Page 35 of Hollow Valley

Boden frowned in confusion.“Okay.Alphie and I can go across to check it out, and then the rest of you could – ”

“You’re not listening to me!”Ryder yelled.“I’m not going across that fucking water!”

He’d been irritable all day, but he was angrier now than I had ever seen anyone before.His face had turned red, his eyes were bloodshot, and his lip pulled back into a snarl.

Boden got off the bridge and came over, putting himself between Ryder and most everyone else.

“Ryder, calm down,” Leandro said, speaking slow and deliberate.“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.You know that, right?”

“Yeah, cause nobody can make me do shit,” Ryder snapped back, but he wasn’t yelling and seemed to relax a bit.

“That’s right,” Leandro agreed.“But would it be okay if I ask you just one question?”

Ryder grunted in response and shrugged.

Leandro must’ve taken that as agreement, because he asked, “Why don’t you want to cross the river?”

“I just don’t!”Ryder shouted, and he started pacing in a narrow oval.He put his hands up, hovering ] above his ears like floating earmuffs.“I can’t stand to be near it!”

“That’s fine, Rye, that’s okay,” Leandro reassured him soothingly.“We’ll be able to get away from here real quick, but I want to ask you one more thing.”

“Just fucking ask it!”Ryder yelled and kept pacing.

“How is your arm healing from that cut you got back at the cabin?”Leandro asked, and Ryder stopped cold.

Back at the cabin, when the zombies had attacked, Ryder had gotten a cut on his forearm.It hadn’t looked like a bite wound to me – it had been a straight gash – but I had noticed a smear of green blood on his arm.Infectedblood.

There had been so much going on since then, I hadn’t thought anything of it, or the fact that Ryder had been wearing long sleeves even when the temperatures soared to summer highs.He’d been sick and rundown for as long as Dougal had, so everyone chocked it up to the bad meat.

“What are you saying, Leo?”Ryder asked, looking at his friend with dark, suspicious eyes.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need to know,” Leandro said as apologetically as he could.

Ryder scowled, but he pulled up his sleeve, revealing a nasty gash.It wasn’t healing at all, and pus oozed through a green scab.The flesh around it was all puckered and red, but the veins beneath his skin looked pitch black, like spiderwebs extending out from the wound.

“Dammit,” Leandro said under his breath, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.Then he took a deep breath and looked over at Ryder.“Do you want me to uphold our pact?Or do you want us to leave you here?”

Ryder’s mouth twitched, and his jaw was clenching and unclenching.But finally, he nodded.“I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you, and I’m sorry I’ve been so angry.”He paused and his breath hitched in his throat.“I just don’t want to be one of them.”

Leandro put a comforting hand on his shoulder.“It’s okay.I won’t let you.”

Tears welled in Ryder’s eyes, and they were tinged red with blood.He smiled sadly at Leandro, and in a thick voice, he said, “I love you.”

“You are my brother in this world and the next,” Leandro replied, and suddenly Ryder’s eyes went wide.

I didn’t even notice until after it happened, Leandro moved so quickly.He’d had the dagger in his hand, and he stabbed Ryder straight into the heart.He was dead before he knew it.

Leandro lowered his friend’s body to the ground.His back was to us, and he said over his shoulder, “Go ahead and cross the bridge.I’ll meet you over there when I’m done here.”

“You don’t have to bury him alone,” Boden said.

“Thank you, but I do,” Leandro insisted, his voice low and resolute.

“Don’t be daft.”Fergus came over and put a comforting hand on Leandro’s back.“You bore the brunt of it, you did.Now let the rest of us help you to honor our friend.”

All of us set down our bags and got out camp shovels and tools.Dougal didn’t have the strength to dig, so he watched Fae, who napped on his lap.Together, without saying a word, we dug a hole and buried Ryder on the banks of the river.

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