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TOPIC: The Park: Apocalypse (Story)


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The Park: Apocalypse (Story)
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“What is this place…?”

“This, ladies and gentlemen,” the Doc said, still maintaining that heavy tone of sarcasm come arrogance that came with being the smartest person in the room, “is the Green Room. This is our home away from home, our fallback shelter. There’s enough supplies to see us last this war to the next generation if we so chose-”

“So why aren’t you in here? Why not barricade you and the kids in here and wait it out?” I asked without thinking. Someone made an offhand comment about the dead outside, but the Doc was quick to end all speculation with a loud and haughty scoff as he strode away from all of us. 

“People are social creatures,” he lectured over his shoulder, “they’re not designed to be locked away like animals in cages. If they did that, there’s no telling what might happen, right?” 

The Doc caught David’s eyes as he sauntered away, not bothering to mask the sn igger that followed. David, taken off guard, pursed his lips, frowned and said nothing. A moment later he was avoiding eye contact in place of the floor. Silence ensued briefly. I realised my fingers were clenched into a fist at my side. Consciously I flexed feeling back in. When I looked up I noticed the group had disbanded, wandering around the room like kids in a museum. Computer monitors lined a wall; all old, chunky, desktop types that went out with Noah and the Arc. Above them were monitors. Surveillance monitors. These were all black. The power was off but lights nearby still flickered.

“Hey, these still work?” Keith rumbled. He stood before the monitors. There was even a mug of coffee on the desk nearby, its contents murky, rancid, slowly evaporating in the still air – a visual reminder that life not long ago had been ‘normal’ for someone. The Doc nodded affirmatively.

“Great. So why not use these to find your missing kid?” Corey asked.

The mention of Amelia only seemed to compound the Doc’s loss. If he’d been holding it together this far purely for our benefit, his sagging shoulders and downcast gaze betrayed his underlying fear. A snarl flashed across his face. Sweeping off his sunglasses he swept a sleeve across his brow and brusquely shoved them back on his face.

“If it was really that simple what the f*ck do you think I’d need you here for?” he snapped, “If I wanted mindless entertainment I’d look no further than those things out there, would I?!”

Keith approached to soothe the Doc but the Doc vehemently shrugged himself away. He strode towards a desk, its face covered with dials and buttons and again more loose papers. A manila folder stamped with the official seal of the US Government collapsed to the floor with a swish and splat. The Doc dug behind the desk and wrenched out a cable. He opened cupboard doors. His movements were erratic, out of character, until I realised just what he was showing us.

“Half the equipment I have back at my lab are reliant on these tools,” he snapped, the first real trace of emotion pinching his words, if just barely. I remembered back to the security camera I’d seen mounted on the walls outside his compound. I hadn’t wondered at the time why he’d lit the hallways with oil lamp yet seemed to have a chop shop full of hand tools at his disposal without begging to question how they all ran. Now I knew – and part of me wasn’t sure whether to laugh aloud in relief or share his bitterness in the realisation he’d effectively robbed himself blind without meaning to – pun unintended. Amelia’s life was no laughing matter. But we were fast running out of options, if the Doc’s original hunch of her being here was even correct.

“Great, so now what do we do? How are we supposed to find her? We don’t even know where to start looking-”

“I say we separate. Split up. If this place is as clear as you say it is-”

“Nuh-uh. No f*cking way. Man, are you sh*ting me? I’m not going back out there, not to look for one little kid, not in a sea of those dead-” 

“Corey-”

“Man, we have to face it, this kid’s probably history by now-”

“Corey!” 

“You have to admit it yourself, you saw those things out there, how many there are, just what we all had to do just to get here! There’s no way a kid could do all that! There’s no way she could have-”

“Corey!” Keith roared. 

The sound, echoing like a sonic boom, stopped everything. The room was deathly silent. Until something else stole our attentions. Trinity’s sharply turned head told us something was wrong.

“…What?”

Trinity shook her head. Still, she moved forward, her trek taking her directly along side the Doc. Though the room still reeled in a kind of suspended animation following Keith’s outburst, the silence seemed unnaturally thick, suffocating, the tension sucking the air out of the room, stifling it. Their words were little more than murmurs, an exchange of monotones through which all I caught, or all I thought I caught, was a single word – smell. Just what she’d said or what she meant was obscured behind stiffly turned backs and conspiratorial whispers. Corey, obviously still reeling from his reprimand, made a sound like a bored teenager and stomped towards them. Keith opened his mouth to say something. He was stopped before he could say anything. All eyes turned towards the source. A large hulking shape moved past the doorway. It was so fast it seemed little more than a blur, but the vibrations I felt emanating up from the floor was not imaginary.

“He’s here,” the Doc breathed. It was a mix of awe, fear, and anger. He moved forward fearlessly. “If he has Amelia I’m going to-” 

“No,” Trinity said. She looked shaken. She looked pale. She briefly lost grip of her gun, almost dropping it in the process. No one said or did a thing. There was no time. A loud smash punctuated. Something shattered out in the hall. No, it was something else… a scream, a high pitched, intensive scream- 

“Emmmmmmmm!”

“Amelia!” the Doc gasped. 

He ran for the corridor. The rest of us followed in hot pursuit. The hallway before us was long, impossibly long, unnatural. What felt like 5 metres seemed like 5 kilometres as we raced back towards the door. That sound was coming from the stairwell. It was closing in fast. 

“Amelia,” the Doc repeated; his under-the-breath mantra that sustained him while the rest of us followed in a blind panic. 

A moment later a large shape moved past the door. It stopped on the other side. It was too still, too focussed to be a reanimated corpse. It was also too tall to be a small child. It stood casting two ambiguous shapes between the door and floor seemingly waiting for us. Just as the Doc reached out Trinity gripped his arm and stopped him.

“No!” she cried.

It was hard to tell whether she spoke to the Doc or was speaking aloud in denial or fear, such was the sudden look on her face. That was when we heard it again, and realised the sound was coming from behind us. In her little red dress she stood out like a bloodstain on a white sheet. She was staring at us, still, frozen, her blonde hair cascading down her shoulders like spun gold. She looked perfect. Save for the grey tinge upon her flesh…

“No! No!” The Doc echoed. 

It was the only time I could recall hearing actual emotion in his voice, not just a hint of it but brimming with it, overflowing, wretched, as he started for the little girl only to be stopped once more by Trinity’s grip on his arm. He struggled with her, pushing her, shoving her, demanding that she let him go. Whether his lack of vision or plain denial, he seemed oblivious to the fact that she stood there, a statue, staring back without the slightest hint of expression on her face. Corey was quick to venture something along the lines of ‘getting the f*ck out of here,’ but for a moment none of us could truly get abreast of our predicament. That shadow remained in the doorway. Amelia stood unwavering dead ahead of us. Dead ahead, I almost scoffed, but maybe it was more a lurching gut reaction, a convulsion brought on by fear. We were surrounded on all four sides, zombies growling behind their glass cubicles on either side of us, some ominous presence waiting outside the door at our backs, and Amelia in front of us. We were, in a word, trapped.

“She’s infected!” Keith rumbled, not just commentating to the masses but doing his best to reason with the Doc who was still struggling towards her. “Doc, M, no-, you can’t-!”

“No! No! You hear that! You heard that didn’t you?” the Doc countered, “She called my name! Those things don’t speak! Now let go of-”

“That’s because she’s not one of those things,” Trinity said lowly.




-- Edited by Ravynlee on Wednesday 8th of July 2009 10:44:18 PM

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Everyone looked to her. Even the Doc briefly stopped struggling. Her voice had been so low, so quiet; it was almost as if something had dawned on her, a revelation that she had no time to share with us. The Doc began to speak, after holding out hope even through tenacious odds only to be faced with this; he was slipping into uncomfortable realms that bordered for him on human. But Trinity didn’t let go. She held on firm. She even jerked the Doc back a fraction and with a grave expression nodded agreeably. Collectively the rest of us turned. David nodded back, lifted his rifle, frowned into his iron sight, and squeezed the trigger.

AMELIA!”

The sound was lost, commingling with the explosion as a bullet ripped through the air. With a dull thud it tore into the little girl’s forehead, puncturing her skull, sending up a fine mist of red-brown blood into the air behind her. For a moment time ground to a halt and everything slowed down as the child’s corpse defied gravity, staggered back half a step, lifted her arms to steady herself, then lifted her head again. David swore under his breath echoing the sentiment of the rest of the group. Amelia, now sporting a tiny red hole in the centre of her forehead, looked back at us… and smiled.

“No f*cking way…”

“Man, shoot her!”

“I did!”

“Well shoot her again!”

“No,” Trinity murmured. The look on her face still hadn’t altered from that shaken hue. She clenched her jaw and shook her head at David. She swallowed loudly. “Take out her knees.”

“What?!” The Doc barked.

A brief pause of consideration later David snapped another cartridge in, pumped his shotgun again and once more took aim. I closed my eyes. 

“She’s just a little girl!” someone whined.

I heard the bullet explode. I heard it pierce the skin and the wet wrenching sound of bone shattering before another sharp clack, another bullet, and another, and another – and Amelia laid on her back a bloodied mess on the floor. David, ever one for overkill, fed another cartridge in before he marched on the little girl and continued blasting another round of bullets into her mangled corpse. By the time it was over the corridor rang with such force that my head threatened to split in two. The ringing continued relentlessly, followed years later by an ear-splitting silence. I thought I heard Corey behind me throwing up. Maybe he was just coughing. Maybe it was me, it was all so… dissociating. The stench of gunpowder, of blood, of death in the air was so thick it was palpable, it was practically a physical entity, another’s presence in that narrow hall. And in all this came the realisation that a tiny child laid a bloodied puddle of body parts less than a few metres away. I dropped to my knees as the Doc broke free. He almost tripped over me as he staggered past. He came to a stop, slumping weakly against the nearby wall. First Erin, now this… His shoulders heaved but I couldn’t hear any tears following, I don’t know if I really expected any. Over the chaos still ringing in my ears I doubted I would have heard it. It was then, like an afterthought, we could hear another – it was distant and… scratchy, lost behind a hiss of static.

“Amy?” the Doc said. 

His head shot up, eerily reanimated, as he shifted gears from grieving parent to something else and pushed himself off the wall. He staggered, albeit blindly, back towards the control room. The growl of the zombies near the entranceway greeted us. They brought reality, such as it was, crashing back with unrelenting force. Keith’s dark face buckled as he glowered at the Doc, convinced at this point that his old friend had lost the last of his mental screws. Corey looked vilified. Trinity remained against the wall, statuesque, tiny, helpless-

On a desk an old two-way waited, luring the Doc’s flailing fingers like a siren from the deep. He snatched it up, cussing as his hip collected the table’s edge. More papers slid unceremoniously to the floor.

“Amy! Amy! I hear you!” he barked into the receiver. “Are you there?”

A sudden force on my back wrenched me from the room, so fast, so silent no one seemed to notice. I tried to scream but found the sound, if it even made it from my lungs, muffled beneath a steely obstruction. One jagged whimpering breath later I realised I could taste sweat and realised it was a human palm, a hand, someone as opposed to some thing was dragging me away. But it all happened so fast it was a veritable attack on my senses. I heard a door burst open. It grumbled shut. A firm slam of a boot and it rattled fast against the buttress. There was a sudden force, a brick wall rushed up to meet my face. Things were stabbing me, gouging into my flesh as I lay gasping. The wind was crushed from my lungs as a heavy weight landed atop of me. I struggled limply. Things cascaded on to the floor. In my blurred vision I recognised things for what they were - stapler, telephone, pencil holder – but it didn’t immediately register where I was. Or how. Or why. In a moment of pure adrenalin I brought my head back, swinging elbows and fists along with it. Something snagged my arm and spun me around. A gasp. A grunt. Pushed back first onto the desk with a hand at my throat I stared back mutely. I huffed out what little breath I still had as realisation dawned – and David glared back at me. In the aftermath, both panting for breath, I felt his grip relax and so too did the tightness in my chest. An electric moment of assessment before our lips met. The pulse in my head was deafening all else as we kissed. Nothing like the horrors of war to bring out the most primal urges in a man, I grimaced. A nervous smile crept out. It was cut short as he jerked me down over the edge of the desk and fell against me. There in that cramped little cubicle our passions grew, becoming our hot, brash little universe - we didn’t even hear the footsteps until they stormed in to the room. There was sudden light. And two shotgun barrels stabbed from dark shapes, stopping inches from our faces. We froze. They froze. A moment passed punctured only by a low unmistakably embarrassed clearing of the throat.

“Uh… sorry bout that,” Keith grumbled. 

Even with the glare of light at his back, the fire in his cheeks and sparkle in his eyes was hard to miss. His weapon lowered. A low sn igger followed hot on its heels. Another awkward pause ensued as he reached out and slowly lowered his companion’s weapon to the floor.

“Come on you,” he said. “Nothing to see here.”

He slung an arm around Trinity and covered her eyes at the same time, lifting her effortlessly out of the room. The awkwardness continued as he leant back in to draw the door closed behind them. We caught the wink he offered us on departing. There wasn’t even any time for humility as we stared at the door, then looked at each other, until both our haggard breaths and chuckles commingled. The sound of them echoed out into that narrow corridor, seemingly out of place amidst the horror and the carnage of moments before. A handful of metres away the red-brown puddle of what had once been Amelia still lay untended to on the floor. The figure that had been standing there on the other side of the stairwell door however was by now forgotten and well and truly long gone.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your turn *cheesy grins* biggrin.gif

EDIT:
Give me a chance to edit here, after a very enlightening conversation with my stepdad, I found a few glaring mistakes here in regards to a few details above. People probably won't notice but I do, so bear with me while I 'fix' them. Back soon.

EDIT #2: Done. I think. And just for the record this thing prints out at a staggering 311 MS Word pages (depending on format etc). How do I know? I did it today on campus XD



-- Edited by Ravynlee on Thursday 9th of July 2009 05:35:30 PM


-- Edited by Ravynlee on Thursday 9th of July 2009 06:12:24 PM

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If I'm not here, I'm there.


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Bit later than I'd intended but hey, it's still 'tomorrow'. Besides, the longness justifies the lateness biggrin.gif
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Come on you. Nothing to see here.”

 

“Kei –!”

 

I found myself lifted entirely off my feet and set outside. Keith reached back in the close the door. Corey and Doc M stood some ways away, the Doc furiously trying to raise Amy on the two-way. They paid us absolutely no attention; Corey, who ordinarily would have been, was crouched down, seemingly studying something on the floor.

 

“You saw nothing,” Keith informed me.

 

“You’re right I didn’t,” I hissed back. “What the hell –”

 

He gave me one of his meaningful looks, one of the special ones that said a thousand words. Something clicked in my head, and in the darkness I blushed fire engine red. Keith nodded, put a finger against his lips and jerked his head towards the other two: Right – and not a word to them. I returned the nod vigorously. Though I was a little insulted he would think I would just blurt it out, my embarrassment outweighed any inclination I might have to follow up on that thought. In my mind’s eye, I saw Dean suppressing a grin over my loss of composure, as he always seemed to do.

 

And he’s alive, I forced myself to think as the sight of Amelia’s desecrated corpse flashed through Dean’s image and melded with it. He’s alive goddamn it.

 

In what state? Said the snide voice of my subconscious. I was beginning to wonder if I had a split personality.

 

“Amy!” the Doc kept shouting into the radio. He fiddled with a knob, and called again. “Amy, can you hear me?”

 

Finally, he voice broke through the static. “M? M? Oh, thank God. It’s about time. Amelia,” she said like someone just remembering. “Have you found Amelia?”

 

There was a long pause. Keith and I both stepped closer to the Doc, as if to comfort him, when for the second time, his icy exterior momentarily fractured and slid away. But his eyes hardened and his posture straightened, and his voice was smooth when he answered.

 

“Yes. She was already gone.”

 

“OhmyGod.” A long, jagged breath. “Oh … oh my God. This can’t be happening.”

 

In a whisper that shouldn’t, by all rights, have carried across the shaky signal, Doc M replied, “I know.”

 

Again, a pause. The door creaked as Rae and David rejoined us. The Doc’s glasses had been lost at some point in the fray, and when he thought no one was looking, he swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. The only sounds on the other end of the line were tiny gasps, as if Amy were crying or hyperventilating or both. For it to have such an effect on her, I wondered about Keith, but when I chanced a look at him, I saw that his face betrayed no unusually sharp emotions. The big man almost always had a slight air of sadness about him, especially, I had noticed, when he was parted from Amy, and his current demeanor was no different. His calmness – whether it stemmed from sheer nonchalance (which I doubted greatly) or the ability to bury emotions until there was time to deal with them – was probably a greater asset that his strength or size.

 

“N-No …” Amy broke out suddenly. “No, you don’t … you don’t understand. This can’t happen right now, I … I have to …”

 

“What is it?” the Doc asked softly, compassionately.

 

“I l-l … lost … Selene’s gone,” she sobbed. “It’s why I was trying to contact you.”

 

For a second the Doc froze, blind eyes wide as if that would make it easier for him to see a lie or a solution. Then they narrowed to the thinnest of slits. “What?” He cursed. “You did what?

 

“She –”

 

“You lost a child?!”

 

Anger at the accusation bubbling through, Amy retorted, “If you’re going to blame this all on me then you can just feel free to go –”

 

“Shut up!” Doc M snapped, dropping the radio on a table. “Just let me think.” Propping up on the same desk, he put his thumb and first finger to his temples and massaged his forehead. He looked like he would have preferred to simply crush his own skull and be done with it.

 

“So the other little princess is done for too,” Corey remarked, more disinterested than cruel. “Huh.”

 

I was too appalled by his uncaring words to react. The Doc either didn’t hear or simply chose to ignore him. Keith, though, reprimanded him, “Corey, we need to talk.”

 

While I was still pondering on what a talk with Keith might entail, Corey shook his head and spoke again in his aloof tones. “Yeah, I’ll have to get a rain check on that, big guy. Whatever that shadowy thing that we saw earlier was, it wore boots.” He glanced up. “Might’ve been Dean.”

 

“If it was Dean, he would’ve joined us,” I put in hurriedly.

 

“Yeah, well, maybe not, Cyclops. Here. Just look.”

 

I went over and kneeled next to him. Keith opted to join the Doc in his ‘thinking’. Rae and David – I couldn’t quite look at them yet. Besides, I had more pressing things to worry about.

 

“Cyclops?” I demanded quietly.

 

“Sure, you know. From X-Men.” Corey put two fingers to the side of his head, miming the superhero’s posture. “The one with the eyes.”

 

He met mine for only a second before standing up and striding over to the rest of the group. I sighed, didn’t even bother to watch him go. His constant reminder that he knew I was different were becoming tiresome. For a second, my eyes – oh those most hated eyes – filmed over, and I dreamily considered how easily, in these dark halls, I could dispatch him. A quick, easy … snap.

 

A shudder broke me out of my murderous trance. What the hell was I thinking, I … I wasn’t a monster. No matter how annoying his little game might be, he was Amy and Keith’s friend and a valuable member of –

 

I shuddered again. It was more the movement someone would make from tasting something particularly bitter than from a chill. Anyway, I wasn’t cold. I was … drawn towards the hall outside – the direction the boot prints led. Maybe, just a few steps out the door wouldn’t hurt. Maybe, maybe Dean was out there, waiting for me. If I blocked out everything else, I was positive I could hear his rhythmic breathing … just … outside …

 

“Trinity?”

 

Another jerk. Keith’s hand on my shoulder.

 

“Find something interesting?”

 

“Oh, ah … no. No, I don’t think this is Dean’s, though.” The lie came easily. I had barely even looked at the print, but I knew I had to keep the others convinced that there as no way Dean was anything less – or more – than human. If they knew, if they all knew, the truth about us, God alone knew how they’d react. “I think it’s too small,” I added, needing some perfectly ordinary reason.

 

“Hmmm.” Keith squinted down and tilted his head. “Might be right.”

 

Relieved, I took his offered hand. He pulled my up and led me back to the table. Doc M and Corey were engaged in an argument that was trying very hard to be a discussion, and they stopped when we joined them. Maybe it was just paranoia, but I was convinced they were talking about me. The fact that Rae wouldn’t meet my eye backed up my suspicion.

 

Amy’s subdued voice crackled through the radio. “Well, what are you going to do? Without Erin and Amelia, Selene is your only real helper anymore. Lucas is still a little young, you know. And … with the macular degeneration, your eyesight’s only going to get worse – you’ll need someone’s hands and eyes.”

 

I was surprised to hear here argue the logical side. The again, Doc M’s place on the emotional side was fairly obvious – whatever I had thought of him at first, it was plain by now that he cared deeply for ‘his’ kids. It dawned on me that Amy was simply providing him with the logic his tired brain wouldn’t piece together, to give him a real excuse to go crusading for his other lost girl. Whether or not he realized her intentions was unclear.

 

“Of course,” he said irritably. “I can’t manage without her.”

 

“You mean to tell me that –” Corey started, but Keith silenced him with an uncharacteristically sharp look.

 

I tried hesitantly to compromise. “I did suggest, before, that we split up …”

 

Corey interrupted. “And I did, before, shoot it out of the air,” he mocked. “Splitting up in this place is suicide.”

 

I winced – Russian Roulette, anyone? – and hoped no one had seen.

 

“No,” the Doc said slowly. “No, it might be the best way. Two groups. One to find Selene, the other to follow these footprints of yours.”

 

Corey started to object again, and this time Keith pointed a finger at him and gave him a glare. The smaller man’s jaw tightened and eyes tensed; Keith lifted and eyebrow and raised his chin slightly, as if to emphasize his superiority; finally Corey turned his disdainful look towards the wall, crossing his arms. I watched the exchange in something like amazement, surprised by how well I could puzzle out their ‘conversation’.

 

Shut up, Corey.

 

Don’t tell me you go for this bullsh*t.

 

Don’t forget who’s in charge.

 

…Fine.

 

“If you’re quite through with your power struggle?” the Doc sighed. Apparently he could decode their looks as well; maybe it wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought. “All right.” He waved a hand towards Corey. “You obviously want to pursue the tracks. The girl knows who you’re looking for best. I trust the two of you will be fine on your own? A smaller party such as yourselves will find it easier to move.”

 

Now it was my turn to object, and despite Keith’s warning, Corey joined me. Neither of us wanted to be paired with the other, and between us, we came up with a myriad of false reasons why. In the end though, Doc M settled it by telling us that he frankly didn’t give a sh*t what we did, as long as we stayed out of his way. With nothing to object to, we found that there was no way we could both do what we intended to do without teaming up. With sullen, distrustful looks, we reloaded or guns – his rifle, my two pistols – and agreed with the others that we would meet back in the Green Room in two hours, no matter what. If one team didn’t make it, the other would give them fifteen minutes; then, there would be no choice but to move on. To make sure someone got out alive, Doc M would be staying there in the Green Room, so he could guide whoever came back, while Keith, David and Rae searched for Selene.

 

It plainly pained him to stay behind instead of look for the girl, but Amy, the only voice of reason in our dark little hellhole, convinced him it was the only way. Corey and I traded wary looks, then, bidding farewell to the others, set off.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



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There were times when the visible trail faded out. The prints were marked sometimes simply by the absence of dust, but more often, they showed up in blood. I couldn’t help but feel that we were being strung along, but there was no choice but to press on. When the prints disappeared completely, I disregarded Corey’s suspicions and dropped low to the floor, crawling on all fours when I had to to keep track of the scent.

 

Once I was aware of it, the smell was almost too strong to bear. I refused to believe it was Dean – surely such a slimy, putrid odor couldn’t come from my golden boy, undead or not.

 

“How much time?” I asked once, absently.

 

Corey glanced at his watch. “We’ve got another hour and some change.”

 

“It hasn’t been longer than that?”

 

“Apparently not,” he growled.

 

I dropped to the floor again without thinking about it. The smell was getting stronger and stronger, like we were getting closer to the source. The idea both excited and repelled me.

 

“What are you?” Corey muttered.

 

I almost didn’t answer, but at the last moment the words: “I’m special” leaked out. It was more sarcastic than anything else.

 

“Tch.”

 

“Hang on.” I crawled forward a foot more. “It’s gone.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“The trail, I mean the prints – they’re gone. He gave us the slip somehow.”

 

“You can’t – you just missed it somewhere.”

 

“No,” I insisted. “They’re gone, he’s somewhere else.”

 

“Well, where?”

 

“I don’t know. Look around.”

 

We both did so. I half-expected to see a ventilation duct with a loose cover, but all that I could see was two doors (neither of the rooms gave any clues), hallway to our front an back, and a –

 

And a round, metal plate in the floor.

 

“Of course,” I whispered. “That’s what the smell was. Sewage.”

 

“What the hell are you whispering about?”

 

“Help me with this.”

 

I didn’t need his help, but there was no need to raise more suspicion. He had enough of that already, and adding super-strength to my list of recorded oddities wasn’t on the agenda. Instead, I was happy to let him do most of the heavy lifting. With the plate out of the way, I could see down, but only enough to tell that there was sluggishly-running water, a ladder, and darkness beyond. I swung down, planting a foot on the ladder.

 

“Hey, hang on,” Corey grabbed at my wrist. “There’s not gonna be a trail to follow down there. Think about it for a sec. You were right, okay? He gave us the slip. That’s all there is.”

 

I glared at him. “I’m not giving up that easily,” I spat venomously. “Seems like some people shouldn’t.”

 

“F*ck. Fine. I’m goin’ with you then.”

 

I shrugged to show that I didn’t care and continued down the ladder.

 

I acclimated to the smell fairly quickly. Before long I was even able to detect nuances in the reek, not that I especially wanted to – none of it smelled like Dean as I knew him. On the bright side, I didn’t smell any zombies, either. All I had to work with was a faint, slightly musky scent that didn’t quite fit in, and I followed it through the pitch blackness. Corey kept his hand on my shoulder until he slipped once and lost me – and I, still unable to tap into my ‘Cyclops’ vision, had to rely on his and my own panicked echoes to find him again. That moment of being alone in the damp, alien void terrified us both, and the contact of flesh on flesh after what seemed like a lifetime was enough to make us put aside our differences. We agreed that it would be best to keep a death grip on each others’ hands until further notice, and neither of us mentioned that he’d lost his rifle in the undertow.

 

Still, overall, the worst part was actually the water itself. I had the feeling my boots, socks, and jeans’ cuffs would never be the same.

 

“H-How long do you figure it’s been?” Corey asked, still soaking wet and shivering from his dunk.

 

“Don’t know.” My own lips were beginning to feel numb.

 

“How are we getting outta this cesspit, anyway?”

 

I balked, then quickly thought up yet another lie. “I’ll be able to lead us out by smell.” Certainly, I thought, not by sight. I can’t even tell if my eyes are open or not. I wonder if this is about how the Doc feels, all the time?

 

“Okay.” His whole body tightened, then shuddered. “God, I’m cold,” he murmured.

 

“That’s what you get for diving in shallow water,” I joked weakly.

 

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Nevertheless, a smile was in his voice.

 

After some other, longer stretch of silence, I stopped and squinted. I could’ve sworn I just saw light. … And then again. Tugging excitedly on Corey’s hand, I slogged through the sludge as fast as I could. My toes, then knees, contacted with a step up to dryness; I warned him about it, and was worried to find that I had to help him up. His skin was as cold as a zombie’s – if I hadn’t been with him for so long, I’d’ve thought him infected. Biting down on my unfeeling lower lip, I rubbed his arms briskly for a second before taking his hand again and moving on. It was just a flicker, a reflection, carried by the wet walls, but I was positive that somewhere, there was a fire. One corner, then another – Corey’s hand slipped out of mine and a splash of foul water hit me.

 

I cursed and dove back in myself. I found his now-slimy, curly hair, then located his shoulders and hauled him back up. His shaking was even more violent, but through chattering teeth he tried to apologize for not realized the corner was there. I shushed him and helped him back up to the bank or sidewalk or whatever it could be called, and made him walk closer behind me.

 

“Sh-shouldn’t’ve ins-sisted on coming w-with you,” he mumbled in my ear.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I squeezed his hand. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew how freaked out I was when I lost you earlier.”

 

“’s only because y-you had me in the first place,” he returned, through clenched teeth to stop the stutter.

 

“Shh.”

 

I couldn’t really deny what he said. If he hadn’t come with me, I suspected I would’ve gone into ‘hunter’ mode, and much as that disconcerted me, it probably would have been for the best. As it was, I was weaker and having to tend to him. Still, my earlier daydreams of luring his way to snap his neck absolutely horrified me. I shivered. I am not a monster.

 

“T-Trinity.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“These w-weird … powers of y-yours are going to save our asses, aren’t th-they?”

 

I smiled slightly at the irony. “Yep.”

 

Even his sigh was shaky.

 

Against the wall, reflected firelight flickered. I just knew we were almost there. Also, I had finally deduced that fire meant people, or at least person, and since I had ignored the musky scent ever since I caught sight of the fire, that was now our only chance to find Dean. Or, by that point, anyone would do, I thought. Turned out I was wrong.

 

Rounding that last corner, we were greeted by a voice saying, “Well it took you long enough.”

 

A man with long, stringy brown hair and a coat straight out of the Matrix crouched opposite of the small fire. Selene stood in front of him, his long, serrated knife at her throat. She gasped and squeaked my name, and the man shook her roughly, snarling for her to pipe down. His voice was somehow both deep and nasal; some other time, it would have intrigued me, but in the situation it was nails against the chalkboard of my brain.

 

“Let her go,” I growled. I pulled my hand out of Corey’s to grip one of my pistols. He slid the other one out of its holster and stepped beside me.

 

“Of course.” The man grinned. “I only took her so I could give her back.”

 

“And what do you want for her?” Corey hissed, to his credit keeping his voice level.

 

The man waved his free hand airily. “Oh you know – I’ll be needing all your supplies for the kid’s life.” Then his toothy grin returned, and his eyes flicked to me. “And maybe her.”

 

“Not a f*cking chance,” I spat.

 

“Aw, are you sure, sweetheart?” He mock-pouted. “The sewers aren’t as bad as they seem, or so you’ll find when you can’t get back out with my help. You might be willing to make certain trades then, to free your friends.” He stood, other arm now across Selene’s waist to pick her up effortlessly. “Until then …” He beckoned for us to empty our pockets.

 

Corey and I exchanged glances. It wasn’t like I had much of anything on me, and I doubted he did either. A little dried meat, a plastic bag with an orange in it. He offered up a little more in the fruit department.

 

“That’s it?” the man demanded incredulously when we tossed the contents of our pockets and pouches towards his fire. “A little food? F*ck no – throw your guns over too.”

 

I was on the brink of telling him that that was too far, when I remembered that a little girl’s life was in the balance. Swallowing painfully, I pried my fingers off of Dean’s gun, surreptitiously unloaded it, and added it to the pile. Corey followed my lead.

 

“All right? Now let her go,” I said quietly.

 

The man regarded us silently for a second. He cursed. “It figures. I thought that scientist would come after his precious. He would have a good haul, I just know it – but no, he sends a couple of his cronies to do the job. F*ck it.” He kept Selene pinned with one arm, reaching down with the other to gather up our food and guns and cram them into his coat.

 

“Let. Her. Go,” I growled.

 

“But maybe there is a God,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, and gave me that grin again. “Come on, sweetheart, why not save your friend here and the kid a case of hypothermia? Stay here, I’ll show them the quick way out. It’s a win-win.”

 

“For you maybe,” I muttered. But the back of Corey’s hand brushed against mine in time with his shivers. Selene’s wide green eyes filled with more terror and more tears. And we were running out of time; even with the fifteen minute buffer period, before long Doc M would be escorting Rae and the others back to the clinic, with us or without us. He would be devastated if no one returned with Selene, Amy and Keith would mourn for Corey, and I supposed one or two of them might shed a tear for me. But why spread the suffering when I had an opportunity to …?

 

I stepped forward. “Look,” I said, “for what it’s worth, I want your word that you’ll take them out of here safely. Get the back to the upper levels.”

 

“Of course. My word.” He released Selene with an elaborate bow, his knife seeming to simply disappear. She ran to me, but I redirected her to Corey. “And as for you,” he stepped forward, meeting me halfway, and put a hand on my shoulder, “you know that if you slip away while I’m freeing these two, I’m going to have to go back and kill them.”

 

He said it almost apologetically, but looking into his eyes, I had no doubt that he would be true to that word, as well. I nodded.

 

“Then just you have a seat here by the fire, sweetheart.”

 

I walked past him and sat.

 

Corey looked around as if things were going to fast for him. “Trinity? You’re not s-seriously making a d-deal with this joker, are you?”

 

“Yes,” the ‘joker’ said cheerily. “Yes, Trinity is. What a nice name, by the way.” He winked at me over his shoulder. I felt like I might be sick. “C’mon, kids – you wouldn’t want her sacrifice to be for nothing, would you?”



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“Trinity? T-Trinity?”

 

Corey and Selene’s calls echoed through the tunnels long after they were gone from my sight. I shuddered; the fire only seemed to make me colder, or maybe it was the chunk of ice in my stomach. At first I tried to come up with some clever way to outsmart the ‘joker’ and yet still get everyone out alive, but by my figuring, the time constraints just wouldn’t allow it. I had no idea how long it would take Corey and Selene a safe zone (the Green Room), but it probably wasn’t long enough for me to find my way out of the sewers. Then I considered drowning myself, but the idea held no attraction – and I had a suspicion that no matter how he lost me, the ‘joker’ would go after Corey and Selene as retribution. Finally, I just scooted as close to the fire as I could – no reason to waste heat – and decided I would have to simply overpower him. Not that hard in theory, but he was armed where I was not, and he also seemed more than a little bit insane, which I knew to lend people strength.

 

How long had he been alone? Apparently he had been watching the Doc for some time, but instead of reaching out, he had chosen to stay hidden. Why? In a world almost devoid of life, what would possess a man to choose to stay alone – in a grimy sewer no less? Was there any reason other than sheer insanity?

 

“There.”

 

I looked up in dread. His form followed his voice by a second – strolling closer, hands in his coat pockets, ratty hair forming a sort of dark trailing nimbus for his head. I immediately wished his would show his hands. After all, he had a knife, and while I did seem to be as good as impervious to physical damage, I wasn’t immune to pain. Unfortunately, his hands stayed in place even as he sat down cross-legged across from me.

 

“Done,” he said cheerfully. “They’re perfectly safe and sound. I imagine your other pals will find them, too. So nothing to worry about.”

 

I swallowed and watched him silently. He did the same for less than three seconds before jumping up again and ducking into the shadows once more. I tensed, hands balling into fists, expecting him to come at me, but instead, his voice floated out of the darkness.

 

“Fire’s a bit weak, isn’t it?”

 

He reappeared with an armload of dry wood. Where he’d gotten it from I didn’t know. The important thing was that his hands were visible. Yet, I somehow couldn’t … He carefully constructed a teepee of sticks around the fire, the precision making me think of someone with OCD, and we both sat and watched it burn. I realized that his hands were in his pockets because they were cold; the long knife was up his left sleeve, a barely visible stiff stretch.

 

“Jonathan,” he said suddenly, and looked up from the flames. “My name’s Jonathan.”

 

His voice had changed for those two statements. The annoying nasal tone was gone, leaving a soft, pleasantly deep voice not unlike Keith’s. Slowly I looked up to meet his eyes over the remains of the teepee. “Right.”

 

I felt more like an awkward guest than a personal slave. Making a lame excuse as to why I couldn’t hang out with him and wandering off seemed, for a moment, like my best chance of escape. But then his eyes lit up, the grin came back, and he repeated back to me, in the same old voice, “Right.”

 

He stood and took three quick steps around the fire to jerk me to my feet. “Shall we dance?”

 

“D-Dance? But,” I tried, caught off-guard, “there’s no music.”

 

He put an arm around my waist and clutched my hand with the other. “Just imagine it,” he whispered, and I wasn’t sure if it was his good voice or not.

 

We danced. By firelight, in the middle of a sewer, we danced. I had no memory of ever having danced before, but either I had or I was a very quick study. He was graceful, more so than I had expected him to be, and it left me wondering at his life before the end of the world. Or maybe dancing was something he’d picked up afterwards? I could almost imagine him, alone in the dank corridors, dancing by himself to music only he could hear.

 

When he spun me away, I returned to him without even considering my action. It was what was natural, what was right – when you’re spun away, you spin back. Like returns to like. Madness joins with madness. I couldn’t have been said to be truly enjoying myself, but there was a mindlessness at work, preventing me from being unhappy. Like menial labor but more elegant, the dance consumed mind, body, spirit, time, and when he bowed my over and kissed me, that too seemed natural and right.

 

Then Jonathan was ripped away. I snapped out of my reverie only when I hit the cement, and pushed myself up in confusion. What had –? Someone else was in the tunnel.

 

You – keep – the – f*ck – away – from – her!

 

Still catching my bearings, I looked around until I was able to make out a shape that was only barely in the fire’s light. Jonathan – the smaller of the two – on his back, arms thrown over his face, the other figure kneeling above throwing punches between every word. The serrated knife appeared only long enough to stab into the attacker’s shoulder and be ripped straight back out and tossed aside. It landed in the water with a splonk. Delivering one last punch to Jonathan’s inanimate form, the attacker rolled onto his heels and stood up smoothly.

 

“I-Is he dead?” I breathed, appalled.

 

“Maybe. Who cares?”

 

“I do!”

 

“What, don’t tell me you were enjoying that?”

 

“Well maybe I was!” I shouted. “And besides that, you have no f*cking right to come in here all knight-in-shining armor and mess up a perfectly fine situation and it’s none of your f*cking business if I was enjoying it!” Then: “Ohmygod you’re alive.”

 

I lunged at him with enough force to knock him over, wrapping my arms around his neck. The combination probably would have killed another man. But not Dean.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Once my crying and Dean’s laughing was done, I shoved him away and crawled over to Jonathan. Though unconscious, he was still alive, and didn’t seem to be dying in a hurry. Still, I was pretty sure that without some medical attention, he wouldn’t last long. My amateur examination turned up at least three broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, and bleeding from the missing teeth.

 

“We’ve got to get him back to the Doc’s.”

 

“Are you serious? You do know precisely what he was planning for you, right?”

 

“He’ll die.”

 

“So?”

 

“If you won’t get him, I will.” I scowled and easily lifted Jonathan into my arms. I suspected he would’ve been fairly light even without genetically enhanced strength.

 

“Do you ever stop being mad at me?”

 

“Occasionally.” I smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

 

“Oh, so he gets it on the mouth and I get it on the cheek?”

 

“Be careful or you won’t get it at all.”

 

He finally outright laughed. “Jamie, have you been storing up all your sass just for me?” Jamie. I realized how much I had missed him calling me that.

 

“I have,” I told him solemnly. “Now please tell me you know the way out of this rotten place.”

 

“Sure.”

 

He walked behind me with both hands on my shoulders, guiding me swiftly toward what I assumed to be Jonathan’s shortcut exit. Our steps matched. Our breathing was synchronized. Simply walking with Dean gave me a sense of … perfection. Why hadn’t I missed that more? What had happened to me to make me forget it, when we were trapped together in that room? I shifted my elbow to elevate Jonathan’s head.

 

“Dean?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“What happened? To us?”

 

This time, his laugh was bitter. “Which time?”

 

“Most recently. It’s like we forgot who we were, or … who each other was. I don’t know. And, apart from that, what happened to you?”

 

I felt him shrug. “The first one? Cabin fever. We weren’t … designed to sit around in bed all day. At least I wasn’t.” His voice lowered. “I – Jamie, I’m sorry. For what I must’ve put you through.”

 

I didn’t reply. Couldn’t think of anything to say. Then I did.

 

“I did it too you know. I was … curious, but mainly I …”

 

“You …?”

 

“I couldn’t think of any reasons not to. With you gone and everything.”

 

He stopped, and without his guidance, I stopped too. For another long moment, neither of us could think of anything to say. I studied the patch of darkness that, in light, would become Jonathan, and compared his shallow, strained breathing to Dean’s and my own. I could no longer recall why I had been afraid of him; he was so delicate in my arms. And somehow, that appealed to me just as much as Dean’s strength. One I could protect, the other could protect me. I had never realized how high on my list of priorities both of those were – having someone to watch my back was a given, and no one could do it better than Dean, but when I thought about it, tending to Corey had come naturally. And hadn’t I practically made it my life’s mission to defend Rae?

 

We walked, and in time, there was light. It hurt my eyes, and when it hit Dean’s, I saw them dull from bright red to brown, just as mine had. It illuminated that patch of darkness, which became Jonathan. I squinted upward, thinking that something so bright was surely the sun, and the sky had cleared, and the zombies were all gone, and Rae had a normal, healthy baby boy. But it was only a light bulb, which grew a tiny bit brighter before whatever life it had came to an end.



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~ ModMother / The Cougar ~

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Warning - long post ahead. 21 MS Word pages by my last estimate. I know it's a long time in coming but hopefully this will tide you over until next week - and more importantly give you something to work with. Apologies for the long delay. It still didn't turn out the way I had originally intended, but I had to get something up so this is what you've got to work with. Do with them (characters) as you see fit. I'll always try and work my way around it ;)

Out on the other side of the mottled glass footsteps paced impatiently. Voices spoke at low monotones. Someone, by the sounds of it Doc M, was yelling. He seemed too far away to discern what was said. The thrum of my pulse and the sound of ragged breaths competing had deafened me to much else. In the haze of muffled light I lay there panting, staring up into David’s face as he stared back. I waited… Waited… I wasn’t sure what for. Part of me hoped for something profound to follow, to hear him say something earth-moving like a declaration of love, maybe an apology, in the least a thanks, but nothing came of it. David’s brow furrowed as it always did in seriousness - regret? - and with a heavy nasal sigh and a weary groan he pushed himself up and stood, letting me free. With a wince I followed his lead. Though it had only been a few minutes my back twinged as if I’d been lying atop the hard wood of that desk for days. I hung my head as I pulled my loosened garments back up, buried by thoughts as they came back again. I knew I’d set myself up for failure expecting anything to have changed – I stopped short of calling the act anything remotely like love making, that sentiment had gone out with most of the world’s population, what we had left was just… a contract. Sex was, at best, just another survival mechanism, like imbibing food, water and air. It was a physical release beyond the urban myths of maledom before the war; for me it was the only real connection I had left to humanity, at least I had when Rob had been alive, I sighed. Then the memories of that fateful day I agreed to ‘all this’ hit me and I fought to push it away. Best not to go down that path, I thought to myself sadly, best not to think about anything at all… as if I could help it.

 

Hearing material shift and a zipper wrench to a close I braved a glimpse upwards. My gaze didn’t make it as far as David righting himself just inside the door. Something a few metres to my left caught my eye. For a moment I remained on the edge of the desk, my hands freezing either side of my neck as I sat fastidiously brushing down my hair. I looked at a shape on the carpet, unable in that instant to recognise it for what it was, and followed it back to the source; part of me didn’t want to but I couldn’t stop myself from looking. Half in light and half in shadow a decaying corpse sat slumped against the wall staring back at me. Its eyes were wide, grey and empty. Its mouth too was open, slack, and agonised – frozen forever in a silent scream. Immediately I froze but relief (it’s not moving!) came fast on its heels. My shoulders sunk. I stared at the dry jagged slashes on the corpse’s wrists and the shards of a broken photo frame half obscured by its fetid fingers beside it. It still wore its wedding r-

 

“Rae.”

David sniffed, cleared his throat and spat aside at the ground.

 

I looked up at him standing like a short stocky sentinel inside the doorway, and nodded. My smile was quick and empty. Rather than follow as directed I continued to sit there with my head bowed. I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t even say anything. It wasn’t from fear, or from shame. We’d been intimate too many times in too many different scenarios for it to be that simple. Still feeling that hot rash prickle my throat where he’d grabbed me I clasped it and rubbed it in place of speaking. I nervously gripped my shirt collar and stayed there gnawing on my lip. Movement shifted in front of me as David returned, standing between my legs at the side of the desk. Feeling warmth on the sides of my head my face fell lower. I felt his kiss on my forehead. I smiled. I glimpsed up. A long, drawn out pause later, David leant forward and kissed me. I kissed back. I slid my arms around his shoulders. He was warm, solid… and shaking. His grip that only moments ago had been fierce now seemed nervous. I couldn’t help but smile against his lips. It was automatic. It was equally nervous. In those fleeting seconds I just sat there bighting back my smile. All sorts of emotions were toying with me as I felt my face reflecting them. David, despite his vivid colour, just stood there smiling. It wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing – not without a gun in his hand or a mountain of dead scattered around him, or that half smirk he almost always wore that so often bordered on disdainful. I was, for want of a better word, moved. I opened my mouth to say something – thankfully no words came out to ruin the moment. Taking his cue David sn iggered, took my hands from around his shoulders and stooped down. He made a sound that instantly alerted me and froze. I gave him a look, watching as he clutched to his side.

 

“What-?”

 

David shook his head. When he stood back up again he had a rifle in each hand. I wanted to laugh, whether out of relief, nervously, or just to vent all these emotions that had been building up like a volcano inside of me. As I took my gun and delicately manoeuvred myself on to my feet I remained silent, doing my best to ignore the look David was wearing, as well as the corpse staring up towards the ceiling; a dead voyeur literally lurking in the shadows. I didn’t stop to question why the stench of it, or rather the lack of stench, didn’t affect me as it probably should have. Maybe after all these months I was becoming desensitised to death in all its forms, if that was even possible in a zombie-infested post apocalyptic world; maybe, god forbid, I was finally ‘getting used to it.’

 

David opened the door with a creak. Light flooded in. We both flinched. He extended his hand which I took without complaint. Then, both still blushing a guilty scarlet red I followed him out into the corridor with the office door slowly hissing to a close behind us.

 

“Amy! Amy, can you hear me?”

 

Following the hiss of static we crept the hall, our senses still heightened, overshadowed by a sense of growing dread as we strained to get a bearing on what was going on around us. It seemed like too much time had passed in our absence - or maybe it had barely been the space of a heartbeat, without stopping to note the time and probably still coursing with too much adrenalin I didn’t really know either way - I feared that it was taking too long for Amy to respond, and that could only mean that something dreadful must have-

 

“M? M?”

 

My shoulders collapsed with relief at the sound of Amy’s voice… Until I heard mention of the name ‘Amelia’ – and my step faltered. It wasn’t from the echo of memories that barraged me; the echo of those loud blasts, the high pitched chink of spent cartridges striking the floor, it wasn’t from the sound of screaming, be it the Doc’s blind panic or my own, that rang in my ears as if it had all just happened. I stood staring down at the amorphous red lump of splattered flesh and bone and blood that had once been a living human being still lying on the cement in front of us. Her knees were unrecognisable, protruding bone of what was left of her legs were bent at an unnatural angle behind her, and her torso was ripped apart, spilling internal organs and much of her grey matter out onto the floor around her. I stared down at what remained of her face, a shattered mask of grey-tinged flesh streaked with dark brown blood and strands of golden hair. My throat closed. It didn’t seem real; it was like staring at a ceramic mockery of a living, breathing little girl, albeit a shattered one. My mind struggled to correlate the two – but all I kept seeing was that bowel-clenching vision of her lecherous smile…

 

She took a bullet to the head and she didn’t fall! I marvelled. All zombies fall eventually with a headshot, she’d barely even staggered! That wasn’t normal (as if normal and zombie would even be included in the same sentence), she’d even spoke! The Doc was right, they can’t speak, how the hell could she? She didn’t attack on sight like the dead always did. She just stood there staring, smiling-

 

A shudder ripped through me but stopped as David’s hand slid onto my shoulder. Still I couldn’t stop the thoughts that, now that the proverbial floodgates had been opened, were spiralling out of control.

 

Dead things don’t feel emotions, they certainly didn’t recognise people, but the way she stared at us, at the Doc, she knew him, she’d called him, she wasn’t normal, that thing wasn’t normal – Then that begged the most unnerving question at all, What exactly was she?

 

I stared at Amelia’s little fingers framed by all that blood, too much surely for such a small body, as if reaching out towards me - As if reaching out for help - David’s grip tightened on my collarbone, making me flinch. My train of thought had been derailed as I shot him a cautionary glare. It dissolved almost instantaneously. Again he gave me that smirk, that ‘I know better than you/ I’m doing this to help you/ don’t test my patience’ look before pushing me forward, forcing me to step over her little body – carefully avoiding coming into contact with either fleshy part or blood. We left her behind in that cramped narrow hall as the voices continued; meeting us as we emerged in the Green Room’s doorway.

 

“N-No …No, you don’t … you don’t understand. This can’t happen right now, I … I have to …”

 

“What is it?”

 

“I l-l … lost … Selene’s gone. It’s why I was trying to contact you.”

 

“What? You did what? - You lost a child?!”

 

With a grimace I closed my eyes, slumping back to lean against David. I shook my head, all final traces of any highs I’d had mere moments ago may as well have been shards of glass scattered around my feet. Not again, I wanted to say. I remained silent. The Doc, slouched over his desk with his head in his fingers, looked the very picture of a man teetering on the proverbial brink. Keith and Trinity flanked him; the expressions on their faces reminded me of good Samaritans at a funeral exchanging those awkward looks without quite knowing what to say. Corey alone with his back turned crouching some metres away studying something on the floor, seemed the only one unaffected by this latest development. His offhand comment about Selene being ‘done for’ drew scathing looks from all the eyes I could see in the room. He snorted back unflinchingly. Though his acerbic observations had been an annoyance up to this point I realised, at least I assumed, that what we’d all taken for sarcasm was little more than apathy, a degree of detachment that almost bordered on cold – and in this time when life really was so fleeting there was no time for sugar-coating, only simple, factual truths. God knows he’d only said what most of us at least for a split second had been thinking anyway – but Keith was quick to douse the spark his friend may have been unintentionally starting.

 

“Corey, we need to talk.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll have to get a rain check on that, big guy,” Corey said with a shake of his head. “Whatever that shadowy thing that we saw earlier was, it wore boots.” He glanced up. “Might’ve been Dean.”

 

I gasped. I’d all but forgotten…

 

Trinity obviously hadn’t. I knew by the way she averted my eyes as she crossed the room to inspect this apparent shoe print that her emotions regarding her missing companion were still raw, and they had to be, after all these superfluous ‘distractions’ (dare I trivialise the fates of missing children and Amy’s safety in all this in such a way) getting stronger. But maybe it was more than that I thought as I recalled my comments to her previous about sympathising with her loss. What had I told her when she came to in the Doc’s surgery after the attack, that I knew how it felt to lose someone you loved? That I was sure her Dean was okay and he’d be found? Regardless what I’d said, or why I’d said it, the look on her face – or more appropriately the way she stared so fixedly ahead and deliberately ignored me now said more than any words ever could. David’s hand on my shoulder felt too heavy, too restrictive then, but I didn’t have the strength to shake it away. My eyes dropped to the floor and stayed there, a mental barrage of self-directed insults caving in my chest.

 

I was manoeuvred to the desk at which the Doc still sat intermittently massaging his temples. His filmy eyes now free of their usual adornment of glasses were to unnerving to see so close. I looked away. As I lowered myself into the seat I heard a comment being made somewhere behind me. Corey and Trinity were talking. Their tones were hushed. The nagging fear of being the topic of gossip persisted, as groundless as it may have been. I couldn’t drag my eyes up out of my lap had I been forced to, and it wasn’t just Keith’s eyes I was avoiding. As David dragged over a seat to sit beside me I kept my attentions averted, trying to stay invisible and hidden, feeling like an unavoidable target on everyone else’s radar. Corey soon joined us at the table. In my peripheral vision he and David were having a staring contest. A low clearing of the throat preceded conversation as Trinity remained behind. It took Keith’s physical prompting to drag her over, but any sense of unity that should have set in by that point was still a long way off coming. When the topic came up about another reconnaissance mission I think I actually whimpered aloud. Luckily no one appeared to have heard me.

 

“Splitting up in this place is suicide,” I heard Corey snort.

 

Internally I nodded. Internally I was sobbing. My fears for these poor children were conflicting badly with my sense of self-preservation. Just how many more times were we willing to tempt fate? I wanted to cry. For the love of God – if there even IS a god anymore – when the f*ck is this all just going to stop? Why can’t you just leave us alone, once and for all?

 


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-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 21st of July 2009 02:00:29 PM

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Later from my seat at the table I watched Trinity, Keith and Corey leave the Green Room, and a moment later Keith came back alone. He nodded at us with his gun easing at his side. The coast was clear. Now it was our turn. The Doc was on the other side of the room with his back turned to us. I watched him as he muttered to himself, maybe he was sniffling in remorse; such was his pride he was struggling to keep himself together until the last of us left, but I didn’t get a chance to wait for confirmation. David’s hand gripped my leg, stealing my attentions. I blinked back, mentally elsewhere. The look on his face, and on Keith’s as he came to a gradual stop behind David’s chair, brought everything back with sickening clarity. I looked down again, vacantly pondering the gap between our seats that at some point following the ‘meeting’ (that had basically been a 5 minute heated slanging match between Corey and Doc M) had been turned to face each other. David’s grip was hot and anxious. He wasn’t accustomed to such acts of consolation but at least with Keith’s ‘presence’ he was willing to try. The sound of his voice, intermittently broken up by impatient groans and pensive sighs, told me while he didn’t understand my apparent reluctance to go back out there and kick some zombie ass with his usual enthusiasm, he didn’t begrudge me for it either.

 

“Rae, I know you’re worried-”

 

“It’s not that-”

 

“You don’t have to come with us. You can stay here with the Doc. We’ll be fine,” David asserted, looking aside for Keith’s consent without actually wanting it. “We’ll only be gone a few hours.”

On the other side of the room the Doc spluttered. His disbelief and grief was one thing, his animosity was another as cloudy slitted eyes swung back over his shoulder. “What? Do you think this is some kind of game? No she can’t stay behind. I need every one of you out there to search for Selene-”

 

“We got it.”

 

“Need I remind you what’s at stake here? She’s a child, she’s defenceless-”

 

“Yeah well she wouldn’t be if you’d stop f*cking with her,” David muttered under his breath. I saw the way he was rubbing at his arm, reminding me briefly of the little girl’s prosthetic. I looked up at him seriously. The Doc, behind me, made a sound like a man drowning in water. His rage was palpable, it was frightening to see such emotion in him now, brief and for the most part still in check, but to think not that long ago I’d looked at him like something less than- (what, human?) empathetic. Maybe it was the change of location in this base away from his camp, maybe it was the loss of his ‘children’ - one that David had dispatched right in front of his very (blind) eyes – or the total upheaval of his life with our arrival, but something in the man had definitely changed, and not necessarily, I thought, for the better. As he continued to murmur something distasteful about the situation David, Keith and I simmered in the mounting tension until David finally swept the impassive look from his face and flicked his eyes up, narrowing in the Doc’s direction.

 

“Cool it, alright?” he snapped gruffly. “You’re not our f*cking boss, just give us a god damn minute!”

 

The Doc, with his tone pinched somewhere between shock and all-out loathing turned his eerily focussed face towards us. “What did you just say to me?” he challenged.

 

“What are you deaf as well as f*cking blind? You want me to spell it out in Braille? Back the f*ck off!”

 

“May I remind you,” the Doc snapped back, his face still pale, almost waxen as he strode towards us, “if it wasn’t for me you’d all be dead already! I took you all in and what thanks did I get? A dead nurse, two missing children, one dead, the other god knows what, a hole in the side of my compound that will take days to repair, and you’ve got the audacity to talk down to me? Who the f*ck do you think you are?”

 

“The person that’s about to leave your other kid out there to die if you don’t watch your god damn mouth,” David grumbled.

 

I whispered his name to curtail him but my attempts dwindled beneath his bitter stare. Though I could no longer face anyone for the tension choking the room, I could see his expression in my peripheral vision, that haughty gaze that always made me feel like an idiot, that warned me to keep my mouth shut, that had always kept me at arms length, and I felt my stomach nosedive. Behind me Doc M’s footsteps had stopped. I just knew his eyes were on me, I could feel them; they may as well have been laser sights for all intents and purposes.

 

  “Cute,” the Doc said. He drew in a deep breath. “You’ve apparently found your niche in this war haven’t you? Oh the irony, really, biblical hero taking out the defenceless giant of a 6 year old girl. Bet that gave you a hard on didn’t it? Some hero you are. Speaking of giants, you’re forgetting something aren’t you? Your little girlfriend there, wasn’t it me who saved her life by bringing that abomination, Taijitsu, into the world? Quite a selective memory you have, David.”

 

I grimaced and closed my eyes. Behind closed lids I was back there in that surgery caught half way between life and death, screaming in pain and unimaginable terror, watching the Doc dragging something cold and grey and bony from my body.

 

“What the hell is that?”

 

“Shoot the f*cking thing!”

 

“No … please … - Trinity? Trinity, did they – is – ?”

 

“It’s alive…”

 

“For f*cks sake, would you shut up and listen! - That thing is her son!”

 

“…Her son?”

 

David’s voice, low and grating, and dangerous brought reality back with a sickening jolt.

 

“You better watch your f*cking mouth-”

 

“Or what?” the Doc fired back. I saw his arms go out, gesturing a challenge, his lack of vision obviously no deterrent to physical retaliation in a just enough cause, but I found myself more amazed but what I couldn’t see – and I strained for those few brief seconds over my shoulder to look. Where were the scars on him, I thought. I’d seen David straddling his body pounding a fist repeatedly into his face – the sounds of the blows still fresh in my memories were enough to make me cringe even now – why then couldn’t I see any marks on him whatsoever, not a graze, not so much as a bruise or a red mark anywhere on the surface of the Doc’s face at all?

 

David though, true to form, was on his feet before any of us could stop him. Keith did at one point clutch the shorter man’s shoulder, but David brusquely shrugged it off – then, an instant later, stopped and stooped forward. He tried to stand again but he immediately recoiled again. He looked, briefly, as if he had been shot. Panic slowly swamped me. I recoiled in my chair as my mind went haywire, watching Keith grapple to assist David and David, growing increasingly agitated, try and shrug him off. He hissed and clenched his teeth in that universal expression of pain. Huffing his breaths he shook his head, deflecting our apparent fears with utterances that he was ‘fine.’

 

The Doc, who had been slowly approaching drew to a stop behind my chair and gripped the back of it, poising to take it all in. Even by the strange smirk on his face I could tell he knew without seeing what was going on and just for a few moments was revelling in it. I snarled and turned my head away, glad that he couldn’t see it.

 

“Doc, what’s wrong?” Keith asked. His reliance on this mad man of science was at best unsettling, but I sensed genuine fear there too. We were already so few in numbers, surely one more would be one loss too many… But David, still bowed and gripping his side and trying hard to act like he wasn’t struggled his eyes up towards the Doc had lost none of his previous venom, of anything his pain was only amplifying it.

 

“If you’ve done something-”

 

The Doc scoffed. Ah there it was, the ‘old’ Doc I thought to myself, cold, cynical, cruel… “Like I’d have the chance, or the need to,” he goaded. I was sure I heard delight in his tone. Oh but how I’d like to. That’s for pulverising Amelia, he was thinking, payback really is a bitch, isn’t it? But he just stood there smirking waiting for the right words, or the right moment in which to express them. Keith’s worry was infectious. Fear was taking over. I found myself rambling things that made little if any coherent sense, if only to me. The men’s scathing looks, and the Doc’s dour laughter did nothing to ease my growing panic. He pushed himself forward to snag David’s arm as David did his best to fight him. In one fluid move the Doc swept David’s arm aside, ducked underneath it, and came into contact with David’s ribs. David made a sound and practically swooned over me. At first I thought the Doc had hit him but panic constricted my throat. As Keith grabbed David to right him the Doc stepped in along side still pushing against David’s ribs in a way that was obviously hurting him. I grit my teeth and went to stand. The Doc stood upright and stared vacantly, his hands pressing David’s tee-shirt. Then I finally understood.

 

“It’s not what I’ve done,” the Doc said matter-of-factly, ‘It’s what you’ve done. Your little stint in there, Don Juan,” he murmured, receiving a bitter glare from David and the opposite from me. He tapped his temple gesturing as if he had heard. My face was too hot by this point to contest anything, as it was I still felt ‘dirty,’ no doubt we still had the stench of it embedded on both of us – but the Doc merely continued to examine and smile. Trust a man with heightened senses to pick up what those with eyes had missed. “You haven’t done yourself any favours. A cracked rib, maybe two. Needless to say you’ve gone and made it worse. You’ll only have yourself to blame if you lose a lung from it.”

 

“What?” I cried.

 

I was too embarrassed, too angry and too scared to really consider the implications of his diagnosis. The Doc sighed heavily. For a brief moment his brow furrowed. Gone was his haughty revelry. He was back in Doctor mode and judging by the prognosis I could tell it wasn’t good. In a time when disease, malnutrition, stress, exhaustion, mental and physical fatigue, not to mention zombie related inflictions could suddenly impede on a person’s lifespan, something as grave as an internal injury let alone this far away from the Doc’s surgery that had already been badly damaged, it felt like he had just given David a terminal diagnosis. I couldn’t do anything except stand there and watch as the Doc urged David to take his shirt off and didn’t seem surprised when David couldn’t do it.

 

“You need to rest,” he sighed, aggrieved by the development, and quite possibly the prospect of having David for company instead of David’s earlier proposal of me. “If you don’t give it time to mend there’s no telling how much worse it will get. By the way you’re breathing now I’d say it’s pushing against your lungs, am I right? Naturally I can’t tell you how bad the damage already is until-” he began, but David had other ideas.

 

“No. I’m fine. Strap me up, do whatever it is you have to do, splint it, I don’t give a sh*t, but I’m going back out there,” he said. He made it sound like a threat. It wasn’t for Selene’s benefit, and the Doc had to have known this, but the sad glance the Doc gave him, albeit briefly, assured us that the Doc well realised as much as he needed another set of eyes out there to hunt for Selene that in doing so he was sacrificing one soul for another – one generally able-bodied, well-armed, skilled other – and right now he needed all the help he could get.

 

After realising that reason would be lost on someone like David the Doc shrugged and sighed and lamented, “Your funeral.” Keith started to protest, maybe David should listen, the Doc wouldn’t tell him this if it wasn’t really important- but he was cut off half way through speaking. The Doc, who had been walking around us, moved forward too fast for any of us to see or stop him - I heard the thud, and saw David try and swing back. He lifted his fist and something stopped him from following it through. A mere heartbeat later he was hunched over his knees again looking pained and exhausted.

 

“If that had been a real attack,” the Doc said over David’s shoulder, “You’d be dead by now.”

 

It was inevitable but it was still a decision I was not happy about making. In truth my decision had been made for me. I couldn’t let Keith go out there on his own to search a military base full of walking dead for one little girl all alone. I knew I had to go with him, what I didn’t want to face was the fact we now had to leave David and the Doc behind, and I truly couldn’t face it.


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-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 21st of July 2009 02:02:27 PM

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I felt so ill I could scarcely raise my chin buried in the collar of my shirt. David’s grip on my hand was hot and anxious. He said something but it came across so quietly it seemed little more than a throaty rumble.

 

“Rae, you’re going to be fine.”

 

I shook my head. I couldn’t even respond to that. I could barely even look him in the eye. All I kept seeing in my head was the seconds after that thing had attacked us, throwing David against the wall like a rag doll… hurting him. It could have just as easily killed him, and for what?

 

“You can do this. It won’t be long. I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere now. Apparently.”

 

Again I shook my head. I pouted. His touch on the side of my face, cupping my cheek, sweeping my hair back, made me whine internally. I couldn’t comprehend it. It felt like things were seizing up inside of me. Things were changing too fast, it was all happening too damned fast, god why did this have to happen now? I swallowed loudly.

 

“You must hate me,” I murmured.

 

“What? Why?” he said, his voice still wrenched from the after effects of his brief run-in with the Doc.

 

“That- thing,” I murmured. I felt so sick, so ashamed I was barely able to push the words out. “That… son. Doing this to you…”

 

“No,” David declared. It was, for him, gentle. It was also a tone of voice I’d never heard from him before so I met his eyes to gauge it. He smiled at me; at least, he tried to. I shook my head and looked down again. Not even his hands on the sides of my head trying to urge me otherwise could stop it. “Rae,” he continued, leaning closer. He was so close our heads were practically touching. “No, of course I don’t hate you. I don’t. Look at me.”

 

I did, albeit tentatively. That smile came back again. It was a look I could get used to, I thought, pouting. It seemed, since the war, no one knew how to smile anymore – as if there was much reason to.

 

“That thing,” he said, still holding either side of my head to stress his point (or superiority?) “It’s not your son. I don’t care what he says. I don’t care what anyone says. I know you, and I know Rob, I spent months with the guy too remember. He might have been a dick sometimes but I certainly didn’t see anything like that in him. And I don’t see it in you.”

 

I continued to pout rather than say anything. How badly I wanted to believe him, but still, after everything that had happened, after everything I’d seen…

 

David sighed. His face lowered gravely. His eyes stayed locked on to mine. “Rae, that was the infection. He infected you and didn’t know it. It’s no one’s fault. But it’s not your child. It’s no more your child than a tumour that’s been cut out of your body-”

 

“No-”

 

“Yes,” he asserted. “It’s not human. You saw it. I saw it. We all saw what it can do, what it’s capable of. It tried to take you, god knows where or why. It’s dangerous. Bottom line is it’s still one of those things, no matter which way you want to look at it. We can’t pity it. We can’t save it. The only option we’ve got left is to destroy it-”

 

“No!”

 

“Yes, Rae,” he said. But even as he said it part of me was agreeing with him. I wanted to cry with relief, but also in anger and resentment too, being forced to acknowledge that ‘thing’ that wasn’t dead or alive it just was, and it was a menace, it was destructive, it had caused so much damage unwittingly or otherwise, and it had done this to him, and to us, it was still out there, it could have even taken the girls for all we knew, it could have-

 

It could have killed the only person I had left to care about…

 

Feeling David’s palm on the side of my face again I leant my weight against it and pouted. I smiled vaguely. He nodded, his brow still buckled until I nodded back. A moment later he pulled me forward to embrace me as much as he was physically able. Now that the adrenalin had all but worn off he was quickly waning, there was pain and exhaustion even in his sigh. I sat burrowing my head against his neck feeling his arms around me. I wasn’t used to seeing him so weak, so vulnerable. In a very real way I shared his pain. He was, aside from Trinity with her unexplainable abilities, and Keith with his dwarfing build, one of the best of us. To see him like this only emphasised our fragility as a group, and my helplessness as one person. In that strange outdated room deep underground with a few hundred zombies outside as much as I had convinced myself otherwise, in his company I felt safe, safer than I’d felt in a long time. I was reluctant to let go. Maybe my objectivity had been lost in that office or acute emotions still lingered, or maybe the realisation of our predicament, of a world progressively getting smaller and more threatening was taking its toll, exaggerating everything to a point where everything seemed melodramatic. But as I sat there listening to him tell me how we were all going to be alright and how we’d all be together again soon I couldn’t help but feel as if he were setting me up for some final goodbye.

 

Before long footsteps heralded Keith’s return as David and I parted. Though I hadn’t been crying I wiped my face as if I had been, nodding to both of their concerned glances. I accepted the canteen of water he’d brought back with him, guzzling it thirstily before handing it over for David to finish. Keith’s passing comment, something about having settled things with the Doc for now, caused a look to flash on David’s face that further exacerbated his still hot-red complexion.

 

“Yeah well,” he murmured, screwing the lid back on and setting the empty bottle down on the table. “F*ck what he has to say. If I wanted to hear from an *sshole… I’d fart, wouldn’t I?”

 

Keith’s brows rose but the big man remained silent. I blinked up at him before lowering my eyes back to David. David, slumped forward in his seat, wearily looked around the room as if waiting for something. When he met our eyes a smirk crept out.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“Sh*t,” Keith murmured in his grumbling tone of voice, “did you just make a joke?”

 

David shrugged. “Maybe.”

 

Again Keith and I looked at each other. Then, out of nowhere, Keith chuckled. Aside from sounding so vastly out of place, it cut the previous tension like a knife, releasing the pressure that had been building since our arrival. The room seemed to gasp with physical relief. David’s expression, barely deviating from his usual serious façade, darkened with a hint of embarrassment.

 

“What?” he asked again, “In spite of what you all think of me I actually do have a sense of humour you know? I am human… Well, sometimes.”

 

Keith laughed harder. It wasn’t until the moment had run its course that he admitted he didn’t believe it – and he doubted no one else, meaning Trinity, Corey or Amy, would believe it either. David lifted a middle finger, smirking dourly with his face, in fact his whole head coloured a dark shade of red. He too managed a light chuckle. When it died out an uncomfortable awkward silence followed. It was time for Keith and I to leave. But there was no way in hell I could force myself to get up out of my chair and leave him. As Keith grabbed his rifle, pocketed his ammo, and readied himself, murmuring aside to the Doc in the distance, I sat there in front of David feeling this overwhelming urge to say something hit me. Something, anything-

 

“I’ll see you,” I said. God damn it! No! I meant-

 

David, still wearing a weary version of his usual smirk nodded back and said nothing. I smiled and gnawed on my lip. I opened my mouth to say something- nothing came out. Silence. In the end, be it with an overwhelming sense of failure or something more, I slowly pushed myself up out of my seat and stepped around him to meet Keith. I readied myself as best I could focussing on anything else than where I should have been. As Keith led the way and I followed forcing myself not to look back, not wanting to see the disappointment on David’s face, not wanting this to be the last vision I ever had of-

 

God damn it, you’re not going to die! Neither is he! Stop being a drama queen and just-!

 

“Rae.”

 

“Yeah?” I turned blindly, eagerly more to the point – oh god tell me I don’t have to go out there, tell me I can stay here, tell me the war’s over, tell me- David stood before me, holding my gun, stopping me. I waited with furiously beating heart – feeling it slow to a thrum as he pulled my gun out of my hands and handed me his instead. “Oh… thanks. Yeah.”

 

He smirked and nodded shoving a fistful of cartridges into my hip pocket. The cold hard steel of a knife blade slid under the waistline of my pants. I gasped. David continued to smirk at me. Though I wanted to ask where he’d stolen that from let alone where he’d been carrying it all this time, I couldn’t. The look he gave Keith stalled all thoughts from solidifying.

 

If anything happens-

 

You know I wouldn’t-

 

No I don’t. Don’t come back alone. I mean it-

 

-they seemed to be saying. I looked away. Soon I was bidding my leave with Keith standing guard anxiously behind me. The zombies had resumed their growls ahead of us in their glass cages bringing everything back. Fear hit me so hard I almost wet myself. I didn’t care at that moment. I would have almost been happy to. Keith led as David followed us, guarding the door now with my rifle in hand to ensure our safe exit, if nothing else. At the door we waited. Keith hit it with the butt of his rifle to the excitement of the zombies flanking us, but nothing appeared to have shifted out on the other side of it. The coast appeared clear. It was now or never. He nodded at me. I drew in a deep breath and nodded back. The door creaked open, and Keith slid out. I followed. David tugged my hand and drew me back a step. His fingers were hot on my neck as he kissed me. When we parted a moment later I stared into his eyes. I smiled. There was nothing to say then, suddenly I just knew it.

 

“Kick a few *sses for me,” he smiled.

 

I smiled back and nodded. Turning I made my way off behind Keith who stood poised on the top of the steps waiting. He nodded back. David held up a hand. He watched until we descended into darkness, until I couldn’t feel his eyes watching over us anymore. The sound of the closing door echoed like a tomb closing behind us. A shiver ran through me. Keith and I looked at each other. I couldn’t help but feel like we were being buried alive.

 

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-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 21st of July 2009 02:04:13 PM

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The silence was intolerable. Over the buzzing dusty bulbs and our careful steps and ragged breaths I could hear nothing. No movement ahead or behind. All doors we passed were silent. All corridors were long, endless, and threatening. More than once I found myself being caught up in paranoid fantasies, that I was probably asleep, that this was all some stereotypical dream scenario, that time had stopped, or worse had passed me by altogether and now I was trapped down here, just the two of us, wandering the pits of hell until starvation, zombies, or insanity finally finished us off. Luckily Keith was my buoy, with a word or a look or a tiny facial spasm he was keeping me grounded, constantly checking back over his shoulder to reassure himself that I was still there, mentally as well as physically. It had been my first real time out on the front lines so to speak without David or Rob right there beside me, and I knew I looked scared. I felt it. It showed. There was no way I could possibly attempt to hide it.

 

Along the second level we crept – these were the sleeping quarters for a majority of the base’s personnel. Design-wise it was reminiscent of what you would expect on a cruise ship – narrow halls, steel door after door after door as far as the eye could see. Post-apocalyptic living wasn’t designed to be glamorous but basic, manageable. As Keith and I strode these endless corridors I couldn’t help but wonder if the designers had not intentionally set out to create a new world underground that reinforced this notion of conformity, sterility, even oppression from its unwitting subjects. Everything felt like it belonged in Cold-War Russia, not underground U S of A. As Keith led I followed, scanning the numbers on the doors, straining my ears to hear over the sullen thumping of my pulse. Behind every door there had to be people, families, zombies, but we couldn’t hear anything. They were either dead from starvation inside or… I swallowed loudly. I struggled to block out the thoughts of whole families, mums, dads, kids in their arms, cuddled up to their fetid chests, locked together like mummies, putrefying in their darkened tombs. I tried not to think of their terror in those final moments as panic swept through and people they probably knew started turning on each other, of kids screaming for their parents, hearing their fear echo off these cold hard walls. They’d probably locked themselves away inside their quarters, the smart ones realising the recently infected lacked the relevant hand-eye coordination to open a door from the outside, or in. And then came lock-down, all doors permanently sealed shut; then they were cut off from food, water, and worse, information. Those inside their rooms only delaying the inevitable, while those on the outside had no where left to run; it would have been-

 

“Rae,” Keith whispered.

 

In front of us, a few feet away, stood the gaping black slit of an open door. Broken light flickered within. There was no sound forthcoming as we inched closer towards it, guns at the ready. My fear was so overwhelming in those few moments my head became lightheaded and dizzy. I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes. Focus. Okay, you can do this. I tried to convince myself this was David, fearless, focussed David who always knew what to do. I opened my eyes to the reality as Keith shot me a look over his shoulder. I nodded, fighting back a grimace. He began to count.

 

“One… two-”

 

On three he jabbed the muzzle of his rifle into the room, shouldering the door open wider. It creaked on dirty hinges. Light from an upturned lamp struggled against the carpet. Furniture was upended. Clothes were strewn about. The smell of dried blood and seaweed, otherwise known as the sharp tang of rotting flesh, assailed us. There, on a darkened stain on the floor, a body lay. The bulk of its torso had collapsed, the exposed flesh on its forearms settling aside like slowly melted wax on either side of it. This poor bastard had been dead months – but there was no way of knowing whether or not he had been one of the infected. His entire head had been ripped off, not only that it was gone. Through jagged chunks of waxen-grey flesh and severed bone and nerve endings, it seemed as if his head had been, puzzlingly enough, not blown off by a shotgun blast but chewed, and chewed completely – there were no bones, no teeth, no skull fragments anywhere at all amidst the crusted blood pool. Cautiously coming to a stop a few feet away Keith frowned down over it and looked back at me. I shook my head, unable to say anything. The fact that the rest of the body remained intact suggested whatever had done it hadn’t been zombie. This wasn’t Hollywood. Zombies didn’t eat brains. At least, nothing I’d ever come across. Still grimacing I turned my head away, allowing Keith a moment to inspect the rest of the surrounds. The room didn’t extend much beyond what we could see, just bunks bolted on either wall, dresser between, desk behind the door, and chaos, lots and lots of chaos.

 

“Hellmutts?” He wondered. He backed up to meet me still standing guard just inside the door.

 

We both looked back at the body, still wearing its boots and military fatigues, ‘face down’ near one of the bunks. I shrugged.

 

“Maybe.”

 

“What about… Taijitsu?” Keith murmured.

 

I frowned and looked down, loosening my death grip on David’s rifle. His parting words echoed in my ears, lending me logic and commonsense that in these conditions I sorely needed. Again I shrugged and shook my head, dismissing the irony that this thing he so casually referred to had been given a name in essence making it more ‘human’ for us to comprehend in place of just calling it what it really was – a monster. I wondered if its name had any real significance, and if it did what it meant. I wondered if it had human emotions, human hunger – and I wondered what I would have called it had I been given the chance, had it been born human, had it actually been mine. But it is yours; it looked human, at least part-human. David didn’t see it the way you did, he didn’t stare it in the face after Trinity placated it, he didn’t see the emotion in its eyes – emotion? I scoffed. Internalising a wince I cleared my throat and looked ahead, my jaw tight set tight.

 

“No,” I eventually uttered. “If that’s the case why didn’t it do that to me when it had the chance?”

 

“Maybe it was going to?” Keith ventured without sounding convinced about it. Rather than say anything we merely exchanged glances, both reliving those horrifying moments back at the Doc’s lab hours ago. It felt like days. In the stress and subsequent dramas it probably had been. Time, like most other extenuating factors, was constantly against us.

 

“How much time do we have left?”

 

“It’s only been twenty minutes.”

 

“God damn it.”

 

“We’d better keep moving,” he said. I followed him out.

 

As we pushed on we moved in silence. We had no way of knowing where the other two had gone, let alone any way to communicate with them that wouldn’t also alert the zombies congregating in the darkness around us. Though we constantly worried, at least I did, neither one of us spoke about it. Being separated as of late seemed par for the course, if nothing else the Doc had well taught us the value in that. As it stood all we had were our rifles, our senses, and out proverbial wits at our disposal to find little Selene in the scariest and deadliest rat-maze of all time. Visions of Amelia back there outside the Green Room haunted us but neither one of us mentioned it. If Selene was infected by whatever infected her then we’d deal with it. There was small consolation in the fact that I now carried the very rifle that had obliterated that little girl’s ‘life,’ whether she had been infected by a zombie, by Taijitsu, or by something else completely – but any consolation had to better than nothing, at least that’s what I reminded myself as we turned another corner. Then – movement.

 

“Did you hear that?”

 

“What the f-?”

 

“Shh!” Keith urged. His frown was lethal, focussed. “There,” he said a moment later. “You hear that?”

 

I nodded. “What is that… is that tapping?” I frowned back up at him. “Since when did zombies learn Morse Code?”

 

Keeping flat to wall, Keith peered around a corner. Grabbing his shoulder I wrenched him back, copping more of his death stare and a sound that bordered on insulted for apparently scaring him. As scared as I was I tried to make him see reason, as much as I could without being able to speak too much or too loud, and stress my point enough for him to finally get it. If that was one of the others out there they’d shoot first and ask questions later. All movement down here had to be considered hostile. One moment’s hesitation and-

 

“That’s not Corey,” Keith assured, after another pause. He flexed his fingers around his rifle’s stock anxiously and rolled his head aside against the cold cement wall. The tapping relented. It was followed by a low dragging sound. In the shadows, between the dusty overhead lights, I practically clung to his side, staring up at him intently. What do we do? I wanted to ask him. What came out sounded a lot more determined than I actually felt.

 

“I don’t think that’s Trinity either. I don’t think that’s human.”

 



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Keith frowned into the shadows, into the string of lights that permeated the dark; dusty orbs of flickering light obscured our vision, impeding us. At that moment with my breath frozen in my lungs the only thing I could think was taking out the light bulbs. At least that would have put us on some kind of level playing field but I couldn’t even lift my arms to do it. Frozen in the shadows all I could do was stand and stare. Keith tugged on my arm to move me. Fear had frozen my limbs solid. One deft punch would have shattered me. Keith stooped down into my ear.

 

“Come on!” he said. He began to drag me.

 

That tapping noise now began to echo. Footsteps were running towards us. It was hard to tell if it was one set or not with the sound amplifying off the solid walls and low ceilings. Over the roar of my pulse I could make out the associated growl that always preceded a zombie attack. The fact it was running towards us so fast meant it was locked on to our position, and where there was one there had to be more, countless more, there could easily have been-

 

We ran. We ran straight back the way we had come, back past doors that seemed closer now, back past doors that seemed threatening, alien. The sound of our footsteps was deafening. Panic disorienting. At some point Keith slipped in behind, his gun held up and poised in the direction of the running. As I skirted a corner I saw movement ahead and too snatched up my rifle.

 

“Keith!” I cried. I squeezed the trigger. An explosion tore through the corridor temporarily stunning us. My ears rang. My shoulder throbbed from the recoil. Keith shoved me. I don’t know whether it was momentum or in reprimand for firing and in essence just giving away our location. I huffed back. Then I heard it like a distant echo-

 

“Ahhhf*ck!”

 

I gasped. My insides sunk. My mouth fell open. That was human. More than that, it was-

 

“David?” Keith called back. He shoved past me in a blur. I didn’t feel it. I watched him charge into darkness with his shotgun drawn. The seconds drew out like hours. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t even know if that thing, whatever it was, was still running towards us. In a whirlwind I saw Keith disappear and re-emerge dragging a slumped figure aside him. Just the sight of a bald head was enough to see my knees weaken as I staggered forward. The sight of blood running down his face in ribbons mortified me. I was too shocked to do or say or think anything. Sounds came in waves. I heard Keith question what he was doing down here, how he’d managed to find us, what the hell he thought he was doing, but it seemed as if answers weren’t really needed. Through the blood David squinted up, winded, shaken but scowling viciously. He snorted as Keith stopped before me. Half way through Keith berating him for not saying something or giving us fair warning of his presence David pulled himself up enough to stand upright, his shirt and front of his trousers dusty and crumpled, his forearm grazed apparently having taken a fall. He glared at me, half his face smudged with blood.

 

“Did you do that?” he ground out through clenched teeth. I was still too shaken to answer. I froze as he slumped forward wrapping his hand around the back of my neck and drawing me against him in an embrace. Relief flooded me, feeling his body warm and real and pressed against me. “We have to work on your aim,” he muttered against my ear. He smeared the blood away with his forearm. His smile was fleeting. It was too jumbled to read right. It was too pained.

 

“Just glass,” he dismissed, jerking away from Keith’s quick assessment. The bullet had exploded on the wall beside him, he said, he’s even heard it wiz past. Even his voice, normally a grating monotone was louder now, pitched, lending credence to his claims. There was no time to question it. The loud growl echoed behind us. It made my bowels jitter and turn to ice. David and Keith, an arm around one another’s shoulders (with Keith stooping to accommodate the vast height discrepancy) zeroed in on some spot behind me. I didn’t have time to react. They obviously did. Shoving David aside, Keith swung up his rifle, aimed it and squeezed the trigger. Another loud explosion ripped through the corridor. More growls, more tapping – more sounds echoing in the distance. More were coming. And they weren’t just ambling, no, these things, unbelievable as it seemed, were running. And they were running straight for us.

 

“How is that possible?” David asked. He felt like a cement wall slumped against me, panting, pained, but as we stood there together in fear and shock I seemed suddenly capable of sustaining him. I shook my head watching Keith snap in another cartridge, wrench the bolt back, and take aim. He glared at us over his shoulder as he continued backing up towards us.

 

“Move!” he bellowed.

 

It was the only time I could ever recall David actually taking an order immediately without recourse. Together we hurried as fast as we could back down the darkened corridor. Behind us Keith kept firing. Behind him more kept running. Running and growling. Their cries echoed like vultures fighting over the last scrap of food. These certainly didn’t sound like the call of the dead. Not the dead as we’d come to know them. Not even from the thing Taijitsu. The fear of the unknown was more potent than anything I already knew – or thought I knew. Seeing the lit stairwell ahead of us relief swamped me like warm water, and froze again in a few steps as we saw movement dancing amidst it. Those things, whatever they were, were coming up – since when did the dead know how to coordinate their steps and balance in order not to just climb a flight of stairs but run up them?

 

“Oh god, this can’t be happening, oh god, oh god-”

 

“This way!”

 

Using his weight to swing me around, David dragged me off down another corridor with Keith following close behind. Despite the rough lurching steps between us and the chaos of the situation I somehow managed to catch sight of a sign as we approached another doorway and hurried through.

 

Chapel. School. Infirmary.

 

Oh Jesus Christ no. But we were cornered. There was no going back.

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-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 21st of July 2009 02:05:34 PM

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Habitually Keith closed the door behind us and looked around for something to jimmy the handles down tight. Finding nothing in the sparsely decorated hallway he snatched up my rifle from David’s hand and wedged the barrel in place, using the leather strap to hold the heavy end of the stock up. I went to argue but Keith smartly stopped me. We were out of options, we didn’t have anything else, he argued, and besides, David was in no position to use it. He was right of course. Between his injured ribs and his gouges and scratches marring the left side of his body, his face and neck taking most of the brunt, he was far from battle ready. Along with my fear came this sense of resentment too; I was angry at him for coming along after he’d vowed to stay behind, angry that he’s risk his life in his injured state, let alone coming down into god knows what to help or ‘save’ me – it was like he didn’t trust I could take care of myself. But I couldn’t maintain it, I was struggling as it was to keep it together, the growl of the dead outside and their hurried footsteps competing with the furious pace of my pulse and my heartbeat. As I carried much of his weight Keith was left then as our only gunman. Now basically down to one weapon between us, mine dangling at my side burdensomely, we hurried through the corridor without any cohesion, without a sense of order. Inside the further we walked the dimmer the lights became. The darkness around us was indeed getting darker. Outside night had to be falling. It made no sense at all of course, we were trapped inside, hundreds of feet under the earth, there should have been no conceivable way of knowing what time it was outside above ground – all I knew was that the further we walked inside the darker, the colder, the stiller the air became. At one point I was almost convinced I could see my own breaths bursting in front of my face, not stopping to think about the amount of dust that must have settled here in the months since the infection had wiped the entire base out. That should have been a calming thought but in my fear I was not thinking clearly. Limping along with David I scanned the doors we passed, scanned the windows for signs of life – whatever the state. I could see none. I was openly terrified. There should have been people everywhere. In times of crisis people always flocked to churches and houses of worship, even those that usually had no belief in any god. All of us who had survived the end of the world had seen this more times than we wanted to remember. It was practically an unwritten law, along with avoiding the blood if not the overall attention of the dead. Stay away from anywhere where large amounts of people would congregate en masse; not only were they breeding grounds for infection, they were death traps for anyone happening past after the fact as well. Where then, were all the people?

 

Having braced myself for nightmarish visions of piles of undead corpses rotting and feasting away on the remnants of the living in an orgy of blood and filth, the absence of bodies did not pacify me. Not unlike the rest of the base we had already seen it was eerily clear of corpses. Dark smears indicated previous struggles. I saw what looked to be some kind of bone amidst some detritus lining the wall, but I didn’t see a body. It wasn’t unfeasible to think that the Doc in his wanderings had come this far and cleared the place as he had elsewhere with his minions of dogs and child slave labour, he did have a vast array of medical supplies at his lab, I recalled, it had to come from somewhere, but here? As we approached what looked to be some medical department I saw behind glass walls rooms opening up. Furniture was scattered. Plastic curtains were torn and blood smeared. Blood flaked on the inside of the glass; I stared at a bloodied handprint as we passed. With a shudder I moved on. Sliding his hand around my back I expected David to draw me closer, to say something encouraging, to allay my fears. Slipping the knife out from the waistband of my pants he frowned. Clearly he sensed it too. He pushed himself off me and lurched around as much as he was able on his own. He was like an old hunting dog, his strengths may have been depleted but his instincts at sensing danger hadn’t waned. He nodded at me as if assuring me he was now able to hold his own. I frowned back dubiously. He looked pale. He had lost too much blood. It saturated the neckline of his black shirt, giving off a sheen as the light caught it. The dead no doubt were salivating over the scent. David was practically bringing them to us but for the life of me I knew I couldn’t say or do anything to turn him away. I may as well just shoot myself if I do that, I thought, smiling weakly. I hefted up his gun and offered it to him. I knew he didn’t have the strength now thanks to his ribs to keep wielding it, but I needed to see him pick it up regardless. With his palm David shoved the barrel away and continued walking. I followed close by. Keith, as always, was our ringer following on high alert behind us. The dead had reached the door now. They were banging on it, throwing their bodies against it in a haphazard wave one after the other. The sound made me think of fat rain droplets splattering on plastic. And then we heard the squeaking. All 3 of us turned around to stare back through the dark. The doorhandle was rattling as if… as if someone was trying to turn it. Could their really be survivors out there, I thought impulsively. If there were why didn’t they say anything? Why did they just growl? Maybe their throats had been damaged, maybe they were dehydrated- what, all of them? But that sound, that loud, angry, frustrated growl sent a cold shiver the entire length of my spine. That wasn’t human, I knew it, I just couldn’t comprehend what-

 

A low sound snatched me back to attention as David took the fore, stepping in ahead of me, knife in bloodied hand. I followed, reactively hunching lower. After all these months it was habit, and one I was strangely glad had been enforced on me. It was like a switch had been flicked on in my brain. I was more focussed now, shaken, jittery, but focussed none the less. Together the three of us came to a corner and stopped. Zombies. Somewhere. They were moving close by unseen. Their shadows danced across the floor. David and Keith exchanged wary glances. I hugged the rifle against my chest like a terrified child squeezing a teddy bear. Two fingers went up. Right. 5-… 5 metres away. I nodded beneath David’s stare, drawing strength from familiarity; at least his system I knew, with Keith I felt alien, I felt unprepared. Keith nodded back, whether he knew what David directed or was merely prompting action. With his back to the wall David huffed out a sound, preparing himself. Keith reached out and gripped his shoulder. He lowered his face and shook his head. Without hesitation he shuffled forward and took David’s place at the head of the line. Carefully, and as silently as possible, Keith handed David his rifle in exchange for the knife. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch it, but I couldn’t stop from watching on as in a blur of movement and aggression Keith stalked one zombie, jamming the knife straight down into its head. Bone crunched. The zombie growled. With a swift twist it landed face down on the cement, it’s body facing one way, it’s rotting face another. The other zombie lunged. Keith caught it with a kick to the chest. It staggered back, clattering to the ground with a heavy thud. Almost immediately Keith was on top of it, kneeling on its chest, looming over it, running the knife of the blade across its throat. I hadn’t even seen him retrieve it. The zombie continued to growl and gurgle, black-red fluid oozing from its wound as he stood up, brought his boot up, and slammed it down into the creature’s face. Bone strained and cracked as ligaments gave way. Another boot and another and another- and Keith had practically vented his mounting frustration until there was nothing recognisable from the neck up on the motionless zombie. Standing I met Keith giving him an appraising nod as he huffed one back to me. Hearing David struggle to stand we both hefted him up, one either side, barely able to fit side by side, all three of us, as we hurriedly made our way down the corridor.

 

“In here,” Keith said. Using the back of his fist he pushed a door open, revealing what looked like a medical lab before us. Antiseptic smells wafted out, triggering memories of the Doc’s lab, and before that of countless visits to any hospital pre-war. “We need supplies, or he’s not going to last much longer,” he said.

 

“I’m fine,” David grumbled, but even I could tell from such close distance there was fear lacing his voice, regardless what his expression said.

 

Keith bid me to hold him while he quickly searched the room. Rather than stay still David pushed forward and followed and soon the three of us were wandering this room separately. Rows of desks divided us. Atop these was a mindboggling assortment of glass containers, beakers, jars, test tubes, the works. Microscopes sat amid opened textbooks and papers, much like a few I’d seen before up in the Green Room. These however didn’t bear the mark of official government documents but rather patient’s names and details. Beneath a fine film of dust their Polaroids sat staring up at me as I lingered, their faces bearing the tell-tale signs of illness, of influenza, the early stages of infection. This must have been where it started, I thought, these poor doctors had no idea what they’d been dealing with. A chill, a fever, strange wounds or lesions like bight marks – but they never would have correlated the two. In the early days following the first few sketchy reports of cannibalism people had confused the infection with rabies but the medical profession had been at a loss to explain how it was contracted. None of the bights ever looked infected, ironic when one considered that humans contained more bacteria in their mouths than any living animal on earth, I scoffed. Still, I couldn’t blame them in their ignorance. Rabies and zombies? The world, still reeling from the war with the East, had been a maelstrom of misinformation and panic. Even had official word gotten out it never would have reached the people in time to stop it. The infection was too aggressive, it was too fast. No one wanted to give up their loved ones even if it meant risking infection themselves… I smiled sadly to myself blinking my eyes up in David’s direction. My smile went unacknowledged and in its own time fell away. On either side he and Keith surveyed the room while I studied the evidence strewn about in pieces around us. All that time I kept thinking of the news footage I’d seen back in that hotel room before Rob had happened upon me. I hung my head and pushed onward, needing to shirk the ghosts of the past but unable to shake them off completely.

 

“Over here,” Keith directed in his lowest tone of voice.

 

He’d come to a stop in front of a first aid kit, it’s lid already open, it’s contents scattered across the table top. Some littered the floor. David met him and together they rummaged through the contents. Curiously I pushed on. Behind a plastic curtain I saw more benches, more shelves, more folders heaped into a pile that no doubt held the medical records of all the personnel who had worked here before the sh*t went down, and probably then some. A nearby filing cabinet verified my suspicions. As I cast my eyes over them I became aware of just how many people must have been on this base when the call went out. I shuddered and kept walking. Something on the floor ahead of me alerted my suspicions. I hurried towards it. Tentatively I reached down and at the last minute refrained from picking it up. It was a doll. A child’s doll. It seemed familiar to me – if not so vastly out of place laying on the floor in an underground medical lab. Then it hit me. I’d seen this before…

 

“Amelia,” I breathed.

 

Behind me David and Keith were peering back over their shoulders. Keith raised his chin, wordlessly inquiring as to what I was looking at. David’s brow crumpled heavily. Standing upright I wiped my hand on my thigh even though I hadn’t come into contact with it. I decided it was best not to mention I had seen a toy a lot like this the night young Lucas had led me through the Doc’s compound in to his secret lair, sitting on one of the children’s cots as the child slept in relative peace beside it. With a nervous smile I shook my head, motioning towards it dismissively.

 

“Selene,” I said, impulsively. In our panic our quest to find her had been pushed from the forefront of our minds.

 

Keith nodded as if remembering. “We have to hurry,” he said, grabbing up fistfuls of supplies to shove into whatever pocket he could. David, eventually, did likewise, but there was little urgency in his movements. I didn’t know whether his reflexes were slowing down now due to injury or sheer exhaustion or if in fact he really did care so little in regards to the Doc’s missing child. As Keith hurried up to meet me, and quickly lead the way, I caught David’s eye as he shoved the last roll of gauze bandage into his pocket. The look on his face made me turn away. With a chunk of ice in my stomach I followed Keith as we left the labs, entered another room, swept it clean, and disappeared out another.

 

It seemed like we were going in circles. And it seemed too as if we had been walking for hours. When I asked Keith how much longer we had to go he grunted something about not having enough, and dismissed committing anything else at least vocally. I knew now that we were dangerously close to missing our curfew but I couldn’t make myself verify the time in David’s wrist watch no matter how tempting it may have been. I couldn’t logically accept we had been walking around down here for almost two hours already when it only felt like half an hour at the most. I didn’t stop to think that the further we walked the further we had to backtrack to go back to where we were meant to be and the further away we were to the others and to getting the hell out of this place. As for Selene I tried not to think about her at all but in doing so just opened the floodgates to let nothing but those kinds of thoughts to come flooding in. It stopped me from looking at the signs on the walls that told us how much closer we were to the dreaded Chapel or how we had to go left to the base’s schoolrooms in the next hundred or so metres. It seemed as if Keith was deliberately leading us around in circles but I couldn’t begrudge him for it. We were starved, thirsty, disoriented, and still badly shaken by what we had seen. Now in the wake of it the intensity of the facts had been pared away by self doubt and logic. And fear. Though we walked for the most part in stiff silence none of us wanted to admit to the possibility of what we’d seen, or what we’d thought we’d seen, because that painted a picture far too terrifying for any of us to comprehend, especially with the rest of our ‘friends’ out there. By the time we reached a crux in the corridors that lead to the schoolrooms one way, and the exit the next, Keith drew us to a stop, sighed, and slung his rifle against his shoulder.

 

“Damn it,” he murmured. “We’re almost out of time.”

 

Our shoulders fell heavily. Beside me, still with his arm around my shoulder and using me as a personal leaning post, David could barely raise his head up to properly face us. He wasn’t well but I wouldn’t admit to it. I looked at Keith as a respite waiting for him to say something to me, to tell us what he thought we should do next. The look on his face stripped me smartly. Loss. Guilt. Regret. Oh how I knew that look, I knew it intimately. I knew the downcast pout, remembering having worn it for far too long now every time I thought of Rob. He was missing Amy, no doubt worried sick for her safety. He looked at me a moment as if he understood my sympathy but a moment later he cleared his throat and shuffled around, skirting me, avoiding my sad gaze and attention that wanted to tell him that everything was going to be alright when I knew that I couldn’t. I had no right to. At least I wasn’t alone down here in hell, he was.

 

“We can’t get back there in time,” I said, if only to bring our fears out into the open. “If you go now you might catch them-”

 

“No,” Keith declared.

 

It wasn’t a suggestion it was outright denial. He even looked offended at the notion that he abandon us just to save his own neck, and beside me David glowered back equally hurt, but I couldn’t just leave it. I shook my head. I summoned strengths in my hunger and thirst I didn’t even know I had to smile back and lay a hand on the big man’s forearm. My smile sat like lead on my face. It was like sending a loved one off to war knowing their chances of ever coming back again were slim to non-existent. Still I smiled for his benefit, and for David’s.

 

“You know you have to-”

 

“You cannot be serious-”

 

“You know it’s the only way-”

 

“Yes, she is,” David piped up. We both turned towards him. His smile was jaded and just as forced as mine as he pushed himself upright and stood independent of me. Pain flickered on his face despite how hard he fought to disguise it. His whole head was discoloured. He looked ill. He looked- infected? No, sunstruck. His grip was tight on my arm as he gave me a reassuring squeeze then pushed me away. My shoes shuffled in the dust towards Keith. We both frowned back. David continued to smile. “That’s why she’s going with you.”

 

“What?” I cried. Keith, hot on my heels, also objected. There wasn’t any real time to glean insult from it, intentional or not. As I returned to him David backed up, putting his hands up, gesturing for me to keep away. He refused to listen to me as I told him I couldn’t leave him, I wouldn’t, he needed help, it was unthinkable, let alone Keith’s paternal offering that the three of us had to stick together. That small gesture brought a smile to my face, reminded of the several times I had been witness to David and Rob as they continued their alpha-male power struggle, thinking sadly that for a little while at least, in spite of the terror and horror and fear things had felt somewhat ‘normal’ with the two of them, a welcome return to what had been better days. But David could not be reasoned with. He had already come to accept his fate. As he stood there laying out the facts I realised just how laboured his breathing had become. There was a rattle to his voice I didn’t like, it wasn’t the rasp of the dead it was the groan of the dying. David was hurt, no amount of running through infected corridors was going to save his sorry ass, but without him to slow us down we could, he said, referring to Keith and I. I was fighting tears by this point, all too wounded to say anything as the men battled it out in that cold, dusty corridor. Logically I knew he was right but there was no way, there was no way…

 

“I’m staying,” I eventually told him, my voice eerily dissonant and calm. “I don’t care what you say. I didn’t leave Rob. I’m not going to leave you.”

 

“Rae-”

 

“No!” I snapped.

 

There was fire smouldering in my eyes. Words struggled to make themselves known at once. I wasn’t going to be told what to do anymore. No I didn’t care what he or anyone else said for that matter. No I didn’t care if he was right, I didn’t care what he or the rest of the god damn planet thought, for once I was taking control and there was not one f*cking thing he or anyone else could tell me that was going to change my mind. Huffing from my minor outburst it took me some time to dredge my eyes up from the floor and when I did I was half expecting one of them to slug me, one for going against either one of their decisions and two to literally knock the fight from me, but neither one of them did. Keith stared at the ground reflectively. David frowned back saying nothing. His smirk, when it crept out, had me smiling back, albeit tentatively. Reaching out he cupped the side of my neck in his hand. He bowed forward, resting his forehead against mine. He sighed rather than say anything. I was glad for his silence. Keith’s gaze over us was unsettling. I could sense his frustration; in part I could even share it. But as I looked up, turning my face from David’s heavy embrace, I too couldn’t say anything. He had to leave us alone to save his own skin or we were condemning him to death down here with us. Amy needed him, Corey needed him, hell even the Doc needed him, David and I didn’t. He had to go – and he had to go now, there was no two ways about it.

 

It seemed cliché in the moments that followed, the awkwardness, the strained expressions in place of any real words, as if words would have made the situation any of us now faced any easier. Parting from David I wrapped my arms around Keith, holding him, thanking him, trying to convey a sense of peace with our collective decision rather than fill the moment with corny statements about coming back and not being long. That was all superfluous, first he had to get out, and his escape was going to be nothing short of miraculous if he managed it at all. In the back of all our minds, at least mine, I had to brace myself for the fact that one, if not both of them would turn on me; Keith, if bitten would almost surely come back to attack us, and if David really was sick… But it was now a risk I was willing to take. For the first real time since the war had started I actually felt in control of my life again and it filled me with a sense of empowerment, of purpose, if only for a fleeting while. As Keith and David exchanged cordialities, and a back thumping embrace, I watched on, wary for signs of movement around us. The scratching was subtle but I knew it was there, behind that door, behind other doors in that particular section to my immediate left dead children were chomping at the proverbial bit to get at us. They were only metres away but for now doors and rooms were worlds apart. Turning my focus back to the men, who apparently hadn’t noticed – or chose not to for the same reasons I did - I picked up my smile and waited patiently for the moment to end. Eventually Keith began to withdraw, a few steps at first, and then a half dozen. Though he’d quickly drafted up some kind of plan with David in their low grumbling utterances I had no real idea as he left just how on earth he was going to make it out past those things that had followed us, distracting myself with thoughts that these levels surely had to have more than one way in or out and relying on my sense of logic against undeniable odds to soothe my fears. I was sad to see Keith leave but I wasn’t scared for myself. As David and I stood side by side we watched on, feeling the darkness and loneliness and isolation creeping back upon us. I tried to tell myself that later, when the sun rose again, him and the Doc and the rest of the crew, with Selene and the elusive Dean in tow, would come back down here better armed, better prepared, and they would drag us both out of here, each venting their frustrations at our decisions to stay behind veils of relief and bemusement. It was a nice thought but I wasn’t counting on it. Before Keith’s footsteps had even finished receding I turned my attention to David, who, still coated in coagulating blood, with one eye practically glued shut now and leaning to the side to compensate his injured ribs, was smirking back vaguely as if half drunk. If we didn’t find a safe haven soon for him to rest I knew he was done for. I huffed out a breath determinedly and wove my arm in under his shoulders, hefting him forward. His shotgun was poised and ready in my other fist. Though our roles had been vastly reversed I found no humour in it, just need. There wasn’t time to draw comparisons, to wonder if this was how he must have felt all those times he’d dragged me out of harms way when I’d been his burden. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than finding a room safe from the infected that I didn’t hear footsteps hurrying back down the corridor towards us. Keith’s voice, preceding all else, told us to hurry, to run in fact, without actually telling us what we were running from. Like a wave crashing us from behind he charged up, thrusting an arm around David, practically dragging him away from me as I followed dubiously behind. I stopped and turned around. I heard the roar of the dead, and the thunder of their footsteps, well before I saw the first shadow dancing across the ground. By the time I could smell them Keith had already deposited David elsewhere and had come back, attempting to repeat his tactics on me. But the sight of the zombies running, literally running full-pelt towards me as opposed to assuming it had frozen my legs solid to the floor. I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe it.

 

“Rae, come on!”

 

“The Doc,” I murmured, backing up, or maybe he was dragging me, either way I was moving. “His experiments… he did this… his file, in the lab, I saw it… he worked here… he did this…”

 

But Keith wasn’t listening. In two strides he swept me up into his arms and practically carried me away, slamming the door to a jarring stop behind us. The hard kiss of metal on metal echoed like a death knell around us, the last chime of a bell signalling the end of midnight. Zombies slapped against the door, flesh and bone cracking, pounding, voices growling on the other side. Backing up with wide eyes I stared at Keith, thanking him, but sharing his fear, too shaken at that point to ask what had happened let alone how he’d managed to escape.

 

“That’s it,” Keith said. His shoulders fell heavily. His face, gouged by adrenalin, by anger, by defeat, crumpled as his gaze fell lowly towards the floor. “Time’s up,” he said.

 

His voice had barely been a whisper, still over the din of the ravenous zombies I managed to hear it. David, slumped over his thighs on one of the bunks, blinked back silently. He ran a hand over his stubbled scalp and too looked downward. Outside the dead kept beating and pounding and growling at the door. There would be no end to it; the dead were immune to exhaustion, fatigue, stress. They would continue beating until their limbs were shattered, until their bones gave way. They wouldn’t sleep, they would never rest, they would never take a break to replenish their energies, they didn’t know how to stop. Inside that room the three of us knew just how great the odds had been stacked against us, by our very nature we were at a disadvantage, we were no longer at the top of the proverbial food chain we had been outsmarted by ‘unnatural’ versions of ourselves. In a very real way Keith’s words echoed prophetically. Time really was up, and not just on a global scale. All that was left to do now was wait; the clock now well and truly ticking against us.

 

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Done. Your turn. wink.gif



-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 21st of July 2009 02:07:41 PM

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Dean and I didn’t speak again as I led him to the Green Room. I had honestly lost all sense of time; I could only pray that I would find Doc M, at least, waiting there, and hopefully the others as well. Jonathan had claimed that Keith and the group looking for Selene would find her and Corey, but how could he know where they were going? More likely, he had just led them to the ladder and then disappeared back down into his sewer. (Even with that in mind, when I lowered my gaze to Jonathan’s pale, unconscious face, I couldn’t work up any anger. A little pity, if anything, and a lot of curiosity, and a strange little smile I couldn’t entirely wipe off my face.) Considering they were a gunless, freezing, physically unremarkable man and a little girl, I was most worried about them.

 

I thought I recognized the corridor, and indeed, when I studied the ground, I saw footprints – Jonathan’s, mine, Corey’s – and simply had to follow them backward to find the Green Room. I had a good feeling the closer I got. Somehow I convinced myself that everything would be all right. Maybe it was just because I had Dean back.

 

But for whatever reason I had it, it was wrong. I knew instantly. The Doc was alone in the Green Room, walking in tight little circles with his arms crossed and one hand against his forehead. When I stepped into the room, he stopped with his back turned.

 

“Trinity?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He turned around as Dean and I came completely in. He squinted in our direction, then opened his eyes wider as if that would make his vision clearer. At least, that was what I guessed from the movement of other muscles in his face; from somewhere, he had gotten another pair of dark glasses to conceal his eyes. “And … Dean?” he asked.

 

Dean mumbled, “That’s me.”

 

I guessed he couldn’t see Jonathan, which made the thought of him operating on anyone all the more appalling. But I wasn’t sure how to explain his presence – the truth would have to come out eventually, but if the Doc found out he’d been holding Selene for ransom, I doubted he would be willing to fix the many aches Dean had inflicted.

 

“Um,” I said instead, “the others aren’t back yet?”

 

The Doc snarled silently and continued his walking. “No. No. They’re not. They’re probably dead. Why is Corey not with you?”

 

“We got separated looking for Dean,” I lied easily. “And, ah, I’m guessing you can’t see him,” Real tactful, I jibed at myself, “but I met Jonathan along the way. He’s injured, so –”

 

“So you want me to magically fix him?” the Doc snapped. “For the record I did see him, I’m simply not looking to add him to my list of worries just now. Why do you people not understand that I am not a sorcerer who can wave his magical wand over you? I’m a doctor, but my conditions are just as bad as yours. Worse. In case you’d forgotten for a second, I’m f*cking blind.”

 

Obviously I had missed something. Dean and I exchanged confounded looks, and I ventured, “What happened?”

 

“Oh, the usual,” the Doc spat. “Your brutish friend – David – injured himself, agreed to stay behind, then threw a temper tantrum and decided he would rather take his chances out there with the undead.”

 

I was tempted to make some light-hearted comment about his bedside manner, but the atmosphere in the room dissuaded me. “And you haven’t seen Corey since we left?”

 

“Well I’m not hiding him under my coat.”

 

“All right, all right,” I muttered. “How long until the time’s up?”

 

“It’s already passed,” he said bitterly. “Fifteen minute buffer and all.”

 

Those words sent a chill up my spine that became a pounding in my temples. If Keith and Rae hadn’t been able to make it back in time … I didn’t want to think it, but was highly possible they were … gone. David, out there injured, probably stood as little of a chance as Corey and Selene. In a strange way, I both accepted that they were all dead and refused to believe it. So many lives – Rae, David, Keith, Corey, little Selene – could not be snuffed so quickly. I could not be alone with an unconscious stranger, a nearly hysterical blind man, and Dean, and I could not possibly be the one to tell Amy that both her men were gone.

 

“No,” I said aloud, breaking the silence that had fallen over us. “Look, okay, I’ll … I’ll find them.” I turned to find a table to lay Jonathan down on. “Doc, you do whatever you can for him, and Dean, you –”

 

“No,” the Doc interrupted, echoing me. “No. I’ll not stay here and watch the rest of you venture out and meet your deaths. Whatever you may think, I’m not useless –”

 

“I’m not saying you are, but –”

 

He snorted. “Of course you’re not.”

 

“But Jonathan needs your attention.”

 

His head tilted up slightly. I assumed he was looking at Dean. Then it shifted back down: regarding Jonathan. Then back to me. Silently, he crooked a finger at me, and when Dean started to come forward as well, he said, “Only her.”

 

I walked to him dubiously. He put an arm around my shoulders when I reached him and led me as far away from Dean as the relatively small room would allow. He stayed silent for some time, tapping on his glasses, as though considering his words. Finally he pulled them off.

 

“Listen, girl,” he turned his eyes on me. They were still cloudy, but underneath the cataracts they had become a vivid, recognizable red. “I don’t know what your blood has done to me, and I don’t know what it might continue to do, and right now I don’t give a flying f*ck about your new boyfriend. I’m not letting you out of my newfound sight until whatever is happening to me stops happening.”

 

I stared back at him. The almost intimate position and low pitch of his voice belied his harsh words.

 

“Some doctor you are,” I remarked before thinking. “Didn’t you take some oath that you have to help those in need?”

 

“I also swore to do no harm. That turned out real well, didn’t it?” He smirked. “Old vows and promises didn’t carry into this new undead world, child. Only the naïve could think they would. I’m looking out for myself just the same as you are.”

 

I wanted to object that I wasn’t like that, that I cared for my makeshift ‘family’ just as much as I did for myself. But it wouldn’t have done any good to argue that I had virtues; he would still have none. He slipped his glasses back on and released me. Instinctively, I stepped away from him and turned so I could see Dean in my peripheral vision.

 

“Do what you will with him.” The Doc crossed his arms. “But if you leave this room, I go –”

 

Suddenly there was a low growl from the door. Dean, being the closest, was the first to react, jumping away and raising his hands defensively. I, on the other hand, moved forward, uncomfortably aware of a defenseless Jonathan very close to the door – where a familiar tall, black-eyed apparition loomed. I realized that Taijitsu was at what seemed to be its minimum height, but it still towered over all of us, even hunching over to fit its head inside the door.

 

“What the f –”

 

I remembered Dean hadn’t seen it before. The Doc said its name like a curse and lifted the rifle slung over his shoulder. I reached out a hand to stop him – Taijitsu had locked its unfathomable eyes on me, and somewhere deep in them, I saw something.

 

It whimpered.

 

“Stop,” I murmured to the Doc.

 

Dean backed up to come even with us, and as soon as he was next to the Doc, I stepped forward. Taijitsu’s sudden appearance didn’t surprise me as it should have, didn’t repel or frighten me. Maybe, I thought, the Doc had been right, and I did have a kind of connection with it – maybe it did recognize me and now me to some extent. I had no idea how intelligent it was, but I suspected it wasn’t as brainless as a zombie, and maybe even as bright as a human. It was certainly capable, I was sure by now, of emotion and some basic form of communication.

 

I was within three feet of it. It hunched over to put our heads equal, bony shoulder blades knifing upward, seeming as though they should tear through the skin instead of stretching it. Two steps closer. It leaned forward, but was unwilling to actually come into the room. Close enough to touch it without trouble, I stopped. It stretched its neck out further, flaring its nostrils as if making sure I was who I looked like (I wondered how well it saw through those black eyes), and whimpered again.

 

The sound was inherently wrong coming from such a monstrous thing. Kind of … pitiful.

 

“What do you want?” I asked it, using the same tones I would with a dog.

 

It blinked and shuffled back, ducked under the doorway. I bit my lip; I thought I knew what it intended for me to do, but …

 

Turning back to Dean and the Doc, I said, “It … I think it wants me to follow it. It needs my help with something.”

 

“And just what the f*ck is it?” Dean demanded, admirably level-headedly.

 

At the same time, the Doc growled, “I’m going with you.”

 

“I think it would rather I went alone,” I said, though I thought no such thing. “It trusts me. You’ve tried to shoot it every time you’ve seen it,” I added pointedly. “Explain the situation to Dean. I’ll be back.”

 

Before either of them could protest, I impulsively sprinted forward, reaching up to Taijitsu’s shoulder and swinging myself up onto its back. Whether it expected my action or just understood what I wanted it to do, I didn’t know, but it took off as instantly as I’d hoped. The men’s shouts were quickly left behind.

 

I clung to Taijitsu’s shoulders and neck, praying that if I fell off it would notice. Its skin was dry – not clammy as I assumed – and hard, unforgiving muscles were my only handholds. I could feel no veins in its neck, no pulse, nothing to suggest it had blood or a heart at all. Doc M would have a field day dissecting it, I thought, but shuddered at the idea of cutting Taijitsu open.

 

I should really be proud of myself, I also thought. Not long ago, I was dancing in the sewers with someone who may or may not be legitimately insane. Then I found out that a shot of my blood is transforming another man into … something else. Now I’m riding a half-breed monster off to some location without knowing why, and I still haven’t completely lost my mind.

 

Taijitsu slowed. I had no idea where we were – I only knew that I heard a veritable horde of zombies nearby, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the relative safety Taijitsu’s height gave me. But it lowered down onto all fours, so I slid down to the ground. It turned to look at me, as though waiting for instructions.

 

“Hey, you brought me here, not the other way around,” I told it.

 

It huffed – a universal expression of impatience, I thought – straightened back up, and began walking again. A door had been forced open nearby; that was the source of the zombie sounds, and that was where it led me. The room on the other side was full of them, all concentrating on trying to bust down another door. Looking first to me as if for permission, Taijitsu roared.

 

My hands jumped to my ears. I had heard it before, but I’d been nearly unconscious then, and it hadn’t seemed quite so hideous. The zombies seemed to agree with me: most of them went into a panic, trying to escape the sound. I was surprised to see that they realized their only exit was the door, and flooded for it, even though Taijitsu stood there. They even forgot their hunger, scrambling past me in their haste. It wasn’t normal zombie behavior for sure, and I filed it away for later thought, but more immediate was my concern for the room they had been trying to get into. Obviously there was someone alive there, and considering Rae was the only person Taijitsu had paid any attention to inn the past …

 

Still, I looked up at it questioningly. “What did you need me for?” I murmured. As soon as I said it, several reasons entered my head. “Someone’s injured? Or you just knew you’d frighten them?”

 

Its look seemed almost reproving.

 

“You’re right. Doesn’t matter.” I nodded to it and jogged over to the door. It had been badly dented, but by bracing my foot on the wall, I was able to wrench it open.

 

Two rifles pointed at my face.

 

“Hey. Don’t shoot.” I raised my hand in case they needed extra prodding.

 

Keith was the first to lower his gun, but Rae’s followed in a second. At first I didn’t see David, covered in blood and slumped next to Rae, and when I finally did, I was positive he was dead. Then his head lifted, and he squinted out of the one eye not caked with blood, and I shared in Keith and Rae’s sigh of relief. Next thing I knew, Keith had me in a bear hug, his bassy chuckle vibrating my whole body.

 

“Should’ve known,” he said, releasing me. “But how’d –?”

 

His eyes rested on Taijitsu. Rae, supporting David as best she could, froze when she saw it. Only I seemed to notice how it cringed away from their terrified stares.

 

“No, no,” I said hurriedly. “It … Taijitsu brought me. It knew you were in danger and it brought me to help.”

 

“Should still shoot the f*cking thing,” David grumbled. Apparently he was feeling fine.

 

“The f*cking thing knows the way back, and I don’t,” I retorted.

 

He grunted noncommittally.

 

Keith shrugged. “Whatever we have to do,” he decided. “But I don’t trust it.”

 

I wanted to make them see that it was responsible for saving their lives, not me. I was only there as its mouthpiece, really. But when they looked at Taijitsu, they saw a beast, an abomination. And Rae … she seemed to prefer to not look at it at all. Keith, at least, trusted me enough to walk with next to me, and I walked next to it, but David and Rae trailed behind us some ways. I couldn’t help but wonder how the hulking infant felt about its own mother rejecting it so, especially when it did its best to express its want to be around her, to help her, but for now, its eyes were impassive.

 

The walk back, of course, took longer than going out had. It seemed to take longer than I’m sure it actually did. I couldn’t believe that I actually sided with the monster.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 



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Will this sh*t never end?

 

Doc M had left. Dean sat on the counter next to Jonathan (who was conscious but wary and in pain), arms crossed and bored-looking. He said that after I left, the Doc had gone into a rage and plowed out the door. Something about losing control, and having only one option left. Dean wasn’t too concerned. He was more interested in Taijitsu and where the hell I’d been.

 

Taijitsu itself, when it realized I knew where I was, had given me a long, considering look – then glanced at its mother – and then dashed away into the darkness. I didn’t try to stop it. I didn’t blame it for wanting to go. But I was a little sad to see it leave – it gave us some degree of security, and in a weird way, I liked its presence.

 

On the bright side, Corey and Selene had found their way back to the Green Room. Corey, Dean’s demin jacket around his shoulders, sat hunched in a corner, still shivering and glaring daggers at Jonathan. Selene sat curled next to him, but when she saw Keith, she leapt to her feet and ran to the big man. He dropped to his knees, a look of sheer joyous relief on his usually solemn face, and embraced her so hard I feared he’d break her.

 

Dean and Corey wanted explanations. Jonathan wouldn’t stop staring at me. David glared at everything. Doc M was MIA. Keith was eager to get back to the clinic. Only Selene and Rae didn’t seem to want anything from me. When, I wanted to know, had I become the person to look to for answers? Perhaps it was when you started talking to zombie mutants.

 

Since I provided nothing, Keith naturally took command. Corey was to tell Dean about Taijitsu; David was sent to join Jonathan, and Rae went with him; Selene went back to Corey; and Keith motioned for me to join him apart from the others.

 

“Any opinions?” he asked.

 

“On what, exactly?”

 

“Everything.” I gave him a sour look. He smiled and clarified, “We need to get David back to the clinic.”

 

“And Jonathan,” I put in, glancing over to where he lay, eyes still on me.

 

“Right. And getting Selene to safety is a high priority. We can’t wait on the Doc, reasonably. But …” He looked away. “He waited on us.”

 

“He ran off on us, too,” I reminded him.

 

“I know.”

 

“We really don’t have a choice though, do we? He’s the only one who knows the way back.”

 

He shook his head. “I could find it. I imagine you could … help.”

 

I crossed my arms. Keith had obviously picked up on my ‘differentness’, but the way he accepted it put me off-balance. “Yeah. I guess probably.”

 

“Then you think we should go on?”

 

I bit my lip, but decided to be honest. “I know he’s your friend and all, but I don’t trust the Doc as far as I can throw him. And he’s more … unstable. Now that Erin and Amelia are gone.” Not to mention, now that my blood’s spiked through his veins. “I hate to say it, but it might be in our best interests to leave him behind.”

 

He sighed. “You’re right.”

 

I was taken aback by his quick agreement, and even more surprised when he turned and announced to the group that as soon as everyone was ready to travel, we would be setting out. Corey, of all of them, voiced some doubt at the decision to leave the Doc behind, but apart from Selene, no one was willing to put their lives in further risk for the good doctor. She alone seemed mortified. Keith went to talk to her, and hesitantly, I boosted myself up to sit next to Jonathan.

 

His only move was to reach out and take my hand in his. I shifted closer, and he rested his head against my leg, eyes finally closed. I looked down at him, trying to sort out how I felt, and when I looked up, Dean’s betrayed expression sent my eyes downward again.

 

Keith stood. “Let’s go.”

 

Ignoring David’s objections and curses, Keith lifted the smaller man up across his shoulders. It was, he said, in the interest of speed, and since he didn’t seem to be hindered at all, only David’s pride could complain. Rae and Dean flanked him, the only two with rifles anymore. I wasn’t comfortable with Rae being on the front lines, but we were running out of options – two of our best fighters, David and Keith, were canceling each other out.

 

I walked a couple steps behind them. On one side, Selene clung to my belt with her metal claw, real hand twisting and untwisting in the hem of her skirt. I hated that she was there, not so much because she was a liability but because she had to see every mangled corpse and smear of blood we did. By then it had come out that she had followed us, intent on helping her precious Doc, only to ‘get lost’ – meaning, get captured by Jonathan. Her kidnapper was on my other side, his arm around my shoulders and my arm around his waist. Most of his weight was on me, and at times he seemed to lose consciousness for a second, forcing me to basically drag him for a step or two, but as long as we kept pace, I didn’t care. I suspected that if Keith could, he would have carried Jonathan as well, but even he had limits.

 

Corey was at the very back, with one of the pistols I’d taken back from Jonathan. His shivering finally all but stopped, he watched our backs. Just in case.

 

But our journey was proving to be strangely zombie-free. Judging from the front group’s murmurs, they thought that the undead had just gathered in one place, in some sort of ambush; apparently they had noticed some unusual, almost intelligent behavior too. Personally, I thought that Taijitsu had cleared the way for us. I doubted anyone would support the idea, but as long as we weren’t attacked, did the reason matter? We walked, and we hoped we wouldn’t be killed; there was really nothing else a group of people in our position could do.

 

Even with my convictions about Rae’s child being our guardian angel of sorts, I was startled when Keith stopped and turned to the rest of us, a broad smile on his face.

 

“Home free.”

 

Before anyone else could act, little Selene released my belt and dashed forward to open the door that stood before us. Twilight streamed in, soft but still just bright enough to make us all squint. Behind me, Corey gave a short, relieved laugh, and Keith grinned back at him. Rae’s happiness was muted (no doubt she was still worried about David), and Dean merely glanced over his shoulder to give me a quick, unreadable look before going on outside with Selene. Jonathan seemed to actually shrink away from the light.

 

Happy as I was to see our progress, I was a little wary of leaving the shadows. It took Corey, taking my hand as he passed me, to pull me outside. Maybe I was being affected by Jonathan’s repelled reaction to the sunlight, or maybe it was because I knew progress also meant I was closer to having to tell the others everything that had happened in the sewers. Either way, Corey wasn’t going to let me get away with it. At least he wasn’t trying to expose me as … whatever he thought I was anymore.

 

“Not far now,” Keith commented. David grumbled something – I couldn’t catch the words – and Keith laughed and crouched down to put him on his own feet. “You slow us down, though,” he warned, “and you’re right back where you started.”

 

David scowled at him. Rae hand away her rifle, and soon she was supporting David much the way I was Jonathan. The two of them fell back, leaving Keith and Dean to be joined by Corey, and walked alongside me. I had a feeling Rae wanted to talk to me – question Jonathan’s presence, say something about Taijitsu, comment on Dean’s return, I didn’t know – but I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her. Inexplicably, her treatment of Taijitsu, as well as her devotion to David, rankled me; I couldn’t help but think that he was controlling her. I would’ve spoken to her had we been alone, but with the two men clinging to us and Selene still lingering at my side, I kept my eyes forward and my step purposeful.

 

And so, again, we walked. I tried to put the events of the past several hours out of my mind. I wished, for what seemed to be the thousandth time, that I could choose to erase some parts of my memory in order to get others back.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * *



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The desert was dryer than I remembered. Not to mention hotter. I was relieved when we passed into Doc M’s underground tunnels; though they were stuffy, they offered shelter from the rapidly-rising sun. Unfortunately, they also forced us to walk closer – Keith walked alone in front, the Rae and David, then me, Jonathan and Selene, and Dean and Corey in back. So no one was separated in the near-darkness, hands found shoulders, other hands, and jacket sleeves. With Selene clinging to my belt again, Dean’s hand on my shoulder, Jonathan weighing down my entire right side, and Rae reaching back to hold my free hand, I felt … tied down. Claustrophobic. I was used to having some amount of freedom in darkness, knowing that I could see where others couldn’t, but with all the hands holding me in place …

 

I put up with it, knowing that it was for our own safety, until we surfaced into the aboveground complex. Keith directed us to what I vaguely remembered being called the lunchroom, where Amy and all of Doc M’s kids were bunked down. The floor was covered in sleeping bags and sleeping children; only Amy, sitting with her knees up to her chest on a table, was awake. When we came in, her head jerked up, and I saw the dark bags under her eyes. She hadn’t slept, waiting on us. She had stayed awake to worry. That, I thought, is dedication.

 

And love. Seeing us, she cried out weakly and bounded over to embrace Keith. I started to avert my eyes to give them privacy, but she seemed just as happy to see the rest of us. Hurriedly leading us to a back area of the lunchroom – the kitchen, apparently – she kept whispering, “I thought you were dead, he told me you were all dead, I thought …”

 

First thing first. Corey and Dean were appointed to raid the kitchen. All the food in cupboards, drawers, and refrigerators was dragged out and set on the long counter of the kitchen, and stools were found to sit around it. Amy found a first aid kit and busied herself tending to David’s external wounds and binding his ribs as best she could; once she was done there, she proved just how amateur my examination of Jonathan had been by saying that though he was badly bruised, he didn’t seem to be seriously injured. I was just glad she didn’t ask how he’d been hurt. Keith’s job was to settle down the kids – who, despite Amy’s best efforts, we had roused – and Rae and I were sent to finish Corey and Dean’s job and make sure everything they tossed onto the counter was actually edible. It was a good job – it meant that we got first dibs on the best food. We exchanged a few meaningless words: fake-sounding congratulations on making it back alive and completing our mission, mild comments on the state of everyone’s health. Nothing important, at least to me.

 

Finally we settled down on the stools. I was reminded, briefly, of our community suppers in the Park, but here we were all equal, all seated at the same table. If anyone lorded over us, it was Keith, and that was only because of his height.

 

But there were still obvious factions. Corey and Keith sat on either side of Amy (and as the big man ate with only one hand, there was no question that the other was holding Amy’s), Rae sat next to David, and I found myself between Dean and Jonathan. When Amy met my eyes, she tilted her head slightly and nodded to the two men, confusion and a little amusement in her gaze. I shook my head and went back to eating. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. How could I explain it to her?

 

Once our immediate hunger was sated, our curiosity kicked in. What, Corey wanted to know, had made Amy think we were all dead?

 

“I got another call from M,” she told us, frowning, “but he wasn’t very clear. I – I’m afraid he was infected.” Or something like that, yeah. God, what have I done? “I mean, one of the early signs of that is disorientation, confusion, right? He thought his sight was coming back, and he kept insisting that something was happening to him. He mentioned you,” she nodded to Dean, “but then he kept saying you looked dead, everything looked dead. Either he was infected, or … or he finally went completely insane. I tried to talk him down, but eventually he dropped the radio, and I think I heard him running, but whether it was to something or from something or neither, I don’t know.”

 

“I don’t think he could have been infected,” Corey said consolingly, but darkly added, “Not saying anything about his mental state though.”

 

She gave him a disapproving look.

 

He shrugged. “Just saying.”

 

I felt like I should defend the Doc in some way. After all, weird as his life had been, it had been safe and clean and zombieless before we came along. We brought Hell to his supply depot, his clinic, even his military base, and because of us, a child was dead – two children really, as Erin was no adult. I didn’t want to feel guilty, I wanted to justify it by saying we had to do everything we did so we would survive. But wasn’t that exactly what the Doc had accused us of? Not having the first clue of how to care about others? Maybe we cared about each other – but for some of us, I didn’t doubt it was simply because we knew there was safety in numbers, no real emotion.

 

The others were talking and eating. I sat silently, tapping my plastic spoon on the stryrofoam bowl that held my soup. They were throwing around stories, ideas, theories – I heard some cover story for Jonathan, though I couldn’t tell who was fabricating it, as well as a vague explanation for Dean’s absence. We were always discussing and debating and living in the moment and making sure we wouldn’t die in the next. I was sick of living that way. I wanted to take a second, just a second, to pretend I was safe and normal, just to see what I would think then. I couldn’t remember my life before … this madness. Couldn’t remember what I liked to daydream about. I just had those few moments of crystal clarity, visions you could call them, the images I’d seen after I’d shot myself. Somewhere that felt like home, some things that felt like mine, a man who felt like a father. None of it I actually knew in my head – I just felt that it was right. And I wanted to pursue it; I realized, in that second, that all I wanted was to go back to the lab, to my hometown, to find out who I was.

 

“Trinity?”

 

I looked up. The others were still talking animatedly. Corey, sitting across from me, had singled me out, ironically with the name I had made for myself.

 

“Gonna eat that or just look at it?” He grinned faintly. “Guess you could warm it up with your laser vision, huh?”

 

I laughed half-heartedly and pushed the bowl over to him. At least he meant it in good fun this time. “You can have it.”

 

He raised an eyebrow, but wasn’t about to question free food. I really wasn’t hungry anyway, just tired, physically, mentally, and of hearing all the battle plans. As he dug in, I crossed my arms on the counter and rested my chin on them. I made an effort to keep up with the others, but while eating seemed to have given them back their energy (or maybe it was the stash of caffeinated drinks the guys had found), it had only drained me further. Their buzzes eventually wore off though, and when Amy, who was cuddled against Keith’s side, nearly fell off her stool, we decided to call it a night. Since there was still a hole in the defensive perimeter, we decided to shift guards throughout the night. I volunteered for first watch, along with Keith, and the rest of the group curled up among the kids in the other room. Dean and Rae would have second watch, Corey and Amy third. Jonathan and David were excused because of their injuries.

 

I expected no trouble, as I was still positive Taijitsu was looking over us in its bizarre way. Otherwise, I would have let someone else have first watch. As it was, I was content to take up a rifle and march around the sleeping huddle, and nod to Keith when we passed each other. It was funny how despite everything we’d been through during the course of the day – god, what a day it had been – we had no words to say to each other.

 

Two hours passed like two minutes. Dean loped up to relieve me, but when he reached for the rifle, I hesitated in handing it over.

 

“What?”

 

“Can we talk for a second?” I asked in a whisper.

 

He shrugged and crossed his arms. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about,” he said, a certain chill and distance in his voice that I hadn’t heard before.

 

“Jonathan,” I started. “When we were … down there, would you have left him to die? If I hadn’t insisted?”

 

“Doesn’t matter now –” he hedged.

 

“Yes, it does!” I hissed. “I need to know. Could you have left an innocent man to die?”

 

He snorted. “Wouldn’t call him innocent.”

 

The sight of Jonathan smirking up at me, his knife at Selene’s delicate white throat, came back. I swallowed. “Okay, maybe not innocent. But who is anymore? The point remains – you were willing to let another human being lay there and die, weren’t you?”

 

He gritted his teeth. “Jamie –”

 

“Just answer!”

 

“Yes! Okay? Yes. And not only that, I would’ve killed him right then. If you hadn’t been four feet away, I would’ve killed him without thinking about it. Happy?”

 

“No.” My voice sounded flat even to my own ears. I held out the gun. “It doesn’t make me happy. I thought you were better than that.”

 

“Better?” he growled. “So define better for me, since you’re the High Priestess of Morals now. Kidnapping a little girl and then trading her out so you can – what was his euphemism, ‘dance’? – with another girl, is that better for you? I should go do that for you?” He cursed. “Don’t you understand I was protecting you from that bastard? It was practically self-defense.”

 

“What do you want, a goddamn metal?” I demanded, fighting to keep my voice low. “Don’t you understand that I’m not your ward, to be protected and treated like a fragile little bird’s egg? I’m stronger than you, f*ck it, Dean.” I gave him a brief shove to illustrate my point. “I can take care of myself. Get used to the idea.”

 

“J –”

 

“And here’s another thought for you. Maybe I wanted to dance.”

 

I spun away from him. How could he be so … narrow-minded? Did he seriously think that I would appreciate him trying to kill another man? We weren’t Neanderthals, for god’s sake, and he wasn’t a prince and I was no damsel in distress. I could feel his eyes searing into my back, but I refused to turn and look at him. I stepped lightly and quickly over the sleeping children, finding a clear spot to curl up; though sleeping would be out of the question for some time, I had no intention of letting him see how much he bothered me. The old phrase ‘Don’t go to bed angry’ flashed through my mind, followed by its add-on ‘Stay up and fight.’ It was tempting, oh it was so tempting to not care about security or sleep or other people at all, to just have it out with Dean once and for all. Whether it took a shouting match, a physical fight – I didn’t care. Let it happen.

 

A hand on my shoulder.

 

“Want to talk about it?”

 

Amy, pale skin contrasting against the darkness of the room, kneeled next to me.

 

“You should be sleeping,” I told her shortly.

 

She folded her legs underneath her. “So should you, but I don’t think that’ll be happening, will it?”

 

I did want to talk about it. I sat up slowly. “Yeah. Guess not.”

 

“So …?”

 

I shrugged. It was hard to put into words, and I wasn’t sure how I could tell her about Jonathan’s role in it all. I settled on just saying, “He’s … overprotective.”

 

“Keith can be like that too, sometimes.” She smiled. “They mean well, you know. They see us as their little women, and they’re the big strong men whose purpose is to guard us. It’s not a new occurrence, it’s just this environment makes them all think they’re Rambo.” We both laughed softly. “They forget that when push comes to shove, we’re just as quick on the draw if not quicker. We run just as fast if not faster. We’re just as resilient, and when the adrenalin kicks in, we’re just as strong.” She looked over towards where I assumed Keith lay. “They just need reminding sometimes, that’s all. I’ll sure he’ll be sorry in the morning – it’s obvious he’s crazy over you.”

 

Or maybe just crazy. “I guess. It’s just that that’s not really it,” I mumbled. The next part spilled out before I could stop it. “Something happened between me and Jonathan in the tunnels. That’s why he’s so beat up – it was Dean.”

 

Dean did that?” She sounded aghast.

 

I nodded. “He saw it as protecting me. He doesn’t … approve of Jonathan, and he can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that maybe I do.”

 

“What’s he think he is, your father?”

 

“I don’t know, but he certainly thinks I’m his,” I spat.

 

She crossed her arms and thought for a second. “You know, I told you before that we couldn’t afford any ill feelings in the group. But if he insists on being … jealous, and you’re not willing to deal with it … Either way, someone’s going to be unhappy: you or him. If you two can’t work this out somehow –”

 

“I don’t know how to work it out,” I said desperately. “I don’t understand what he’s thinking. I don’t know what he expects of me, but I’m obviously not meeting his standards, and I don’t want to try anymore. We …”

 

“I’ve gathered that you had some connection with him before Gas Z, and somehow you ended up with amnesia,” she put in. “So you don’t know what it was, exactly. He should know he has to give you time.”

 

“I guess he’s about decided I’ve had enough time.” I watched his silhouette stride by in the distance. When he and Rae passed, they exchanged a word, something that made Rae laugh quietly and look down.

 

“Put it to him like that. If he’s going to give up on you, he has to do it all the way.”

 

I laid back. My anger had gone, and all I was left with was confusion and the faint feeling that I wanted to cry. “I’m not completely sure I want him to give up on me. He’s all I have of my old life, you know? I just wish he wasn’t so possessive.”

 

Amy nodded understandingly. “I’m guessing you want to be alone now?”

 

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Thanks for the talk though.”

 

“Any time.”

 

She crept away without another word. We could use a few more people like her, I thought with a trace of bitterness. I heard Keith’s sleepy rumble when she joined him, and her soft response. Corey chimed in with something that made all three chuckle, and after a round of warm ‘good-night’s, they fell silent. Why can’t the rest of us be like that? I wondered. Instead, Dean and I are feuding, David and Rae … god only knows where they’re at now, and Jonathan’s as good as a shadow. I could fix that, though. I could bring Jonathan into the fold; after all I had dragged him halfway across a desert, and for what reason? There had to be one.

 

I raised my head and scanned the sleeping shapes. Surely he wouldn’t be hard to find – he wouldn’t be in a group, he was smaller than David, but he was bigger than the kids …

 

“Looking for someone?”

 

And as if I’d summoned him, Jonathan plonked down next to me.

 

“Because I was looking for you,” he continued. “Do you realize how many dark-haired girls close to your height are here?”

 

“C-Can’t say I do.” I blinked.

 

“Well, you do now. Plus he,” he jerked his head towards Dean, “was ready to shoot me when he saw me moving.”

 

“He is on guard duty,” I defended weakly. “You must’ve surprised him.”

 

“Every time I took a step? Right.” He shook his head. “Whatever. I found you. Firstly, where the hell is this?”

 

“It’s … not far from –”

 

“Good enough. Secondly and more importantly, why did you bring me here?”

 

Funny you should ask. I was just trying to work that out myself. “I … I thought you were injured worse than you were. It was our responsibility to make sure you …” I trailed off.

 

“Is that it?”

 

“Maybe not,” I admitted.

 

After a long silence, during which I cursed myself nonstop for admitting something I wasn’t even sure about, Jonathan smiled slowly. “Good,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss me. “I’m glad.”

 

Shall we dance? His past words echoed in my head. I wondered, if he offered again, what I would say.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * *
Continued tomorrow!



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Rae nudged me, walking on silently once I mumbled that I was awake. I sat up drowsily, rubbing at the grit in my eyes, and felt something slip off my shoulder. Confused, I twisted around and discovered that apparently, I had slept under Jonathan’s arm the night before. He was still asleep. A little embarrassed (I seemed to be embarrassed by everything, didn’t I?), I looked around automatically for Dean; unsurprisingly, he stood on the far side of the room, eyes on me, a look that could be called nothing but disapproving on his face. Though at first I felt guilty, the burst of anger that came from remembering my argument with him and my talk with Amy overshadowed it.

 

Meeting his gaze just long enough to let him know I didn’t care what he thought, I turned back to Jonathan and shook his shoulder, murmuring in his ear to wake him up.

 

Keith and Amy were separating the children into two groups. Lucas, the little blond boy who seemed to have replaced Amelia as No.2 in the kids’ hierarchy, and Selene stood, looking very solemn, in front of each group. Lingering next to Keith for a moment to catch his eye, I inferred that Lucas’s group would be bringing medical equipment to the lunchroom, and Selene’s would be bringing food, as we’d come close to wiping out the small stockpile in the kitchen. Once I got Keith’s attention, I beckoned him over to a corner.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I know a lot of plans were thought up last night, but was anything decided?” I asked. “I was kind of out of it.”

 

He shook his head. “There’s the Doc to consider. We don’t know if he’ll come back. If not, the children … we’ve no option but to take care of them. Abandoning them is simply not an option.”

 

“Of course,” I said hastily. “I wouldn’t suggest otherwise. It’s just, last night I realized there’s something I need to do – I wouldn’t want to drag the rest of you around behind me, but if you had no other sound plan, it would be up for considering.” I allowed myself a thin smile. “And, I’ll admit, I don’t … really want to go out on my own.”

 

Returning the gesture, he nodded. Once the children were occupied, he told me, we would all have a meeting, and I should bring it up again then. We parted, and I leaned against the wall and watched the others, my friends or family or bitter enemies. Amy, in her usual ‘social butterfly’ way, had drawn Jonathan into conversation. Though she smiled, he seemed wary of contact. Corey had taken over the kids, making sure the groups stayed together and knew what they were doing – he was just as good with them as the other two – and Rae was helping to herd them all. Dean and David leaned against the wall opposite me, but whether they were ignoring each other or engaging in some monosyllabic man-talk was impossible to say. I couldn’t help but wonder if Dean was complaining about me to the other man much the way I’d complained about him to Amy. Still, it was nice to see the usual bonds loosened somewhat, to see them all venturing outside of their usual circles. And yet here I am standing by myself. Great role model, huh?

 

The last of the kids filed out, and Keith, who had been surveying their exit, called us stragglers over to the center of the room. We made ourselves comfortable, sitting in a rough line (here, our circles asserted themselves somewhat) with him standing in front of us, and he told us exactly how this meeting was going to work.

 

“Everyone will have their say in an orderly, sensible fashion. There will be no interrupting. There will be no arguing. God help you if you don’t realize this means there will also be no fighting.” That last part, I couldn’t help but feel, was aimed at David, and I doubted he missed it. “We have several things to discuss. Most prevalent is the Doc, and his wards, but before I forget, Trinity? You had something to say?”

 

He retreated to the side. Someone, maybe Dean (he and Corey sat behind me), gave me a little push, and I stumbled to my feet. Now that I had to say it, I didn’t want to.

 

Standing before the group, I laced my fingers together uneasily, swallowed, and said, “I-I’m guessing you all realize that around the time Gas Z hit, something happened to me that caused me to lose all my memory of the time before. I’ve … remembered some things now, and I’m positive I could find my way back to my home. That’s my goal now. I need to go back and find out who I was – who I am – before I can concentrate fully on where I’m going.” I glanced at Keith nervously. “I’m not saying we all have to go. I mean, this is something I need to do, and I’d hate to make you all come along when you’d get nothing out of it. I don’t know if there will be any shelters or safe food and water sources along the way, but I do know that the fewer of us go, the easier it will be to manage. Which isn’t to say I want to split up – that’s the last thing I want – but if you’d all be safer here, then …” I shrugged and looked to Keith again. “That’s it, really.”

 

He nodded to me and I gratefully went to sit back down. As Keith acknowledged what I’d said and began laying out the situation for consideration – Doc M being missing, David’s injury, Taijitsu, the state of the clinic’s defensive wall, everything – Dean leaned forward and murmured in my ear.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Tell you what?” I didn’t take my eyes off Keith.

 

“What you wanted to do. We could’ve left last night.”

 

His assumption that he would be going with me, while perfectly rational, made me clench my teeth. Even worse, he was pretending we had never argued the night before. I turned my head only slightly to growl back, “Maybe you don’t realize it, but I’m part of this group. I may have my mind made up, but I don’t run off without at least notifying them first.”

 

He made a quiet, dismissive sound and pulled back. I knew without looking that he’d crossed his arms and was shaking his head at me.

 

Keith finished talking about everything that had happened and slowly sat down to be completely equal with the rest of us. “Before any ideas are put up for consideration, the rest of you should know that Amy, Corey and I have made our personal decision,” he said softly. “If the Doc doesn’t return, isn’t found – if he doesn’t come home, we three will be staying here to take care of the children. Nothing, barring the Doc’s return, will change that. There’re too many of them, and they’re too young, to be moved anywhere, and we cannot in good conscience leave them here alone. The rest of you are welcome to stay or go as long as we are in charge here; if the Doc comes back, it will be up to him, as it’s his building.” He nodded to us.

 

“Now, having made the situation clear,” he continued, “why don’t we start with planning our next move? Rae, have anything to say?”

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And there's not much else to say about that wink.gif



-- Edited by Jess on Saturday 25th of July 2009 01:35:27 AM

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Well I went mad (again) and came up with about 30 MS Word pages - yes I know I said I wouldn't be posting large posts, but I can't help it if I have more 'time' on my hands now I have no home internet OR work to go to. Yay for Uni. SO I spent about 2 days furiously penning away and realised, for all the plans I had, I essentially did little. But I did however get a few things happening, or at least, I hope I have. Guess we'll see anyhoo. So I'll shut up now and leave the ranting for the other thread. Here we go.

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Hot air. Constriction. Noise. The constant, angry pounding coming from the other side of the door. Inside that room everything seemed different, exaggerated, every fleeting second took on a new weighted gravitas – it felt like I was trapped in a nightmare created by my fractured state of mind, some perfect psychological experiment designed to send someone completely over that proverbial edge – the only one of course who didn’t seem effected at all was David.

 

Slumped over his knees he continued to cough and spit, clutching his folded arms against his ribs tightly. The stench of sweat and blood and vomit saturated the stale air. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand David groaned and rolled his head back. With a loud growl barely restrained behind clenched teeth he lowered slowly atop the covers and closed his eyes. Still standing just inside the door as he had been since our ‘incarceration’, Keith swept his gaze over the other man, ending his stare with me. He shook his head with a gesture that was meant to be consoling. Relaxing his grip on his rifle still in hand Keith slowly strolled towards us as I scurried to David’s bedside to once more wrap my arms around him.

 

“Come on, you have to sit up,” I said, struggling for authoritarian and failing miserably with fear ripping apart my voice. “We’ve been through this. You heard Keith. You’re sick-”

 

“I’m fine!”

 

“I know-”

 

“-If everyone just left me alone-”

 

“Please, I’m just trying to-”

 

“Stop f*cking mothering me!” David bellowed.

 

Locking my jaw I huffed out my emotions and drew back, turning my eyes upwards. Keith’s smile was still there but tainted by something else. His hand was firm when it patted my shoulder. Swallowing a boulder I bowed my head and sighed.

 

“Come on, man,” Keith said, “Leave her alone. She’s just trying to help. She’s worried about you. We both are. Don’t want you choking on that sh*t before the rescue party arrives, now do we?”

 

With his head still bowed David responded with a dour snort, keeping his glare for the most part lowered. He was probably not impressed at all about the bigger man’s optimism, even in the face of unfathomable odds. With a nervous glance I glimpsed down at the putrid puddle staining the carpet, one he’d been intermittently adding to since moments after arriving, not relieved at all that I found no traces of blood in it, in fact there was no substance to it at all. Though I didn’t know how long we’d been trapped there in that tiny room I knew enough to recognise dehydration when I saw it, I’d seen it, I’d experienced it first hand many a time growing up in the sunburnt country Down Under. Now, not only was David injured internally and externally but it appeared he was also suffering the culminative effects of heatstroke and spent adrenalin. It was probably sheer will power alone that kept him from lapsing into a delirious state, or worse, unconsciousness. Slumped over his knees I could hear him wincing on short sharp breaths and struggle to keep it all contained behind that usual defensive façade. With Keith still there keeping watch so to speak I felt brave enough to reach out and rest my hand upon David’s forehead. The dangerous look he gave me out of the corner of his eyes wasn’t what caused me to gasp, though it certainly didn’t help, as with a quick snatch of my fingers David jerked my hand down. His forehead was damp and on fire. Beneath the blood he refused to let me wipe away he looked drawn. He looked infected, the only thing that kept me clinging to hope was his venom, such as it was, behind those slitted eyes and pained grimace - a drastic turnaround from his brief lapse into ‘tenderness’ dare it be called that mere hours before – but I was almost happy to take his abuse if only to reaffirm in mind the first sign of infection, beyond the flu-like symptoms, was confusion. While David clung steadfast to his anger I knew he was safe – and so were we – if not…

 

On the other side of the door the zombies’ assault was loud and never ending. I swallowed my frustration and turned my face away from it, my nerves frayed, my exhaustion incomprehensible. I stared instead at David, watching his eye, the one not glued shut, open, flutter, roll back and close before snapping open again. Delicately I slid my arms around him, stealing a kiss against his sleeve in place of actually saying anything. Leaning my chin then my cheek on his shoulder I sighed, then looked up. Keith lowered his gaze and strolled back towards the door. Something flashed in his eyes before he turned away but I pretended for what it was worth that I hadn’t seen it.

 

He’s not gonna die. He’s gonna make it. Somehow we’re all gonna make it. We have to, I told myself. I was probably too far gone to even begin to fathom any ideas as to the hows and the whys. In the absence of respite, probably sanity, even hope, I didn’t wholeheartedly believe anything I was thinking, I just did it because I had to, to keep the cold hard reality out, my mind softening me from that final curtain call. I didn’t want to die, I don’t want to die, but in a strange undeniable way part of me couldn’t wait for the moment I no longer had to feel like this any more, even after a bloody brutal death being ripped and mauled to pieces by a sea of undead, the promise of everlasting peace after that was almost too good to be true, dare I even think it, it almost seemed inviting

 

 

Time naturally slowed to a crawl. There was no way of marking anything; all cohesive thoughts were stalled by the constant barrage of noise coming in from the outside. The non-stop chaos, the banging, the pounding, the scratching, the growling, it underpinned everything, amplified everything, exaggerated everything to a point of sheer lunacy. Sitting there slumped against David all I could do was close my eyes and do whatever I could in my mind to block it all out. Memories came and went like snapshots, people’s faces I’d never see again, books I’d never finish, movies I’d never see, places I’d never return to; I could feel it bearing down upon me like a physical force, the helplessness, the sheer defeat. Tears came and went, not full-fledged, merely a threat rather than the full torrential onslaught and I wasn’t completely sure what one thing triggered them. All I knew was that in that time period, trapped in that tiny room with the imminent threat of death a mere handful of feet away I managed to grasp some small notion of what it must have been like for prisoners such as David had been long before our paths had crossed ‘living’ for want of a better word behind bars – waiting to die – seeming to live every emotion, to live lifetimes vicariously inside your mind, to live life differently, to do things I now never would, all of it in the space of mere heartbeats – The helplessness of it consumed me, it robbed me of the ability to do anything much less speak. There was nothing worth saying anyway. Apprehension drained us, sucking the marrow from our bones. More than once I found myself shoving David just to see his good eye peer open again, just to give myself something to do, something to cling to as fear and isolation set in. And then, hearing noise outside the door I sat up. It wasn’t so much the noise itself, a strange, angry bestial cry that forced me to act; rather it was Keith’s reaction to it – the most animated I’d seen him since… god only knew how long it had been in here. It wasn’t until I stooped to pick up David’s pump action shotgun from the floor that I realised I’d heard that particular noise before, for the life of me in those electric moments I couldn’t place it, and nor did I necessarily want to. Getting to my feet I stood on legs that felt unfamiliar, dizzy from hunger, thirst, fear, exhaustion, creeping towards Keith as he stood waiting on tenterhooks just inside the door. Fear silenced us. So this was to be our final stand. Standing side-by-side Keith and I raised our weapons and huffed out determined breaths, straining to make sense of the noises we were hearing. The banging stopped but relief was not forthcoming. Immediately my mind cast back to The Park, back to stories I’d heard from the other survivors about alternative threats they had encountered, things they’d colourfully referred to as ‘biggies’ – Without facts my imagination painted a picture direct from the darkest pits of hell to traumatise me with – as if everything I’d already seen hadn’t been enough. When the metal creaked and the door burst open I snatched my gun up and aimed without thinking. A small silhouette stood with her hand raised. Trinity had once more come to save the day. And she wasn’t alone.

 

Taijitsu.

 

I couldn’t face it, dropping my eyes, scouring the floor, anywhere frantically just so I didn’t have to look at it. As Keith wrapped our young Heroine in a bear hug I returned to David, reactively shielding him in some strange way, mentally scarred by memories of it’s attack earlier on the Doc’s compound. Still, in my head rang the echoes of David’s threat in the Green Room before, listening to him tell me that it was a monster, that it was dangerous, that we had no other choice but to kill it – a sentiment he repeated in a manner of speaking yet again to Trinity’s affronted gaze – and found myself glimpsing at it and recoiling, keeping my torn emotions locked away and strangling me from the inside.

 

It’s not my son, it’s not my son, it’s a monster, its hideous-

 

As I helped heft him back up on to his feet I glimpsed over David’s shoulder at it, at that tall hulking grey thing with its protruding bones, its black eyes, and saw myself back at the surgery, with or without prejudice bringing it into this world and giving it ‘life.’ I remembered the way it had looked at me during the earlier attack, after it had hurt David, the way it held me as it tried to steal me away, and the way it turned it’s head to the side like an animal, a dog, a cat, trying to make sense of me, to ‘understand’ – an insane notion of course. Then I remembered the pain, the fear, the indescribable feeling of death slowly encroaching upon me as it grew within and the terror of its unnatural birth. With a grimace so strong I felt my knees go weak, I turned my face and buried it into David’s shoulder, unable to look up, unable to speak, barely able to breathe as Trinity and Keith made plans for our getaway.

 

The walk back was long slow and arduous and in all that time neither David nor I could look at it. Whether burdened by guilt, by disgust, by apprehension, I could not make myself face it as inside my head Rob’s final words and David’s ominous threat converged, creating this vacuum, an emptiness that could not be filled. Without having to actually say it I couldn’t help but think that David was making me choose between him and ‘it’ – this last piece of his rival who for all intents and purposes had already ‘lost’ and was dead. Maybe he would never be satiated until all miniscule traces of Rob were gone, I thought, maybe then he might – we might – finally be happy.

 

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-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 28th of July 2009 02:10:41 PM

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Seeing familiar faces again made me weep in relief – it was a shame I felt so wan, so high-strung still after my encounter with the undead that I could not openly reveal this. Even with a new face amidst our flock – and the beguiling disappearance of the Doc, I looked on with a degree of cool detachment as we were all once more reunited in the Green Room. There was no time for introductions, let alone explanations, as we were soon ushered collectively on our way. The fact we were headed back to the Doc’s lair and away from all this… insanity was all the inspiration I needed. As Keith carried David – much to his disgust – I took up flanking position opposite Dean and all of us as a group made our way back down the stairs and out into the blinding light as if walking through some fantastical dream…

 

Terror of course skulked our every move. In the back of my mind, now slowly becoming lucid again, at least in stages the further we walked from the Green Room and that godforsaken base, the greater the awareness and subsequent fear of those things I had seen hours earlier rushed upon me and refused to stay dormant. I could scoff about it now, putting on a brave face as the men eluded to it, convinced now that it had to be fear, adrenalin, post-coitus emotions toying with me, making me see things, making me think things that couldn’t have possibly been – how many times had I not just seen but actually conversed with Rob since his untimely death as a case in point, I wondered – but still as I kept a vigilant eye on my surrounds I gripped the stock of David’s shotgun tighter and murmured to myself something along the lines of a prayer. With so many lives on the line all I could hope was that I was in fact insane because the reality of facing those things again, the dead that knew how to run, how to open doors, how to plan an attack was more mortifying than losing my already tenuous grip on reality – losing the world to mindless drones was one thing, but this… this would have been a whole new final ballgame.

 

It was with relief – and apprehension – that we finally emerged in the Doc’s base and back into darkness without seeing hyde nor hair of them. We clung to each other as Trinity essentially led us through. It was with a sense of irony I found myself thinking that the Doc, wherever he was at that point, would have been proud of us in that one act for finally banding together for a common cause – luckily no one said anything much less argued. Emerging in what I supposed must have been the lunchroom of the Doc’s lair we were welcomed by Amy and a small army of bleary-eyed, tense looking children, but wherever the Doc had gotten to he was not with them.

 

“Oh my god, Keith-” Amy gasped.

 

We watched her bound from the desk she had been sitting on and rush across the room, throwing herself against her love. A small smile played on my face watching their brief exchange, reminded in some obscure way of passengers arriving at an airport nonchalant about the world around them. Reactively I lowered my eyes, leaning closer against David. For those first few moments it seemed like everything had changed, we were all finally united, sharing thankful relieved smiles, getting visually reacquainted, assuring one another without quite so many words that against all odds yes we had all finally made it and we were all finally safe. Funny how indestructible we all felt now, untouchable behind flimsy walls, high on a shared sense of accomplishment and pride – as if this structure was any more secure than the one made of concrete and steel behind us. As Amy repeated her mantra, something along the lines of thinking we were all dead, I looked down at the kids, at the sight of a little blonde boy, and felt Amy’s relief stall albeit temporarily. Lucas smiled at me in a weary way and, caught off guard as he stood a measured distance away, I smiled back. I heard someone usher Dean and Corey off to gather food but by the time I turned back Lucas was gone again, swallowed up in the veritable crowd. My smile remained, dying eventually, evaporating, as I thought then of Taijitsu, the way it had looked at me, almost like that, with the innocence of a child, and felt a cold shudder caress my spine.

 

Using some of the supplies she had gleaned from both Keith’s and David’s pockets, and utilizing some of her own, Amy set to work acting as fill-in for the late Erin nursing the guys’ collective injuries in her stride – her proficiency and apparent skill as she strapped, cleaned and assessed both David and newcomer Jonathan caused some concern in the back recesses of my mind. I told myself that it was a skill most of us had picked up since the war, a necessity without any kind of health care provider left on the planet that didn’t charge an arm or a leg, quite literally, and that she had been an associate of the Doc’s in whatever context long before the rest of us had met up – It wasn’t unfeasible to think Amy had learned something useful in all that time from the Doc, but still part of me couldn’t help but consider the possibilty Amy at some point might have been in contention to be poor Erin’s tutor if not her new replacement groomed for such an event such as this to step in. Catching her eye I smiled back at her slightly. I soon turned away.

 

After Corey and Dean had gathered what they could, Trinity and I were sent in as quality control, making sure that the guys hadn’t grabbed anything like soap or rat poison that in their haste to chow-down may have accidentally gathered. In the kitchen, a small nondescript room just as bland and outdated as the rest of the compound, she and I worked. Though we talked it was all minor, meaningless chat. I realised in spite of having her step in to save my life yet again without question I had barely said two words to her since our initial departure much less a thankyou. For the life of me any significant dialog I could come up with had nothing at all to do with a thanks or general proprietaries – out of the corner of my eye I looked at her in some regards with suspicion. The way she had sided with that monster, the way she seemed able to control it, it was my son not hers, I thought, and yet at the same time was so abhorred by the concept that I was physically ill just thinking of that thing in anything but in offensive terms. Nothing came of it.

 

Finally we all sat down on stools, on chairs, on whatever would be constituted a makeshift seat, to eat. Though I was starved I was still on too much of a high to want to eat – my body, literally driven by instinct, had other ideas on the matter. In the next room the kids remained quiet, nestled in their sleeping bags and blankets, no doubt at peace now with a sense of order having returned in us or still frightened for their missing patriarch they refused to get up out of bed for fear of rousing someone’s anger. Meanwhile the rest of us talked. We were still on a veritable high from our return but talk quickly and inexplicably turned sour at the mention of our missing acid-tongued medic.

 

“I got another call from M,” Amy explained, “but he wasn’t very clear. I – I’m afraid he was infected… I mean, one of the early signs of that is disorientation, confusion, right? He thought his sight was coming back, and he kept insisting that something was happening to him. He mentioned you,” she nodded to Dean, “but then he kept saying you looked dead, everything looked dead. Either he was infected, or … or he finally went completely insane. I tried to talk him down, but eventually he dropped the radio, and I think I heard him running, but whether it was to something or from something or neither, I don’t know.”

 

 Clearing my throat I looked around nervously, halfheartedly hearing whatever it was Corey had to say. I tried to feign interest in the predominately male exchange that followed, that I knew had been simmering away beneath the surface amongst all of us, at least those of us who had been witness to it, but now that we were back and the horror was strangely for the most part behind us, I couldn’t force myself to speak up and tell them anything that may have shed some light on their collective confusion. As I scraped my bowl clean and pretended to casually look around I kept a vigilant eye over my shoulder, wary for the slightest sign of movement that might indicate the Doc was back and he was pissed, no less for being abandoned as he would be to hear me half way through giving up his dirty manipulative secrets. If the rest of them knew of his lab, if they knew what he kept here, what was probably still here… Though I knew I should have spoken up I wasn’t able to, more scared of the elusive mad man than the risk of the dead in there breaking out and getting loose amidst the compound. There was also a small sense of invincibility with that, thinking that Taijitsu would save us from attack even if I hated it, couldn’t stand to be around it, could barely even look at it let alone recognize it as our savior. No, it was easier at least for a little while to tell myself that Trinity would protect us from harm, even if that came in the form of another wave of zombies or the newly infected Doc, if that was indeed what had happened to him. I sat listening, watching the way Trinity appeared to have already zoned out, wondering if she was feeling what I was in part feeling; a sense of justification and pride that the creepy blind man who had treated us like lab rats, some third world overseer, a god experimenting on both the living and the dead, had met an untimely if not ironic death. I didn’t think it would have been in good taste to mention it – but was too wary by this point to hide it if it made it to my face.

 

After the meal we rested.

 

Amy and Corey had already taken the initiative to shift a few of the smaller kids into the one ‘bed’ to give the rest of something to utilize besides from the cold hard floor. Keith and Trinity, unofficially our hierarchical two now, took first watch as the rest of us bunked up and settled down.

 

Despite what I had come to expect from the desert at night the lunchroom was surprisingly warm. Maybe it was the amount of bodies crammed into that space, each of us giving off collective body heat, as well as a sense of unity, or safety to rival even the warmest blanket. Lying down along side David I sighed, my body collapsing against the floor in such a fashion I felt one heavy sigh away from sinking down into it. I was physically, emotionally, mentally spent, but still sleep evaded me. With my head nestled against his arm, I cuddled in closer, relieved to have this anchor I could physically rest against as opposed to feeling as I had beforehand; isolated and lonely and feeling the weight of the world baring solely down upon me. David sighed. Having been cleaned of blood and strapped and dosed with some mild form of painkiller he was acquiescent now and not so stubborn or independent. I was sure I even felt him nuzzle a brief kiss against my crown as I lay there aligning myself against his body but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe I just wanted to believe it, but still… The oil lights, such a dim and drastic change from the electric ones back at the base, remained on in the kitchen, casting a comforting glow for the sake of the children if not, truth be told, for the rest of us. Despite this semi-shadow, I could see him, studying the grazes and gouges that marred the side of his face and neck and down further where I couldn’t see behind the neckline of his tee shirt that at some point had been exchanged for another. In my head I recalled the echo of that shot, I relived that knees-turning-to-water-terror as realization hit me over what I had done. Closing my eyes didn’t stop the memory running it’s course until with a grimace I buried my face against the musty material of his shirt and shook my head as much as I was able.

 

“I’m sorry,” I uttered. My words were muffled and low and for the most part kept discreet away from the oversensitive ears of our guards and fellow inmates around us. “I’m sorry I shot you.” Wow, so simplified, wasn’t it? “I didn’t mean it. I could have killed you. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I just…”

 

David made a sound that neither consoled nor exacerbated my fears. Rather he drew me closer, briefly, that universal gesture of sympathy, before he managed to squint his eyes down over me and halfheartedly attempt a smile.

 

“Yeah well, you didn’t. I’m alive.”

 

I scoffed again, taken aback he could be so blasé about it, and offended in some regard that he didn’t appear to grasp the gravity of what had almost happened – let alone appreciate my sentiment. Pulling myself up to rest on an elbow I frowned at him. David’s eyes, narrowed from sleep or suspicion or heavy thought met mine. He was placated again, as he had been back in that tiny office, back in what felt like a lifetime ago now, but he had lost that fiery edge and that accompanying smirk that usually worked to make everyone feel inferior to his irrepressible logic. Again I shook my head and smiled wanly over him. My lips twitched with intent but words weren’t forthcoming as we lay there in silence. Eventually David drew me back down to lie against him. His internal grunts and sounds told me though he could still feel the pain in his ribs he was no longer dictated by it. With his arm draped around me like a lead pipe he sighed.

 

“Don’t,” he murmured. “There’s plenty of people around that probably think I deserve it. They’d probably be pissed if you told them you missed your shot at killing me.” At my immediate response to defend him David made a sound that silenced me and went on to add matter-of-factly, “Rae I know I don’t have allies here. To be honest, the f*ck do I care. The only reason I’m still here is because I was with you when the sh*t went down. If it wasn’t for that they wouldn’t have come back for me. I know that, you know that, and you know the rest of them well enough now to know that it’s the truth.”

 

Again David paused to sigh. Though he was speaking so quietly his words barely deviated above this one low monotone, to anyone else he probably would have sounded as if he were incoherently mumbling. Together we waited as footsteps approached as Trinity, with rifle in hand, passed us by. Whether it was the content of his words, or the memory of her standing there in that doorway back at the base along side that thing Taijitsu, I shuddered and shimmied in closer. David, with his eyes constantly closing and opening appeared to be struggling to stay awake. He stifled an internal groan and, still with his eyes closed, frowned at me.

 

“What?” he murmured.

 

How I wished we were alone at that moment, I thought, restless with the urge to smother him, to kiss him, to prove to him that despite what he thought at least someone acknowledged him, someone needed him, but thankful as well for this sense of safety in numbers. With my eyes closed I tried to follow his lead, straining to listen to the hypnotic breaths of the others and synchronise mine along with them. For a little while at least the lunchroom was a scene of domesticity and peace with nothing but the sound of commingled snores, murmurs, and pacing footsteps of Keith and Trinity to disperse it. When it became apparent that sleep, at least for the time being, was still too busy with everyone else, I stirred again, looking for a response to make sure I still had a receptive audience. David’s brow furrowed. Caught on that precipice of unconsciousness he was as sedate as he was ever likely to get while still awake, but still apprehension prevented my words from coming out as easily as they should have.

 

“I- I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

 

David sighed. It was loud, loud enough to disturb one of the children nearby who fluttered open her eyes to look at us. Keith, upon passing, turned around just to make sure things were alright. As I watched his back dwindle across the other side of the room David physically tensed up beside me. His breathing was laboured. An interpreter would have recognised the signs, but as it was, I didn’t want to.

 

“Go to sleep,” he told me.

 

Feeling exposed, vulnerable, and too raw still from all that had happened I burrowed my face in against his shirt, trying for what it was worth to hide myself away. Before I knew it a hand tapped me on the shoulder. My eyes snapped open expectantly. David was by now well and truly out of it, his expression relaxed, at peace (the only time he didn’t seem to frown), causing me to frown back at him confusedly. Hearing movement, a low discreet clearing of the throat I looked up over my shoulder. I must have dozed off to sleep; my eyes were cloudy, my vision unclear. Keith loomed down over me. In the semi-darkness and at such close quarters he seemed like a giant. His smile, though weary, seemed out of place on such a gruff exterior.

 

“Rae, your watch,” he whispered.



-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 28th of July 2009 03:18:58 PM

__________________





Resident of OUR TOWN
Resident & Admin of DLoD
~ 'Shane' is my virtual world ~


 ^ My Homes away from Home ^
If I'm not here, I'm there.


~ ModMother / The Cougar ~

290


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Bighting my lip and glimpsing aside at David nervously I manoeuvred myself out from under his arm and with Keith’s help got to my feet. A few metres away Dean and Trinity were having a quick, discreet confab. Still foggy I didn’t catch a word of what was being said but I thought I knew the body language well enough to discern the nature of it. I scoffed to myself, finding it strange to see them ‘fight’ when the last time I had seen them together they had practically been best buddies joined at the hip. A lot has changed Rae, you of all people know that, an inner voice chided. My gaze had fallen over David again as I stood there watching him sleep. He looked no different from the day we’d first met him, a few millimetres more hair now perhaps, a few more scars, sunburnt, drawn, but still beneath all that he himself hadn’t changed. Why then had I? Hearing Dean’s footsteps marching away I glimpsed up, soon drawing away to join him. As Amy and Trinity now conversed Dean sauntered past, his shoulders high, his head low, the look on his face oh so reminiscent of David sometimes I almost found myself laughing at him.

 

“Women,” he huffed, stepping in alongside me. He kicked at the ground.

 

Unable to stop myself a chuckle slipped out. Receiving both women’s reproving stares I cleared my throat, smiled at him, bowed my head and kept walking.

 

The night was a long one; maybe it was the silence, the darkness, and the stillness that exaggerated it. For two hours we walked while the rest of them slept. Keeping my steps as soft and as quiet as I could manage I surveyed them all, watching them breathe, listening for it, assuring myself that no dormant infection lay here. A few of the kids were restless; some woke up only to sink back down under their blankets as the familiarity of their surrounds brought reality back to them. The sight of their little faces looking so lost, so sad, so helpless was paralysing. Once or twice, beneath Dean’s cautious stare, I stooped down to soothe one or two of them, laying a gentle hand on their shoulders, sweeping hair back softly from their pale little brows. Though I’d never really been a maternal person before the war I found myself amused by this, content if nothing else. Sometimes all people really needed was to feel like someone was watching over them, I told myself. When I stood up my eyes always inexplicably returned to David.

 

During those two long never-ending hours Dean was for the most part quiet. Despite the fact I was so full of questions since dinner I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what had happened, I wanted to know where he’d gone, why he’d gone, why he’d come back, all seeming to know regardless any answers he had to give realistically amounted to nothing anyway – I was, in my own way, reaching out to him. Since his argument with Trinity the country bumpkin had withdrawn inside of himself, looking out, looking distant, smiling lightly, but saying nothing. I was used to his humour, his satire, that irrepressible smirk that made me appreciate sarcasm. I wanted him to open up to me if for no other reason than because I knew he needed someone and even the blind Doc, had he been there, would have been able to sense the tension between them, between Dean and Trinity, since well before we’d even left the Green Room to come back here. I knew he cared for her. I envied his dedication. In a strange way I found myself watching him as he watched her, empathising with his helplessness, thinking to myself why didn’t he just march right up to her, grab her in his arms, and smother her with a loving kiss? Men, I scoffed to myself. It wasn’t all in good humour. Noticing the way Dean’s eyes narrowed on this newcomer, this Jonathan who had appeared out of nowhere and that had managed to worm himself in alongside Trinity and was practically draped all over her, made something react inside of me too. She barely knew him and yet… I shook my head. It wasn’t my place to say anything; I of all people had no right at all. Still, her apparent ménage-a-trois struck a nerve in me I wasn’t altogether willing to reflect on right at that moment, forcing aside memories of Rob and David and the looks one or the other would give me in stray moments such as these. It had been one thing to live them but quite an eye opener to be on the outside now looking in. Bowing my head I walked on, trying to give Dean a reassuring smile that I hoped he interpreted the right way.

 

Both too wired to sleep, and in truth unwilling to share the burden of getting anyone else up out of bed, Dean and I continued on until dawn when he finally ventured something along the lines of waking everyone else up. Keith of course had already begun to stir. As he and Amy set to organising the kids, I made my way over to Trinity to nudge her awake. She mumbled something and turned her attentions to Jonathan. I withdrew with a frown. I didn’t know the man at all aside from those few hours we’d loosely ‘conversed’ over dinner but I did not trust him, and I was stunned at how someone like Trinity, who before this had been so instinctively defensive to a point she’d almost fought me upon our initial meeting, could just all of a sudden let down her guard so completely for someone she’d only just met. Poor Dean watched on (glowered more to the point), watching as Trinity and another man unfurled themselves from the tangle of limbs and blankets as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the pair of these relative strangers to do. His expression screamed loud and clear, but no one in that waking lunchroom, save a hot glare from Trinity, seemed to notice it, much less care.

 

Once everyone was up both she and Keith set to organising things. The kids, split up into two teams, were sent off to fetch supplies, and wandered off with Selene and Lucas at the helm respectively - We watched them go without one so much as saying a word out of place or complaining. Their resilience was nothing short of amazing I thought, as I cast an eye around the rest of us, the older, the weary, the love-lorn and battered, and marvelled with a degree of guilt and cynicism how each of us could learn something from our much younger charges. David had woken more like his old self, which was something of a mixed blessing, saying little beyond guttural grunts or the occasional string of words but only out of necessity. Feeling a little cheated that my confession the night before had apparently gone unnoticed, and wishing he were still sore and in desperate need of me if only so that he actually had to speak to me beyond gravely constructed sentences and just talk to me just for the sake of it, I wandered away to busy myself with the children upon their return, throwing myself into the task with more gusto than it actually required, or that I actually felt. Lucas was a born leader; I watched him direct kids practically his age if barely younger like an expert, trying to tell myself that pride in the right circumstance wasn’t strange, even if I was doting on someone else’s child. As Keith summoned everyone now into the centre of the room I smiled down over young Lucas, still holding his shoulders as if I were his mother, feeling myself beaming with the look I was getting back. It ended sharply with the dull stare David afforded from the other side of the room. He and Dean were side by side, they appeared to be conversing, but it was with a sense of dread I found myself thinking of all the negative things David would have been filling the other man’s head with, most likely in regards to taking a back seat watching another man encroaching on what he deemed to be ‘his’ territory. I turned away from David’s gaze, noticing that Trinity now stood alone with Jonathan no longer her skulking shadow. An urge to go to her, to drag her aside, to console her – or warn her – struck me, but I told myself that her business was none of mine, and instead walked away from her. Keith was urging those of us in the periphery to join him and find a seat somewhere amidst the throng in the centre of the lunchroom. Finding a chair from the night before I dragged it over and sunk down, smiling down at the handful of kids who sat cross-legged in front of me as if preparing for story time. Keith was talking, urging for calm. A quick look at David, who bowed his eyes guiltily, and the meeting was underway. But what followed next, as Keith stepped back to let Trinity take the floor, stunned all of us.

 

“-I need to go back and find out who I was,” she was saying, “who I am – before I can concentrate fully on where I’m going… I’m not saying we all have to go. I mean, this is something I need to do... Which isn’t to say I want to split up – that’s the last thing I want – but if you’d all be safer here, then… That’s it, really.”

 

And just like that, Trinity, our saviour, our strongest, our immortal protector, was leaving us alone to fend for ourselves.

 

Shock hit me, and the collective group, like a tidal wave. The only person who didn’t seem effected by this news at all, aside from the woman herself, was Keith, but I could only assume he out of all of us must have had some prior knowledge in order to process all this, the two of them after all had become quite close, closer still since the Doc’s disappearance. But nothing he could say, as much as he tried to bring things together and lay all our proverbial cards on the table, could really take the edge off this latest development. When he sunk into his seat and told us that he, Corey and Amy would be staying to mind the Doc’s wards, I just knew what was coming well before the words even made it out in the open in my direction.

 

“Now, having made the situation clear, why don’t we start with planning our next move? Rae, have anything to say?”

 

Feeling all eyes on me I dropped my gaze, staring vacantly as my fingers knotted themselves together in my lap. I shook my head. God, I can’t face this right now, I thought, I just need a few days, just give me some time to get things together - but behind me David dropped his hands on my shoulders, holding me steadfast, taking command, and stilled me.

 

“We’re going,” he uttered.

 

No consultation, no conference, no nothing. My mind had apparently just been made up for me.

 

As Keith nodded and waited - I could feel his eyes boring into me, waiting for some external sign to back it up - I swallowed loudly and grimaced, feeling it play on my face until I closed my eyes just to escape all of them. With a rumble in his throat Keith continued but I didn’t really absorb much of what he was saying. Peering open my eyes I found Trinity staring at me, frowning no less, and glimpsing up at David with her expression darkening. I smiled but it probably didn’t make it all the way out. The dejected pout of Lucas as he turned away from me made my eyes close again prematurely. I huffed on my breaths alone as if exhausted – in a way I was. I was, quite simply, sick of living.

 

 



-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 28th of July 2009 03:27:15 PM

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After the meeting food was prepared and the kids were fed first while the remainder of us waited; some went for showers in a rotational system, some sat alone, or ate, or rummaged through the supplies the kids had gathered before, while the rest of discussed the meet, weighing up the pros and cons of our various options. David, who had again spent the rest of the meet observing and eventually speaking for the both of us in his usual fashion, had been prised away by a persuasive Amy to see to his wounds, leaving me open for several unwanted attentions. Though Keith afforded me his empathetic stare, it was Trinity of all people who managed to corner me as I sought refuge in the kitchen, keeping myself busy so I didn’t have to think about anything much less face it.

 

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

 

She sounded so much like an irate teenager that I watched her enter the room behind me with a look torn between bemused and insulted. Kids intermittently filed past, sliding their dirty plates and spoons up onto the bench tops that were still strewn with the chaos largely leftover from our revelry and exhaustion the night before. I thanked one of them, stroking the little girl’s head, watching her leave as I took a wet cloth to the counter to clean it. Trinity approached and stopped again, her arms folded across her chest, the look on her face, though I only caught a glimpse in my peripheral vision, all too reminiscent of someone much bigger, much older, and more masculine, not to mention balder. I sighed as I turned my back on her and resumed cleaning the mountain of dishes.

 

“Jesus Christ, can’t you speak for yourself? What’s the matter with you?” she challenged.

 

I was taken aback. It didn’t sound like her, I told myself, not that I really actually knew her let alone what she was in order to start relating, still I would have thought she of all people had no right to be asking me a question like that. Half way through thinking she must have been tired or stressed, or more likely this was her new pal Jonathan’s influence – after all she seemed to have adopted this new antagonistic quality since his arrival, fighting with her closest ‘friend’ and now suddenly wanting to break away from familiarity on some sudden impulse – I heard her mutter, “Rae, I don’t get it.”

 

Really? That makes two of us. “Get what?”

 

“You,” she said. “Him. This whole… everything. Are you really that blind that you can’t see it? You can’t see what he’s doing to you?”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You know what I’m talking about,” She blurt out. “David!”

 

She stood closer still, easily within arm’s reach, but even from this distance I couldn’t feel anything emanating from her – Why would you, an inner voice chided, she’s not human anymore, remember? – But rather than answer I just smirked back and shook my head.

 

“Damn it Rae, why don’t you stand up for yourself? Why are you letting him tell you what to do? You don’t want to go, we can all see it, we know. Did he threaten you?”

 

“Oh god,” I grumbled.

 

Trinity’s tone lowered almost apologetically. “Look, I know… things have been… strange between us lately,” she skirted. She dropped her gaze briefly towards the floor. Though her words sounded like a prelude to something else, nothing followed, leaving a stiffening silence to set like concrete between us.

 

Taking the opportunity to step aside I turned too to face her. I didn’t find it odd at all that I could confront her now so directly, someone who couldn’t die, who had the strength of so many, who could wade through the dead like Jesus on water, but who on the outset looked like a young, petite, intense-eyed woman. In truth I wasn’t afraid of her, whether it was the fact I felt somehow tainted by that monster Taijitsu, or whether I’d accepted some responsibility for our current predicament having liased with a dead man in the first place and in essence bringing us all out here, or I’d merely lost all sense of self-worth to accept a kind of subconscious death wish I wasn’t sure. But I looked at her now incredulously, daring her, challenging her to back up her claims or shut the hell up, simultaneously wanting to blurt out everything building within in a choking torrent of tears as well.

 

“You don’t have to feel obligated to follow me if you don’t want-” she started.

 

“I know.”

 

“Then why don’t you say something? Why don’t you just tell him you don’t want to go?”

 

I just continued to stand there and stare. Trinity, clearly torn in her decision to have even started this, backed up mimicking my body language with her arms folded across her chest and her hip leaning against the cupboard behind her. For a little while we were quiet as kids continued to wander in obliviously. Finally uncomfortable Trinity pushed herself away and began to walk out of the room. She stopped half way out and turned to look back at me.

 

“I know you’re mad at me for some reason but that thing, Taijitsu, it’s still your son. It saved you. Not m-”

 

“No it isn’t.”

 

“How can you say that? I was there when it was born-”

 

“It’s no more human than you are!” I spat.

 

Immediately my jaw tightly locked shut. Trinity, bighting her lip, said nothing. She shook her head. Then she nodded glumly to herself.

 

“You’re right,” she agreed. She looked at me more calmly. “But right now I’m still more alive than you are.” I was too affronted to speak, actually choking inside on sardonic laughter, but before I could even contest it, Trinity continued. “Rae, when I saw you and David up there in that office yesterday I- I thought-… I didn’t know what to think actually. I actually thought maybe you loved each other or something. Crazy I know. Now I know otherwise. You can’t say a thing to me that doesn’t sound just like something he would say; you can’t say anything without it somehow involving him. Face it, you’re not you, you’re just an extension of him. If he dies, you die. You’re already dead; you’re just dancing around like some puppet on a string. He’s in control and always has been. When he says jump you don’t even bother to ask how high you just do it. That’s not devotion, Rae, that’s control. He doesn’t love you, not the way you think. I know it’s none of my business but I’m just telling you because-”

 

“You’re right,” I murmured flatly. “It is none of your business.”

 

Trinity’s tentative smile crumbled and slid away. She pushed herself further out of the room. Again she couldn’t leave without getting the last word in as I slid my eyes aside at her, my arms locked so tightly together I was practically shaking.

 

“You know,” the younger woman said, “when I first met you I knew you were scared, I just didn’t know what of. I thought it was the dead. Now I know better. And you can tell yourself whatever you want, I may be younger than you but I’m not stupid-”

 

“Neither am I.”

 

“Rae-”

 

He saved you,” I found myself retaliate with such bitterness, such incredulousness, that I was shaken for a moment to realise such words were even falling out of my lips without provocation. “On the river bank, you remember that? You know why he did it? You really want to know?” I huffed.

 

 Now it was out there I had to finish it, feeling Trinity’s eyes on me, narrowing (no red in them, no black either) as she waited, anticipating what was to come. She had no idea. I smiled coldly at her.

 

“To replace me. You were his contingency plan. He was my back up when Rob died. When he found you and brought you back to The Park, I knew it, I just didn’t want to face it. In case something ever happened to me, he had you.” I scoffed.

 

“Had me for what?” Trinity murmured.

 



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I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling. They were bitter with tears.

 

“What do you think? The three B’s of survival. Haven’t you ever heard of them? Bullets, Balls, and Bitches. Guess where we fit in?” I smiled, my expression still sour but hurting. “This isn’t about love. It’s not about loyalty. This is about survival. We made an agreement, a pact. I’m his restitution and he’s here so I don’t have to die alone. That’s all this is.” I stalled. My venom was waning but my verbal outburst was not. Again I sighed, attempting now after insult to reason with her. “We women, we’re a commodity. Like it or not. If there’s ever going to be a future it has to start with us, they can’t do it alone; continuation of the species. God, what am I telling you for, we don’t even know what you are let alone breeding…” I muttered exasperatedly. Trinity’s eyes continued to narrow. “We’re a release. We’re territory. We’re not people anymore, we’re a means to an end. Those two out there, Dean and Jonathan, or whatever his name is, what do you think they’re fighting over, your heart?” I shook my head, my gaze so hot, so anguished; I had to throw it away. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw you. I’ve been where you are. Most of us probably have. There’s not enough of us to go around now, why do you think they’re so overprotective? It’s not love,” I repeated, vaguely aware of a tear slipping out despite my angry façade. “It’s ownership. And what you’re doing out there, pitting one against the other, it’s dangerous. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone always does. Trust me, I know. I know.”

 

I huffed briefly, dragging my sleeve down to smear my face as Trinity watched on with an expression too watery to read. Still she said nothing. I had no idea if anything I said was getting through to her let alone making sense; it probably seemed out of the blue to her but inside of me it felt as if a pressure valve had been tapped and now I was venting there seemed little I could do but let it run it’s course, or explode from the pressure that had been building for what felt like forever.

 

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I murmured, “what you or the rest of them think about him, David’s not a prick, he just gets it. He knows what’s at stake. Rob didn’t. Maybe the rest of them don’t either. Maybe they’re ignorant on purpose, I don’t know, I don’t care, but I get it, I do.” I see it more clearly than I ever wanted to. God help me, how I wish there could be another way. “There’s no room for love anymore. It just… impairs your judgement. It makes you weak. It leaves you vulnerable. Do you understand now, do you?” I asked her.

 

For a moment I just stood there scowling, shaking my head, feeling an incredible relief as my confession settled, but also feeling the cold hard emptiness inside take it’s place and fill me with a growing sense of fear and humiliation, and vulnerability. I turned away and cried; or rather I tried not to. I was too wired, too tired, and too frustrated to think straight. Behind me there was movement, talk, but I defensively ignored it. Something snagged my collar, jerking me backwards, catching me before I could question it. Suffocating against a musty shirt, being crushed by powerful arms, I knew David was holding me without even having to see him. I bawled my eyes out.

 

“I don’t wanna go,” I sobbed, “I don’t wanna go. I don’t want you to go. I love you…”

 

“Shhh,” he murmured, the sound feeling like a vibration, an engine against my face. I didn’t know whether he was embarrassed or consoling - robbed of sight, and of pride, I was figuratively naked and vulnerable - and with a modest audience I knew in some regard he was feeling that way too. “Come on,” he urged me, and started to lead me from the room.

 

When I managed to draw myself away he had led us out into the lunchroom, back out into the thick of it, with everyone else too busy doing their own thing to be paying us any attention – at least on the outset - Apparently there was no such thing as privacy anymore. I felt stupid then, but oh so exhausted, physically limp and sore without having had any real rest from the epic day we had had less than 12 hours before. David, still grimacing from the occasional twinge of pain, drew over a chair to sink down into as I delicately lowered to a seat at the nearest table - For all intents and purposes it looked all too much like a picnic table only made out of some kind of metal that looked better suited to the hellhole we’d so recently escaped from. With his arms folded over the back of the chair and his chin dug into his forearms David offloaded a sigh. He appeared a different man from the surly character from before but I’d been with him long enough to not draw any conclusions from it. Things had changed again. It seemed like they were always changing, always in a constant state of flux. It was no wonder my emotions were all over the place, I lamented. Nothing was consistent; nothing probably ever would be again. For the longest time neither one of us said anything as the others were heard packing up beds, organising clothes, shoes, checking ammo, cleaning weapons, talking amongst themselves; around us, their noise underpinned our silence. At last David reached out and picked up my hand. His smile was slow, strange and tentative.

 

“Hey,” he eventually said, “You know you don’t have to… do anything you don’t want. I just thought-”

 

“I’m tired of running.”

 

“Well okay.”

 

“Then you’re not gonna go?” I asked timidly.

 

David’s sigh and lowered face brought my shoulders down as he sat there pondering our interlocked fingers. He took a long time to answer and I could see it, I could see the tenor of his thoughts playing across his brow long before any sound followed.

 

“I know you want to fight,” I continued, sounding pathetically like one of the Doc’s many kids, “I know you live for that. I don’t. I just, I don’t want do this anymore.”

 

David just nodded. Disappointment lurked behind whatever expression he was trying to conjure as his eyes lifted and looked at me.

 

“Rae, what are the alternatives?”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m asking you. If you stay here, what are you going to do here? Patch the wall up, learn a trade, cultivate a farm, then what?”

 

My jaw locked tightly as I drew my hand away. David just sighed, probably aware that his sarcasm, whether he meant it that way or not, was doing little to ease the proverbial tension, let alone ease my state of mind. He looked up at me again, a tad more sombrely. It was as close to an apology I was likely to get with an audience present.

 

“I know. It’s not easy-”

 

“No you don’t. That’s the problem. You, Keith… her. All of you. Fighters. What am I? God, you don’t see it, do you? I’m tired of being afraid all the time. I’m tired of not having any control. I’m tired of people always saving my life. I feel useless!”

 

“Come on, Rae, you’re not useless-”

 

“I’m a p*ssy pass!” I snapped.

 

“Oh-kay,” David said dubiously. He even appeared embarrassed briefly, glimpsing over his shoulder to meet the eyes of those who had heard the outburst. “I wouldn’t quite put it like that-”

 

“Well it’s true isn’t it?”

 

“Uhh… well you just… make it sound a little cold. And not really relevant anymore… Kind of like your little ‘thing’ in there,” he said, nodding towards the kitchen area. I scoffed and rolled my eyes sourly. Shuffling closer in his seat David smiled. It screamed unease. Hard to believe less than a day ago he had been literally yelling at me, in my face, for trying to help him – what a turnaround we’d had. Again he sighed. “You know what,” he ventured, “For the record. I don’t trust her either, Trinity. But you’ve got to remember, whatever she is, technically, she’s still just a kid.”

 

“So why are you so intent on going with her?”

 

David was looking downward. I waited for him to say something to magically make it alright again, to take my fears away, to fill me with that same sense of empowerment I’d had before back in the base, but the seconds ticked down with nothing and I knew without having to be told that his decision would not be changing. It didn’t matter what I said or did from now on.

 

“I was thinking,” I said, forcing a smile as I dabbed my face on my sleeve, missing the simple pleasures of things like tissues in a post-apocalyptic world. “With the Doc gone you know, these kids, they’re gonna need someone to show them how to do things, you know. I know they’ve got Keith and the rest of them, but I thought maybe you could teach them a few things-”

 

“Like what? How to get out of jail free? Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars. Something like that?”

 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

 

“Uh hu,” David murmured. “In other words, stay. Like a good boy.”

 

“I just… think we have a good thing here. If Trinity wants to go out chasing demons why not just let her? She doesn’t need any of us; we’ll only slow her down. You’ve seen what she can do-”

 

“Rae, I’m not cut out for this sitting at home waiting for sh*t to happen, okay? This is The Doc’s place. If he comes back clean, great, he can have it, but I’m not going to stay here waiting for the next attack, whenever that will be, or the one after that, or the one after that,” he told me. He sounded angry but I knew he wasn’t, just focussed, just driven, something I knew between us we weren’t sharing. He shook his head. “You saw those things back at the base. The way they moved. The way they operate. The rest of them may not believe but I know what I saw. We’re sitting ducks here. This is borrowed time we’re living on right now as it is. If the rest of them want to stay here and make plans and live happily ever after, then power to them, I hope they do. That sh*t’s not going to happen to someone like me-”

 

“Why not you?” I interjected. “You, me and Lucas, we could all go somewhere else. We could make a new start-”

 

“Rae, listen to yourself! That’s another person’s child you’re talking about. And this is not some f*cking fantasy-”

 

“I know!”

 

“No, you don’t! I’m getting the f*ck out of Dodge before the sh*t goes down. Call it cowardice, call it whatever the f*ck you want, but I’m living for the here and now. F*ck tomorrow. I’ll make it up as I go along. There’s not going to be a happy ending for all of us. The best chance we’ve got is to stay alive long enough to see the next generation make it through and that’s it,” David said. He sounded grave but accepting, shaking his head with a hint of his usual bitter smirk. “We’re probably all dead already anyway.”

“So that’s it?” I asked him. I felt so sick, so burdened, I could scarcely raise my eyes up mere centimetres to look at him. My previous proclamation, and the feelings behind it, seemed to sour in my stomach, curdling like spoilt milk, wasted, forgotten. “So you’re really gonna follow her, just like that? What about our agreement?”

(for some reason am having issues reformatting this entire update, sorry for that)



-- Edited by Ravynlee on Tuesday 28th of July 2009 02:17:13 PM

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