A serpent of fire uncoils from my side and splits into five separate entities, creeping along my limbs, swirling, twisting, burning trails in their wake. A dry scream scratches my throat, like an angry cat clawing it's way past my esophagus.

"I'm on fire!" I shout, although I'm not sure this is exactly what comes out of my mouth. It's more like a groan.

"...no good," I hear someone say.

The flames overtake me again and I howl. Stop, please stop, it has to stop. Makeitstop!

The white-hot flames grow in intensity, until I can't breathe or think, and when I'm certain I can't take it anymore, they peter down to nothing. I just know I must be burned to a crisp.

"Am I dead?" I ask, my voice cracking like kindling.

"Yes and no," someone says. It's a woman. She's wearing an army getup, complete with a helmet. The way she's standing seems stiff. Knees locked, shoulders squared. Her voice is gruff, like pebbles rubbing across concrete.

It's hard to tell if she's telling the truth, because I'm numb.

"Are you sure? I can't feel anything."

Her appearance doesn't alarm me. I'm used to seeing soldiers...I think. How I got here in the middle of a...swamp...is what's confusing me. I'm lying in murky ankle deep water that smells like some port-o-potty.

"Pretty sure. You're talking." I see a gun of some kind in her hand. I've never been good identifying that kind of thing, but I'm pretty sure it's a type of gun I have never seen before. I note that she's pointing it upward and not at me, so I figure there's nothing to fear from it. "The dead don't talk, but when they wake up, they all say it burns like hell."

"What?" This woman talks in riddles. "What happened?"

"I shot you," she says simply.

What do you actually say to someone who tells you they shot you? What is etiquette? I have no clue, so I go with, "Jeez, thanks?"

"—with the treatment for the zombie virus," she adds. "You're not good as new, but you're better than you were."

"No, wait, hold up. Zombie virus?"

"I thought you might have some memory loss. It's common if the brain has been damaged at all. Luckily, yours wasn't damaged completely or you wouldn't be here right now."

The ground beneath me is squishy. I can feel that, but I don't know if it's cold or hot. I don't know if its slimy. All I know is that it gives easily beneath me when I move. I pull myself upright.

Looking down at myself, I just know I'm a nightmare to her. I'm covered in grime, thick black and brown gunk is dried here and there. The parts of me that are wet from the swamp are just wet black and brown gunk. My shirt is torn in several places, as if I've been run over by a lawn mower. My pants are barely hanging on by a few threads. I can tell they're my favorite jeans...or at least they were.

"Damn," I say. I'd had them since I was a junior in high school. No way would I find a new similar pair to replace them.

"You've been dead for six months," the woman says.

Something about her saying that makes me angry. Maybe it's the way she just blurts it out, without any feelings. No I'm sorry. No I don't know how to tell you this but, or even a brace yourself. Especially no, I'm sorry your beloved jeans are ruined. I'll never find another pair that'll make my booty look like that.

"You're insane," I say.

But the scary thing is, I know she's right. I know something has gone very, very wrong. But why?

I can smell myself and I smell like the dumpster outside of a sushi restaurant. I can smell her too. Coconut and vanilla. Beneath that is a deeply appealing scent that I don't want to think about.

I'm so hungry.

She makes a sudden movement, catching my attention. She's tucked the strange handgun into a hip holster and pulled a riffle from a holster behind her shoulder. She's pointing it straight at me. The bright light on the top passes by my line of vision, and I wince away from it. My eyes aren't used to such things, I suppose.

"Don't even think about it," she says.

"Ugh, I wasn't thinking about anything." But I must have been because I'm closer to her somehow.

"The cravings. It's the only thing we can't help. That's why it's not a cure. Only a treatment. They can mend your bones, your flesh, but your taste for living, breathing humans? It won't go away. Not completely. So keep your distance."

"Okay, chill!" I'm talking and thinking. I don't feel like a zombie.

How do zombies feel?

"You can control it. So I suggest you do that."

I play it cool.

"Okay, fine. Noted. Moving along. Do you have anything to drink? I feel like King Tut took a dump in my mouth."

She lowers the firearm, thankfully, and pulls a strap off her shoulder that's attached to a canteen. I see the hint of a smile, but then she hands it over seriously. She approaches me like I'm a monster, which I am I guess. She's full alert as she meets me halfway and I take it from her. She's careful not to touch my hand. I don't blame her—my nails are atrocious. I gulp the fresh water like a desperate fish.

"Back to business. You are Blake Livingston aren't you?"

"I am. But don't ask me how I got here, because I have no idea."

"Where do you live?"

"Does it look like I live anywhere?" She stares blankly. "I used to live at 1114 Hemlock Lane."

"With whom?"

Blank. There's nothing in my memory. I feel like I'm searching for something that is running from me. Every time I get to the part of my mind where it's hiding, it takes off again. "I can't remember."

"Who is your best friend?"

Emerald eyes. The world is shades of grey to me now, but when I see her in my mind, I see those bright emerald eyes. I see her impossibly flawless copper skin. Her black hair. Thick, tight curls. But I don't have a name. "I can't remember."

The woman reaches to her shoulder and presses a button inside a black square. "Pryce reporting. I found her, but we've got a problem here."

A crackling voice comes back. "Is she alive."

"Affirmative, sir, more or less," she says staring me up and down.

I stare right back. Waiting.

"Is she able to give the information?"

"Negative, sir. She seems to be suffering memory loss."

I hear movement nearby. A faint splash in the brackish water.

"The important thing is that you've found her. Bring her back to headquarters; we'll worry about the rest."

Her mood shifts from stiff and serious to something like panic, only on her it doesn't look like panicking. Normal people would start breathing erratically. They might even sweat a little bit. They could stammer or talk too fast. All I see is the whites of her eyes grow a fraction bigger. I see her posture slouch slightly.

"Sir, I've had to treat her. She's not in much of a traveling state."

The movement nearby has begun grumbling. I can barely hear it, a deep rolling sound that's like thunder from far off.

"Figure it out, Pryce. Get her here. I don't care what you have to do. She's too important!"

Pryce closes her eyes and sucks in a breath before she taps the button and replies, "Yes, sir. Over and out!"

When she looks back at me, I'm frozen. I'm zeroed in on the sound beyond Pryce.

"Don't—" she says, and she pulls the riffle at the ready again but it's too late. She shouts a curse.

In one milli-second, I pounce. I move faster than I had ever believed I could, and lucky I do. I snag the gator I'd been silently tracking before it can clamp onto Pryce. I wrap my arms around it and sink my teeth in, pulling back with a huge chunk while it thrashes. After a couple more bites, it goes still.

"Jesus!" Pryce exclaims. "That thing came out of nowhere!"

Does she mean me or the gator? I drop what's left of it back in the water.

"I'm important," I say. I'm not asking her, really. I just want her to register it, especially after the look she was giving me when the guy on the little black box asked if I was alive.

"You're one in a million," she says dryly, and she clears her throat. Fixes her jacket collar, smooths the front with her hand. "And you look like you've been through hell."

"I have, I think."

"Let's get out of here. You first." She waves the gun over to the right. "That way. We've got to get you cleaned up."

"You're welcome, by the way," I say because she would be gator food if I hadn't just gone all zombitch on it.

"Yeah, yeah," she says with a wave.

I go where she says. Stumbling, grabbing trees for support. My feet sink slightly and pop as I pull them up out of gunk, until the ground starts to get more dry. I know she's behind me with the gun on my back as if I didn't just save her life.

Some people, eh? Ungrateful.

"How did you find me in here anyway?"

"Nearby homeowner saw you wander in here a couple weeks ago. I figured you'd be stuck in there. Zombies are always getting stuck in swamps."

"Silly zombies," I say, for the sake of being agreeable.

I'm doing a pretty good job of playing it cool on the outside. Inside I'm freaking completely out. I'm scared. I'm confused. I have emotions I can't even name, because I can't remember them. I just attacked and killed a huge gator as if it were nothing. Me. Five foot five, one hundred, twenty-three pound me.

But that's not all that stumps me.

I'm wondering if my heart beats. What if it doesn't? I'm wondering if I'll ever see normal colors or feel normal feelings. Will these layers of filth come off me? Will my memory come back? Crud, I'm so hungry!

"Calm down," Pryce says, "we're almost out."

"I am calm."

"Calm reformed do not grumble and growl as they walk."

Shit. I am a monster. I smell like one, look like one, and sound like one. I don't even realize I'm monstering when I monster.

The ground has been firm for a while. When the trees break, I can see a house and a military marked vehicle in its driveway.

"See that Jeep?" Pryce says.

"Yes."

"Go to it."

"Okay, but can you stop pointing that thing at me, I feel bad enough as it is. I don't think it's helping matters at all."

"Fine. But just know that if you make a move, I'm ready."

"I don't want to eat you," I say. "I don't even eat meat often. That gator back there, totally out of the blue. I do not want to think about what all I've done, what I've—who I've..."

I see her hair first. Light. Wavy. Long. She spins around with a smile but it turns into a wide-eyed, open-mouthed scream. I grab her throat with my claws. Claws? Her face, I feel it between my teeth, feel her skin give, blood rush in my mouth, flesh grinding between molars—

Click-click-click-click

That noise? I snap out of the awful memory. Pryce is in front of me, holding a clicky pen. I smell the coconut and vanilla that is her scent. I breathe it deep. The other scent? That's human, and I don't want it. I don't. I've got a grip. Deep breath. Steady.

"You're gonna get those memories, okay? They're gonna come rushing at you randomly. We just need the right ones. We're gonna keep trying until they come, no matter how long it takes."

I groan. This is going to royally suck.