Free The Scavengers by Gen Griffin

time as I turned to face Seth.
    He was leaning against the chest of drawers next to the bedroom door and watching me with an amused smirk on his face. In the dim light of the rainy morning I could see that his skin was too pale to be considered normal and his hair, except for where the scar cut into his skull, was blacker than night. I slid my hand into the pocket of my wet jacket, glad I hadn't gotten around to taking off the damp leather yet. The grip of the gun was comforting in my hand.
    “How did you get in here?” I demanded as I yanked the gun out of my pocket and pointed the barrel at him.
    Seth eyed the gun impassively. “Good morning to you too, little lamb.”
    “Where's Kennedy?” I asked. “What did you do to him?”
    “Kennedy? I didn't do anything to him. He's in the garage of a house three doors down from this one trying to figure out how to crank a motorcycle that doesn't have a carburetor on it,” Seth replied. He appeared completely unconcerned by the weapon, which made me even more concerned.
    “He left me?” I jammed my foot down into the boot and it immediately tried to fold in half. I stumbled and nearly fell over. I would have hit the ground if Seth hadn't caught my arm and pulled me back up right.
    “Kennedy likes motors better than he likes people.” His touch was surprisingly warm on my arm. I'd assumed he would feel as cold and dead as he looked. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest as I pulled away from him, trying my best to make sure I didn't accidentally look him in the eyes. I was staring at the floor as I took a hurried step backwards. My shin caught the edge of a small box I hadn't noticed sitting at the end of the bed and I lost my balance. I tried to grab the edge of the wall but the gun in my hand was too clunky. I missed and landed with a thump on the bed. On top of the machete.
    “Ouch!” I yelped and jumped back up, dropping the gun in the process. The boot folded over for a second time and next thing I knew I was on my butt on the floor.
    Seth started laughing again as he bent down and picked up the gun. He examined it for a moment and then gently laid it down on a small table that was next to the bed. He held out his hand to me. He had what my Dad called musician's hands. Long, slender fingers with short, neatly kept fingernails. Scars crisscrossed his knuckles and palms in all directions. There was a scar straight down the inside of his middle finger that looked like he'd run it down the tip of an extremely sharp blade.
    I didn't want to touch him again so I ignored his hand. Instead I grabbed the edge of the box I had tripped over as I kicked off the offending boot and scooted my knees underneath me. A moment later I was on my feet again and oops, accidentally looking directly at Seth's disfigured jaw.
    I could almost see his teeth from the outside of his skin through the quarter sized hole in the side of his face. The blank, mottled eye blinked at me once and then I forced myself to focus both of my eyes on his good eye before I lost my creamed corn all over his heavy duty black lace-up combat boots.
    “You're a zombie,” I spoke without even realizing I'd said the words out loud.
    “Am not.” Seth crossed his arms over his chest and very purposely scowled down at me.
    “Are too,” I told him. Much to my surprise, his left eye, the blue one, wasn't all that scary to look at. There were little flecks of gold mixed in with the blue that surrounded his pupil. His lashes were far longer and darker than my own. Really too pretty for a boy. Especially one who was scaring the shit out of me.
    “Am. Not.” He shook his head at me and suddenly I realized that he was enjoying scaring the shit out of me. There was something in his demeanor that was intimately familiar.
    “Are. Too.” Maybe it was the way he kept cocking his head at me when I kept tripping over my own two feet. Or the causal way he was invading my personal space. Or maybe it was the smirk