In the Shadows (Part 9 of the Afterlife Chronicles) Into the forest we ran, or rather they jogged and I sprinted. It really is hard to keep up with beasts three feet taller and so much more powerful than me. Being a zombie in the middle of a pack of werewolves is tiring. The big black and gray werewolf, Alistar, I think his name was, lead the way with a blond female and a brown furred male following behind him. The girl, her fur black as well, hung back and followed just behind me. I don’t know if it was to keep me company, or to make sure I didn’t run off when no one was looking. Like I’d do something like that. God. I could feel her eyes on me, but I ignored them, trying to keep up with the others. The great thing about being dead, you never get tired, just… hungry. I’d already traveled for a week straight before this and now I was sprinting nonstop just to keep up with the werewolves that were equally inexhaustible. But, eventually, they were too fast for me, and got out of sight. I kept running, aware only of my breathing and the girl behind me. I understood somehow that she was ‘younger’ than me, death wise, but she seemed more comfortable in her transformed state than I would have expected. Must be nice, letting yourself enjoy being a monster. Just as that thought crossed my mind, we entered a clearing, and a battle for our afterlives. In the center of the clearing, battling Alistar, was a werewolf so large it was like a beast straight from my worst nightmare. Its fur was so dark it seemed to suck up the light, its eyes a blazing crimson and full of rage. When it bared its fangs, they were a glistening black and sharp as daggers. It roared and tackled Alistar into a tree, the oak shattering with a crack as loud as a gunshot. My eyes shifted as I stood at the edge of the clearing and I saw the body of a woman off to the side, her head gone and her once beautiful body torn open from large slashes. “Raina!” a guttural cry from the girl behind me, making me turn to see her bound into the clearing over next to the dead body. The brown werewolf was nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t doubt that he was dead as well. I sighed and turned my gaze back to the fighting. There was no way I could fight that thing alone, not against a demon beast like that. I was only a little stronger than I had been when I was alive, which hadn’t been a lot. I shook my head a little and sighed, pulling a pistol out of my pocket, checking the magazine absently. I had taken it from the body of one of the robbers back at the quickie mart and hadn’t saw the need to use it til now. Where one’s physical strength was limited, a weapon helped to improve the odds. The tree next to me shattered and I glanced over, seeing Alistar changing back into a human slowly, near death. “Rest now, my friend… It’s time to see if I can help,” I mutter softly, raising my gaze to find the giant black werewolf watching me. Rather than attack, it actually laughed, a harsh, cruel sound, “You actually think you can hurt me with that tiny gun? Pathetic human. Why don’t you just die and save me the trouble of killing you?” I just smiled and turned the safety off the gun before popping my neck. “I’m already dead,” I lunged forward, his left clawed hand slamming into my side, sending me flying into a nearby tree. It hurt like hell but I couldn’t afford to cry over a broken arm and two shattered ribs. I struggled to my feet, just in time to see it towering over me, ready to slam a fist down into my skull. A roar sounded, startling us both, then two clawed hands wrapped around the werewolf’s neck from behind, the claws jamming into its windpipe. It was the girl, coming to my rescue, or at least that’s what it looked like. The fist that had been about to crush me to a pulp, grabbed the girl clinging to the werewolf’s back as the massive beast turned. The beast threw her off him and she let out a yelp as she slammed into a boulder on the other side of the clearing. I didn’t pause to see if she was okay, I just jumped at the beast, letting out a unholy cry. Startled, it turned, jaws a gap. The fastest way to bring down a large beast that’s probably bullet proof… is to aim for the soft spots. I jammed my arm into its mouth and angled the gun upwards, pulling the trigger as fast and as many times as I could. Explosions of blood and matter burst out of its eyes as the bullets bounced around inside its skull and liquefied its brain. Its jaws clamped down on my arm as it fell backwards, the sharp teeth sheering through my flesh and bone as easily as a hot knife through butter. There were no words to describe how much this hurt but even with my arm severed, my hand still squeezed the trigger over and over, firing the gun till there were no bullets left. The ground shook as the beast landed on its back with me on its chest, the pain too intense to move. The body beneath me shrank, revealing the giant werewolf finally being dead as well as this huge beast… had been nothing more than a small child. I rolled off him and sat up as best I could, shaking from the pain, unable to breathe despite not needing to. Seeing the small boy, recalling the beast he had been, I was confused and in a haze of pain, unable to comprehend how the two were the same being. It didn’t make sense to me. I heard some whimpering and I looked over, seeing across the clearing, the girl. She looked human again but her arms and legs were limp and her back was angled weird. I struggled to my feet, which is really hard with only a broken arm to help, and walked over to her. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she wasn’t looking at anything, which I didn’t doubt. Pain does that to people. I wasn’t sure how things worked for werewolves, so I knew not if she was going to live or not. “Ah damn… Why does everyone around me die?” I muttered then gritted my teeth. I took in the sight of the broken girl in front of me, then shifted and looked at the bodies littering the clearing. They were all werewolves, so there was no hope that I could feed from them to recover. “Life sucks,” I mutter, sitting down next to the whimpering girl. I couldn’t feel any hope, which surprised me in a way, but then how could I feel hope anyways? We were far from any roads, far from civilization. Only a miracle would help. Maybe there is a God, and maybe he loves fucking with us, because just when I thought that… a hiker entered the clearing. It was a man in his late thirties, who had probably never seen a dead body in his whole life judging from his reaction. He took in the sight, looking as if in shock, then his eyes settled on me and the whimpering girl and he rushed over, dropping his pack as he knelt next to me. “Oh God,” he said, his hands shaking as he opened his pack and started looking for something. “What happened?” he asked. I didn’t reply, just let myself follow my instincts. I tore into the man with my teeth, taking what I needed without feeling the slightest remorse. I hated feeling helpless as a human, and now as a monster, I had the power to never be helpless again. After ten minutes, his body, along with the others, had turned to ash and blew away. I sighed and flexed my new right arm to test its responsiveness, finding it perfect. It still amazed me that I could grow back limbs like this. My left arm was fixed as well, so I popped my fingers and looked over at the girl who lay still on the ground, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes were still unfocused, but were growing glassy now. I don’t understand how immortals die, or how werewolves stay alive, so I couldn’t think of anything to do to help her. Hoping to find something to help, I turned and went through the pack lying on the ground. “Help me…” she whimpered, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her eyes had finally focused on me. A pang of guilt twanged in my heart, but I just sighed. “I don’t know how, and I don’t think you do either,” I replied weakly, going back through the pack and finding a bulky satellite phone. I was looking it over when I felt a hand tug at my dirty, stained shirt. When I looked back again, she was holding the tail of my shirt, her hand trembling. Her arm like the rest of her was black and blue from bruises. I don’t even know how she could manage to reach out and hold on like that. “Please…” she begged with her eyes glassy with pain and full of fear. I just stared at her a moment then asked her what her name was. She paused and looked confused, like she couldn’t remember, then finally after a moment said, “Kitty.” I smiled a little and set down the satellite phone then pulled out the hatchet I found in the pack. “Do you want to live, Kitty?” I asked, a deep sadness filling me as I gazed at her, something inside me knotting up. “No,” she whispered and I swung… Monsters never cry… Monsters never cry… I told myself this over and over as I walked away minutes later, tears streaming down my cheeks.