Manila silently climbed down from the bed and walked to the window, turning her back to Liam. She pulled the curtain open just a crack, crossed her arms, and stared out at the street, at the twisted faces of the dead. She didn't say a word.
Manila wasn't what you'd call delicate—not on the inside, at least. Her body might be soft in places, but her heart had grown a tough skin. In her line of work, the law never really protected her. Clients shorted her, refused to pay, sometimes got violent. She never called the cops. She couldn't. Tax evasion alone could land her in prison.
She'd started when she was sixteen. Now, she couldn't even remember how many men she'd serviced—young, old, plain, ugly. It didn't matter what they looked like. If they had money, that was enough. Money meant survival. She'd been through a lot. Even had a stint with drugs once, but kicked it. That alone gave her a kind of quiet strength. But zombies weren't like other things. You couldn't just decide not to be afraid.
Liam was sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought, mentally ticking through what he might've forgotten to prepare. That's when he heard it—a faint sound, barely audible. He turned. Manila's shoulders were shaking.
"You don't have to cry," Liam said, his voice low, slightly exasperated. "If you're brave enough, leaving here isn't impossible. And… maybe you could come with me."
"Really? Thank you, seriously," Manila said, spinning around and wiping at her eyes, her face lighting up.
"Don't get me wrong," Liam replied. "When I say come with me, I mean you run behind me. I won't be helping you out of any trouble. If a zombie grabs you, it means you weren't fast enough. I'm not going back for you. Understand?"
"I understand," Manila nodded quickly, smiling again. She got it. Liam was saying she could come—on one condition: keep up. If she stayed close, his protection came with that. But if she fell behind, she was on her own.
By midday, the mood between them was calm enough. Liam wasn't the type to mix emotions with logic. He spoke plainly, acted decisively. Manila, on the other hand, kept trying to test him, subtly—or not so subtly—trying to seduce him, even while eating. She'd let cream from the bread stick to her lips and lick it off slowly, watching him the whole time. But Liam never took the bait. Sometimes he gave her a half-smile, almost mocking. It wasn't that he didn't understand—it was that he could ignore it.
By afternoon, the sun had started to drop, though the early summer heat hadn't quite settled in. The air outside was cool, but the atmosphere inside and out was cold. The stench of blood still hung heavy. The undead still groaned. Occasionally, a shot rang out in the distance. Sometimes there were faint screams, too far to make out the words.
Liam dragged the only armchair in the room over to the window, sank into it, half-reclined, his eyes peering through the slit in the curtain toward the pale blue sky. In his hand, a scalpel spun fast and sharp. The radio on his phone crackled softly at his side.
Surgical scalpels come in all kinds. A blade and a handle. Eight types of handles, twenty-four blade variations. The one in Liam's hand had a 4# handle—fourteen centimeters long—and a 24# blade, about five or six centimeters, shaped like the forward edge of a dagger. Technically, it was designed for shallow cuts. In reality, anything sharp could kill someone. Especially a blade like this.
It was made from S30V steel, a high-grade metal used in military gear, praised as one of the best materials for knife-making—hard, strong, just not very flexible. Better for short blades, like daggers or scalpels.
Before the outbreak, all Manila knew about Liam was that he'd studied medicine. She learned that during the only real conversation they'd ever had—when he helped fix her light a year ago. So now, watching him toy with a scalpel, she didn't find it strange.
"Aren't you scared you'll cut yourself?" Manila asked, crouching down beside him. Her voice was soft. She wore a loose V-neck, and when Liam turned, his eyes instinctively landed on the full curve of her chest, barely concealed.
Another move. Another little act.
Liam stopped spinning the blade. Without a word, he flicked it.
Thunk.
"Should be fine. Thanks for the concern," he said, forcing a small smile. It wasn't real. It was for her sake.
Manila looked at him, her long fingers resting lightly on his thigh, her expression flirty. Then she paused, her brows pulled in. Something was off. She hadn't heard the scalpel hit the floor.
She turned her head and saw why. The blade was embedded in the wall across the room—buried more than halfway into solid concrete.
She stood slowly, her eyes shining with something new, walked across the room, and reached out to pull the scalpel free. It took effort. Her other hand ran along the gouge left behind. It was deep—three, maybe four centimeters. No ordinary person could stab that deep into concrete, even with a full swing.
She shifted her hand a little to the right and found another gouge. Moved again—another one. She stepped back, took in the wall beside the bed. Pale blue paint, covered with hundreds of nicks and holes. She'd never noticed. Maybe it was because the room had been messy. Maybe because she'd been too scared to pay attention. But the truth was, this wall had been used for practice. Again and again.
"Throwing knives?" she asked, gripping the scalpel in both hands, her face full of disbelief.
"Something to do when I'm bored," Liam said without looking at her. He turned his eyes back to the sky.
It was just something to do. Anyone who's ever held a small blade long enough has probably had the urge to throw it, just to see if it'll stick. Liam was no different. Using scalpels for it might've seemed reckless, like a betrayal of his profession, but in fact, it wasn't.
Medical blades are one-time use. That's the rule. Even if they still look sharp, using them twice could risk infection or injury. A dull blade means uneven pressure, more mistakes. So surgeons throw them out. Liam used to do that too—until one long, quiet night with nothing to do and no one to call. That's when it started. Waste not, right?
Night after night, he stayed in, waiting for calls that never came. Tossing blades became a habit. Time passed. Accuracy came with it.
If someone spent over a year throwing scalpels into the same wall every night and still wasn't good at it, they probably had something wrong with them.
Liam had never told anyone he'd actually rebuilt that part of the wall himself. The holes were all recent—less than three months old. He had no reason to show off. Not to Manila. Not to anyone.
"Could this kill one of those things out there?" Manila asked, crouching down again, holding the scalpel, eyes fixed on him.
"Probably," Liam said. His voice didn't change. No hint of pride, no satisfaction. He took the scalpel from her hand.
To him, throwing a knife well wasn't a skill to be proud of. Not in this world. Not compared to a loaded gun. It was just a small comfort. A way to pass time in a life where the clock had stopped ticking. The heaviness inside him hadn't lifted—not even a little.