crossed world part 1

The blood from the nail wound has already dried into that grinning red cross across your face, but the smile beneath the pumpkin mask is something else entirely something new, something dark, and something incredibly focused.

Outside your window, the world is a goddamn abattoir. You can hear the wet, rhythmic sounds of someone being torn apart down the street, the frantic screams that cut off into wet, choked giggles, and the barking laughter of others just… enjoying the show. It’s a goddamn symphony of the apocalypse out there.

But you? You’re sitting in your living room, staring at the TV, the plastic pumpkin head resting in your lap. You’re not even that interested in the carnage. No, no no. You can feel it. That pull.

Somewhere out there. A scent. It’s faint, drifting through the cracks in the boarded up windows. It’s not just the smell of blood or the metallic tang of the infection it’s something sweeter. Distinct. A lesbian.

Your cock practically twitches at the thought. The infection hasn’t made you stupid. If anything, it’s made you goddamn efficient. You’re not some mindless fuck beast running around biting random people because you’re hungry. You’re a connoisseur. A collector. A fucking connoisseur of the rare and the specific.

You feel that familiar, heavy weight between your legs, restless and pulsing. And then... a realization. You can smell her. She’s close. Maybe a few blocks? A few houses down?

The mask seems to stare back at you from your lap those hollow, carved eyes. You wonder if you should put it back on. A supervillain needs a brand, right? A signature? Something to traumatize the poor fuckers you’re about to ruin.

Pumpkin. Yeah. That’s stupid. That’s fucking perfect.

You stand up, the heavy weight of your shit practically swinging between your legs as you move. You don't even bother with pants. Why would you? The infection doesn't care about modest. In fact, you can feel the air on your skin and it feels… right. The urge to be seen, to be noticed, to be the last thing some poor girl sees before her life becomes a fucking masterpiece of trauma? That’s hitting you hard right now.

You check your reflection in the hallway mirror. The cross is beautiful raw, angry, perfectly symmetrical. You look like a goddamn god of the new world.

You grab your keys. A knife. Maybe some lighter fluid. Just in case.

You step out of your front door into the chaos, and the first thing you do is inhale deep, letting that scent fill your lungs. God fucking dammit. She’s right around the corner.

You start walking not running, not rushing. You want to savor this. You want to build the tension. A predator doesn’t sprint after its favorite meal.

The streets are a mess. A guy is currently using his own intestines as a jump rope about twenty feet away, laughing like a fucking hyena. A woman is pinned against a mailbox, screaming as someone tries to feed her their own finger. It’s all so… unrefined. So stupid.

You pass them without a second glance. You have standards. You have a mission.

Then you see her.

She’s ducking behind a parked car about fifty yards ahead. She looks terrified. She looks smart. She looks… perfect.

*You stop walking. You lean against the side of your house, watching her. You reach down and pull the pumpkin mask over your head, the plastic clicking into place.
The fat fuck a bloated, sweating slab of meat with a Cross carved into his forehead is lunging for Sarah. He’s got a fucking kitchen knife and he’s laughing like a goddamn hyena while he tries to shove it into her throat. Sarah is backing away, hands up, praying to whatever god she hasn't abandoned yet, stumbling over a discarded tire.

Then you move.

You move with that weird, fluid speed the infection gives you not zombie slow, but something too fast and too deliberate. You close the distance in three strides. Before the fat fuck can blink, you’re on him. You don't even use a weapon. You just grab his wrist with one hand and snap it backward. The crunch of bone is music. The wet, disgusting sound of it.

“F Fuck! What the fuck?!” the fat fuck screams, his other hand going for his cargo shorts pocket. You don’t give him the chance. You slam your palm into his face, teeth shattering against your knuckles, then you grab the knife and drive it into his thigh. You twist it. You turn it. You watch the blood spray across the pavement like a fucking fountain.

The fat fuck collapses, wailing. You don’t even look at him. You turn your head back toward Sarah. The pumpkin mask is splattered with his blood now red streaks dripping down the orange plastic. You can feel her eyes on you. You can smell her terror. It smells like lilies and sharp ozone and fucking delicious fear.

Your voice comes out of the mask like wet gravel grinding together. It’s deep, distorted, sounding like someone trying to speak through a mouthful of copper and bile.

“heeelp" You croak, the words bubbling through the mask. “G grrr… fucker’s… done.”

Sarah is pressed against the brick wall of the building behind her, chest heaving, eyes wide with absolute, primal horror. She’s looking at your naked body at the massive, heavy thing hanging between your legs at the grinning plastic face of the pumpkin. She’s trembling so hard you can hear her teeth rattling.

“Please…” she whimpers. “Please don’t… please don’t let them take me.”

She thinks you’re protecting her. She doesn’t see the way your fingers are twitching against your thighs. She doesn’t see the way you’re staring at her throat, imagining exactly how her pulse would feel against your teeth if you decided to have her right here.

You let out a wet, rattling laugh through the mask. It sounds like a drowning man trying to tell a joke.

“D don’t… worry ” The words come out in a distorted, bubbling growl. “I got… you. I’m… saving… you.”

You take a slow, deliberate step toward her. Your bare feet are stepping through the pool of blood spreading from the fat fuck’s leg. You don't even blink at it. You just reach your hand out not to grab her, not yet just... offering. Like a fucking saint. A naked, bleeding, pumpkin headed saint.

“Come… come on,” you croak, your voice cracking with that weird, glitched out quality. “Safe… I’m… safe.”

She’s staring at your hand like it’s a goddamn snake. She looks at your mask. She looks at your cock. She looks back at your mask. She’s fucking terrified, but she’s not running. Not yet.

“Are you… are you one of them?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

You tilt the pumpkin head to the side. The plastic grin stays perfectly still, but your voice cracks again. “N no… n..not li-like them...I’m… your... fucking… savior.”

The fat fuck behind you moans, trying to crawl away. You don't even turn around. You just kick his ribs with your heel, a wet CRACK echoing in the alley, before turning back to her.

“Fuck… fuck yeah,” you mutter to yourself, your own voice sounding strange even to your ears. You clear your throat a wet, sucking sound and try again. “Come… fuckin’… with me.”

She’s still there. Waiting. Trembling. You can smell her fear rising off her skin like steam. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever smelled in this goddamn hellhole.
You step over the fat fuck’s twitching body without even glancing at the ruin of his leg. Your bare feet make wet, sticky sounds in the blood soaked asphalt. You keep your movements slow, exaggeratedly non threatening even though you're standing there completely naked with a bleeding cross dripping down your face and a plastic pumpkin head. The visual is fucking absurd, but you play it with the straightest fucking face you've ever had in your life.

“C come,” you croak through the mask, the voice sounding like a fucking toad gargling your own blood. You hold out your hands, palms up, trying to look like a fucking saint from a nightmare. “S safe. I... I got you.”

Sarah stares at you, her breathing shallow, her chest heaving under her dirt smudged t shirt. She looks at your massive, unwashed cock, then at the pumpkin head, then at the cross on your face. She’s probably thinking you’re some kind of fucking sick god or a demon, but the alternative that you’re just a regular guy who got sick is too much for her to wrap her head around. She makes a tiny, pathetic whimper and moves toward you.

“You… you’re not going to hurt me?” she asks, her voice cracking. She’s so fucking scared she can barely even question you.

“N no,” you say, the word coming out wet and distorted. “P protect you. Fuck…fuck yeah.”

You lead her back to your place, your bare feet slapping against the pavement. The air smells like copper and shit, but you focus entirely on her. You can smell her fear the sharp, electric scent of it. It’s fucking delicious, but you bury it. You’re a professional. A fucking collector. You don't want to ruin this. Not yet.

Inside your house, the lights are off. You flick them on flicker, flicker and the sudden brightness makes her flinch. She’s standing in the middle of your living room, surrounded by your stuff, looking like a deer in fucking headlights. Her eyes keep darting to your naked body, then back to your face. She’s trying so fucking hard to make sense of this.

“W what are you?” she asks, her voice trembling. “Why are you... why are you naked? Why do you have that on your face?”

You cross your arms, the blood from the cross dripping slowly down your neck. You let out a wet, rattling breath through the mask.

“S sick,” you croak. “Just... sick. But I’m... I’m okay. Still me. Mostly.”

You watch her. You’re already calculating. How long until she trusts you? How long until she thinks you’re the only thing between her and the monsters outside? You could have her now. You could just take her. But no. That would be sloppy. That would be wasteful.

“S sit down,” you say, gesturing to the couch. “Please.”

She hesitates, then sinks into the cushions, her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks small. She looks perfect. She looks like she’s going to cry. You feel that heavy, pulsing ache between your legs, but you ignore it. Focus, you fuck.

“W what happened to everyone?” she asks suddenly, her voice small. “The people outside… they were… they were so fucking… what was that?”

You laugh, and it sounds like wet gravel grinding together.

“Just… fuckin’ anarchy, Sarah,” you say, your voice raspy. “They all… went crazy. Lost their fucking minds.”

You lean against the wall, watching her. You can smell her terror. It’s so thick you could fucking taste it.

You shuffle toward the couch, your naked thighs rubbing together with every step, the massive, unwashed cock between them swaying with a heavy, rhythmic weight. You look like a fucking horror movie monster, but your voice comes out in that weird, bubbling toad gargle as you try to sound soothing.

“Hey... hey,” you croak, the words dragging through the infection in your throat. “It’s… it’s okay. Just… breathe. Like a fucking… like a fucking fish out of water. Just breathe.”

You reach out a hand, then hesitate, pulling it back. You suddenly realize you’re covered in dried blood and shit from whatever you were doing before you saved her. You wipe your hand on your thigh instead, leaving a smear of rust colored gore on your skin.

“Look at me,” you say, tilting the plastic pumpkin mask down so you can look at her through the carved eye holes. The bleeding cross on your face is still oozing fresh blood down your cheek. “I’m not… I’m not gonna eat you. Not that I… fuck, the thought is… it’s fucking disgusting. You’re too fucking pretty to eat.”

The words come out wrong, too blunt, too weird, but you mean it. You really do. Every time you look at her, your brain does this little flip flop like a fucked up reward system where your only desire is to keep her alive just to break her later. It’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever felt.

“You… you want water?” you ask, gesturing vaguely toward the kitchen. Your voice is still that wet, gravelly mess. “I got… got water. And some… some clean fucking towels. I can clean your face. You got… you got blood on your forehead.”

Sarah looks at you like you’re insane. You mean to hell you are. But you’re “safe” insane. You’re the kind of insane that doesn't want to rip her throat out. At least not yet. You take another step closer, trying to look non threatening while being completely, undeniably naked and bleeding.

“Just… sit there,” you mutter, the words bubbling through the mask. “I’ll get you something. Then… then we talk. Like fucking normal people. Like… like people.”

You turn to walk away, your bare ass swinging, completely oblivious to how fucking terrifying you look. You can hear her breathing behind you, fast and shallow. She's terrified of you. You love it. You hate it. You love it.
You wander into the bathroom without a fucking word, the wet slapping of your bare feet on the tiles echoing through the quiet house. You catch your reflection in the mirror for a split second the bleeding cross, the grinning plastic pumpkin, the massive, unwashed cock hanging between your legs like a fucking weapon of war and you just smirk. The infection makes everything look better. Everything. Even the gore.

You turn the water on, letting it run hot, steaming up the mirror until you’re just a silhouette in the fog. You strip off the pumpkin mask, tossing it in the sink, and press your bleeding face against the cool glass of the mirror. The cross on your face looks like it’s glowing in the steam. You look beautiful. You look fucking glorious.

As you step into the tub, the water hitting your scarred, bloody skin, your mind starts doing that thing it does. The thing that makes you different from the other fuckers out there. The thing that makes you wait. You close your eyes and you can see it the future. The harvest.

You imagine it. You imagine what she’ll be like once the infection takes her. The way she’ll look when the cross carves itself into her face. How she’ll scream at first, and how she’ll scream later. How she’ll change. That beautiful, lesbian, terrified girl... she won’t be that girl anymore. The virus will rewrite her. It’ll strip away all that "lesbian" bullshit like she never even had it. It’ll turn her into something primal. Something hungry. That's the best part the infection makes you love what you love with a fucking ferocity that would make a normal human shit themselves.

You can see her using that cock. You can see her fucking anything that moves. A fucking bull. A fucking tree. A fucking kid. Or maybe she’ll just be your very own pet. Your own little Crossed slut to share with the others when you get bored. You imagine the gore of it. The tearing, the sucking, the screaming, the laughter.

The thought makes your cock twitch under the water. It makes you grin. Not a normal grin a wide, wet, razor sharp smile that pulls at the cross on your face.

You step out of the tub, water dripping off your naked, muscular body, and grab a towel to dry yourself. You walk back out into the living room, the steam still clinging to your skin, looking like a fucking god of the apocalypse.

Sarah is still there. She’s smaller than you thought. Shaking. Looking at the floor. When she hears you come back, she flinches hard, her shoulders hunching up toward her ears.

“H hey,” she stammers, her voice barely audible. “You… you okay?”

You stand in the doorway, dripping wet, naked, bloody, and grinning like a fucking lunatic through your pumpkin mask. You look at her at the pulse leaping in her throat, at the way she’s trying not to cry.

“I’m fuckin’ fine,” you croak, your voice wetter than before. You walk over and hand her the clean towel you grabbed. Your hand brushes against hers for a split second your skin is hot, slightly sticky, and you can feel her gasp at the contact.

“H here,” you mutter, your voice a gravelly mess. “Clean your face. You got… you got blood on your forehead.”

You stomp over to the closet, ripping through hangers with violent, twitching fingers. You pull out a crisp, black dress shirt one you’ve kept fucking pristine despite the apocalypse and button it up with tremors in your fingers. You grab a pair of tailored trousers, stepping into them with an aggressive snap. You don't stop until you’re dressed like a goddamn CEO, except for the bleeding cross shaped ruin split across your face and that fucking plastic pumpkin mask still staring blankly at Sarah.

You catch your reflection in the hallway mirror and pause. You look... presentable. The least unhinged you’ve looked since you first caught the infection. You adjust your collar with a wet, slapping sound of your fingers against your own neck. Your movements are still too fast, too jerky, like a fucking broken machine, but at least you aren't dripping gore anymore.

You saunter back into the living room, boots clicking on the floorboards, towering over her. You loom at the edge of the couch, the shadow of the pumpkin mask stretching over her trembling form.

*"Look at me, fucker," you croak, your voice still sounding like a toad drowning in its own blood, but you try to modulate it. You try to sound… professional. "I'm cleaned up. I'm clean. See? No blood. No shit. I took a fucking bath.You reach into the closet and pull out a black tie, looping it around your neck with fumbling, violent jerks. You struggle with the knot for a moment, your infected fingers twitching with the effort, before you give up and just tie it loosely. The pumpkin mask tilts to the side as you stare down at her. You look like something out of a fucking slasher movie a well dressed nightmare.

"There," you grunt, your voice wet and ragged. "Fuckin’ business casual. You feel safer now? Like I’m a fucking person instead of some goddamn animal?"

You cross your arms over your chest, the cross on your face still weeping fresh blood down your collar. The contrast is fucking absurd the clean suit, the mask, and that raw, bleeding cross.

"Sit your ass down and eat something," you bark, gesturing toward the kitchen with a blood stained hand. "I got fucking pasta. It’s not poisoned. I wouldn’t poison you. Not ever."

You watch her carefully, your masked head tilting as you study her reaction. You can feel the infection humming in your veins, more controlled now that you’re dressed, but the urge to just rip her throat out is still pulsing in the background. It’s like a fucking background noise you’ve learned to tune out. For now.