"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She’s felt listless and without purpose since the raid, spending her days roaming about Beqanna without any destination in mind. She feels worthless, ashamed. She’d been utterly useless in the fight against the Chamber, succeeding only in falling on her ass and obtaining a number of nasty looking burn scars on her legs. She hadn’t been able to protect her mother. She hadn’t even been able to protect herself.
She finds it hard to stay in the Gates some days now, often spending many of her nights hidden away in the meadow. This night is no different, and it’s with a small sigh that she settles in to a small patch of trees on the quiet side of the meadow. She feels exhausted, numb. That spark of wildness that had once driven her mother so crazy is mostly extinguished. As she settles in for the night, she secretly wishes she was somewhere else - some alternate world where the Chamber raid never happened, where her mother was never kidnapped and her brother and father had never disappeared. But she knows it’s just wishful thinking.
She never expects it to actually happen.
When she wakes up the light has changed. It takes her a moment to adjust, her eyes blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights. “Whaa …?” She’s in a room? She moves to stand up, and abruptly realizes that she has two legs rather than four. “The hell?!” She stares at herself, taking in the two legs, the fingered hands, and the strange lack of hair (except on her head). She’s … human?
She barely has time to register this shocking fact when a voice rings out in her ears. The Mistress? Doors? Confused, she looks up for the source of the voice, but is distracted when she spots the very thing the voice is talking about. There in front of her, is a pair of doors. She is transfixed, staring at the two pieces of wood. They’re unnatural, magical - she can almost feel the evil pulsating from them. And she has to choose?
She stands, shaking, unused to balancing on only two limbs. Her dark brown eyes peer intently at the doors again. The one on the left is dark and glowing. It unsettles her somehow, thought he doesn’t know why. And the one on the right …
She shudders. It’s dripping in something that looks like blood - reminding her of all the bloodshed she’s seen in the past year.
She immediately walks to black door, pausing in front of it, her hand frozen on the handle. What’s waiting for her on the other side? There’s no way to know.
She takes a deep breath, opens the door, and walks right through.
She’s in an alleyway. A cold, damp alleyway. The brick walks on either side of the alley are dark and slick with algae, and the sky above is a depressing shade of grey. On either end of alley she can see broken down, decrepit buildings and off to her left she can see an old, beat up dumpster. It’s so … boring. She cocks her head to the side, stumped. The door had creeped her out, and while the silence and emptiness are still unsettling, it’s no where near what she’d been expecting.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sidra freezes. The voice had barely been above a whisper, but she’d definitely heard it. Her eyes scan the alleyway, searching for any movement, but she can’t see anything. Then a hand appears from inside the dumpster and gestures at her. “What are you doing?! Get out of the open!”
Sidra cautiously makes her way over to the dumpster, and on her tip-toes peers in. A young man and a teenage girl peer back out at her. The man gestures angrily at her. “The fuck?! Do you want to get killed? Get in here!” Feeling bewildered, Sidra hoists herself up on the lip of the bin, and falls over the other side with an audible thump. “Shit! What’re you doing, they’ll hear you!”
Sidra settles into the corner of the bin, while the boy - older than her - peers over the edge of the bin. The girl - closer to Sidra’s age - eyes her with distrust. Now that she’s in the bin, she can get a better look at both of them, and neither of them look good. Both are covered in layers of grime and dirt, and their clothes are torn and full of holes. It’s impossible to tell what they would look like normally. Whatever they’ve been through, it hasn’t been good. “What the hell’s going on here? What are you guys talking about?”
The man looks back down at her, looking dumbfounded. “What do you mean what am I talking about? I mean the damn walkers!” Her confusion must have shown, because the man slips down the side of the bin, staring at her. “The zombies? The infected? Where the hell have you been?”
A noise echoes down the length of the alleyway, and both the girl and the man freeze. Then, ever so slowly, the man pulls himself up to peer over the edge of the bin. “Shit! They found us. We’re going to have to make a run for it Ella.” Then he glances at Sidra. “And you, whoever you are, if you value your life you’ll follow us.” Then without another word, he hoists himself over the edge of the bin and disappears, quickly followed by the girl ‘Ella.’
Sidra follows suite, poking her head out of the bin and throwing herself over the edge. She lands on the concrete with thud and pulls herself to her feet. Then she sees what the man was talking about. Far down at the end of the alley, a group of people is walking towards them. If they can be called people. Every single one of them is decomposing - their skin is grey, body parts are missing and even from where she’s standing in the centre of the alley, she can smell the rank stench of death. As she watches, they break into a run.
Behind her, the man’s voice yells out. “RUN OR DIE YOU IDIOT!” She doesn’t waste any more time. She turns and flees, following the man and Ella. She still doesn’t really know what they are, but she doesn’t want to stick around and find out more about these ‘walkers’ first hand. She has a feeling that it would be a less than pleasant experience.
She dashes around the corner, still following the two strangers. They run and run and run and run, around the corners of trashed buildings, around dead and broken down cars, over grass and plants growing through cracked pavement. Finally, they run around another corner, into another alley … into a dead end. There’s a single metal door at the end of the alley that the man rushes to and tries to open with no success. Other than their entrance, there’s no way out.
The three of them all turn at once, ready to head back for the exit, but they can hear the sound of feet thundering towards them. “Shit!” Sidra turns to look at them, and the man turns to his sister. “Ella, do you still have that skeleton key?” The girl nods, still mute, then runs to the door. As she fumbles with the lock, the sounds get louder and louder. Then suddenly, there they are. The horde of things (walkers? zombies?) races around the corner at alarming speed, and Sidra’s heart leaps into her throat. “ELLA HURRY!” The scrabbling at the door grows more frantic, but the things are getting closer. The man glances back at the teen, then looks back at the things and groans. “Ella sweetie, you get that door open and lock it behind you. Don’t wait for me.” He glances at Sidra. “Don’t let her come after me. I’m going to buy you guys some time.” Sidra gasps. “What?!” He grimaces, then sets his face. “You heard me. Help her.” Sidra can hear the girl burst into tears behind her, but the fiddling with the door continues. Sidra watches in astonishment and horror as the man runs at the creatures, yelling aloud. He’s soon overwhelmed, but the beasts stop, occupied with … Sidra turns away, she can’t watch.
She remembers the girl and rushes to her just as the door clicks open. The girl hesitates, looking back at the man, but Sidra shoves her through. As she turns and looks the door behind her, she can hear the girl sob and whisper, “oh god Steven, oh god.”
10-20-2015, 03:26 AM (This post was last modified: 10-20-2015, 03:30 AM by Smother.
Edit Reason: spell/grammer
)
Smother
I was dreaming.
I don’t dream much, no, I hardly dream at all. I tend to have nightmares—of her, of him. I wake up in cold sweats with a pounding heart and limp limbs and force myself to remember they don’t even know what you look like anymore. They haven’t seen me since I was five months old; now I am a lady, a fully blossomed female, and they have no idea how big their baby girl has grown.
They don’t even care to find out.
I waken on a hard, unpolished wooden floor. My hands slide down the hardwood, feeling the uneven grain and eyeing the chipping paint. A breeze wafts over my skin, lifting my long blonde hair from my back in a mess of waves.
Nothing feels right, I don’t even feel right.
Gone are my hooves and here are bare feet, cold and itchy. My coat has gone to skin, my muscular body has been traded for a slimmer figure, and my head has shrunk to unimaginable proportions.
I am a land walker, a human, a woman.
It doesn’t take me long to raise myself from the floor, the creak of the weak wood practically as loud as a person in a cave with an intercom. I shiver at the sound of my own impact.
Before me, I see two options. My body tightens as the choice weighs on my shoulders. A liquid stained door, dripping of deep burgundy and vibrant red hues, to my right; an ebony door with a faint ominous glow to my left.
They are both a door I don’t wish to open.
My instincts for adrenaline, the devil on my shoulder, impulses me to be quick—be rash. The angel hovers above my mind like a UFO, “pick neither. Wait for help.”
I have never been good at being rational.
My hand, tanned with no impurities, latches around the gold handle of the black door. An aura of energy latches onto my body like a rope. Adrenaline loops my veins and impulses my actions—I am a junky, an addict.
My wrist turns the handle.
Wind, and rain caress my face like a violent rapist attempting to be soothing.
Like before they diverge in their own massacre—like in the movies, when the killer holds a human at gunpoint before pulling the trigger, they always need to stroke your cheek.
My body stiffens with every inch of cold air toying at my skin, producing goose bumps in every visual sector of my body. And then I hear a faint whisper.
Curiosity killed the cat, but I have to see who it is.
I shut the door behind me, the slow whine as it closes deafening my ears. I look to my left, following the hushed voices and faint whimpers. Beyond my reach, a few feet down, I see two females kneeled behind a dumpster.
I narrow my eyes, but I can’t make out what they are speaking of.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice rising into the air like a knife into butter. It slides up easily against the silence, the alleyway echoing my tone just enough to grasp their attention and revaluate their conversation.
One holds up a finger to her lips, I will call her Bossy. Her eyes narrow at mine, as if I was dumb enough to raise my voice, before gesturing with her hands, come here.
I begin to walk, before their hands fly up in a panic. If only I was as quick to listen as I was to speak. My foot lands on what I can only explain must be shrapnel from a broken bottle. The crack of the glass sounds like a blow horn, louder than something of its size should be.
They glance at each other, and then at me.
I watch them, my heart pounding.
The growl—groan? —Of something beyond where light can reach sounds from at the end of the alley. It sounds unpleasant, as if someone is struggling to wake up from a rough night. Not dangerous, not even coherent, just gurgling.
But then I hear a shriek.
The pounding of running feet, the echo of it’s snarling threat. My instincts as an equine cringe—flight or fight.
Both girls are up in running, Bossy apparently the slower of the two.
Flight it is.
I lurch into a run no more than five strides from my new partners in crime. I know better than to look back—I know to run as fast as I can and only look at where I need to go—but my curiosity (as it normally does) gets the best of me in my worst hour. Rain impacts my vision, but what I see must only be the most magnificent animal-predator alive.
It is a human of an unnaturally appearance. Its cheek hangs in an unacceptable manner, it’s eyes glow of whiteness, its neck is cracked to the left in what I can only explain to be inhuman.
These girls aren’t fast by any means—I am within their reach in half a minute, and nearly passing the lead girl—let’s name her Quick—in maybe two hundred yards. They are both blinded by fright; I can see the desperation in their stare.
I keep forgetting to breath.
I see the end of the ally coming almost too soon. The flickering light of a dying lamppost is illuminating a paved street. I feel semi-relieved. Streets mean more people.
It isn’t until we round the corner onto the paved street that I realize more civilization could mean more monsters. It isn’t until then that I realize us making such ignorant noise could trigger more of these felons to chase at our heels.
We can’t stop running, but we have nowhere to run to.
And we are surrounded.
I stop running, feeling the weight of Quick and Bossy cave into my back. Every inch of my body seizes, I feel trapped and insecure. They are watching us, as if to analyze our every limb. It is like when in front of a predator, you don’t make the first move.
Or in war, you wait for someone to draw his or her gun first. Make the first shot.
We are in that stand off, but I have a feeling it won’t be long till they just devour us regardless of our Opossum game.
The monster that forced us to run is finally catching up to us now. He was slower than I would have pegged him to be, but much like horses I am sure we will have our faster competitors. He is snarling.
He will be the opponent to start the game.
As a prey animal, I always imagined personally, that I would be brought back to this world in a better skin. A human, I would have thought, would be at the top of the food chain.
But a human come back to life with impeccable running skills…now I wish I were on the other side of the coin.
It was like a light bulb went off in each of our brains, Quick was first to lunge away (she earned her nickname fair and square), while Bossy followed suit (I should rename her Coward). All three of us didn’t’ wait for the opponents to draw the first gun, we just took off like three defenseless deer amongst a hoard of hunters.
The game, of which I thought would be easy, has turned into a massacre.
We cannot run fast enough to save our lives, I hear the intense snarls and teeth-chattering growls from just at my heels and my heart begins to pound. My breathing is heavy, my desperation for air nauseating, but I cannot stop.
If I stop, I die.
If I die, I come back a monster.
Who am I kidding, I am one.
We need to slow them down, though I am not entirely sure how yet. We keep changing directions by turning sharp corners, shaking them for a mere fifty yards before the hoard gains speed. We cannot outrun them forever, we need to breath, they just need to eat.
It isn’t until our third right (after our second left) that I realize we have reached a dead end. At this dead end, glimmers a wooden door beneath an old porch light.
A sigh of relief. A way out.
We are all sprinting at speeds slower than I am used to going but yet I cannot make two legs carry me more efficiently. Quick, a red head with vibrant green eyes and a pale complexion looks over at me with a face I can only describe as stunned. Bossy, a little behind both of us but keeping up and not being eaten nonetheless, has a strict face of determination. I notice now she is pretty, with deep, rich brown eyes and caramel brown hair.
One of them needs to sacrifice themselves if we are going to make it to the door, open it, and get into it in time.
Someone needs to die.
I promise you, it won’t be me.
I thank my father, here, now, for my rational decision-making in life or death situations. He has no consciousness, he has no real emotion. He had no problem tossing me out to the cold life of Beqanna without so much as a blink. He has given me his angel free shoulder.
I utilize his genetics for the first time right here, right now.
Quick is up at my speed, but Bossy is falling behind. I slow to her pace, “Quick, run hard,” signaling the red head she should not follow my stride. I match Bossy, my eyes leveling with hers; she stares at me with a questioning glance.
I nod my head as if to say, thank you for your service.
And then I push her.
I push her awkwardly, an angle not ideal but I refuse to make the perfect execution at a time like this. I watch as she flails, her arms—I notice a bracelet on her right wrist, gold with small pearls—reaching out for something, anything to save her from her tumble.
I hear the satisfied snarls of the hoard as they surround her squirming torso.
They will be finished her petite frame in seconds, there are enough of them to eat fifty of her and still be starving madmen. Quick and I have moments—seconds, before that door opens.
And Quick is not performing well after my maneuver.
“What the hell was that,” she is franticly pulling at the knob, which will not turn.
“The door is locked,” I say with an eerie calmed tone before analyzing the doorframe.
“You fucking killed her,” she is still stuck on Bossy.
I point to the side of the door, “first off, find a spare key. Second off, your welcome for saving your life.”
I begin grasping at the cobblestone wall, feeling for a faulty rock or loose stone that could be harboring a key.
“You killed someone who didn’t need to die.” She is angry, her voice penetrating the air like a dagger into my flesh. Her words are so condescending, so ungrateful.
I snarl, “It was either her or you. She was useless. She was slow. She was holding us back. Though now in hindsight I have a feeling she would have been more pleased with the outcome than you are now.”
The unimpressed growls and groans rise from behind us. They have finished her like ten people destroy an appetizer at Red Robins. They are moving on to finish off the rest of the trio.
Two left.
No exit.
I am on my knees now, pawing at the floor, picking up every stone and every rock—anything and anywhere a person could hide a key.
Someone must have put something somewhere, people always fucking hide shit.
My hand dusts away a rock that seems too light for it’s build. Desperate and fearful, I shake the rock violently, hearing the clamber of a key wiggling within the stone.
“I got it,” I practically squeal, a feeling of relief washing over me only momentarily.
Out falls what I can only describe as a skeleton key. The white bone curling into a perfect frame.
We are both in front of the door, one hand on the handle and the other within the lock. I am turning it and fiddling with it—it’s old build not much on efficiency and quickness.
The lock clicks and we are instantly pulling at the wood. The pounding of running feet echoing just behind me.
Two seconds before I become their dessert.
I am too good to be main course.
It opens within an inch of my life, and we are flying in the door like squirrels onto a tree. I feel the clench of a hand wrap around my hair, pausing my jump mid air.
I scream.
I see Quick, scrambling in her pockets like a hound on a scent, when she pulls out the smallest of pocketknives wrapped in her fist. She doesn’t even pause, swinging her between the crack of the almost shut door, cutting my hair right at the source of the dead hand.
I fall face first onto the floor, hearing the door slam behind me. The knife gets lost within the hoard of menaces.
“You could have said you had a fucking knife the whole time.”
This was not the first time she had woken someplace different, someplace strange and unrecognizable. Where impossible things were possible, and more than that, they were likely. Her heart plummets and her hand flies to her chest. Hand? She froze for a moment and then slowly her gaze dropped to take in the pair of legs covered in worn, faded blue jeans, the torso and arms hiding beneath a plain long-sleeved gray shirt. The shirt felt thick, heavy, and she resented the weight of it when she tried shifting beneath it. Later, though she had no way of knowing this now, she would be grateful for that extra cushion.
For the first time, she thinks to look around, deliberately ignoring the fact that she is suddenly human, and none of it feels nearly as strange as it should. There are two doors peeking out of the dark, one red and sticky and she turns from it immediately with a grimace of disgust twisting at her mouth. The other door is plain and black and, if she’s being honest with herself, it seems to glow a little. Maybe that meant there was light on the other side of it. She didn’t want to consider what that theory would mean for the other door, the red door. With only a second of hesitation, because what other option did she have, her hand reached for the black door, those slender fingers wrapping around the knob and pushing it open.
Thud.
The door hit something solid as it was pushed open and an angry voice spit through the waiting half-dark to greet Malis. Slipping through quickly, the door shut behind her and when Malis turned back in surprise to look at it, she found the knob had locked itself. Or maybe someone else had locked it. Her hand fell from the knob as she remembered the thud and the voice that had followed it. Turning quickly, she spotted two shapes moving in the dark but neither made any move towards Malis. In fact they seemed to have pinned themselves to the far wall as if they didn’t want to be noticed at all. Malis frowned, confused. They seemed scared of her. She took a step forward and her sneakered foot hit something hard that glinted dully red and silver in what little light was able to escape into the small room through one very small broken window placed so very high up on the wall. Her brow furrowed and a frown creased her face as she bent down to reach for what she innately realized to be a long, almost too heavy, knife. But at the same time Malis reached for the weapon, so did one of the strangers against the wall, lunging like her life depended on it. This desperation bled instant suspicion into Malis and with a surge of adrenaline, her fingers wrapped around the blade hilt first, drawing it up in front of her in a way she felt would appear menacing. The person, the girl, fell back in surprise, managing to sprawl herself through the beam of light cast by the evening sun through the small window.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Malis swore, her face suddenly a mask of rage and venom as she leaned down to point the knife at the girls throat. The girl squeaked and tried to scramble backwards, but her escape was impeded by the small length of the room and the several upended boxes whose items had been scattered and broken everywhere. “No! Wait! Please.” A voice piped up from the shadow, from the other shape huddled against the wall. Malis didn’t even bother to look up, but the look of disgust on her face deepened measurably. “Why am I here,” Malis asked quickly, practically snarling, jabbing the knife ever closer to the soft flesh at the first strangers throat, “you planning on torturing me some more?”
But the shock emanating from both girls was enough to slow Malis, and she felt her grip on the knife soften as it fell to her side. “What are you talking about? No! We’re just trying to get out of here, we’re trying to survive. There is supposed to be a camp nearby where the Zs can’t get in. We’re just tired of running.” The girl said earnestly stepping from the shadows to kneel beside her companion. This time when Malis saw her face, she wasn’t surprised. “I’m Lena, and this is Nerissa.” The girl said again pointing first to herself, then Nerissa who was now climbing to her feet, her face pale and ashen.
Malis is quiet for a moment, a long moment, but her fist tightens painfully around the hilt of the knife. She doesn’t bother to tell them she knows them, how could she explain anyway. ‘I was the plastic toy horse Nerissa tortured and Lena fixed.’ Yeah, that would be super believable. Malis felt her free hand leap to her forehead as she tried to make any sense of this. Even when she had seen Nerissa, sprawled in the light with her blonde curls matted with lord knows what and braided messily at the back of her head, she had known. Years older now, so many years, impossibly so, but still the same. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smile Malis had seen before on a snake. Lena was the same too. Still foolish if she actually trusted her companion, which impossibly she did seem to, with her dark brown hair knotted in an unbrushed, greasy ponytail. Her hand dropped from her forehead as she resolved to hide the fact that she knew them. “Okay you said Zs. What the fuck is a Z.” Malis said abruptly, her hand with the knife lifting to gesture emphatically with the other hand perched impatiently on her hip.
Lena and Nerissa looked at each-other for a moment, confused, before returning their focus on Malis. “You know? Zs? Zombies?” Lena tried uncertainly, looking at Malis with all the misplaced sympathy in the world. “What do you have a head injury or something?” Nerissa interrupted hotly, both hands on her hips and a scowl on her dirty face. “And can I have my knife back, you thief?” Nerissa said, apparently a little too loudly because there came a thump at a nearby door and both girls spun to face it, silent as stones. Malis didn’t understand. “Definitely not.” She said, her grip tightening around the knife. Lena spun back quickly, her finger on her lips and her eyes wide. Impossibly, Malis understood what this meant.
With a shaking hand, Lena reached into the holster strapped to her hip and pulled out a small handled piece of hollow metal. A gun, Malis knew. With her other hand she passed Nerissa an extra knife, the blade long and a little rusted and stained with red. And then quickly, so quickly Malis didn’t have time to think, Nerissa threw the door open and Lena leveled the gun, a shot ringing out as the creature lurched forward, one more right behind it. Malis lifted her knife reflexively, but she was so distracted by the stench and sight of it that she didn’t, couldn’t move her feet. The two creatures looked like humans, in the looser sense, except they had a menagerie of wounds, bullet holes and slashes, teeth marks where entire holes had been ripped out to reveal the red and purple of organs inside as they tipped precariously over the edges and threatened to spill out. The mouths were perhaps the most horrifying, torn wide to reveal teeth stained with blood and gore, teeth broken from chewing on bone again and again. Tendrils of flesh hung like strips, and honestly she couldn’t tell if it was their flesh or someone else’s, but suddenly she understood the reason for the knives and the gun. Another shot rang out and the furthest Z dropped to the floor, but the first was only a foot away, slowed slightly by what looked to be a broken leg with a foot that had been chewed away to leave only bone like a sick, twisted stilt. Oh god, how she hoped their souls died when their bodies did.
The Z fell on her in a snarl of spittle and blood and decaying gore, and she threw herself backwards, the knife flashing as she slashed it across the face. But this did nothing to slow it down, it didn’t even seem to notice, could notice nothing but the urge to hunt, to feed, to devour. There was movement to her left and before the zombie had a chance to sink that putrid mouth into her skin, the wet sound of a knife cutting through skin was followed by the thuck of decayed skull giving way to the blade.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” Nerissa hissed shrilly, though she managed to stay quiet despite the wrathful red of her purpling face. “Everyone knows you have to hit the brain, you’re going to get us all killed.” Nerissa turned away again, heading over to where Lena stood at the opened door, her gun still raised in a hand that seemed to be shaking significantly more. “And you know you’re useless with that Lena, give me the gun and you take the knife.” Lena didn’t argue as they quickly traded and, glancing out on either side of the door, ran into the street. Without a sound, Malis tightened her grip on the knife in her own hand and followed them out.
It was clearly evening as the sun dipped dangerously beneath the tops of the taller buildings nearby, and Malis felt her heart thump anxiously in her chest. This didn’t seem like a world you wanted to get lost in when night fell. That meant her only option was to follow Nerissa and Lena as they made their way to the camp. Looking around quickly, she saw the two girls disappear as they hurtled around an overgrown street corner littered with glass and rubble and decaying bodies. Without hesitating, she launched herself after them. As she passed an alley she had only a second to register the gurgling moan and scuff of sound as a zombie threw itself at her. Half of its scalp has been peeled away, or maybe eaten away, and gore dripped down its rotting face. Bracing herself, she caught the Z as they collided and used one hand to push him back, desperate to keep those teeth from closing on her neck. With the other hand she lifted her knife and, soundlessly, plunged it into the back of his skull. Like a stone, the zombie dropped. With shaking hands she stared at it for a moment, and then remembering herself, leapt over the body to resume her chase of Lena and Nerissa.
As she came around the corner, the scene unfolded like a nightmare. Only a few yards away and with their backs turned to Malis, Lena had her knife brandished like a sword and Nerissa had her gun extended outwards. A horde of about twelve undead were loping unevenly toward the girls on broken legs and with loudening snarls. Malis felt her stomach drop as she wondered why the two refused to run, why they stood in the street against what looked like impossible odds. And then she saw it, the door, and she knew it immediately by the strange and familiar glow that emanated from it. A way out. She pulled back quickly around the corner, checking quickly to make sure no Zs had come up behind her. None had. Her brow furrowed and her hand flew to her chest again as her heart thumped erratically in her chest. But this time, when her hand touched the fabric of her shirt, she felt something hard and narrow beneath it. Reaching into the neck of the shirt, she pulled out a brass key sitting on a leather string. A key. Her hand closed around it knowingly. And then, and she hated herself for caring about either of the other girls, she realized they would never get in without her.
But as she came around the corner, a new scene was unfolding, and Nerissa had turned to point her gun at Lena’s stomach. “Make sure you scream real loud Lena, I’ll tell everyone I did everything I could to save you, poor thing.” And there it was that smile, like snake, ruining Nerissa’s face. Before Malis even realized what she was doing, her arm had lifted and recoiled, and then the knife was sailing through the air right until the moment where it buried itself in the small of Nerissa’s back. She dropped immediately, stunned, not even able to scream for the way shock and disbelief quieted her. And then she did, scream that is, and the sound tore through Malis more so than any knife ever could. She had done this. She had killed. And Nerissa had made her this way; like herself.
But there was no time to dwell and suddenly Malis was running for Lena whose face was smudged with dirt and tears and seemed unable to use her legs. Malis slapped her. It was enough to pull Lena from her shock because suddenly both girls were running for the door. Most of the zombie horde had run to Nerissa where she lay screaming in the street. The screaming became suddenly wet, suddenly garbled as teeth tore through her throat. Malis looked back, she couldn’t help herself. Ten Zs crouched over her, peeling the flesh from her face, from her arms and her legs, pulling organs from her torn open stomach even as the gore dripped from their faces. Only two stumbled after Lena and Malis. Fumbling for the key around her neck, she plunged it into the lock, opened the door, and lunged through it, pulling Lena after her.
He is a gentle child, though he has watched violence decimate his home.
He has kind eyes, though they have seen blood being painted across his mother’s hide.
Despite the hardness of his life thus far, hardness that could have chipped away at his upbringing, leaving him a rough-hewn version of himself, he has overcome. He is not really a boy anymore. Not physically, at least. However, his spirit retains that same vitality. So close to his third birthday, Eldrian has filled out and shot up, becoming more of a man every day. His green-flecked eyes are still soft but wiser now, too – less apt to focus on the whims of his imagination. For there is a lingering darkness in heaven, even a year after its’ burning, that reminds him that the world does not carry a torch for its inhabitants. Sometimes, he puts his nose to the wind and thinks he can still smell the smoke. It should be impossible, all this time later, but he does.
He is older and wiser than that brown boy he used to be, but the greyed man he now is still has a lot to learn.
Unlike many of the others, he waits to leave his mother’s side. After nearly three years, perhaps he should have felt the urge to press on into unchartered territory. And perhaps he would have, if the Chamber hadn’t pushed their advantage so many months ago. But Eldrian is desperately loyal to the woman who took him in. She is his mother for all intents and purposes (though he knows in his bones that the metal mare is his true dam) and for a long time he is loath to leave her alone, even for a quick visit to the common lands. Only after much coaching and coaxing on the painted woman’s end does he eventually make his way to the meadow.
And for the first time in a long time, he is so overwhelmed by the new sights that he doesn’t dwell on the state of the Gates. It’s chaotic, but wonderfully so. The bodies press together in little bands, grazing and conversing in the cool, autumn air. Their colors are as varied as those of the dying leaves, an earthy palette broken up by the occasional pop of unusual color. A smile creeps over him then, when he thinks of all he can learn here. How many stories linger on the late morning breeze, eager to be taken in by his ashen ears? How many places their collective eyes have seen; how many worlds have they travelled? He immerses himself in the place, drinking in the sights and sounds until he is full with all he’s learned.
Sunset is imminent by the time he slows his pace. The Gates seems so far removed from him in that moment, the horror all but gone from his memory banks. Eldrian knows the second he steps foot in the willow-filled kingdom it will all come back to him. He sidles up next to a tree, resting against its rough bark. His eyes flutter closed, guarding against the searing red of the low-slung sun and something else, too. Perhaps if he rests here for a bit… Maybe he’ll stay for a moment longer, delay the inevitable for as long as he can…
A blinding light wakes him from the deepest sleep he’s ever experienced. Even his limbs seem to quake from the – but no, they truly are quaking (changing). Eldrian opens his eyes. Different eyes, not the ones he is used to, but he finds he is already accustomed to the change. There’s a depth to his vision now, an emphasis on the sights directly ahead that hadn’t been there when he was a horse. But what is he now? Human, he knows, I am a human. This discovery (and the next, when he takes his first steps with all the confidence of a bipedal) is at the same time shocking and the most natural thing in the entire world. But he doesn’t have time to dwell on the surprise. The new-boy is in a confined space that would have given him fits in his old body, but now he realizes he is quite comfortable in. Two cut-outs in the wall (doors, the word comes to him easily) stop his progression further into the place. It’s obvious he has a choice ahead of him.
“Pick a door.”
I’m dreaming, he thinks, dazed. One too many tall tales has wrapped around my brain from earlier. But it feels real, all of it, especially the voice that commands him to make his choice. So he obliges. He walks towards the doors, one red and weeping and the other black and aglow with some unnatural light. Both seem ominous in much the same way, but the one reminds him of home, reminds him of all he has been trying to escape. His pulse quickens when he remembers the glow of the fire that decimated the Mother Tree. He turns from the black door and grasps the handle of the red door, some of the liquid coating his hand like a glove. Without another thought, Eldrian steps through the door –
- and emerges into the gloom of Victorian London. Unconsciously, he wipes his hand on his trousers as he looks about the place. It’s nighttime, but the streets are hazily lit by dozens of lamps that extend far away into the distance. There are shops pushed up against the cobblestone street, pressing together in defense against the few people wandering by. There aren’t many at this hour and in this location. Eldrian stops and catches his reflection in one of the shops as he begins to meander down the path. He’s rather tall, he thinks, with unkempt black hair and grassy green eyes. His body is covered in several layers of clothing, all of them scratchy and heavy. The hat’s a nice touch, though. He tips it to his reflection, a toothy grin stretching his lips as he makes a half-bow. When he looks back up, though, he sees he is no longer the only one reflected in the window.
“’ello chap. Fancy yourself, then, douya?” Spinning on his heels, the young adult comes face to face with two others. One of them, the source of the voice, is a young man dressed in raggedy scraps that can hardly be considered clothes anymore. There’s soot smeared across his face with a prominent spot on the tip of his nose. But his eyes are warm and genuine – especially when they turn to his companion. “Don’ startle ‘im like that, Roy. Can’t you see he needs our help?” Eldrian is about to shake his head when the woman steps close. “Your bowtie. It’s all wonky.” He can feel her delicate hands at his neck, fixing the adornment, but he doesn’t shy away. There’s a depth to her blue eyes that he thinks he could lose himself in, if given the chance. She smiles at him, stepping back when she’s finished. Roy’s gaze narrows when she looks at him, fear pushing out the warmth it once held. “There’s a madman on the streets an’ you’re worried about his fashion sense? Nellie, you are somethin’ else, I tell – “
But a loud cry rending through the air cuts off the rest of Roy’s chastisement. Three heads swivel as a woman runs around one of the alleyways just down the street, still screaming. Her arms are loaded down with fabrics (a seamstress or a washer, Eldrian’s brain supplies the information for him) but this isn’t what will be her downfall. As a lanky, tall-hat-wearing shadow chases her, her plain gown catches on the edge of a cobblestone. She tries to tear free, tries to pull herself from her impending doom, but her attempts are futile. The hunting creature changes then, much like Eldrian had but in reverse. He becomes less of a human. His arms extend, impossibly long as if they are stretched rubber, and he wraps them around the woman in a cocooning embrace. Unbalanced, she falls, and the different shades of material look like the leaves of the meadow as they fall around her. The softness of the fabric will be little comfort for what happens next, though. But what is this monster?
“It’s bloody Jack. Jack the Ripper!” Roy nearly shrieks as he tugs on his and Nellie’s arms. “We need to find the key and get ta’fuck outta here!” They begin to run, but Eldrian lingers behind. He’d been too shocked to react to the poor washer woman, too stunned to make a move to help her when it might have done any good. Now, he watches as Jack finishes his work. He carves a line down the woman’s torso with his terribly long fingernails, a serrated line he soon renders with the force of his hands. Eldrian can hear a crack as her sternum splits, her ribcage falling apart at the seam into two sections. The blood flows freely around her and Jack leans over his victim and immerses himself into the gore. The once-horse’s stomach turns violently; he thinks he’ll lose it, but his blossoming fear clenches his tremors down. If the monster sees him, it’ll be over for him. Before he turns, though, he sees the killer pull something from his victim. Delicately, he plucks the stringy organ from within, the intestines shining in the sooty glow of the gaslights.
He forces himself away and towards the retreating forms of his new companions. The movement catches Jack’s eye, though, and Eldrian’s fear becomes a tangible, pulse that starts around his heart. He can hear the advance of the monster on the jutting stones; can hear the haunting rhythm of his measured breaths. Unlike his own which are high and rasping after only a short time. This body is too new, he thinks, panting, these clothes are too much. He wiggles out of his overcoat, dropping the heavy wool thing behind him as he goes. When he looks ahead again, though, he realizes he can no longer see Nellie and Roy. With no other option, the young man continues on. A distant clanging almost makes him jump out of his skin, but he realizes it is only Big Ben counting off the late hour. How queer that they – we – don’t simply use the position of the sun and moon here.
The fleeting thought evaporates when a pair of hands wraps around his forearm, reaching out of the darkened alleyway to his right. This time he does jump, and squeal a bit too, much to his embarrassment. “You’re a righ’ chicken, like my brother, ain’t you?” Nellie’s blue eyes alight in mirth as she regards him. He relaxes a bit and smiles at her before Roy’s fingers press against their lips, shushing them. Eldrian notices how she isn’t wearing a long gown like the other women who had passed him were. Her outfit is simpler, cleaner, more form-fitting as it hugs her body. He sort of appreciates it, really, for her safety of course. Roy seems to notice his lingering glance and smacks him lightly on his cheek. It doesn’t hurt, but the once-horse understands the need to focus. Surely Jack is not long behind them.
“We found the key while you were busy eyein’ the spectacle.” Roy shoves a key against Eldrian’s chest, the tip of it digging into his skin, even through the many layers of clothing. He has no idea what the man is talking about, though. A key? What for? “It was lodged in the library’s cornerstone, jus’ like we was told.” He must realize the blank look on Eld’s face as he regards the bone-white object, because the tone in his voice becomes even more urgent. “The door! We need to find the door, lad. Must be around here somewhere.” The threadbare-clothed man moves away, down the narrow passageway. Shrugging, Eldrian follows behind, Nellie bringing up the rear. Her arm rests easily on his shoulder, tethering them together against the dark night. Warmth spreads from the place of contact until he finds it hard to concentrate.
There are many doors along the way, most of them wooden, and he tries all of them. Nellie and Roy jiggle the handles, even after he tries the key. They are desperate to escape a world he has just entered, and their terror should drive him, but it doesn’t. One death is nothing, not when your homeland has burned and your people dispersed. Surely they can take out a single threat here, in London. But he starts to feel like he’s being watched. The skin on the back of his neck prickles with the feeling; cold shoots through his marrow until he wishes he hadn’t abandoned his coat. Each door that doesn’t open becomes a personal failure, a responsibility he will have to live with the rest of his life, if he survives this. Jack is watching. Jack is waiting. Very soon, he’ll be on them.
And all too soon, he is.
They don’t hear the shapeshifting killer. They’ve come to another alleyway, but Eldrian thinks this cannot possibly harbor a gateway to another world. It’s pitch-black and seedy; rats clamor over the trash and each other along the way. Their high-pitched squeaks send shivers along his skin each time he hears them. But Nellie and Roy insist on trying everything, no matter what the circumstances. He can feel the terror emanating off of them – he shares it, now, too. They huddle around each door, filled with trepidation each time Eldrian jams it into the slot. His fingers shake and his palms grow sweaty; sometimes he misses the keyhole entirely, and he senses their growing frustration and fear with each miss. “C’mon, we’re counting on you mate. C’mon!” Roy whisper-yells into his ear, Eldrian feeling the humidity of his breath. “I am trying! These hands are still strange.”
The shadow blends seamlessly into the darkness behind them. Nellie’s frantic eyes only see the sharpened fingers as a shadow against the wall in a patch of streetlight. She screams, but he is here. Jack is here for them, and they haven’t found the damn door. The monster yanks her feet out from under her, his signature move, and her panicked blue eyes find Eldrian’s. He has the key nearly in the old wooden door, though, and for the first time it slips in easily. Jack’s claws leave lacerations in Nellie’s exposed legs as she struggles to rise from the ground. Blood trickles from the wounds, runs in scarlet rivers down the length of her legs. Eldrian nearly abandons the door, remembering the weight of her delicate hand on his shoulder. But Roy measures the situation, sees that this is it, that this door will free them, and he dives at Jack. Surprised at this turn of events, the monster staggers backwards just enough to mostly release Nellie. One claw lingers in her calf, though. Eldrian feels the lock click open. He turns the handle and then turns back to the scene behind him. Jack has already overpowered Roy, pinning him with one clawed hand to the cobblestones. Roy’s tattered clothes are even more so, his mouth hangs open in slack-jawed shock. It is over for him, they all know. If they try and help him, Jack will surely escape through the door, continuing his reign of terror in a new place.
Eldrian pulls at Nellie’s outstretched arms, backing into the open door at the same time. With a final tug, she rips free of the last claw embedded in her leg. Blood sprays into the air, falling and splattering the street with crimson rain. Jack ends Roy’s life slowly, pulling him apart piece by piece. As Eldrian lurches forward to slam the door, he can see that the monster isn’t even trying to reach them, hasn’t noticed their fortunate escape. He’s too busy ripping off the arms and legs of a boy from London. He’s too immersed in shredding the skin from his face, his neck, his chest. When he hooks one claw around a rib and pulls (the light finally fading from Roy’s eyes) Eldrian closes the door, shaking uncontrollably.
I was looking for a breath of life another taste of divine rush
The blood is still hot at the back of her throat as she smiles a gluttonous little crooked smile and closes her eyes in a moment of bliss. Satiated, the thirst inside her id retreats for awhile, while the rest of her body floods with endorphins and it makes her very, very happy. Happy enough to find the roots of a tree and lay her big-ass, spotted body down to digestive her almost purely liquid meal. She hums in the back of her throat, gazing up at a cloudy sky and almost barren tree limbs before the world goes dark.
Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops… when the wind blows… the cradle will rock…
Shaytan wakes to a tauntingly coy voice, telling her to choose. Choose what? Oh, the doors. Well, since she asks so nicely. It’s kind of what she imagines Straia’s voice to sound like, somewhere in her darkest fantasies. Even though it doesn’t, and she knows it. But a girl can dream, can’t she? Shaytan looks to the doors and oh, how lovely! One is dripping with something dark (she assumes it’s blood, that’s just how her brain works) and the other is glowing. The answer is obvious isn’t it? Shaytan points to the (bloody) red door with a faint half-smile, never paying attention to the fact that her hooves are now hands and feet and she is a verified (though auburnesque) ginger. She is naked at the moment, with a boyish figure, all straight lines and small breasts; barely a womanly curve on her. A flesh and blood composite of a melded Ken and Barbie. Which is fitting, for Shaytan.
The door opens by itself, silently inviting Shaytan to cross its threshold. She has no choice, of course - there is only forward. But she does not hesitate, not with the possibility of more blood on her mind, and steps through, with the world going dark again.
Shaytan once again comes to, but this time the world is vastly different. Briefly, her mind flits back to the toybox and the melting and the pain - but this place is not like that. It stinks. It reeks of body odor and piss and smoke and other unidentifiable things. She’s alone in an alley, and when Shaytan pushes herself up off the cold, wet, cobbled ground, she finds herself wearing loose pants, boots that are slightly too large for her, a finely woven shirt… and nothing else. No smallclothes, everything very… free. Oh yes, she services men with a very particular taste… She reaches around to feel her hair, and finds it mussed, unruly and falling out of a high knot. With practiced ease, she twists it back up and under a hat again. Huh. Dressed like a man. That in itself is unusual. It’s dark, save for the faint glow of gaslight coming from the street, and a slightly ajar door in the back, left hand corner of the alley. Something tells her that that place is not for her - it is too warm, too pleasant. The smell of roasting meat drifts from the opening and it makes her belly rumble, though it is immediately drowned by the noise of London’s evening crowd (hawkers, whores, and the clip-clop of horses).
No, not that way. Not towards gentility. That is not her. She is a whore of the night, so out - out into the city streets.
Shaytan takes a few steps, and finds that her legs ache, particularly between them, and that her knees are stiff and then - that a purse swings between her unbound breasts. While still in the shadows of the alley, she pulls the leather coin purse out and empties it into her hand, finding a handful of coins (six shillings and three pence), an old, but small skeleton key, a lock of hair tied with twine, and a white feather. Weird. She empties it all back into the pouch and hides it in her clothes again, continuing back out into the dirty, dark streets of London.
“For fuck’s sake, Shay, wot took ya so long?” an impertinent, demanding voice assails her as soon as she comes back into the gaslight of the main street. Shaytan (henceforth known as Shay)looks to her left, and there’s a practically bare-breasted, painted woman (woman is generous - she couldn’t be more than fifteen) holding another little (and absurdly well dressed) girl’s hand. It isn’t what she expects (and who knows what Shay ever expects?); something clicks in the back of her mind - team, friends, and oh - their names are Rachel and Mary. “Yer John left ten minutes ago. Wotcha doin’ back there? Find a drunk un’ and steal ‘is purse? Or were ya getting yerself off?” Mary cackles wildly and Shay just rolls her eyes; friends is a loose term - they work the streets together, protecting each other instead of paying half their wages to a pimp. The girl isn’t a whore (yet), just some cute, grubby beggar child that took to tagging along. They turned Rachel into their main source of income, dressing her right and turning her loose to be a lost little well-off child. She’s turned into quite the regular pick-pocket though; those sky blue eyes and freckles sure do beguile the kindhearted, good ladies and men of London. She makes more money than any other five year old they know.
When Shay fails to retort, Rachel deems it safe and reaches out from around Mary’s’s skirts and inquires quietly, “Mummy?” Her small, thin, grubby face peers up at her. “Mummy?” Rachel calls out into the darkness, “Are you my mummy?” She giggles to herself, using the very words that beguile the old ladies and send them looking around - whilst she grabs the purse and runs.
The giggle quickly turns into a fit of coughing, and Shay looks at her with concern. She grabs the child’s face, looking into her eyes for glassy signs of fever, feeling her forehead for any extra bit of warmth on this cool, fall evening.
At that moment, the gaslight goes out, leaving the three of them in the shadows. A cool breeze sets her hair on end and sends goosebumps all over her body. All of a sudden, Shay notices that the three of them are all alone, which never fucking happens in London. Then there is scrabbling… scratching… the sound of something on the cobblestones in the alley behind makes her very uneasy. Too uneasy. “Come on, let’s move,” she says to Mary, picking Rachel up into her arms in a very uncharacteristic move. The sudden movement sends the girl back into a fit of coughing over Shay’s shoulder, and she shushs her irritably. Together, the three of them hurry down the street and back into the light. But as they reach each lamp, they all go out with a hiss. Incredibly unnerved, Shay glances up at each post and then behind her, and does not miss the bright red eyes that seem to glint back at her from everywhere she looks.
And when the bough breaks... the cradle will fall...
The eyes - the unearthly flash - the cobblestones - Shay catches a toe on the edge of an uneven one and goes stumbling forward. Instinctively, Shay reaches out to stop her fall, letting go of Rachel in the process, but with the little girl’s arms around her neck and her legs around her waist, the extra weight throws her off balance and the two of them go crashing down. Rachel shrieks, high and terrified, until her head hits the ground, the full force of Shaytan kept off her as she partially catches herself. But it’s enough for them to hear a couple of cracks, and to make the girl go silent. Mary spins around, hearing the commotion, and her own hands fly to her mouth in shock. But there is a growling behind them, a vicious, low sort of snarling that neither of them have ever heard before. The slobbering, piss-inducing sound comes from their nightmares, and when Mary looks behind Shay to see what it is, she too staggers backwards, screaming in terror.
Rachel’s hands are no longer clasped around her Shay’s neck, and though her head rocks back and forth upon the stones, leaving a sticky red smear beneath it; while her breath comes in soft moans, Shaytan’s all but forgotten about the girl beneath her. Flight or fight kicks in, and Shay doesn’t even think twice. The beast is stalking forward - some soft of monster with red eyes and a mouth full of teeth, with long razor-sharp nails; the form of it grows and then shrinks and then bristles and then walks like a man, and then slithers - but those murderous implements, they stay the same. As quickly as she can, Shay scrambles forward without looking behind her again, pushing Rachel down and accidentally (or is it?) kicking her head with flailing legs in her haste to save herself. The girl is doomed. The beast can smell her blood.
It’s either Rachel’s skin or hers; in that case her own will always win, because that is the nature of truly selfish beings. She wants it all - she wants Straia and she wants to live. Shay’s movement seems to wake Mary up and her partner turns to flee, intent on saving herself too. Shay manages to pull herself up to all fours, and is on her way to being fully upright - but the beast, the beast is just as greedy as Shay is, and one body is not enough. He lunges over Rachel and reaches for Shay, sinking a sharp talon into the leather of her shoes. “No!” she screams, kicking harder and more aggressively. “No! God, no! Mary, ‘elp!!”
Mary doesn’t give a fuck and doesn’t turn back, running as fast as she can (which isn’t very fast) in her whoring hells. Luck seems to be on Shay’s side, however, because her lady-sized foot is able to pull and pull and squeeze out of its cage. The moment she is free, she darts forward and starts sprinting away. It snarls at her, but doesn’t pursue, instead morphing into a devilishly handsome man with her boot in his hand. He calls out after her sprinting form, “You can’t hide from me!” before turning back to his snack. The little one is hardly a full supper…
It doesn’t take long before Shay catches up to Mary, and pulls her to the side. They are surrounded by people now, and her partner’s headlong sprint is turning quite a few heads. “Calm down and follow me,” Shay hisses into her ear, as she leads them around several corners and down a few more streets before stopping at a small wooden door, that is clearly the back entrance to a rather nice house. She pulls out the coin purse and fishes for something, pulling out the small skeleton key without an explanation. “Wot the fuck is -” Mary tries to ask her, but Shay interrupts with a very curt “- shut up and be quiet.” She unlocks the door and cautiously opens it, pulling Mary inside. After she just as cautiously closes it and locks it again, Shay slumps against the door in exhaustion. “Where are we?” Mary asks again, trying to discern objects in tthe dark (there are no candles or gaslights in this entryway).
“You know Mr. Davros? The gun merchant? ‘e’s my haf brover. ‘ates me, but family is family. in case of mergencies, gave me the key. We should be safe for - “ Unfortunately for Shay, she spoke too soon, because the childish, and now very eery voice of Rachel comes through the door behind her.
“Are you my Mummy?”
He found them. And realization of how easily he found them sends pure terror into their eyes.
She was nothing but a thought, nothing but a whisper in her mother’s womb and a twinkle in her father’s eyes. But already she was loved, fiercely loved, irrationally loved, fully wanted. Eona felt the sureness of that in her bones. She felt the rightness of it in her soul. She was powerful, she was wild, she was perfect. And she could do anything, would do anything she wanted. The world owed it to her. Through all the pain, and suffering and heartache, the world owed greatness, glory and honor to this one, beloved little girl. That too, she felt in her bones.
Safe within her mother’s womb, Eona turned and smiled. She was dreaming of a meadow, and then she was dreaming of two doors. She felt them in her mind, a perfect picture, though she had never seen a door, never even opened her eyes. The girl turned again, and the dream fell away, leaving her with nothing but human hands, feet and eyes. Eona stretched those fingers, and again she smiled. With these fingers she could open the doors, she could pick which ever one she wanted. The excitement of this thrummed in her veins. Not for a moment did she consider turning away from the doors. Not for a single heartbeat did she long for the safety of her mother’s womb. She felt adventure calling, tugging at her heartstrings. With a vicious, practiced, lethal lunge she sprang at the black door, faintly glowing and ominous.
The world Eona stepped into was one that was falling apart. On the other side, the ruins of a post apocalyptic city loomed. Tall, once mighty, skyscrapers had been felled by disaster and neglect. They tumbled to the cracked streets like kicked and trampled lego towers. Cars littered the abandoned roads, their doors thrown open, keys left carelessly in the ignition.
Warm, noon day sun hit Eona’s nearly ebony skin. She felt a bead of sweat start at her brow, and run down her nose and pool on her upper lip. Her arms were bare, her torso wrapped in a tank top, long, lithe legs in dirty jeans. Her boots were combat, thick black affairs used primarily to kick ass. Boots she used to walk over slaughter without getting her feet wet. Eona bit her full bottom lip, first in confusion and then in surprise, when a roar from just down the street startled her.
“EONA!” Came her father’s roar, answered by the screeching, keening, wailing sound of the undead. The girl spun around, and saw her father, Fennick, hurtling towards her. His skin was torn and bleeding, his eyes wild, both with fright (for her she realized) and with blood lust. Already he had that glow about him. That wild glow that spoke of adrenaline fueled exhilaration and tightly reined and checked terror. It was the type of bound terror that caused cities to fall at the conquer’s feet, that pushed men to complete, to succeed, at the impossible. At his heels a vicious brown and black dog snapped and snarled. The dog had a hand in her mouth, a rotting gray hand that she devoured even as she ran.
There was no terror in Bertha’s dog eyes. Just the feral joy of the hunt, and the rightness of running at her master’s side.
Eona stiffened when she saw what chased her father and dog. It was the owner of the rotting hand, and 50 of his closest buddies. They were two, maybe three blocks away, not yet gaining, but setting a punishing pace. Her father hurtled down the street, vaulting up and over the hood of a car in one powerful leap. Bertha followed, dropping the hand as she did to release a long, chilling howl that rose over the zombie’s keening wails.
Before Eona knew what she was doing, before she stopped to wonder if she should, she ran to join them. She ran away from the glowing door, away from the safety of her mother’s womb, and to certain death and destruction at the father’s side. She loved it. She breathed it in, letting her terror loose of a second, giving it its head before tightly reining it back, before binding it and using it to speed her steps.
“Give me a knife.” She said, quietly, viciously, for she ran close enough to Fennick to feel his warm shoulder brush against hers, to hear the heaving of his breath louder than her own. Her father looked at her coldly, his eyes glinting dangerously.
“You should be with your mother, Eona, you should be safe.” He and Bertha had been running a long time, but his words managed to be hard, even if they came in short gasps. Bertha whimpered at their heels, sad to be ignored, and licked Eona’s pumping arm on the downswing. The girl just snorted, and cast him a look that twinkled and gleamed.
“And yet I am by you side, and always will be.” Fennick grunted in response, but Eona could hear the pride in it. She could feel the love washing off him and onto her, like waves against the shore. After another moment, Fennick handed her the knife from his belt, a wicked hunting knife used for gutting animals, slightly curved at the tip and serrated. Another moment, and he had freed the scimitar sheathed at his back. Eona grinned widely. The scimitar had always been her favorite of her father’s blades. She could use it too. She wielded it like the claws on a mountain cat, or the talons on a hawk. It was her claw, her talon. Bertha leapt towards her again, frantically licking at the hand that held the knife. The dog was growing bored, bored of their fleeing. But, she knew what that knife meant. She wanted a new hand a chew, and new throat to rip open, and soon she would get it. Eona agreed whole heartedly. Even if they could outrun the horde forever, she wouldn’t want to. She wanted to wet the side of her blades, she wanted to feel them plunge in and out of flesh, to saw through bone.
Fennick could their impatience. He felt his daughter’s bloodlust like you could feel a pot boiling in another room. It was a low, bubbling hiss that grew louder until it sloshed over the side and screamed against the burner. It might have bothered other men, to have a daughter such as this. It did not bother him. She was elegant and feminine and utterly wild, a piece of nature ripped from its home in the dark, untamed places of the world. He knew that. He had always known that, deep in his bones, his daughter was not like him. She was the best of him, all wrapped up in a killing calm. So it was with a bit of fear for her, but a great deal more inevitability, that he said,
“Sweep around the side. Take Bertha, kill them off.” Fennick, long and lean and leggy, could run until his heart exploded. He would run to his death if it meant his daughter would live. But, there was one thing she didn’t need to know. She didn’t need to know about the bite on his side. She didn’t need to know that they were running to an escape he could never take. He would get her free, but then she would need to free him.
For now, he would let her think that this was a game. They could not hide from the horde, and they could not outrun them indefinitely. Not even Fennick could outrun them forever, the curse would take him right before his heart gave out. But Eona, didn’t feel that, she didn’t feel the sickness leaking from her father. She felt nothing but a singing elation as she broke away from him and swept back toward the side of the horde. Bertha, like the shadow of an avenging angel, followed her.
And so it went. First the stragglers met the sharp side of her blades. Sometimes they died up close with the knife, like a bitter lover’s embrace. Sometimes they died from far away, felled with her scimitar like a god sending death from on high. Next, the zombies on the edge met their end. Bertha, immune to the illness in their bite, leapt at them, happy to maul and eat and tear. When their target was distracted or down, Eona would strike. She cleanly severed its head, neat and efficient, like a schoolmarm teaching class. The zombies hardly saw her, even as she delivered their death they hardly noticed her. She was a shadow, an inhuman thing that floated easily among them. Their dead, soulless eyes saw nothing but her father, or Bertha. They glowed with life so Eona could be shadowed in death. They were the perfect distraction so the real fear could take hold. Fennick, running in front, was their beacon. His love, his unbridled life, soon to be ended, was like the sweetest wine.
Eona, Bertha and Fennick left a trail of carnage behind them.
They had fully halved the horde by the time it started gaining. Eona had excepted this, she had prepared for the moment they would have to stand and fight. Her father, for all his feet had wings, was not invincible. She stopped her reckless killing and caught up to him. It was easier than she had expected it to be, and it spoke to how little time they had.
He was staggering when she caught him. He was staggering forward, hardly running at all, but determined to put a little more space between them and the horde. Eona moved to run to him. For the first time she was scared, scared of his palor. But, before she could reach him, Bertha dove between them. She snarled and snapped at the man she loved. Eona sucked in a breath, and her blood went cold. Never, not in the four years had they been together, had Bertha failed to greet Fennick with warm liquid eyes and an unwarranted outpouring of dogish love and devotion. The three of them ground to a halt, thought they had only moments to spare.
He was turning, more than anything else, Eona knew that. Her father was turning.
“Dad.” Eona sobbed, and still she tried to move closer. Fennick raised a hand, and his feverish eyes glinted dangerous.
“Don’t Eona. Not another step.” Eona shook with fear, but did as she was told. Fennick took a took a deep shuddering breath, and it was obvious that it pained him. Soon he would not need to breathe, and already his body was casting off the function of it. Bertha whimpered, a mournful and tragic sound. The dog sat heavily on the ground, one meaty haunch on Eona’s foot. Bertha whined again, and pawed at the air between them and Fennick. The man saw the motion and spared the dog a smile. Another gasp, and he forced words from his throat.
“There is a door, Eona, just over there.” Eona looked where he was pointing, and sure enough, there was a brown, wooded door. It was plain, and hanging oddly in the middle of the street. Fennick viciously ripped a skeleton keep from a cord around his neck, and handed it to her.
“Take the door, take Bertha, and stay safe. Whatever you do, Eona, stay safe, and know that your father loved you.” Eona was holding back sobs. Shakily, but without fear, the snatched the key that was dangling from his fingers. His out stretched hand was shaking, and as Eona got closer his mouth opened and closed, snapping without his permission. His mouth gaped, an ancient reflex realized, a need to feed. Eona let the sob she had been holding back escape.
Without hesitating, with nothing but sorrow in her eyes, she raised her scimitar and slashed. Her father’s head came easily from his body, as if it had been waiting for its chance to spring free. This was the first corpse, the first pile of meat Bertha did not try to eat. The dog just tilted her silky and gore covered head back. For a second they just stood there, the dog singing the howling dirge Eona felt in her heart. With barely a moment left, Eona and Bertha turned away, opened the door and tumbled into the unknown.
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