The Raft

Katie stuffed a large backpack into the wire basket on the back of the chariot before ripping another piece of tape off the roll with her teeth.

Not for the first time, Zoe found herself watching her with a kind of guilty awe.

She had never considered herself cautious, indecisive or lazy, but the sense of purpose that Katie was displaying now left Zoe feeling like she was all three...

The situation they were in felt impossible, and yet Katie didn't stop. The same panic that left Zoe feeling paralyzed - standing in the garage doorway beneath a blanket and clutching her tail - Katie was turning into determined action.

She moved like somebody running from a fire only she could see, every moment of stillness lasting only seconds at most before she was up again; checking locks, counting supplies or peering through the curtains for any other signs of shadow people.

Katie was, Zoe knew, just as terrified as she was, but her fear wasn't the loud kind - not the kind that screamed or cried or fell apart.

It was somehow worse, because Katie had the kind of fear that meant she couldn't stop moving, because if it did, she might finally have to feel everything.

And it's all my fault.

Zoe watched in guilty silence as the blonde wrapped the strip of tape around a flashlight and crudely affixed it to the side of the cart. She gave the make-shift headlamp a few experimental flashes.

Has she always been like this?

Zoe chewed on the thought, another guilty blush creeping up the back of her neck as she found herself facing the uncomfortable truth that some assumptions, she'd always made about herself and Katie no longer seemed to be true.

She was the athlete, with the privileges of money and pedigree of success; where Katie was just bookish, Katie was just... stronger than me.

Zoe swallowed that thought too.

They had agreed to rest - but Zoe wasn't sure she'd actually seen Katie sit down yet.

Instead, the blonde had made a concerted and repeated effort to itemize everything that they had, and everything that they didn't - and in short time the house had gone from feeling like a home, to feeling like a base camp.

Electricity, water and heat were all working - somehow, but the internet, TV, radio, phones... everything was just static, dead. They had food rations enough for three days, maybe four or five at a push - but whatever magic was keeping the water flowing wasn't restocking the refrigerator; or, more alarmingly, moving the sun…

Time seemed to have little meaning here, wherever here actually was… the spiralling storm remained fixed overhead, it's continuous dizzying rotation bathing everything in an eerie permanent twilight that never seemed to change. Clocks no longer had any meaning to Zoe, so she was left with **** but to anxiously watch the eerie sky, fixed in a sunset that, no matter how many hours ed, never faded to night.

Conversation between them was strained, coming in cautious bursts between agonisingly long silences; both girls processing traumas they couldn't express and continuously looping through a million plans, fears and 'what ifs';

"We should try and get to Homeway..." Katie had spoken without turning around, peering through the blinds.

The idea of pulling the cart to the grocery store in the middle of town made Zoe's head spin with nerves, but what else could they do?

"O-Okay..."

"If we can get inside, get some food... supplies..." Katie's fingers had danced in the air again, "Then we can try and get out of town..."

"Y-You think we can leave... ?"

Katie hadn't replied.

After eating what little they could ration, and at Katie's insistence, Zoe had reluctantly taken a shower, only to face both the indignity of first having to keep her tail out of the toilet bowl when she peed, and then of forcing herself to shampoo and condition the cursed thing when she felt it laying wet and heavy against the backs of her legs in the shower.

She didn't even want to think about how fucked up it had felt having to blow-dry it.

By the time Zoe dared step back downstairs, wrapped in a towel for what little modesty she still had, she'd found Katie had moved both of their mattresses to the living room floor. It went unspoken that neither of them could face the idea of trying to sleep alone, but Zoe still wrestled with the embarrassment of Katie simply assuming she'd be okay sleeping naked in their living room.

Not that Katie had actually slept.

Zoe snorted again.

She had managed to steal some hours of restless sleep where she could, her body still aching from the **** of endless pleasure, but, actual sleep in this place felt near impossible. And each time she'd awoken, Katie had been absent; engaged in some other activity and apparently preparing for the unknown by itemizing their **** cabinet, tearing bedsheets into rope, filling containers with water or barricading the doors.

Through it all, the collar had stayed silent – and as the hours dragged on Zoe wasn't sure if that was a mercy or an even bigger cause for concern. Because, for everything that had changed, there was an unsettling stillness that now lingered over everything - a rushing roar of change followed by an almost agonizing, disquieting, calm.

What the fuck happens now?

"You're meant to be stretching…" Katie's voice cut through Zoe's anxious daydream and the naked girl shook her ponytail out, shifting her weight from foot to foot beneath her blanket.

"I'm fine"

"Zo, I mean it… your legs are our only way around out there… if you're not ready..."

"I'm fine" Zoe insisted, curling her bare toes against the smooth concrete, unsure if she was trying to convince Katie or herself. Her eyes fell to the evil looking straps laying before her, sprawled lifeless across the garage floor, ready to animate as soon as she stepped any closer…

She took another breath to steady her nerves, "We have to right…?"

Katie stopped, tape held to her teeth, mid-tear, "We can wait a little longer…"

Zoe tried to keep her expression neutral, but something twisted in her chest at the words.

No, we can't.

She looked at Katie. Really looked at her.

At her messy blonde ponytail. The dark circles under her eyes. The way she stood with her shoulders slung low, like exhaustion was beginning to physically pull her down. Even now her fingers couldn't stay still, fussing against the tape with trembling hands that she refused to it were shaking.

Seeing Katie like this hurt more than the fear did, and the knot tightened in Zoe's throat as her gaze drifted back down to the straps… waiting for her…

"We can wait…" Katie said again, blue eyes softer now.

But that was exactly the problem.

Zoe knew if it was up to her, she'd keep waiting forever.

I wish I had some motivation.

It came back to her again, a mocking voice deep the back of her subconscious, You wished for this.

Katie had spent hours turning terror into action while Zoe drifted around in a fog of exhaustion and humiliation and fear. Her body and mind had been pushed beyond breaking point… But that didn't stop the guilt or the painful self-reflection she could no longer avoid.

Katie was trying to protect her, but Zoe could see the truth in the way she'd organized the same bag three separate times already.

Katie knew they were running out of time.

Maybe not literally.

Maybe the sun would never move again...

But every hour they stayed blind here, hiding from the sky, was another hour spent hoping things would somehow improve on their own. It was another hour without food.

They needed answers, and Zoe knew that Katie wasn't going to rest until they had some...

A miserable laugh almost escaped her throat.

God.

She'd spent so long buried in her own self-pity; feeling violated by the curse, by the collar and her embarrassment, by the awful helplessness of her own body, that she'd somehow circled all the way around into expecting Katie to carry this entire apocalypse for her too...

They weren't Katie's answers to get - they were hers.

Stupid. Lazy. Pony.

Zoe took a deep breath, **** down her own fear, "No, I'm ready... are you ready?"

Katie nodded, "Yes, I think... almost, but-"

"Then let's get it over with..."

"Zo-"

She dropped the blanket, tossing it aside and stepping towards the straps before she could change her mind.

The black monstrosities writhed up like snakes, reaching menacingly towards her as she fought every instinct and kept her arms raised, breath held, stifling a horrified squeak as they started to attach to her harness all over again.