Ninety

You said TAKE. Theo walks the road to Saint Jude's with you, until he slips and you smell his blood.

A handheld radio in the ambulance door. Saint Jude's: eight miles. Theo climbs onto your back without being asked. On channel seven he calls his mom eleven times. Only static.

Mile two. Theo wants to walk. Ten steps later he slips, and his knee hits the asphalt. You smell it. Blood. Eighty. Eighty-two. You stumble back: "Run, Theo! Run!" Ninety.

He doesn't run. "You didn't leave me. I'm not leaving you." He pulls the string out of his hood and ties it around your mouth. Tight. "There. Now you can't."

The hunger stops climbing. For now. Up ahead, a police car. Door open. Handcuffs on the seat.

Then the radio clicks to 147.30 by itself. "Ninety percent... and a piece of string." The voice finally has a name: Silas. "That string won't hold. Ask me how I know." Day one, he had a kid with him too. He used his belt. The string creaks. Ninety-one.