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"Wait!" I yelled.

The door shut, and I whirled in the darkness to face it. There was light coming in from the edges.

"No, Shadow!" I yelled louder, grabbing at the doorknob. It turned, but the door didn't budge. He must be holding himself against the door. I kicked the door sharply and screamed filthy nothings at it.

There was the sharp sound of tape being stretched from a roll. No.

"Noooo!" I shrieked. Pounding on the door.

Shadow was silent outside, and an edge of light on the bottom of the door disappeared.

"Let me out!" I screamed into the door where it met the wall.

"Stuff the towel at the bottom of the door." Another scream of tape being removed from its roll. "I think you'll be safe in there." His voice was shaking.

I stepped away from the door and glared at it in the darkening light as he added more tape.

I hated this. It was so selfish of him to make this choice for me. I had always hated the tales of furs who tragically died, especially saving someone else. I felt weak, sick. He deserved to live. I deserved to live. Everything about this was wrong. It was bad. It was wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

I seized the doorknob with a vicious wrench. "Wrong!" I screeched my loudest. Of course it turned into something more like "Wrooooouuuugghhh!" I hurled all my mediocre weight into the door-

-and fell out into the brightly lit kitchen.

The door smacked into the wall and I stumbled onto Shadow. And my fists stumbled into Shadow.

I pounded my small fists into his chest as he tumbled to the floor. I vented my frustration and helplessness onto his clothed black chest, my eyes streaming wildly.

"You idiot," I screamed at him, choking on sobs. I gripped the fur at the base of his neck in my paws, blunt claws digging into the skin as I pulled him up and shook him. My tail twitched angrily over my back. "You think I want you to do this?!" I leaned in and closed my eyes and pinned my ears back. I couldn't look at him, I could only scream at him. "You think I want to continue like this alone? You're going kill yourself this way?! It's not okay!"

I gasped for breath and sagged down on top of him.

He made a strained gasp, "Tyler-"

I'd knocked the air out of him in our fall. I eased off his chest, weight on my knees on either side of him, fisting my paws in the fur below his neck. My head sagged down, eyes still closed. My nose brushed the tips of his neckfur as my tail sagged limply to the floor.

"I don't want to live like this alone!" I sobbed brokenly. I shuddered in a breath. "I can't stand to live in this world alone. Don't be selfish and think it's okay to sacrifice yourself.... We're to do this together." I was slowing, so upset I couldn't think straight.

He drew a difficult breath, still recovering from the landing. His paw came up and rested on the back of my head.

"Don't make such and awful decision without me," my nose fell further forward, into his neckfur. I was drawing shuddering breaths, drawing in his scent. I couldn't leave this sense of life. There was nothing else in the world for me. Having it ripped away and held over the silent abyss was too much to bear.

"Sorry," he managed faintly.

I opened my eyes and stared up, over his chin at him. His golden yellow eyes were flooded and the fine fur around his eyes was flattened into streaks down his scarred muzzle.

He gripped his paw on my head slightly. His voice grew stronger, but shaking with his own upset. "It was so small and I knew we both couldn't fit. If only one of us was going to survive, I knew it had to be you."

"And you decided that on your own. Don't do that!" I muttered faintly, glaring balefully up at him. He was fuzzy through my tears.

"It's just..." he sighed with a shudder, and steadied, "You saved me, you know. Good furs like you need to be saved. More than furs like me...."

"I saved you! But was it any less that you also saved me?" I argued desperately, but softly.

He looked confused.

"I would have wandered the city. I would have found my way home. I would have given up!" I pulled myself up, resting my weight on my legs, crouched over him. His paw fell to his side. "I was finished. I didn't care what happened anymore. All I could think of was to flee." I stared into his eyes, "If you hadn't showed up, I would've killed myself by now even if the Curtain hadn't."

He stared up at me with wide eyes.

"I saved you. You saved me. It happened. It doesn't even matter. We do this together or we perish together. Unless you feel like living on your own instead...."

He shook his head emphatically.

"Then," I took a long breath and released my paws from the lower ruff of his neck. "Then, we figure this out together, okay? Either way."

He nodded, gazing up at me with wide eyes. At least he wasn't crying anymore. Neither was I.

I rubbed at my eyes with the back of my paw and got off him. "Get up. We'll find a way to both fit. If we can't, we'll have to find a way to manage it. Otherwise...."

"At least we won't be alone?" he filled in.

"Better believe it," I said, giving him a sound smack on his chest. Away from where the clipped fur surrounded his scabbed cut. At least that hadn't broken open in my angry fit. Poor consolation because I felt bad about hitting him. Only a little though.

"Okay, just like packing. Biggest things go in first." I turned and jabbed a finger at the pantry pointedly. My voice shivered, but was controlled.

"It's too small," he grumbled getting up.

"In!" I insisted.

He went and sat down, looking uncomfortable in the small space. His legs were crossed and his knees ended somewhere under the lowest shelf. The towel rested on his lap.

"Where are you going to go?" he asked. "I don't think you can fit on that first shelf.... You had better not try and shut me in here alone," he ended with a sudden glare.

"I'll just get in and we'll just manage," I tried to sound certain, but it was weak. It really was a small room. There wasn't enough room on the other side of him for a child, let alone me. The one time I regretted -not- being smaller.

He gazed at me, worried, as I picked up the roll of duct tape and stood at the pantry door.

We did not have much time left. It must have been very close to the time the Curtain came. Unless nothing would happen this day, and we would be free of its horror. Couldn't count on that.

I held the doorknob and swung it shut behind me as I stepped in over Shadow with one footpaw. He looked worried as the door closed, shutting off most of the light. He whined unhappily. I looked down. His nose was above my knees, my paws on the wall over his head.

The door still shut. At least having me smash into it had not warped it out of its frame. I carefully stretched the duct tape off the roll.

"Damn," I breathed. "I can never rip this stuff."

"Pass it to me," came a quiet, steady voice.

He sat and helped me as much as he could from the floor. My tail bumped uncomfortably against the shelves. I had to stand on my very tippy toes to reach the top. It was an older house, and the door wasn't even that high. His paws steadying my legs as I wobbled helped my mind as well as my balance. I covered any light along the top and upper edges.

"Okay," I whispered. "The top's done. All that I can reach while standing, at least."

"Why are you whispering"

"I want to be able to hear it coming if I can." I consciously checked for any sounds with flicking ears as I paused.

"Oh," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. I could faintly see him stuff the towel into the bottom edge of the door. The rest of the door sat in its frame, but the bottom hovered over the floor, like most interior doors. "Here, pass me the tape."

I passed him the duct tape and watched dark outlines of his paws as the light on the lower half of the door disappeared. Tape reinforced the towel's seal at the bottom.

"Do you see any light?" he whispered when he was done.

"Hold on." I paused, not wanting to hurry my verdict.

He didn't hurry me.

"No, I don't see anything at all. You?"

"Nothing," he whispered.

I twisted around to fumble around on a shelf. "Here, lean these against the seal at the bottom. Maybe some weight will help keep it in place."

"What is this?"

"I think it's a package of flour. The paper-wrapped kind."

"Okay," he said as I passed him a second one. "Now what?" he asked when we went silent again.

"Um...." I shifted uncertainly in the cramped roomlet - basically a glorified cupboard. "I don't know. I really don't think standing during this is a good idea. I might thrash around without meaning to and go-" my voice broke suddenly.

"What?"

"It's coming, Shadow! What do I do?" I shifted, panicking.

He whimpered. Without a word, he grabbed my footpaw and slid it forward until my toes were smashed against the wall. Then the same to the other footpaw.

I whimpered my panic. I was getting unbalanced with my toes smashed like that. He pulled down on my waist, also steadying me, supporting my weight. He guided my hocks and heels forward and up instead of down and back. Confused and panicking, I still managed to remind myself I trusted him. He moved his paws to support all my weight. My toes were the only other thing supporting me.

I sank down, reaching my paws to hold onto his shoulders. He grunted, so I must have put pressure on his injured shoulder. Still he kept drawing me down. My knees were nearly touching the wall behind him and only my toes touched the floor. My fur was standing on end in my alarm and feeling sensitive. My rear finally rested on his lap, my tail painfully twisting around in the space between his crossed legs. Our chests were mostly lined up and if I shifted back slightly, I could feel the shelving behind me.

I whimpered as I wrapped my paws around the back of his shoulders. Even my elbows barely fit. His paws grasped my waist, drawing me close.

We barely fit.

But we'd done it.

As the Curtain dropped down. Again.

Everything shook and trembled. The hum seemed to come as an effect of the vibrations. The shelf vibrated behind me, glass clinking together. My toes and fingers vibrated, sending uncertain sensations through me. Such tiny shaking, but it reached everywhere.

The vibrations reached in and clawed my mind, I became thoughtless. I drifted, becoming the vibrations. They almost seemed to have an undertone....

And it stopped.

Stillness smashed into me. A backlash worse than getting dropped to the floor by an angry bull. Wider in my being.

And I stopped... but only for an instant. I was still... there.

And Shadow was there too, panting along with me. Our chests vying for breathing room in the limited space. I had sagged back slightly to lean against the shelves. My head rested slightly between some... cans? Shadow had sagged forward, his head resting heavily over my shoulder. Our paws had dropped in shock, and I slowly managed to raise my paws back up to hold his shoulders again. I flexed my paws into his shoulder. We had made it. It had been a "normal" one... if such a thing could even be called normal.

I felt numb, sick and dizzy. I had no doubt that Shadow felt the same. But we were both here. I pinched the flesh of his uninjured shoulder.

"That's for trying to leave me alone in here," I muttered as I felt him wince under me. I kept my one arm over his shoulder, grabbing a bit of shirt to help hold it there.

He didn't say anything, his head sagged over into my neckfur. His nose rested in the dip my collarbones made. I could feel him breathing deeply as his breathing calmed. I shifted and managed to relieve most of the painful pressure on my tail. I moved my other paw under his arm and onto his back, where it bent over me.

We rested in the darkness, breaths slowing. Hmmm, I could feel his heart beating through our layers of clothes. My whiskers eased forward as I relaxed. I moved my muzzle around slightly, questing out with my whiskers and nose. He whined pitifully into my neckfur, a wordless protest of me moving. Ah, his ear really was there.

Just like he'd done for me, I began to slowly lick his ear. It tasted a little funny. Bitter ear taste. Soft and fine, fluffy fur along my tongue.

He sighed and brought up his paws to hold me around my waist again. Maybe his licking my ears was because that was what he really enjoyed himself.

It didn't matter, he needed the comfort, and I was there to give it. I licked over the ear, thoroughly, moving across his brow. He had a large, predatory head that weighed against my shoulder. Wolves were some of the largest, strongest of the canine furs. They required large heads and necks to support those strong jaw muscles. I could feel those muscles on his head and his forehead as I licked over them. Steadily and unhurriedly. The Curtain had left. Now, there was just the two of us.

His nose dug deeply into my ruff as I licked carefully between his eyes, over the bridge of his nose. It was fascinating somehow. The darkness drew my attention in to the texture of the fine fur. The little changes of direction in the fur. I slowed and was light and careful as I licked near his eye. It was closed and he tilted his head to allow a better angle. I tasted the salt left from his tears and licked the trails left behind into smoothness. He sighed, breathing slowly. I could feel every breath he took and every shift of his body.

I moved down his muzzle and he pulled his head back to allow me access. I mixed light, chaste kisses between every few licks. He sighed and made a faint, content hum. I could feel the muzzle scar on my tongue. It crossed from the bridge of his nose down to the edge of his lips. I didn't want to force any further action in that personal area, so I continued around the nose, giving it a quick lick. I shifted my head to access the other side of his muzzle and he accommodated by tilting his head the other way.

It was good to have whiskers. Through them, I could sense him a little, even in this deep darkness. His short whiskers tickled my tongue as I passed them, making me want to lick them more to relieve the itch.

I made my way slowly up to the other ear, slowly licking and kissing my way up and back. I took extra, careful time around his other eye. More salty trails. I eventually reached his ear with my long, slow licks. It also tasted slightly bitter. And tasted of him, all wolfy.

Shadow seemed completely relaxed, sagging bonelessly against me. I would have thought him asleep, but he kept making faint, happy noises and held me close with his arms. I licked his ear slowly, exploring the texture, my whiskers mixing with fur inside and outside his ear.

Oh, my tail was gathering lots of pins and needles, forcing me to stop my attentions. I was still leaning back against the shelves, my knees somewhere up by his shoulders. I tried to lift a bit, ease the discomfort in my tail. I managed to raise slightly, but trying to find leverage between your tippy toes and shoulders, with a heavy wolf laying on you is not easy.

"Don't go yet," he breathed into my neck, where his nose rested again. "This is so very nice."

I grunted, "My tail is trapped..." I tried to move my arm from his back, but there was simply no room to get my paw behind me. "Shadow," I whined a little pathetically, "Can you pull my tail out? It's all twisted and I can't reach it."

I could feel his nose digging into my fur a little deeper. There was some relief as my rear was lifted by a strong paw and my tail was pulled out and set to lay across Shadow's knee. I gasped and grimaced as circulation and a normal curve returned to my tail.

"Tyler?"

"It's okay. Ouch, it just aches.... Ah, Shadow? I hate to bother you, but could you rub my tail? It stings." I leaned my head back onto the shelf and wriggled in discomfort. At least my weight was on my rear and not my tail.

He licked into my neckfur and I felt a paw running along my tail, squeezing it repeatedly down the length. My legs flexed in mixed discomfort and relief, and it was over. I relaxed again, no aching tail to distract me. I sighed and felt his weight rise and fall as I breathed. I could feel his heart somewhere around the lowest point of my sternum. His paws returned to hold my waist.

He continued to dig his nose into my neckfur and lick along my ruff. I gave a little gasp as his tongue found my stretched windpipe. He slowly trailed it a little upwards, then nibbled his way downwards. A pleasurable tingle made its way down me, focusing at my groin. I probably started to plump up a bit as I moaned softly and gripped his upper and lower back with my paws.

Shadow licked higher again, and again, sending more shooting tingles down. He reached my chin, and nibbled at the narrow edge. I shivered and shifted my hips, feeling a growing hardness.

One paw moved from my waist to further up my back and hauled me forward. My head was over his as he continued to lick and nibble. My weight settled closer to his hips. How long had he been hard? We had just done some... activities this morning. Maybe some of those rumors were true about horny teenage furs. Was I now one too?

I whimpered. "I thought you let one loose earlier," I sighed, tilting my head for him.

I could feel his erection pressing against mine through layers of clothing. He shifted his hips forward and we pressed together.

He grunted softly and pressed himself into me again. "Must be the joy of being alive." He kissed along the underside of my muzzle.

He pressed against me a few times, without any rhythm.

My breathing was quickening, so was his.

"Damn it all," he muttered into my neckfur. He stopped and reached around me, fumbling around with something.

What had happened? Did I do something? I wasn't thinking clearly. A slight headache was growing.

"We need to open this door, it's too stuffy in here. The ventilation isn't enough, especially for this."

"What?" I asked, feeling aroused and fuzzy-minded.

"See what I mean? No air, no room to take our clothes off. On top of that, we reek. Filthy as any stray feral."

I heard him rip away tape and suddenly there was light again. Even that little bit stung. I grimaced and gripped Shadow's back to me.

"Don't wanna move," I stated firmly. I was happy right here. Outside, we were only a couple of furs wandering an empty wasteland. In here, all that mattered was contact, fur, and scent. I was starting to get used to this new way of interacting with Shadow and he'd stopped it.

"We were going to go clean up in that stream. It's certainly cleaner than we are," he teased lightly, tearing away more tape. He cupped my butt and pushed me upwards. "Up you go. Pull off the tape up there too."

My legs ached from the unaccustomed position, but I stood on them. He steadied me again as I pulled off the tape along the top.

"Door?" he prompted. I could hear his smile.

I shrugged. It was time to leave. My throbbing hardness would have to go down slowly.

We exited the pantry finally and stretched aching limbs in the kitchen. The air outside the tiny pantry did feel a lot fresher. It was getting pretty hot as the summer sun beat down outside. Shadow was hard in his pants, and I was still hard in mine. At least there was room to shift myself to a more comfortable spot in my pants.

"Race you to the creek?" he asked brightly.

"I don't even know where it is," I huffed. Even tired as I still was, I had to admit that a good run sounded like something I really needed.

"Out the kitchen door and that way," he pointed.

"Okay... go!" I took off and was nearly out the door when I heard him getting started. I was out the door and streaking in the sunlight. The blinding sunlight. My steps faltered as I tried to adjust. Shadow caught up to me as I managed to squint without flinching. We ran shoulder to shoulder, straight towards a line of green trees and thick plants. It was a good ways out there, across stretches of grass and fallowed land.

He pulled ahead, as we both ran hard for the promise of cold water. But I succeeded when I leaped over a rotting log that he skirted. I laughed in triumph as my paws met the water first, and I splashed down, clothes and all.

He'd apparently done the same, because he was standing up, dripping all over, right after I was.

"I won that," he claimed, a fist pounding his chest with a heroic squish.

"I don't think so! I touched water first!"

"But I was the first one down in it," he grinned.

I waved it off, "Technicality!"

He strutted around with difficulty in the thigh-high water, smiling devilishly for imaginary throngs of press.

I bent over laughing and finally took a look around us. There were trees and dense green things growing on either side of the waterway. The water was fairly narrow and reasonably deep. It was probably not much wider than we were tall. The water had the semi-murky look of natural water that has just been disturbed. All of our paws were responsible for landing in the natural muck, rock and sand mixture at the bottom. The water cleared steadily with its own flow as we stood there. Birds and bugs were out. We had been in the pantry a while after our initial recovery.

An algae covered stone had me slipping and splashing into the water again. I came up laughing and Shadow gave me an extra splash.

I splashed a little back at him. That quickly degraded into an all-out water battle. I even tried to hurl clumps of algae at him over his cries of "cheater!"

A few birds squawked at us indignantly as we calmed down, bending over and gasping for breath. Soaked, skin and fur, tip to tail. Somewhere in the excitement, we had stripped off our clothes and waded around in our underwear. Soaked clothes waited for our return to the bank.

Boxer briefs were not very comfortable in the water. Shadow looked like a natural in his boxers. At least neither of us was sporting an embarrassing and arousing erection anymore.

I ducked into the water and ran a paw over my head and ears. Coming up, I might smell like pond water, but it was better than days-old sweat, tears and filth. Overall, the water battle had washed most of it away, and a good shake of all my limbs under the water had anything else floating away. I finished with scrubs between my legs, pulling down my drawers when crouching underwater and sluicing creek water around.

I was done and Shadow was finishing his own cleaning activities.

"Done?" he asked. At my nod he headed for the bank and stopped, ears flicking. "Do you hear something?"

I gulped. Recently, it was never a good thing when either of us "heard" something. I stilled my mid-water thrashing and listened, my ears straining forward.

A huff and something that sounded like a shredded groan. Then again and another one nearby too. My eyes widened. Realization struck me with a nasty blow. Here we had been racing out of the house and making all manner of racket at the creek during a zombie outbreak. But the zombies we had seen had all been quiet, dead things, right?

I slipped slowly through the water towards Shadow, trying to make as little noise in the water as I could. The sounds were coming from the other side of the creek. He helped me out of the water carefully, joining me in my sense of caution.

This was new. This was unknown.

Terrifying.

A face slowly parted the brush on the other side. Oh, the snarl wasn't there. I was about to call out-

-But Shadow gripped my arm and shook his head slightly.

I looked closer and noticed that the creature had the same eerie, glowing eyes as the zombies. The lips were down over the muzzle and it appeared to be sniffing the air. Shadow and I stared, standing very still. When it finished sniffing, the lips pulled back into that nasty snarl. Actually, it seemed to relax the lips back into that snarl and I finally recognized the creature fully.

Zombie.

And another one was coming through the undergrowth near it. They had both been rabbits. Their innocent lapine faces looked around with ghastly snarls.

I shuddered and looked towards the house. Shadow gave a minute nod.

And we leapt the bank and the log like startled rabbits ourselves, quickly finding our footing and racing towards the house.