Chapter 1302: Story 1302: A Kiss Before Collapse
The hallway reeked of blood and smoke.
Lara pressed her back against the apartnt door, listening—counting the seconds between the snarls outside. The groans had grown louder since dawn, and now sothing was banging on the second-floor railing. Wood splintered. A scream echoed from below. Then silence.
She turned to Ethan. “We need to move.”
Ethan nodded grimly, clutching the fire axe he’d salvaged from the stairwell box the night before. “To the garage. If the truck’s intact, we can get out.”
“I don’t care where we go. As long as we go together.”
A faint, humorless smile tugged at his lips. “I planned to say sothing like that when I proposed again.”
They moved fast, staying low. Lara wore her blood-spattered scrubs, Ethan his old band shirt and torn jeans. Survival made fashion irrelevant. Down the hallway, they found Mrs. Green’s apartnt door cracked open. A trail of red dragged from it like spilled wine.
Lara paused. “Should we—?”
“No,” Ethan said. “We don’t stop now.”
But they did—because the mont they reached the stairwell, they saw it: a man crawling up the steps on broken limbs, skin gray and bubbling. He didn’t have eyes anymore, just deep pits and dried blood. He hissed, gurgling like sothing drowned.
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He brought the axe down once, twice. Bone cracked. Flesh tore.
Lara turned away to throw up. Ethan pulled her back up. “We’re okay,” he said, voice shaking.
They reached the garage doors. Through a shattered window, they spotted Ethan’s black pickup—still upright, mostly untouched. The way was clear. Until it wasn’t.
The door slamd behind them.
A dozen of them surged from the shadows. Snarling. Crawling. Rushing.
Ethan grabbed Lara’s wrist and shoved her into the passenger seat. “Start it! Start it!”
She fumbled with the keys, screaming as hands clawed at the windows.
Ethan swung the axe outside the driver’s side, taking one down, then another. The engine roared to life.
“Ethan—!”
But just as he lunged for the door, one of them caught his leg—bit down hard. His scream shattered her soul.
She reached across and yanked him inside, stomping the gas as bodies rolled over the hood. They crashed through the garage door. The truck skidded into the street.
Lara looked over at him—his thigh bleeding heavily.
“No. No no no.”
He coughed, sweat pouring down his face. “We still have ti.”
“You’re bit.”
“Then we make it count.”
He reached for her hand. She took it. Blood pooled between their fingers.
And right there, as the world around them burned, Ethan leaned in and kissed her—desperate, fierce, unforgettable.
It was a kiss before collapse.
Of his strength.
Of their future.
Of everything.
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