gets to his feet. “You could have called us, you know.”

“Of course. Take Robyn’s side. Just like you always do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, Kingsley. You guys have always been best friends. You might as well just be twins and forget about me. You two are never around. You left me all alone with Mom and Dad just because I decided I wanted to be educated, and you never call unless you need something or want me to do something for you! How can you be angry with me for not telling you all my secrets?”

“Kingsley’s right, Lenny! You could have called us!”

Lennox scoffs. “Why? And interrupt whatever the hell it is that you two do out there in Vegas? What is it that you do, anyway? Because I don’t know that many brothers and sisters who live together. It’s like you’re fucking in love or something—”

The slap echoes throughout the room. Lennox feels her head whip to the side, feels her eyes water as the impact of Kingsley’s hand travels across her injured nose. For a second, there’s silence. Kingsley looks at his hand, horrified, as if it had acted on its own. Then he looks pleadingly at Lennox.

“Lenny—”

“Get out.”

“Please, I didn’t mean—”

“GET OUT!”

Robyn, who looks suddenly pale, seizes his arm and pulls him outside. The door swings shut.
Lennox sits motionless for a moment, stunned. Then she holds the ice to her nose, curls into a ball on the cot, and cries. She cries so hard her nose starts bleeding again; she merely grabs a wad of paper towels and continues sobbing. Eventually, she tires herself out. Her eyelids grow heavy. Briefly, she realizes she’s never cried herself to sleep before, and wonders if this is some sort of depression milestone. And then there’s darkness.

She wakes up to the sound of voices. They seem to be coming from the cabin’s second room—Gregory, Ronnie, and someone else. Slowly, she opens her eyes. It must be past sundown; the room’s dark, and she can see through the window the sky getting blacker by the second. She blinks. Her entire face feels like it got hit with a sledgehammer. Her wrist throbs with she pushes herself up onto her elbow.

Someone’s covered her with a blanket, she realizes. There’s a fresh bag of ice next to her pillow, which she gratefully administers to her nose.

The door to the second room opens. The sudden light makes Lennox snap her eyes shut.

“Oh, she’s awake,” says an unexpected voice.

She opens her eyes to see Zacky walk out of the room, carrying a plate piled high with food. Gregory smiles at her from the doorway.

“Your friend brought you dinner,” he says.

Since when did Zacky become my friend?

She sits up all the way and takes the plate and silverware that Zacky hands her. Gregory retreats into the back room again.

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just got a bit of everything,” Zacky says, sitting on the edge of the bed.

His kindness is making her uneasy. Why is he being so nice? What does he want?

“…Thank you.”

Lennox grabs the silverware, realizes she can’t use her right hand because it hurts too much, and switches to the left. After several moments of watching her try to gather rice onto her fork, Zacky laughs.

“Are you right-handed?”

She nods.

“That sucks. Can you eat with your left?”

“Yeah, it’s just awkward.”

“Want me to feed you?” he offers, grinning.

She rolls her eyes.

“Ah, good, you’re back to normal.” He helps himself to a bread roll from her plate. “Gregory said you and Robyn and Kingsley had a pretty nasty fight earlier.”

“Why do you care?”

Zacky blinks. “Sorry. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to—”

“I don’t care about that; I want to know why you’re here. You’ve been making fun of me all day for being the Crazy Zombie Girl and now you’re bringing me dinner? Is it poisoned?”

“Of course not! I just…feel bad, that’s all. I’m trying to apologize.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So…sorry.”

Lennox grins. “That sounded very sincere.”

“I’m trying, okay? I don’t have a lot of friends who are girls. I don’t have any, actually. Except for Val, and I’ve known her like all of my life. What I’m saying is…I’m trying to be your friend. Since you’ve already rejected me and the rest of this retreat is going to be awkward as fuck otherwise, I’m trying to be your friend. Unless, of course—” He smirks and raises an eyebrow suggestively. “—You’ve changed your mind and are about to say you want to have hot, steamy sex with me right here on this cot.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Zacky laughs. “All right.”

Smiling automatically, Lennox returns to her food.

“My siblings think I’m crazy,” she says.

“What?”

“You wanted to know what the fight was about? They think I’m crazy, and I think they have no right to call me names because they haven’t really spent time with me in over a year.”

“Everyone thinks you’re crazy,” he points out.

“I know. But it hurts coming from them. I guess just thought that out of all people, they would believe me. But they don’t.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. It was incredibly unpleasant. We’ve never had a fight like that before. Kingsley…he slapped me.”

“What?”

“I mean, I deserved it. I was being a bitch—”

“No, you didn’t! You fell out of a tree earlier today! What kind of an asshole slaps his injured sister?”

“My brother, I guess.”

“That’s—” Zacky’s cut off by the sound of his phone. He glances at the screen, makes an annoyed noise, and presses it to his ear. “What, Brian?”

“They brought out dessert, dude. There’s a bunch of chocolate cake and shit—”

Zacky rolls his eyes. “I’m busy.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to save you any.”

“It’s fine,” Lennox says, startling him. She gives him an encouraging smile. “I can’t compete with chocolate cake.”

Yes, you can, Zacky wants to say. Instead, he asks, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I was just going to sleep some more anyway.”

Zacky tells Brian he’ll be right there and hangs up.

“I feel like an asshole,” he admits.

“Go get the damn cake. I need to sleep. Really.”

Zacky studies her. Something about her voice reminds him of his voice when he’s trying to convince people that he’s fine and can be left alone. Some part of him wants to stay. But he knows that if he doesn’t go, Brian’s going to come looking for him, and that’ll disturb Lennox more.

So he says goodbye and leaves anyway.

+++

As soon as he steps out of the cabin, he hears voices. He can’t tell where they’re coming from, though, so he keeps walking until the source is a bit more identifiable. Then he sees them: Robyn and Kingsley, standing under a tree about halfway to the pavilion and talking in hushed tones. Zacky moves a few steps closer, then ducks behind a bush to eavesdrop.
Kingsley’s pacing slightly back and forth.

“I shouldn’t have hit her,” he says, running a hand through his hair.

Robyn grabs his arm, looks at him. The look on her face makes Zacky’s stomach churn.

“No, you shouldn’t have. But you can’t go beating yourself up about it, either. That’s not healthy.”

“Robyn—”

“I know. You freaked out.”

“Of course I freaked out!” he exclaims. “She sounded like she knew what she was talking about.”

“She doesn’t. Okay? There’s no way she could.”

Oh, shit, Zacky thinks. Shit, shit, shit.

“She said it’s like we’re in love, Robyn.”

“She was just saying things. You know how people get when they’re angry. They say things they don’t really mean.”

Kingsley shakes his head. “I still feel like she knows.”

“Look at me.” Robyn takes his face in her hands. “She doesn’t know. We’re fine. Okay?”

Instead of answering, he kisses her. Her hands wind around his neck; his around her slim hips.

Oh, fuck, I’m going to throw up.

And Zacky does just that, vomiting his dinner onto the ground next to an anthill. Bon appetite, motherfuckers, he thinks weakly. He cautiously lifts his head from the bush and has to fight another wave of nausea. They’re still kissing.

After a minute, Robyn and Kingsley disentangle themselves from each other. They share a knowing look, then head for the pavilion, walking at a safe distance from each other.

“Fuck, fuck fuck.”

Zacky steps out of the bush, wiping his mouth. He thinks about Lennox—about how she’s going to react to this; if she already knows. He feels like he should tell her, but he’s so shocked all he can do is stand there.

As he stands on the path, mind racing, he notices movement near the bush he was hiding in. Something steps out of the trees, and the brief glimpse he gets—exposed bone, mottled skin—is enough to make his blood run cold. He hears a faint moan, and then a distinct slurping noise. And even though every cell in his body is screaming at him to run away, he takes a step forward, then another, until he’s standing right before the shrubbery.

Zacky looks down.

A girl, or what was once one, is crouched next to the small puddle of his vomit, her lips sucking and licking it from the ground. Half of her face is nothing but bone; the rest, so thoroughly destroyed that the skin flaps would probably be dislodged by a gentle breeze. The rest of her body is in a similar condition. As if she realizes she’s being watched, she looks up at him. Tilts her head. And keeps tilting it, until it’s rotated completely around, her chin where her forehead should be.

The girl makes a clicking noise deep in her throat, her tongue darting in and out like a snake’s. Then she smiles, bizarrely, her head upside down, her eyes still on Zacky. She rotates her head back to its original position, and returns to slurping his vomit.

Zacky breaks into a run like he’s been shot at. He keeps seeing the girl’s face on the back of his eyelids, her eerily rotating head taunting him whenever he blinks. And no matter how hard he tries, he can’t shake the image. He now knows one thing for sure: either Lennox’s insanity is contagious, or she’s telling the truth.