Chapter 3

The day he left, the weather was fine.

For once, no zombies pressed against the walls. Sunlight spilled through a jagged window and settled on his silver-gray hair like snow.

He stood in the doorway looking at me, his expression complicated, as though he had a great deal to say, and in the end all he got out was "...That human male who brought you canned food yesterday. Stay away from him from now on."

"Why? The cans he gave me weren't expired."

"You!"

He drew a deep breath, as though holding something down.

In the end he said nothing, shifted to wolf form, and vanished into the far end of the ruins without looking back.

I stood in the doorway for a while. His retreating figure quickly vanished behind collapsed concrete and rusted steel.

I went back into my cubicle and sat on the bed.

His smell was still on it. Cedar and something wild.

I lay down and pulled his pillow into my arms.

It was a little cold.

Then I got up and went to the supply depot for a new blanket.

Blankets don't run away.

And they don't glare at you like you've betrayed them and then say things you can't understand.

I felt strange about it.

Three days after the werewolf ran off, I confirmed something.

He really had gone.

The scent on the bed had faded. I'd hugged his pillow for three days, and now the pillow smelled only of my shampoo. The new blanket from the supply depot was warm, but for some reason I kept waking in the middle of the night and reaching beside me. Only when my hand met a cold, empty stretch of bed did I remember that no tail would crush me awake anymore.

"Just as well," I said to the empty cubicle. "Saves rations."

The rations I saved were just enough to trade for another half bottle of disinfectant. I used that half bottle to wipe three years of dust off the windowsill, sharpened my knife again, then shouldered my pack and went out on a supply run.

Life has to go on.

The administrator at the base gate saw me come out alone, scanned the space behind me, and asked, "Where's that big dog of yours?"

"Ran off."

"See?" His mouth twisted into a half-smile. "A beast will always be a beast. No matter how long you keep it, it'll never be loyal."

I ignored him and walked straight out.

It wasn't until I was a long way off that I said quietly, "He isn't a beast."

My voice was too small. Only the gravel underfoot heard it.