Under Her Touch (All Of Me Shudders)

Your heart is beating in your chest so hard you can hardly breathe, hardly think, hardly see.

There is a low thump from the inside of the dark apartment and the spreading of the familiar (hateful horrible) stench of the infected. A slight sour smell of old sweat, dust, and the undertone of copper from dried blood and you're choking you're choking you're choking.

Next to you, Dina is taking a deep breath and swallowing a cough. Unlike the house and unlike the infected and ulinke you, Dina has a nice smell of sweet flowers and worn out leather and smokey wood and home. She is a hot hot hot hot presence next to you, her breaths rapid and shallow, eyes fixed on the shadows and it's very very hard not to touch her.

She is radiant, spreading heat like an open oven (like a flame) and you're having trouble focusing on the task at hand, even with the infected closing in on you and the lingering smell of death around you.

"Up ahead," Dina whispers a warning and you need to stop looking at her but you can't.

(The mortal danger and the inky darkness and the unnerving scratches of the infected from deep inside the building has nothing on your ever building lust and it takes everything you have not to pull Dina into a kiss).

(You stay planted in your place, crunched and unmoving and silent, sweat streaming down your face, lungs burning, and you swallow your inappropriate urges and try to focus on a way to stay alive).

(Dina is smiling at you).

Then there is a hollow feeling in your guts, like at a fall from a great height, and half a dozen infected roar and scream and clatter from the dark apartment. Your head snaps back, your eyes searching for close threats, and everything that isn't mortal dread (and a building need to run run run) is forgotten.

(Somewhere far off, water is rushing in a roar and it makes your stomach drop. The thought makes you scratch your arms nervously. Water, and from the sound of it – a massive body of water. The tug at your guts becomes a sickening fear and you swallow the bile rising in your throat).

"Hey".

Dina, level headed and level hearted and solid and brave, clutches your fingers with a cold hand. She still isn't looking at you but when she speaks, her voice is low and committed. You are damp with cold sweat and your flesh creeping.

"You doing okay?" Now she is staring at you with hot (dark dark) eyes, her head dropped to one side, and a hint of a smile in her voice. It's a lovely kind of smile, the kind that makes your heart brave. The kind that makes you want to keep her safe. (The kind that makes you want to kiss her).

"Yeah." You breathe out and it's not a lie (it's not a lie).

It's hot as an oven and noisy as a slaughterhouse and dark as a pit of a well and you wonder if you didn't make a grave mistake, coming in here. (You remind yourself didn't have a choice. The street is a raging river and the roofs are broken and unstable and rotten and you had to find a way to cross this part of the city, to make some distance between your and the WLF soldiers. Your only option was this route and you wish you had just turned back but it's a stupid wish so you get rid of it and tell yourself to focus on what's ahead).

(Ahead is a threat you cannot control and cannot disarm easily and cannot slip by, so you clutch Dina's hand and look around you, searching for a solution).

"There." You say and guide Dina's hand to your shoulder, press her fingers to let her know you want her to keep her hand on you while you start your slow journey away from the entry to the trashed living-room.

You move slowly, with Dina's hand on you as to not lose each other in the dark. Your flashlight is acting up and you give it a little shake, just a small one, to prevent it from turning off. (You make a mental note to look for batteries while you're in there if you don't die).

"You think we can make it?" Dina whispers and you shake your head.

(No).

"What, then?"

"We'll find another way." You whisper through gritted teeth as you put one foot in front of the other, going slowly sideways, putting some necessary distance between you and the inhabitants of the dark apartment.

What you thought must be six infected turns out to be closer to ten and the room, badly lit by flickering flashlight and a faint illumination from the outside, makes you shiver with fear and with sickness and with rage.

You stop and Dina stops behind you, hunched and panicked.

(Fuck, Ellie. Fuck).

The place smells like old blood and old shit and unwashed bodies and piss. It smells like trouble. It smells like hell.

You almost choke on the hot air filling the room and swallow a cough. Somewhere inside the apartment complex, you hear someone shouting a muffled cry of pain or horror (there isn't much difference) and Dina's fingers are digging painfully into the flesh of your shoulder.

"What the – "

"Let's go around." You say in a low whisper and wait for Dina to tap you on your shoulder with two fingers to signal you she heard your suggestion. It's too dark and too quiet to wait for any other response, so you take a deep (silent) breath and start moving, hunched, your muscles burning, your legs shaking like jelly.

There is a clatter somewhere, on another floor. There is another clatter from above. Then there is a voice, a scary little whisper, a scraping sound, and something echoes through the dark dark dark corridor.

"Shit".

"Careful".

(Dina is a warm presence next to you. she's like a lovely glowing fire in a bitter cold, hungry, terrifying world. You cling to her like a helpless baby, clutching her fingers in a death like grip, desperate and drowning and in love).

"Slowly…" you say through gritted teeth as you pick your steps through the crunching garbage that's covering the floor. "Slowly…"

(And a few feet away, just behind the wall on your left, a high wail pierces the darkness).

"Wha – "

(You know this kind of sounds. It's the shrill of pure pain and pure panic and pure horror. You've heard this type of cried before. You had them come out of your own throat more than once).

A shrill of realization.

A shrill of a violent end.

Your body stiffens and a cold sweat breaks all over your body at the sound of it. You clutch your heavy ax with an iron-like grip, pulling it free from where it dangles on a strap of your backpack. Next to you, Dina's muscles tense under her skin, under your touch, when she pulls out her weapon – a rusty heavy pipe she had a cloth wrapped around one hand in a makeshift handle.

"Fuck." You grit your teeth and grab Dina's hand, the one that's on your shoulder. "Fuck".

(Behind you, Dina nods frantically).

"Fuck." She agrees in nothing but a breathy whisper. "Fuck, Ellie".

The cry continues, a heavy cold scream that turns mindless. It's no longer a cry for help, just a wordless shriek and it makes your ears ring and the dark pulse and Dina's fingers dig deep deep deeper into your flesh.

"It's not worth it." You tell her, whispering behind your shoulder to her general direction. "We can look for supplies in other places".

"You read my mind".

"Let's get the fuck outta here".

You hunch your shoulders around your ears, trying to think of a way out. You can't turn back and exit the way you came in. you jumped in through a hole in one of the existing windows, and because you don't have a rope or a cable or a hose, it's a bad idea to try and climb the crumbling walls.

You're looking around, trying to make your panic drenched brain to function. (Dina, you remind yourself. Dina is all that's important right now. You have to get her out of here and you have to focus because Dina Dina Dina).

You're about to suggest something (anything) when a noise interrupts you and from the darkness, you can see six, eight, ten hunched figures starting to move slowly (slowly slowly slowly) at your general direction, growling and moaning and whining in their weird inhuman language.

It's hot inside the dark apartment, but you feel the cold sweat covering your scalp, setting between your shoulder blades, rolling down your sides. You take Dina's hand off of your shoulder and hold her cold fingers in your trembling ones.

"Ellie?" by the way she says your name you know she can't see what you see, either because of the darkness or because you're blocking her view.

"Shh." You say, scared and sharp and hissing, on the verge of tears. "Don't. Make. A sound".

You can hear your and Dina's breaths in the dark, snatched and horrified and trapped, coming sharp and loud and terrified, like hunted animals. Like prey. You fumble with her fingers, draw your ax higher. (You know you could never win if those hunched figures flung themselves at you, but you are ready for a fight. You're ready to do everything to get Dina safe out of this place).

(Your heavy breath is a sharp pain at your side, inside your nose, under your throat).

(The figures move closer closer closer).

The infected haven't noticed you yet, but you know they sense something wrong in the air, something familiar and wanting and fresh.

(Someone is still screaming a floor or two below. Screaming, swearing, growling like an injured animal. But those are not animals sounds. You lived through enough violent history to know human screams).

(A long, high shriek that is starting straining drawing and won't stop).

The ax's wooden grip is slippery in your sweating hand and you feel a sudden urge to pee. Your eyes dart to the shadows around you, your hand is tightening impossibly hard around Dina's hand.

(You want to run and you want to hide and you want to get the fuck out of there, but there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and you don't see any exits around you, so you stay planted in one place, breathing heavy and trying to clear your mind enough to figure the next impossible step).

"Ellie," Dina tugs on your hand. "Look." And she's pointing a shaking finger at a hole in the wall. It's small and dark and looks like the last place you want to be in, with a whole fucking hoard of infected around you. It seems like a bad place to get stuck in and you're not sure if you'll fit inside.

"Through there?" you grit your teeth so hard you feel a sharp pain in your jaw. You sound panicked. Hysterical.

(You think of Joel. You picture his calm expression, his sure eyes, his safe nods. You think of him and try to draw comfort from your memories. In your head, Joel is smiling, approving, so alive and so stubborn and so so so real. In your head he says 'yes' in a voice like thunder, pushing you to act. In your head, he points at the hole, just like Dina does, and you're not alone and he is there and he is safe he is safe he is safe).

"Ellie?"

(Please, no. please, no no no).

"Okay". You nod, feeling like anything but nodding. (You feel like screaming and pulling Dina away and you feel like running and like swinging your half-rotten ax. You feel like letting your boiling rage your boiling fear your boiling violence lash out).

(You feel like crying. You feel like hugging. You feel like fucking).

(You are going to have to reserve your panic for later because Dina is looking at you, sinful eyes piercing the darkness, shining and deep and brave, sure mouth whispering "Yeah?" and you nod. "Yeah" because it's the only answer you can give).

(Yeah. Yeah. Yeah).

You make your silent, hesitant way to the small hole in the wall. You can hear the infected, distracted by something, a couple of steps away. (Maybe ten, maybe a hundred). It's hard to tell in the damn pitch-black darkness of this damn pitch-black building.

Your body is tensed and trembling, covered in sweat. You have to let Dina's hand go and you find it hard, the simple act of unclutching your fingers. (You do it anyway).

"C'mon," she says.

You say, "You go first," and you give her a small encouraging push.

She scrumbles to the hole and you turn your back to her, facing the darkness, your ax in waist level, ready to strike.

"Can you fit in there?" You whisper behind your shoulder.

"Yes," Dina's whisper is muffled and strange and you wonder if she's scared of the dark or of small spaces or of dying. Dina is usually so brave and so easy and so light, you sometimes forget she too must be struggling to keep her demons at bay.

"Does it lead outside?" Your eyes are dancing around the room. You see shadows of furniture and shadows of infected (blind, deaf, sick infected) and you wish and wish and wish Dina would hurry up.

"To a fire escape".

"Good enough".

"I'm through. Come on".

You hang your ax on your backpack, press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and wriggle through the hole. You fumble with your backpack, wrestling through, sucking yourself flat.

(Through the hole you see sunlight flashing and flickering, faint and gray, but unmistakable).

You push yourself further. Something cold and wet and frightening soaks through your shirt. You gasp, trying to breathe through the terror, through tittering teeth and a heavy beating heart and the acrid stink of the place. You swing yourself into the gap in the wall, trying not to think of the darkness behind you. You work your hands and your hips and the tips of your toes and the hole is tight (it's tight it's tight it's too tight).

"Motherfucker…"

You get stuck, sneakers digging into stone, cut fingers bleeding and smearing red on the dirty insides of the wall and you know the infected behind you must smell the fresh cut.
You clench your teeth, squirming.

"Ellie?" You can hear Dina's voice, very close and very very worried. "You good?"

"I'm fucking stuck." You try not to sound so panicked, but you almost sob and you don't care.

"Can you give me your hand? It's not too far. The wall is thin".

You stretch out your stretched arm and you feel hot palms pressing into your wrists. Dina has a good grip on you.

"I'm going to pull," she says it like a warning. "Tell me to stop if I'm hurting you".

You give a growl of approval and she starts pulling. Something sharp rips your shirt through, scraps your shoulder. It's metallic and rusty and mean-looking, but you don't whine and you don't say a word, just push with your toes.

Dina's pull is strong. You are sliding through the wet cold liquid, like a snake. Your shirt gives a mighty ripping sound, again, and your chin is caught against stone or timber or sticking metal. It stings when your flesh cut raw.

"Push," Dina tells you through gritted teeth and you do.

It doesn't take long for you to slide free. Dina pulls and you almost drag her down with your weight over the edge. She manages to keep her balance, and you flop down, face first, from the hole to the shaking fire escape. You fall on your side, legs still tangled inside the hole, and Dina pulls one last time.

Your ears are ringing, eyes shut tight, a stab of panic is still sitting hard in your chest, but you're free.

Dina gives a bubbling laugh. "Fuck. The hell was that?"

"I dunno." You're breathing hard, sweat running down your face, down your waist, down your back. "But it was bad".

You push yourself up, almost sobbing, gurgling, dragging yourself on your hands and knees. You're groggy and weak, and your knees buckle when you stand up. You fall with a thump and Dina surges forward. You put an arm on her shoulder when you stumble up, steadying yourself. You can hardly see and Dina touches a trembling hand to your face, wiping it with gentle fingers, leaving blood on your cheek, and smearing it on your face.

"Did you cut your hand?" you say, a new kind of worry sparks inside of you.

"It's nothing. You ripped your shirt".

You look down, shoulders throbbing, jaw achings, hips grazed raw. Your shirt is a mess but you are going to have to deal with it later. You're happy to be alive.

"It's nothing".

From inside the building, you hear a dragging sound, then a series of gasps and some slow grinding. A distant scream pierces the stormy quiet of the world and you and Dina jump.

"We have to keep moving".

"What the hell is going on in there? Since when the infected act like this?"

You shake your head. "I don't know. But I don't care".

"Nope".

"Let's get the fuck away from here".

Above your heads, the sky is gray and heavy, dark as night. The sun is hiding behind a fat cloud and the beginning of a drizzle starts covering you in annoying splatters.

You are four stories up above street level, only there is no street. Where the street should have been is now a dark, angry, dirty river. It flows dangerously; fast and scary and raging, dark water dragging fragments of cars and wood and things you cannot recognize from where you are standing.

(It looks mean. Deadly).

Your hands are shaking and your vision is blurry. You hate the water, and the new forming river looks like more trouble than the dark apartment swarming with strange behaving infected.

You look up into Dina's dark eyes and through the terror and the panic and the danger, you feel the familiar tingle of want (eternal hot desire) that her face never fails to produce inside of you.

"What do we do now?"

Dina licks her teeth. You see her tongue moving inside her mouth, pressing, sticking through her cheek. She is watching her surroundings with calculating eyes. She lowers her head, searches the waters. She's a good swimmer (you saw her in the lake, back in Jackson) but the river doesn't look suitable for swimming. It doesn't look suitable for crossing in any way if you're being honest.

The water slurps past, purple, and green and black, bobbing with refuse, churning and stinking, and hammering. You can smell it all the way up to where you are leaning against the brick wall. It smells rotten and has a chemical edge that gets caught in your throat.

"That's a bad idea." You tell Dina and point at the water.

"I know. But we can't stay on this fire escape forever".

And she's right. You can hear the infected behind the brick wall. They must have already reached the place you were standing mere moments ago and they no doubt detected the fresh trail of blood you've both left behind. They might be blind and stupid with illness, but they have never failed to trace their prey, once the hunger hits them.

(You have to move. Now).

The sound of the river and the rolling thunder above your heads is enough to drown the screams inside the apartment. Enough to dull the screams and moans and sighs of the infected to a faint noise.

Something is crashing down bellow. There is a roar of metal and a rip, then a shatter of glass. A piece of the old fire-escape stairs fall into the river with a shuddering force. Dina jumps, eyes wide and wet, and you reach for her hand and give her a reassuring squeeze.

"Hey," you say quietly, with a smile you don't feel plastered on your face. "Babe".

Dina peers around, down to the water bellow and up to the roof above your heads. She gives a small whimper of "huh?"

"There." You point at the iron stairs.

Dina creases her brow. "Do you want us to go up there?"

You shrug and squeeze her hand again. "Not really, but it looks like it might be the only way out," and you tug at her hand again, bring her closer to you and place a hot lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth.