Love Charms (22 page)

By

Cerys
du Lys

Breathless

Sadie
and Evan live in entirely different worlds.  Brought together by fate, and held
there by hope, can they bridge the gap dividing humanity, or will long held
fears and prejudice force them apart forever?

(A
Cerys du Lys paranormal romance novel)

Sadie
is a normal girl.  Or, she used to be.

When
catastrophe strikes, a military experiment meant to advance society sends the
world into chaos and disarray instead.  Those affected become lost and
confused, cold and alone.  Many give in to their new vicious urges, striking
out against humanity for forcing them into this unwanted existence.

Sadie
is one of them, but she refuses to hurt people like they do.  She won't.  Life
is hard now, but there must be more, right?  She can cope, she can...

Does
she even have a reason for living anymore, or is she just fooling herself?

Evan
is a normal guy.  He was one, and he still is.

While
everyone acts as if this is the end of the world, he refuses to believe it. 
There's always hope, always answers, and he's determined to find them. 
Everyone says it's pointless, that he's risking too much, but even if he can
help just one person...

The
world isn't over, it needs guidance towards a new beginning, and Evan's going
to help it get there.

When
Sadie and Evan meet in this soulless, heartless, hopeless world, their lives
are inadvertently and inextricably bound together by fate.  He can't actually
like her, can he?  She's so much different.  There's no way for him to help
her, is there?  He doesn't know where to start.  They can't stay together. 
They can't...

But
what if they're both willing to ignore their differences and just... try?

Unfortunately,
life isn't so simple.  Amidst danger and disaster, deceit, treachery, and hate,
it seems like the entire world is against them.  Trapped, lost, alone, cold and
isolated, betrayed and Breathless, can they overcome all obstacles and rescue
not just themselves, but each other?

Sweet,
sensual, and alluring.  This paranormal story of attraction and desire,
suspense, danger, and fighting against the odds will captivate you, fascinate
you, and leave you feeling spellbound.

Soulless

I
am dead.

This
is how I feel, this is what I know, but a small part of me refuses to believe
it.  Wasn't I alive just yesterday?  I have a doctor's appointment to go to
next week and I need to leave a reminder for my office manager.  He's forgetful
and even though I told him about this a month ago, he won't remember.

But,
no, I don't have a doctor's appointment next week.  That's already past.  It's
been four months, two weeks, and three days since the day I should've gone to
the doctor.  It was only a routine check up, anyways.  Not absolutely
necessary, but it would have provided peace of mind.

My
mind is anything but peaceful now.  I don't know if I still have one.

* * *

Five
months ago I was sitting on my couch eating take-out Chinese and watching the
news.  I never knew why I enjoyed watching the news, but it seemed like the
adult thing to do, you know?  Granted, wearing my pajama pants with cartoon
versions of cats and a grey athletic t-shirt didn't help my illusion of
adulthood.  Nor did eating directly out of the lo mein carton with a pair of
wooden chopsticks, but still.  Sometimes it's good to feel more adult, even if
the rest of your life isn't exactly there.

There
was a breakthrough announcement on the news that night, too.  I remember them
hyping it up at the beginning, saying it could change the face of humanity as
we knew it.  Dutifully, I watched through dull segments involving a local bake
sale and a church's outrage at a movie theatre refusing to remove a supposedly
risque poster from their front lobby.  Maybe I should've switched the channel,
though.

What
did this breakthrough announcement have to do with me?  Was it another cell
phone?  I loved my cell phone as much as the next person, but the way they came
out with new ones every year (and they always have new features that seem
suspiciously like the old ones), I would never understand why people got so
excited about those things.  I wanted mine to work, I wanted to call people on
it, and I'd like to be able to occasionally text someone and maybe check my
email.

The
announcement wasn't about a phone, though.  I stabbed a potsticker with my
chopsticks and nibbled on the edges while some NASA scientist explained their
newest discovery.

Hibernation,
hypothermia, an isolated virus that could mimic these conditions at a safe
level.  Once they finished with more rounds of experimentation, they could use
this knowledge for extended space travel.  The goal was to induce a type of
suspended animation in astronauts so they could travel to distant planets with
minimal necessities.

It
sounded like a bunch of Star Trek mumbo jumbo to me.  I'm not stupid, I
graduated college with a marketing degree, but this had nothing to do with me. 
In a hundred years when people finally colonized Mars and someone built a
restaurant chain up there, they could call me in to help figure out their
branding, but none of this affected me right now.

This
was what I thought then.  In four days, everything changed.

* * *

I
wander through the city, confused.  I am cold beyond belief and nothing I can
do will warm me up.  I try holding my hands tight against my chest and huddling
on the ground, but it doesn't help.  I've tried putting on more clothes, but
this doesn't work, either.  I've tried taking off my clothes, too.  I go inside
and outside, but no.

My
skin is a pale blue like the color of pure water.  I feel sick and I know I
should go see a doctor, but there are no doctors anymore; not for me or anyone
like me.  I am one of them and I am hated.  I understand this, but I don't want
it.

It's
hard to walk sometimes, but other times I manage it fine.  I feel clumsy, as if
I've had too much to drink at the bar, but I don't think I've had alcohol for
months.  I can't remember.

And
then it happens.

As
much as I feel it, I'm not alone.  A majority of the people surrounding me are
like me, but different.  They give in to their urges or they think differently,
or there's something that separates me from them.  I think it's the fact that I
can't give in no matter what.  I have a doctor's appointment to go to next
week, afterall.

The
others around me stand up and stumble forwards after the intruders.  Men and
women, regular, just like us except with peach-colored skin (or tanned, or
darker, it makes no difference) rush through the city streets.  They bash
through a storefront window with a baseball bat.  The crashing sound of glass
makes me shudder.

The
others chase them with a speed none of us knew we had.  I watch them run, legs
creaking, frantic to catch the people breaking into the convenience store.  The
people in the store yell at each other, screaming.

"Hurry! 
Grab what you can and go!  We don't have much time!"

I
don't know what they're grabbing, but I know why they don't have much time.

Most
of them make it out fine.  A younger man drags behind, though.  When he went to
jump out of the front window, he cut his leg on the broken glass and fell onto
the concrete sidewalk.  One of his group stopped for a second and looked at
him, trying to decide what to do, but when the rest of his people run off to
safety, he abandons the young man.

The
young man is stuck, limping.  He won't escape.

I
can't watch and I turn away.  It hurts; it's painful.  I know why they do it
and I'm tempted to do it myself.  The feeling of warmth and closeness like a
lover's embrace.  Heat and intimacy.

Except
nothing they do is loving.  They are ruthless and vicious and in their
obsession for warmth they'll destroy the man.

I
hear him scream and I want to cry but I run away as fast as I can.  My feet
slip on the sidewalk and I stumble, hitting against the side of a building, but
I keep going.

Why
is it like this?  Why?

* * *

After
I ate a can of warmed beans, I felt better.  It wasn't hard to get the can of
beans, but it was difficult to heat them.  Fortunately, I knew of a place on
the outskirts of the city in a wooded area where there was a house with a gas
generator and a microwave.  I knew it wouldn't last forever, but it suited me
for now.  If I used the generator sparingly and made trips to get gas in the middle
of the night, I could sustain myself for awhile.

That's
how I imagined it going, but it didn't always work like that.  The problem was
that, while the warm beans slipped down my throat easily and warmed me up,
filling my stomach with a soothing heat, it never lasted.  While eating them, I
felt wonderful, though.  I felt human and alive, like myself once more.  If I
flipped on the TV--if there was anything actually on TV--and sat on the couch,
propping my feet up on the coffee table, maybe I could forget about all of this
for awhile.

The
beans kept me feeling warmer for half an hour or so, but then the chill crept
in.  I didn't have enough energy or beans to keep eating forever, though.  It
also didn't help that I felt like I'd eaten a Thanksgiving dinner after only
half a can of the things.  I could only eat once a day at most without feeling
wretched and sick.  Most of the time I ended up going two days in between
meals.

For
now, for a little while, I felt nicer, though.  I walked through the hallway to
the master bedroom and grabbed a bathrobe off the back of the door, slipping my
arms into the sleeves and tying it into place.  Finding a book by Nicholas
Sparks on the bedside table, I snatched it up and fell into bed.  I slid
beneath the thick blankets, hoping to keep warm for a little while longer, then
opened to the dogeared page in the book and began reading.

I
read for a few minutes before the chill started.  My feet grew colder and I
started breathing slower, more shallowly.  I felt tired, so tired, but I wanted
to read a little more.  I needed to know what happened to Ally and Noah.  Did
everything turn out fine?  It was darker outside than I remembered, but I could
still read.  I needed to, desperately desired it, and yet...

I
folded the corner of the page I was on and carefully placed the book on the
bedside table once more.  Curling my knees up to my chest and closing my eyes,
I lay in bed.

* * *

No
one knew what exactly happened, and least of all Evan.  He wished he knew,
because maybe that would put some sense into all of this, but even if he did
there wasn't anything he could do about it.

News
stations reported an accident and a breakout.  Contamination or something, but
no one needed to act concerned.  It was best if people remained in their homes
and closed the doors.

Of
course, no one did that.  Why should they?  Well, Evan did it, because
apparently he was an idiot.  That's what his roommate told him at the time
before he rushed out of their apartment and into the streets.

It
didn't matter if you left or stayed, though.  It was something else entirely. 
He couldn't say why it didn't affect him or who it did affect, but it caused
people to change.  The virus released from the labs made people slow and
stumbling.  They could still talk, but in his experience they usually didn't
want to.  Sick and pale, shambling around the city, looking like...

Zombies.

He
laughed thinking about it.  Zombies, really?  That was some serious movie shit
right there.  People rising up from their graves, eating brains, hordes upon
hordes of the living dead.

This
wasn't exactly that, though.  These people weren't dead; they were sick.  He
tried to tell everyone that, but no one listened to him.

"You're
not a doctor, Evan," Alex said.  "Just stick to hunting like you're
good at.  We need someone like you.  It's safer if we stay away from the city
unless we need supplies."

The
city
.  That's what
everyone called it now.  No names, no recognition.  They didn't want to
acknowledge that the buildings in the city had names and history.  There was no
past; it didn't exist.  Maybe it was easier that way.  Maybe it helped people
cope with their losses and figure out how to live in this screwed up place.

Evan
didn't like it, though.  He didn't want to live in a fake city in the middle of
the woods made out of tents.  He didn't want to act like none of his past life
existed, and he didn't want to treat anyone like a zombie.

It
didn't matter what he wanted, though, it mattered what they did.  And they--the
zombies--killed people.  There was some reason, some gut instinct told him so,
but what?  Why would they do it?  What was their purpose?

He
wasn't anyone important.  He was just Evan, a man who'd grown up hunting,
played football in high school and college, and worked a respectable job as an
EMT while trying to save up money to continue on with medical school.

Yeah,
like Alex said, he wasn't a doctor, but he would've been.  And while higher
learning had kind of gone out the window with the mass viral outbreak, if he
had any say in things he'd still be a doctor some day.  Maybe he couldn't get
an official degree, but he could study.  He refused to let anyone stop him.

* * *

I'm
walking through the city, confused.  Why am I here?  I can't remember.  I need
to go to my doctor's appointment, I'm sure of it, except where is my car?  Do I
have my keys?  Reaching to my side for my purse, I realize I must have left it
at home.

My
hand, my skin.  I stare at my arm, unsure if what I'm seeing is real or not. 
My skin is a pale blue all the way from my fingertips and up my forearm, to my
shoulder.  It looks like I've painted my fingernails purple, but I never paint
them that color.

Then
I remember everything.

I
can't remember why I came here or what I needed to do, but I can't stay.  The
others shamble around nearby or lay in a huddled mess somewhere in the
shadows.  No one wants to do anything, but I do.  I must.  Except what?

Sometimes
I find it hard to walk, but I know that I need to.  If I focus on one step at a
time I can act like everyone else; like I used to.  Strolling through the
street, looking at the storefronts, I pretend it's just any other day.  There's
a shop I like, a small custom-craft wardrobe boutique, and I stop in front of
it and look inside.  Someone's broken the window and upturned the dress dummies
that used to show off the owner's most recent fashions, but it doesn't matter. 

Reaching
my hand out, I grab the hem of a pretty red dress and feel it between my
fingers.  It's soft and comforting and I want to try it on.  Walking to the
door, I try to pull it open, but it's locked.  I could go through the window,
but the broken glass might cut me.

Not
everyone cares.  Looking around, I can see the shattered fragments of people's
lives on their bodies.  A dark-blue skinned man has cuts all along his arms,
probably from grabbing things out of broken-windowed shops or digging through
the trash.  A child nearby, motherless, stumbles through the streets with
bruises all along her legs from falling too much.  She almost looks like any other
little girl except these bruises are large and angry, a thick purplish-blue
color.