Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 36: Daylight’s Burning

Chapter 36: Daylight’s Burning

’Tell me I’m wrong,’ hissed the creature inside of me. ’Tell me that you haven’t given up simply because things have gotten too hard for you.’

"Do you think I want to give up?" I screamed, my cries causing the birds around me to take flight, their wings beating hard as they climbed away from me. "I’m in the middle of the fucking swamp with no idea where to go from here. Do you know how many people get lost in the fucking bayou, never to be seen again?!?"

I was breathing heavily, my heart pounding in my chest as I let all the fear and rage inside of me go.

Was it so bad to be tired of constantly fighting for everything? Was it really that bad to just want to sleep forever and not worry?

’And how many of them have the Seven Deadly Sins on their side?’ mused the creature, a soft chuckle in her voice.

"Seven Deadly Sins?" I repeated, my head cocked to the side. "You mean the demons?"

’What, did you really think they just chose random names? You have control and dominion over the Seven Deadly Sins... what can really stand against you?’

"And the person who just tried to kill me?" I shot back. I was not up for playing with my life, thank you very much.

’But did you die?’ chuckled the creature, and I could feel her amusement deep down in my soul.

"Not for lack of trying on her part," I muttered, feeling like a sulking child. But excuse the fuck out of me if I wasn’t willing to go back to being someone’s punching bag.

’Then don’t,’ shrugged the creature, her inky darkness slowly flowing through my body like an octopus’ ink flowed through the water around it. ’Why would you want to be someone’s punching bag when you could be the most powerful being on this side of the world.’

Getting to my feet, I let out a long sigh. The creature did have a point. Why make one person happy when I could make the whole world miserable? The second option sounded a lot more fun, anyway.

’Greed will take you out of the bayou and back to the road. Go have fun, grant wishes, and let the humans understand what it means when a God walks on earth.’ Nodding my head, I followed the advice of the creature.

In the 18 years I have been on this planet, only six men have ever treated me with care and respect. Why would I be so nice as to lay down and roll over in order to make the rest of the population happy?

I think it was finally time to do whatever it took to make myself happy first.

Reaching out my hand, I felt Greed taking it as he helped me through the dense forest and bogs around me.

-----

The second Ronan woke up, he knew something was wrong.

Looking down in his arms for the small creature that had fallen asleep curled next to him, he was shocked to see the space empty.

"Cher!" he screamed, jumping to his feet as the early dawn light started to poke through the trees around them. "Cher! Yous better be answerin’ me, cher, or yous no’ goin’ like what happens next."

Dimitri, a split second behind him, jumped to his feet and started looking around for himself. "Could she be using the washroom?" he demanded, his face twisting in a snarl as he stared at Ronan. "How could you miss her moving when she was right beside you?"

"Does yous really think she’s in the lou?" sneered Ronan back as he rounded on Dimitri. The space she had once taken up in his heart was back to being empty. This wasn’t a quick trip to relieve her bladder; she was up and gone. "She’s no’ here," he grunted, beating his chest with every word he said.

"Then we look for her," announced Luca, coming to his feet. Gone was every emotion from his face as he stared at his brother.

"Where do we start?" asked Désiré, rolling up the sleeping bag Alicia had given him.

"Da fuck if I’s know," snarled Ronan like a wild creature. "I’s donna even know hows she manage to disappear in de first place."

’Probably because you were drugged,’ snarled the voice inside of his head. It was like a looming cloud rising up from inside of Ronan, threatening to tear him apart. Looking around, he saw his brothers clutching their chests with pain written on their faces.

Even René, who had chosen to sleep away from them with Alicia, was down on one knee, the pain so great that he thought he was going to die.

’You fucked up,’ snarled the voice inside of René’s head as even more pain and fury drove him even lower into the ground. ’You lost the only thing that mattered. Unlike the others, I was willing to let you play around for a bit. I thought you would understand what truly mattered at the end of the day. But no, that didn’t happen. All that you got from my mercy was the belief that you controlled me. You thought you were superior to your brothers because I didn’t slit the whore’s throat when you slept with her. Now you are going to wish I did.’

"René!" screamed Alicia as she dropped down to her knees, holding René closer to her chest. However, with every inch that she touched, it felt like someone was burning him alive from the inside out. "What’s going on with all of you?!?"

"I don’t know," he gasped, partially lying through his teeth. He knew it had something to do with the voice, but he didn’t know what had set it off.

"My woman be missin’," hissed Dimitri as he made his way toward René. "That’s wha’ be goin’ on with us. Now, just wadda ya do with ’er? Tells me now an’ I be making your death fast an’ sweet. Yous donna wanna be pushin’ my buttons at this moment."

"She had nothing to do with your girl," snarled René, coming to his feet. "She was at my side all night long. It’s not our fault your ’woman’ is too stupid to live and decided to up and wander off on her own. That’s on her. Now, fall in line. Since everyone is up, we are going to head off. Daylight’s burning."