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Chloe listened to his breathing for an hour after Amandaleft. It was strong and showed no signs of weakening. That would make it harderwhen the time came. But the time would come. She just had to work her way up toit.
It wasn't the deed itself that was difficult. It wascoming out smelling like a rose after the deed was done. She simply couldn'tallow Rudy to live. The bridge was a deathtrap. Anyone with two eyes could seethat. Staying on the bridge for one night was a necessity, but anything beyondthat was an invitation to calamity. She was not going to die waiting for a fatman to wake up.
She couldn't head out on her own. Like it or not, she wastied to these people. If they said "Stay," then she stayed. If theysaid "Go," then she would go. But she wanted to go, and she wanted todo it right now. These people meant nothing to her. She didn't give a shitabout any of them. As far as she could tell, they were all just as mindless asthe dead things walking through the streets... all except for Amanda.
She leaned her head back and pictured Amanda's face, thesoft curve of her youthful cheek, the smattering of faint freckles on hercheeks. She was beautiful, and despite her every intention to not becomeattached to any of the people around her, she couldn't help but fall for her.Her sweet way with Rudy, that incredible blundering bulk that had brought themtogether. Her lust for life, despite the world being filled to the brim withdeath, kept Chloe going. These things drew her to Amanda.
Many nights, in the dark of the theater, listening to thebangings of the dead outside, she had toyed with the idea of killing herself.But every time she placed her hand on the cold metal of her revolver, Amanda'sface popped into her head. She had thought being a lesbian was tough before theworld had ended. Little had she known how tough it could actually be when itseemed that no one left in the world was of the same sexual orientation. Givenenough time, and limited options, she thought that she could swing Amanda overto her side... but then there was the problem of Rudy.
Chloe had seen the way Rudy looked at her in those firstfew weeks, poor clueless Rudy, eyeing her the way a German shepherd eyes arib-eye. Little did he know that she had zero interest in him, perhaps lessthan zero. At first, she hadn't even had much interest in Amanda. To be honest,she was somewhat ditzy and a little too bubbly for Chloe. When they had arrivedat the coliseum, Chloe thought she was finally saved. Here were thousands ofpeople. One of them was bound to share her same proclivities. But that spark ofhope flared for merely an instant, replaced by a full-fledged flight from the Coliseum,potential partners dying left and right in this brave new world. Now the onlywomen left were Joan, Clara, Amanda, and Katie... and none of them were likeher.
Clara was pure hetero-hell. That girl seemed like thetype that would give it up to the first dick that came along. Hell, she hadprobably already slept with a couple of the men for all she knew. Not Rudy, butthe others seemed like good hetero-bait.
The doctor, Joan, was a fucking robot as far as Chloecould tell. She had a plain body, nothing spectacular, but there was somethingabout her that just screamed hands-off. When Joan got older, if any of themever actually managed to pull off the trick of getting older, she would be acat lady. Did those things eat cats? Were there still cats out there? Didn'tmatter. Joan would find a way.
Katie was clearly a psychopath, and all that left wasAmanda. Sweet, innocent Amanda. Of course, that was the problem. Somehow,despite his grotesque appearance, Amanda seemed to be falling for Rudy, the waysweet, innocent girls did, signing on the dotted line with the first piece ofY-chromosome flesh that smiled at them. Perhaps she wasn't falling for him inthat "Oh, do me now!" sense, but the attraction was therenonetheless. Whether that relationship would stagnate into a purely platonicinterest wasn't a chance that Chloe was willing to take. Life in a dead worldwas hard enough. Life in a dead world with no one to spend it with... that wassomething that she simply couldn't stand, and she wasn't about to let Rudy ofall people come between herself and the possibility of something more.
So she sat in the darkness, playing out the scenarios.Could she do it? Could she kill this man for no other reason than because shewanted Amanda for herself? Physically, she knew she could. But this was murder.
She laughed a little bit, putting her hands to her mouthand biting the side of her palm to stifle the noise. Murder. What a funnyconcept. Was it even a thing anymore? Murder was an old word, a word thatbelonged to the world that used to exist, the one with rules, laws, and clocksthat told you when it was time to get up. Murder wasn't the problem.
The real problem came in the form of consequences, thoseannoying little repercussions that seemed to come back and haunt them all atthe wrong time. Look at Katie for instance. There she had been, doing the rightthing, gunning down Brian and his little monster as soon as he had taken achunk out of her. It was the right thing to do. They all knew it. But it didn'tmatter. To the rest of the group, Katie was like their own personal JeffreyDahmer, a killer in their midst. They turned their head rather than look ather, but you know what? They kept her around because she had the guts to dowhat none of them could do. It wasn't all those men with their muscles andtheir commanding voices that did what needed to be done... it was Katie, poorfucked up Katie who pulled the trigger when the call arrived.
Chloe sighed in the
