Haunted

He moved towards the sliding door, finally giving in to temptation. As he did so, memories flitted back to him in his mind's eye. The night just gone. Every night since it happened...... It was always the same. Terrible, terrible dreams that haunted his subconscious like a dark angel hovering over him, bloody scythe in its hand. The dream always took him back to the same place. The place they had met. And although the city was dying, she had given it life and purpose in his own heart. Yet here, now, in this hollow mockery of a place conjured up by the darkest recesses of his diseased mind, there was nothing. Nothing but an empty wasteland inhabited by ghosts and shadows.

Echoes of what once was, but could never be again. And so he searched. He searched for her, and although his dreaming mind conjured up a hundred or more ghosts, each bearing her face.....her body, they were nothing but empty, decaying husks. And although these spirits looked like her, his Katy, although they moved like her, spoke like her, told him that she loved him, it was all a whispered lie. She was gone, and Cain could no longer be sure that it wasn't he who was the husk.

Although these ghostly doppelgängers stole her face and body, they could never be her. Katy was gone now. Gone forevermore. And Cain wondered, deep down, why the dark angel's scythe had not fallen upon him.

***

Cain walked over to the sliding door where he had heard the sound from. There was a slight stagger as he walked. Holding his right arm to steady himself from falling over, Cain closed his eyes and took in a couple of deep breaths. He was still feeling slightly nauseated and had the wall not been there to catch him he would have collapsed completely.

Changing direction, Cain walked slowly over to the sliding door. Opening it, the door made a slight hissing noise and he stepped outside, drinking in the cool air.

Looking down below, he saw a number of shadowy forms congregated on the far side of the street in the distance.

"Poor, foolish bastard," Cain mouthed to himself as he shook his head. "I wonder what possessed the idiot to go out there on the street. He must have been desperate."

Swallowing, he looked down to the street, where creatures were in the process of tearing the poor, unlucky sod limb from limb. He smirked as he called out to whoever might have been listening in the apartment.

"Food's running out. We're going to have to make a supply run soon. I'd prefer it to have someone out there watching my back if we make the attempt. Can I trust someone to do so?"

Behind him, the ghost of Kat patiently waited for him to die.