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eyes.
    “Through the bites!” she blurted, growing hysterical, moisture blurring her vision.
    “Slow down,” I placed a hand on her forehead, feeling searing heat radiating from her despite her cold sweats.
    Her eyes grew more frightened by the second. “They’re going to take everything we have.”
    Her fever was quickly worsening, and that concerned me more than the insane babbling. “You’re burning up,” I said more to myself than to her.
    She coughed so deeply I thought her lungs might have popped. She gasped for air and shivered. “Promise me something.”
    “Anything,” I nodded.
    “Promise me you won’t let me become one of those things.”
    I was shocked into silence, not sure how I could promise her such a thing when she had been bitten. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    She placed a soft hand on my cheek and smiled weakly. “Yes, you do. When the time comes, you have to do it.”
    And then I knew. She wanted me to kill her.
    The singed nerves of my emotions seared my body, and I didn’t have the strength to hold back my tears any longer. “Sarah, I—.”
    “Promise me,” she insisted.
    And honestly, I knew I would want her to do the same. I fought back the rising sobs and managed to say, “I promise.”
    She smiled again, a clear sense of relief washing over her. “Thank you.” She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled as her eyes fluttered closed.
    They never reopened.
    When I didn’t see her chest rise and fall, I knew she was gone. I heard glass shatter as the mob broke through the back doors, which meant they would soon be pounding on the door to this room.
    I didn’t care. I sat on the floor, Sarah’s hand clutched in mine, and I reveled in her presence. Another part of me had just died in this house, and I wondered briefly if I should allow the rest of me to go as well.
    No. Killing myself would be the coward’s way out, and Nick Barren was no coward.
    I looked at my beautiful ex-wife lying peacefully on the floor in front of me, a slight smile on her lips. I wondered how long it would be before she… awakened . She was with Annie now. Anything that would rise from this body would not actually be Sarah. I took a deep breath and removed my gun from its holster.
    I had a promise to keep.

Barren

V
     
     
    Fists of fury pummeled Annie’s bolted bedroom door, unable to make the lock falter or move the bed I had placed against it. But the empty creatures yearning for my companionship were of little concern to me at the moment.
    I pride myself on being a man of my word. I’ve made many promises to Sarah, and I’ve kept all of them. Her final request was not one that I intended to break. With my luck, she would awaken as one of those things and remember everything, following me to the ends of the earth, haunting my waking dreams, constantly asking, “Why did you break your promise, Nick Barren?”
    She was currently at peace, and it would be cruel to allow anything to pull her out of that slumber. And she had made it my job to make sure she didn’t stand back up after closing her eyes.
    I wanted the shot to be as clean as possible yet effective. Putting a bullet in her forehead would be no good. I don’t think I would be able to make it through the rest of my life – no matter how long that may be – having her mangled face be the final image of her that floated in my head.
    Through the heart.
    That would be the only way to do this right. Her heart was already broken anyway. I reached over and grabbed a soft pillow from the small yellow bed. As the night carried on, I felt less and less connected to this town. Soon, I would be free to go wherever I wanted. To start over. To be a new Nick Barren, washed clean of his tragic past.
    I placed the pillow over Sarah’s chest, pushing the barrel of my gun down onto it in the area where I figured her silent heart would be. Any other time, this deed would have me shaking in fits, trembling from fear and heartache, but somehow, this