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- Joined
- Mar 7, 2019
It always began, and ended, the same...
Rowan woke up in her bedroom, eyes on the bright, aqua wall she'd begged her mom to paint when she was just eight years old. She had wanted to be a mermaid so badly, and imagined her room to be an underwater sanctuary. The paint job had never finished, and now, as Rowan sat up in her bed looking at the stripes and hatches of blue paint over white walls, she felt… what was the word?
A sound from outside the cracked door pulled her from her introspection. Sliding the sheets from her legs, she placed her muddy, duct-taped boots on the pristine floor and stood.
The house felt like her house, but as she opened the door and stepped down the hall, it wasn't her house at all. Sterile walls and flickering fluorescent lights strung along the ceilings stretched down an impossibly long corridor, enhancing the echo of her mother's lullaby. Rowan took a tentative step down the passage, then another, another, again, until she was running. Running like time was expiring. Her heart pounded in her chest, her lungs threatened to burst from the effort, and in the distance she heard the chattering, pitchy cry of the monsters. She felt their claws tearing up the dirt behind her.
Sensed their jaws chomping at her heels. As the ground came out from under her feet, swelling toward her face and hands, Rowan knew she was captured.
Flipped onto her back, she felt the leather strapping her to the icy metal gurney. The thick bands holding down her wrists, ankles and waist. Disfigured men in their gray shirts and white jackets hovering around the table as they descended upon her with knives and forks in their hands, slobbering over their next meal. She struggled against the belts, thrashing side to side. The swelling sound of rain falling reaching it's crescendo as Rowan broke free from the harnesses with a carnal scream.
Her eyes snapped open, finger steady on the trigger as she carefully tuned her ears to anything that didn't belong. After several minutes of tense readiness, Rowan slowly slid her finger away from the trigger of her rifle, flicked the safety back on, and stood up while sliding the rifle to her back in one swift motion. She preferred not to use her firearms anyway. Without silencers, the crack of the shots were too loud, and spread far too wide, attracting dangers of all makes and models to her location, though when it came to a quick defense, nothing else beat it.
Rowan's camp was nothing more than a tree stump with just enough flat ground surrounding her for her to lean back against the gnarled roots comfortably - or at least comfortably enough - to get in an hour of shut eye. Far from any old roads where raiders might travel, and surrounded by thick underbrush so the likelihood of any creature sneaking up on her without making a sound was unlikely. She rarely slept for very long, and when she did, it wasn't deep. She operated on a constant hairpin trigger, though she must not be getting the real rest she needed… It wasn't very often that Rowan slipped so far into unconsciousness that she dreamt, but when she did, the dream was always the same.
Lifting her bag over her shoulder, she readjusted her scarf and goggles and then set out.
There was care and thought put into her clothing. She wore many layers, protecting herself from the cold and wet winter months in what used to be Colorado. Skin tight, fleece-lined leggings and a thermal long-sleeved shirt kept her skin protected under the layer of denim jeans and old band T-shirt. On their own, those two layers of clothing served one purpose: to keep her warm, but they didn't keep her protected. Her outermost layer was the most important. Fatigues two sizes too big covered her from ankle to wrist. The flame-retardant material bulky and unforgiving when it came to body shape, making it appear as though she were broader, and boxier. Muting her natural curves to keep up the guise that she was nothing more than a short man. Combat boots laced up her ankles tightly, with the end of her pants stuffed within to keep the too-long material from scuffing along the ground and making noise as she moved. The military style jacket she wore wasn't anything that would be issued at any base, but it blended with her surroundings and had a hood to help her again with the elements, and obscuring her features. Under the hood, and holding back her long, red hair, was a black wool beanie. Should anyone come across her, whether by chance or design, it wouldn't be a woman they thought of when they saw her.
Traveling parallel to a main highway, Rowan was careful to remain out of sight. On some stretches it was nearly impossible, the flat plains making it easy to spot any movement for miles, but here she had the sparse cover of a thin forest of trees. Until the weak, simpering sound of someone calling faintly for help reached her ears.
Coming to a crouch, Rowan lifted one gloved hand up and pulled the fabric of her hood a little further from her ear, holding her breath less she miss the sound again.
'...h h hheeelllp p p…'
Her head turned, looking up the embankment toward the road. It was coming from the road.
'... p p pleeeeease… h helppp m m meee…'
Grinding her teeth together, Rowan tried to tell herself to move on. It wasn't worth it. Whoever it was was probably dead already, or worse: infected. To assist them in any way was to put herself at great risk. She should go. She should slip deeper into the forest and continue on the path she had already charted, already walked, hundreds of times. So why was she slipping her pack off of her shoulders? Because something deep within Rowan's being wouldn't let her walk by someone suffering. A fatal character flaw, she was sure, but one she just couldn't suppress.
With her rifle still slung over her shoulder, and her knife in hand, Rowan crept closer to the sound of the voice, careful to approach the road from an angle that wouldn't reveal where she had stashed her backpack. She climbed up the embankment downwind of the whimpers and pleas for help, crouching low behind the shield of a long-ago abandoned Ford Ranger.
'... p pleeeeeease… somebod d dy…! Pleeeeeease…'
The sound was closer to her now, though she didn't respond. Her skin tensed with goosebumps, her hair on end as she darted quickly and silently between cars; stopping against every one and listening for more than just the broken cries for help.
'.. I c can't… m move.... please!'
They were closer, much closer now, but Rowan couldn't get her eyes on the source of the sound. They must be inside a vehicle. Sliding past a Volkswagen van and a Honda Civic, Rowan's eyes hovered on the school bus skewed across the road; back end crumpled in where a semi had struck it. The entire scene started to feel wrong, but the voice was coming from inside the bus, and it sounded propelled by the sudden understanding that someone was nearby.
'P please! Please! Help meeeee!'
With a low, frustrated grunt at her own idiocy, Rowan forged forward. She rounded the bus, eyes carefully searching her surroundings for others, when she finally made it to the open accordion door, and the steps leading up into the interior of the bus.
What she found shouldn't have surprised her. A man laid between two of the seats, his legs and arms removed from his body. He was covered in blood, battered and bruised, and black rot had begun to spread up what remained of his useless stumps toward the trunk of remnants of his body. His teeth were broken and rotting, his eyes yellow, and murky. She felt her stomach twist into knots.
'... p p pleeeeease…' the thing moaned, bloody tears streaking down it's hollow cheeks, 'help… meee….'
Rowan cursed, her grip shifting on her blade as her weight rocked on the balls of her feet. Run her instincts told her, RUN! but she was too dumbstruck by the horrific sight. Her boots sealed to the rubber floor of the bus as a high pitched, trilling sound swept up around the bus. Five raiders, their ripped, mutilated faces raw, red and scabbed from their own insane tearing, surrounded the bus. The largest, and clearly the leader of this troop, scrambled into the bus eager to consume it's fresh prize.
It's attack was clumsy, but fueled by strength and desperation. One against one, Rowan had a chance, but with the others clamoring to get a piece, she was doomed. With flight no longer being an option, Rowan had no other path than to fight, and with the lunge of her attacker, she launched into survival mode.
