Sorrow's Gift

Chapter Fourteen: The Boy

The young boy woke from his dream with the strangest feeling deep in his belly.

He'd been waiting for the others for so long, knowing they were out there somewhere searching for him. He wasn't even sure how he knew. He just did. Ever since the disease that turned his mother had caught hold and spread through the city, the boy had started dreaming of the old man with the kind eyes. The man told him he was not alone. He was the fifth, and someday, they would find him. When they were all together, everything would be better.

Last night just after sunset, though, he'd felt something shift. Almost as if they had forgotten him. But why? Had he done something wrong? Should he leave his home and try to find them on his own?

He'd spent the rest of the evening curled up in his spot in the dark closet, holding his tattered blanket tight against his body. When the sun came up, he left the closet and went to the window of the small apartment he'd once shared with his mother. How would he survive here all alone?

He took in a deep breath and shook his head. They would come for him. He had to believe.

He didn't know who they were, yet he felt as if he'd known them forever. Lifetimes.

The sun was just coming up in the distance, its light shedding pretty tones of pink and purple across the sky. As long as he looked up, he could almost pretend that everything was okay. Normal. He could pretend his mother was in the kitchen cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast. He breathed in. If he could hope hard enough, maybe he would be able to smell the food cooking. Maybe he would be able to hear her humming as she worked.

But then his eyes drifted downward toward the street below and the game was over.

Rotting corpses shambled toward the cool shadows of the tall buildings.

He knew from the news reports on TV that people believed this was just some sickness. Like that time he had the flu and had to stay home from school for a week, only worse. A virus that got out of hand.

But the boy knew better.

He could see things other people couldn't see.

He knew the world had not gotten sick from the flu. This was no normal virus, and even if there were scientists still alive out there working on a cure, the boy knew they would never find one. She caused this. The Dark One.

He trembled thinking of the evil woman trapped in the ice. On the bad nights, she was the one who found him in his dreams, turning them to nightmares no child should ever know.

She can't get to me, he told himself. She was buried deep inside the ground where no one was ever supposed to find her. There was no way for her to escape.

Yet, somehow, she had grown strong enough to cause this. She had made the people sick.

He stared down at the biters and trembled. The Dark One had stolen their lives, sucking it from them like milk from a straw. She'd filled herself up with the force of their life and grown stronger with each person that died.

She was the one controlling them now. He could feel her dark power coursing through the dead. She could see through their eyes when she wanted to.

And she was looking for him.

He closed the blinds and pulled the thick curtain over the window. He didn't like living in darkness, but he knew that above all other things, he had to make sure The Dark One didn't find him before the others came.