THE BLEEDING HEART

Survivor: Beverly McNeil. 34. American. Current Location: Traveling with the True Path. Russia. Points: 60.

[beverlymcneil-blog]

doctorbyrd:

Making teal, even after all this time, is a small ritual – it always has been, something she’s done with ease and familiarity since she was a child, something she could do with her eyes closed, something she’s done in every difficult emotional moment of her life if she could manage. It is, she knows, something of a stereotype, but it’s true: it’s what her mother did, at every turn. When her grandfather died, the first thing her mother had done was make tea. When she failed an exam for the first time, her mother had made tea. It was, simply, what was done, and so she set to the task automatically, barely thinking about the motions as she went through them, even now that making tea wasn’t quite the same put-the-kettle-on, find-your-favorite-mug, pour-in-a-splash-of-milk affair it had once been.

She had a few tin mugs, somewhere, ones she more often used as bowls. She found two, gave them a quick rinse to make sure there was no soil lurking inside.

She feel easily into talking to Beverly, easier than she would have liked. The walls she kept up had served her well, but the woman seemed to know just how to lull her into letting them down, just a little, just enough. 

     ‘A boy, looking for medicine,’ she answered. ‘A hunter, with half a deer carcass to trade for medical supplies. A young woman with a green thumb, for a day or two.’ There had been the regulars, the few people who passed through whenever they needed a safe haven, but nothing remarkable, as of late. Nothing worth noting, really. Beverly was the most interesting person to stop by in weeks, the closest Donna came to having a friend drop in for a visit. The factions had been keeping their distance, and that was just fine with Donna, who had no interest in their politics or machinations, no interest in men with too much power at the end of the world.

Beverly seemed to like the safety of the group with whom she’d found herself. If she’d been someone else, Donna might have questioned it, but it was hard not to accept Beverly for what she was, when she was so open and honest about everything.

     ‘And you? Doing alright, out there?’

She didn’t think she would have made it this far, this long, without the support of a faction around her. Didn’t know how anybody else managed it, out on their own with no one to trust. The world had changed so much and so quickly, it changed more every day—as it decayed, and as they kept moving, searching for somewhere where they could put down roots. In all that chaos, a faction was stability, familiar faces to find comfort in when everything else seemed so uncertain and new. If there was any relief to be found in this world, for Beverly it was this: having people that knew her, and knowing them in turn.

If it had been just her, she would have made the same choice. But it also hadn’t been just her. She’d had another life yoked to hers, and she’d felt the weight of that responsibility acutely, and felt too weak to hold up underneath it. Every day, she did what she could to not be a burden, tried to find the ways that she could help, tried to believe and believe loudly, so no one else would doubt. And then every night, she wondered if it was enough.

So she held a faction in between herself and a world that seemed so cruel, but that world was still out there, and at times she felt an unrelenting curiosity about it. And a curiosity about the people who lived in it: how they survived and how they made the choices about how they survived; whether they dreamed about a better future and if it looked like hers. Donna seemed to live in that world, though at a distance, a greenhouse’s walls in between her and it—a distance a little like the one created by Beverly and her faction.

But maybe the distance was a little less, and Beverly liked to hear the stories, liked to hear about the people that Donna met. Liked to know, too, that she was safe—Beverly couldn’t do much to give safety to anyone, but she still wished it for them.  

“As alright as anybody can be, I guess. Still looking for somewhere—somewhere where we can build something, you know? Something like what you have here, something that can last. That can overcome.” She didn’t know where it would be, or when they would find it, if it was something that would appear to them once they’d passed the test, proven themselves strong and worthy. If that was the case, and she wasn’t strong enough, was she holding them all back? It didn’t bear thinking about and so she didn’t, focused her attention fully on Donna, asking: “Do you ever think about it? Being part of a community again, not having it be just you?”

[rosalesernesto-deactivated20180]

location: outside tula, russia time: recent past availability: @beverlymcneil​

Of all the stories he’d heard of the factions that roamed so close to his own, it is the True Pathers that had drawn both fear and curiosity in Ernesto. The tales of dark pagan-like rituals and self sacrifice by flame seemed nearly too tall a tale to believe when he’d first heard word of it.  In fact, for some time he didn’t believe it at all, chalking it up as the result of some poor fool’s radiated mind. That was until he began to come across strange burn sites in the forests. 

In the beginning he thought it was old campsites, and the charred bone fragments he’d find in the ash piles were simply the leftovers of some stranger’s supper. But then the sites grew more in number, and the bones much larger than that of any wolf or unlucky fox. It is when he finds the remnants of some poor soul’s self-immolation, when he can no longer run away from the dark truth that dwelled in the woods not so far away from his own faction. 

Being his goal to find out more about the world outside his small community, Ernesto reluctantly began to hunt down more information about this bizarre cult. Staying far away from their camps so as not to draw suspicion, but close enough to learn more. It is as he’s doing this when by chance he runs into a member of the group, finding her alone and knitting of all things in a quiet patch of forest. This chance meeting would soon turn into a habit for the two of them, as Ernesto aimed to learn more of the cult she was apart of, and found himself actually enjoying the woman’s company. 

It is one of these little meetings of their’s he currently finds himself heading to, and per usual when he happens on their usual spot she’s already fast at work on a new project of her’s. “You are going to whittle your fingers to bone, you know”, he smiles, stepping out into the small clearing she occupied. Loba is not far behind him, and quickly trots over to the woman to greet her. Before joining them, he shrugs his bag off his shoulder and digs through its contents, pulling out a large bundle of mutli-colored yarn and tossing it in her direction. “Here, mi amiga, for you.” 

[beverlymcneil-blog]

Despite the lines drawn between them, people divided into groups and factions and lone stragglers just trying to survive, Beverly had to believe that they weren’t all so different, that they all wanted the same thing. That if they could choose a better way of life than this, they would. Those that fought and hurt and killed, they didn’t do it because they liked it, but because they felt that they had to, because they couldn’t see another way.

But Beverly could—and she could because the True Pathers could, because they had shown her, because they held hope that there was something better waiting on the other side of these troubles, if only they believed, if only they stayed strong and true.

She’d been with them for a long time now, had spent more time sheltered within their ranks than she’d ever spent on her own. Maybe that made her different from those that came to them after more time spent alone and suffering, because she felt a relentless curiosity for how the rest of humanity was faring, and an unrelenting compassion that would have her open her heart to anyone who stirred it. 

And so, though he was outside of her faction, Ernesto had become something of a friend. Someone who could create small pieces of beauty out of the destruction that surrounded them was someone who had to have a certain kind of gentleness to their soul, and that was something Beverly just couldn’t pass up—that and he could be a good source of yarn, which not all traders knew to take and carry, unless they’d already met her, knew there was someone out there who wanted it.

“Have to keep my hands busy, you know?” She greeted him with a smile, and Loba with a pat to her head. She’d been only a passable knitter before the bombs fell, had gotten much better since then out of a kind of necessity, even if it was a necessity she’d imposed on herself. Sometimes she had hope that she’d find a book or something, something to give her a better idea of the things she could, instead of her own kind of trial and error whenever she tried to move beyond scarves or hats—or the fingerless gloves she was working on currently, so she’d be able to warm her palms but keep the grip and agility of her fingertips. 

But she abandoned her needles now in favor of turning her attention to Ernesto, and to the gift of new yarn he’d brought her. It was good quality, just waiting to be made into something that would keep someone warm. “Have you been well? Need anything that we might be able to give you?” Maybe it was instrumental, a trade for a trade, but she liked to think of it as more than that: if it was done in friendship, then it was a gift for a gift.

[beverlymcneil-blog]

colonelstonewall:

It was rare to come across someone so open and willing to talk, someone who greeted him with a smile and kind words, instead of suspicion and hatred. He understood, of course. Hell, he was the same way; it was the only way you survived out there, after all. But being greeted so differently, being treated as another human being instead of a potential danger made him realize just how much he missed that normalcy, how much he craved it.

Even something as small as having lived a few hours away from each other back at home felt enormous when you hadn’t been spoken to with any real personal care in years. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t close to those members of the Days he had been with since the start; quite the contrary, they meant as much to him as each and every cadet who had passed through his classes back at home did. But that was different. That was based on survival, all talk of the past a fleeting thought, more concerned with where their food would come from, and what ammunition they needed to trade for.

And so the conversation, almost immediately turning into something so completely normal, the sort of conversation he might’ve had years ago with a fellow soldier he met in the army who had said they were from Ohio, made him relax in a way he hadn’t relaxed in God only knew how long. He still had his defenses up, just in case, but it was easier to breathe, the constant headache didn’t seem quite so bad, the tension in his shoulders loosening as she spoke, her smile warming him.

“Stonewall is just fine, ma’am, unless you were in the military yourself. It is what brought me here, yes, one last mission to Moscow. Obviously didn’t go quite as planned,” he explained, leaving out the fact that he was still certain that the mission had been a ruse, designed specifically to keep him and his partner from making it home. Max; even just talking to another American, talking about home, as long gone as it was now, made him ache for the other man. Still, after five long years, the wound felt as fresh as it had the day of the blast.

“Peace Corps, well how ‘bout that! Bet you were doing good work out there. I understand that language barrier; I do speak Russian, but most people out here who speak Russian seem to find Southern Russian hard to understand,” Stonewall laughed. “So I’m awfully glad we ran into each other. You can drive yourself plumb crazy surviving off of half-formed conversations. I’m glad to lend an ear.”

His mind was now full of memories of home, though, and there was an itch he couldn’t help but scratch, just on the off chance she had heard anything, seen anything. It had been years since he had asked anyone, despite the hope he still harbored, but meeting Beverly here now felt a lot like the universe was giving him permission to hope for a little bit more of home again.

“You haven’t by any chance come across another American out here, have you? His name is Max, around my age, my height, former U.S. Army as well. Handsome devil. It’s a long shot, but I’ve gotta ask.”

She’d thought that she’d done what she could, to keep a measure of civility in her life. A faction that held hope that they could start again as a community, as families. But it was such work, and it showed when she saw how easy it could be to talk to somebody who spoke her language so effortlessly, who knew her home. If was such a relief, that she knew it would be a struggle all of its own to walk away, to begin the lonely trek to where the rest of her companions were, to prepare to move on yet again in search of that perfect home that was waiting for them somewhere.

“I’d hoped to—do good work, I mean. Seems hard to believe that it mattered at all now, though, you know? Might as well have just stayed home.” She smiles like it’s a joke, but she can’t help but show the bit of strain. And feel a little guilty, as well: she’d saved a life other than her own. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been there. That had to count for something. That did count for something.

There were times that she wondered: did anyone else survive the horror that orphanage had become? It seemed hard to imagine. They’d been so afraid, so unprepared, it had been all carnage and panic—and, when she’d emerged, all stillness, the dead that had risen had cleared out, presumably, when there was nothing left alive to sustain them. (And then she also couldn’t help but wonder: did she do the right thing, shutting the doors when she did? Could she have saved more of them, children and staff alike, if she’d kept a cool head, waiting to see if anyone else could be pulled inside? Or, if she had waited, would she had just damned herself and the one life she did manage to save? Sometimes, she could accept that she did her best. What she would never be sure of, however, was whether her best could ever be enough.)

There were people she wondered about, of course. She’d lived as full of a life as she could, and when she thought of the sheer number of people she knew t felt overwhelming, starting from the children and staff in the orphanage and moving outwards to her next-door neighbors in her Romanian apartment, to the grocer that she chatted with once a week when she did her shopping, and on and on from there. But though it could seem overwhelming, trying to count up all the lives that hers had brushed up against, they lacked a certain weight. The people that really mattered to her were back in the United States—her parents, mostly, her sponsor, the friends from college she’d managed to make and keep. She wondered about them, she ached to know if they were alright, but she resigned herself to never knowing, to having no way to know. 

There was nobody for her to ask about. Nobody that she held hope of some stranger running across. He did have someone, and she didn’t know if that hope was a bad or a good thing—right now, it seemed bad to her, because she knew she could only dash it, though she wished it were otherwise. “I’m sorry, I haven’t. But—if I ever do, I can tell him that you’re looking for him. And I have companions, I can ask them to do the same. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

[wordsnquotes]

I am made of more; more than tears, more than heartache, more than all of this.

Tyler Knott Gregson (via antigonies)

[beverlymcneil-blog]

zoyasokolov:

She was a brush stroke in a watered down white, with the features of a girl scribbled upon it. Just a pale pink mouth, the black center of her light eyes swelling to adjust to the dark room, she stepped forward soundlessly, cautiously, like she was edging at something that was known to bite. Like the woman could be a viper rearing from a woven basket, waiting to strike.

The hat felt heavy in her hand. A gift? Her eyebrows drew together as she put together it’s meaning. The red wasn’t practical for this world, her own clothing was a swath of greys and browns, colour in the fabric had washed out in the dust and dirt. The woven loops would be nothing more than a target on her head, a bullseye without any rings around it.

Zoya tossed it back, not willing to get too close, letting it land on the rough wooden planks that made up the floor of the church. It sat there at the woman’s feet, and for a moment she felt bad giving it back. There was something still human in the woman’s face, something kind lined her eyes. She was out of place here, not only with her brash American accent. She would need protecting, Zoya decided, she hadn’t gone the same way the twins had.

“Thank you,” she said slowly, taking her time to stumble over the two words and still managing to turn them into a mess of soft Russian vowels. “Zoya,” she said, jabbing at her chest before repeating her name again. Yuri would laugh at her now, trying to communicate like a monkey in the zoo, but there was something about the woman that captivated her. She had a mother’s face.

She was surprised, when the hat landed at her feet again. A frown crossed her face, momentarily, but she tried quickly to wipe it away—she had offered, and the other woman was well within her rights to choose whether or not she wanted to accept. That was what a gift meant. She still made no move to pick it up: she would still do as she originally intended, leave it here for someone who could use it, who wanted it, to find and keep. Even if that wasn’t the woman who had found it first, someone would.

And it appeared, quickly, that she hadn’t meant her rejection of part of Beverly’s gift as a rejection of Beverly herself, thanking her even though she hadn’t taken from Beverly what Beverly had willingly chosen to part with. She wondered, then, what was going through her mind: what she was thinking, what she needed, if it wasn’t a hat. Maybe something else to keep her warm, maybe a pair of gloves—but those were harder to make, took more time, and even then hardly ever came perfectly out of Beverly’s knitting needles: one a metal one found forgotten in an old farmhouse with its pair nowhere in sight, the other carved out of wood to match. 

She wondered other things as well: if she was alone as she seemed; if she was, how she was faring on her own; and then, the question that always rose in the back of her mind when she met someone who didn’t present immediately as a threat—could she help her? Would she join the True Path? Did she need it, in the way that Beverly had? A part of her knew, even without any of them having to tell her, that they couldn’t take in any stray Beverly found. That not everyone would accept their ways, or believe their beliefs.

She never thought she become so evangelical, but it was hard not to want the refuge that had opened to her for other people, especially for a lone female traveler that seemed like someone Beverly could easily have been—if she’d managed to survive as long as this woman had, which Beverly didn’t necessarily think she would have. Once again, words seemed inadequate, but as long as the other woman—Zoya—was willing to try, then Beverly would as well. “Zoya?” She repeated, though it sounded a lot less beautiful, coming from her mouth and in her accent. “I’m Beverly.“

And then, carefully, because she couldn’t not ask but because she didn’t want it to be taken in a way she didn’t mean, if they’d even be understood—and she hoped they would: “Are you alone?”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

doctorbyrd:

Beverly came to trade frequently enough, on behalf of her people, that Donna had started setting things aside from her – food, yes, and medicinal herbs that the group, Echinacea and lavender and marigold, but also things for Beverly, every wool sweater she could convince someone to part with, ever woven object ready for unravelling. 

But Beverly had surprised her, this time, with what she had to offer in return. 

Tea, good British tea was something impossible to recreate, even in her greenhouse. There wasn’t enough sun to grow the right kind of leaves; it was never dry enough to properly dry them out. And even when she had water hot enough to brew her pathetic attempts at anything resembling the drink that had once been her anchor in every storm, there was always the absence of milk – just a splash – to complete the experience, to make her feel like everything was alright again.

But the sight of tea bags, real tea bags, was almost enough to bring her to tears, though she blinked once and banished away the thought. She’d thought no trade could be more precious to her than supplies to keep her generator going, but she had, apparently, been wrong. It was just that she’d never expected to see tea again, once the world had crumbled around her. 

She took the bags from Beverly with reverent hands, held one up to the light to examine it: the girl was right, no mold in sight. She brought it up to her nose, smelled it – earl bloody grey, and wasn’t that just a– well, Donna didn’t believe in miracles, Maria had always been the spiritual one, but she was tempted to let that slide, if just for now. 

     ‘Suppose the only way to know is to find out, hmm?’ she said, her eyes lingering on the bag for a moment too long as she made her way to the hot plate, the pot there, and bent down to retrieve some water from the tub beneath the workbench. 

It was only then that she finally made eye contact with Beverly, hoping she would be able to convey her gratitude without betraying her put together exterior. The woman had that effect, sometimes, the way the soft lines of her face, her unassuming compassion, made Donna think too often of the woman she had lost, years and years ago, half a mile from here. 

     ‘Would you like a cup, then, before you go?’

Sometimes Beverly felt like all heart, like no matter how many wounds she had suffered, the scar tissue never quite grew where it needed to, never made her stronger, just left her open and tender. Donna didn’t seem to be like that, she seemed to keep a part of herself locked down tight, a surface that didn’t give too much away. Beverly didn’t know if she’d been like that before, or if it was something she’d had to become. But, either way, it did make Beverly pay attention, try to miss anything that might be unsaid, lurking just underneath.

She’d held onto the tea once she found it, because she’d thought about Donna, and thought it might please her—and it seemed to, in a quiet way. And it was a small thing, maybe, but it was the kind of thing she tried to hold onto. She tried to do what she could, for who she could, when it didn’t seem like it’d be stealing out of the mouths of the people she’d tied her survival to, that she struggled together with day after day and would always try to help first.

It was a delicate balance, but one that felt essential to her own survival. What anchored her here in this dark new world were moments like this one, where she could give someone something; where life seemed like it could be something more than just hurting and fighting and taking. That kept her holding on, in hopes that it would be something more than that once again. She didn’t know if everyone else had those same hopes. She thought that the True Pathers did, that they had a purpose that stretched beyond just tomorrow, that led somewhere she wanted to go. She thought that maybe Donna did, too. If she didn’t, then Beverly wanted that for her.

And, if she were being honest with herself, she’d saved the tea not just to give it to her, but to share it with her, a gesture of friendship that she hoped would be returned in kind. And, in another small way, it was nice: to get something that she wanted, something she’d hoped for. Let her smile as bright as she could even if it wasn’t as bright as it would have been once. “If you don’t mind,” she said, following behind Donna as she moved around, comfortable in her own space. And then, taking the invitation as tacit permission to make more idle conversation: “How have things been, here? Met anyone interesting lately?”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

Promise me the morning comes, promise me the setting sun Promise me the ground below, promise me the winter snow Promise me this cup will pass, promise me the bread will last Someday I will believe

[beverlymcneil-blog]

colonelstonewall:

He was taken aback for a split second as she suddenly launched into an introduction, but he could understand where it was coming from. That was what happened out here, with so much solitude, any sort of kindness or even civility a real rarity when you ran into another human. There was something very honest and open about her, though, despite all that, and it wasn’t just because of how she talked.

As soon as he heard where she was from, the wariness that had carried over from seeing her offering of hat and can, the worry of a potential trap, flew out the window. He holstered his gun again finally, and put his hands on his hips in disbelief, unable to keep the surprised grin from his face.

“Well, no shit, Ohio?! I’m from Kentucky. Down past Morehead, little place called Beattyville. It’s a shithole, but it was home. I was up in West Point, New York before all of this, though,” he said with a vague wave of a hand, as if not talking about the utter destruction of the world. 

It felt almost strange to have such normal conversation here, like they were two Americans running into each other on a vacation, and not after a nuclear apocalypse.  And he realized that he missed it. He missed casual conversations, where it wasn’t always about where are we heading next, do we have enough food to get by, do we have enough ammunition? Maybe it was nice to play at normal, even for a second. He was too used to the guilt and bitterness that had crept up on him after realizing he wasn’t going to find Max, that he hadn’t been there to protect all of his cadets like he’d promised, realizing saving another life might’ve been the wrong choice, even so.

He wasn’t likely to get anything more from her than that, but he had to argue that maybe the kindness, and the brief connection was enough to make it more worth it than any amount of ammunition he might’ve found.

“Nice to meet you there, Beverly. James Patrick Stonewall, U.S. Colonel, but most just call me Stonewall nowadays,” he said, tipping his hat slightly. “We’ve got another American traveling with us, but it’s still a surprise to run into someone I don’t have to pull out the Russian with. Russia’s a long way from Ohio, ma’am.”

Beverly might have felt foolish, once again girlish and young, for babbling at a near-stranger if he didn’t seem to welcome it, didn’t seem so kind in return. Never mind that thinking of home felt like picking at a scab, a wound not healed over, no matter how many times she tried to cauterize it with the touch of hot fire to her skin—she was made for this, for making her way through the world with hands outstretched, full of bumbling kindness; she wasn’t suited to wary looks and drawn pistols, not when she didn’t even have a pistol to draw.

Kindness wasn’t a weapon, it was an instrument of peace instead of one of war. A little common ground, and he was holding a smile instead of a gun, the latter safely tucked away on his belt again. She hadn’t felt afraid, truly—past the initial moment surprise of seeing a strange figure in a doorway when she expected to see nothing but empty air, the oppressive stillness of all the ghost towns she’d seen in the past several years—but she still felt warmed to see it, a silent but overt offer of trust.

Beverly wasn’t immune to the cloud of suspicion that seemed to blanket the world, she still felt when it was lifted, when another person was a person to her, instead of a potential threat, something that could stand between her and her continued survival, if they chose to. And then, looking at him was just like looking into a mirror, the questions that came quickly to mind didn’t even need to be asked, because she could feel the answers coming from within her:

Do you miss home? (Yes.) Do you wonder about everyone you left there? (Yes.) Do you think we’ll ever get to see it again? (No.)

More than just a person, he seemed almost miraculous: they must have lived only hours apart from each other for years, never crossing paths, only to meet here and now. If she believed, as they all did, that this bleak time time was a test for them to overcome, then maybe she could believe that this, too, was part of some Plan. A sign to keep going, that she was on the right path. Something bright to cling to, with darkness both behind and ahead.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Stonewall,” she said, the repetition of well-worn social pleasantries making her smile linger. “Oh—do I call you Colonel? Sir? I’m guessing that’s what brought you out here, right? I was—I joined the Peace Corps, after I graduated college. I was in Romania, speak a little of that, but not much else, not much useful. So, yeah, it’s good to meet someone you can—talk to so freely.” 

[jimshalpert]

[gabekhalil-blog]

location: Yefremov, Russia, near the Krasivaya Mecha River time: present  status: open

Gabe had been on the move back from Moscow for weeks now, and after successfully managing a relatively safe run into the perimeter of the city, for once the hiccups seemed smaller than the victories. He had left the Days camp on special terms with permission from leader Volkov, who knew he was looking for a cure for the horrific radiation poisoning that seemingly everyone in camp was suffering from. He himself was no exception. It was like he was standing in a tomb, and the dead didn’t consist of only walkers. They were all doomed from the start, life hanging in an insidiously delicate balance. Fate swung like a Sword of Damocles over their heads, and Gabe wondered how much time he had left before it ran out.

He had slipped in and out through the sewers of Moscow practically undetected, with the small exception of some walkers who he and his traveling partners handled quickly. He had bribed the travelers with the promise of being the first to receive the cocktail cure he had formulated rather simplistically from the most basic of antibiotics and medicinal properties. At first, the biggest challenge was getting in the lab to get what he needed, and now; it was getting out and getting to his people that presented the more intimidating task. He had already tested the cocktail on his traveling companions, and the results seemed to be positive so far. He wouldn’t even know where to begin to formulate a cure for the disease itself, but it was looking like he at least had a resolve for the symptoms to offer.

For once, things were looking up for Gabe, and there weren’t only negatives in sight. He felt overjoyed with the thought of possibly fulfilling his dream of helping others, really helping them, not just temporarily fixing their stomach aches or stitching up wounds. He was so close he could taste it, and he felt like his hard work would pay off. Every step his aching feet took led him closer and closer to his future, and for once he felt useful as his small traveling group set up camp outside of Yefremov, Russia. The collective had heard rumors of the Days moving east, and so that was where they were heading. He had promised them a safe home with his faction in exchange for their help, and he was confident that they’d be about as safe as possible with the Days. Volkov cared about each and every one of their people, and although Gabe wasn’t able to carry a substantial conversation with them due to the language barrier, their words had been passed along to Gabe, and impacted him deeply. It let him know he was with the right people and in the right place.

Currently, he was taking some time away from the pack to focus on getting his mind in order. He had spent weeks on edge, many a night spent in deep, anxious thought, worried that he wouldn’t pull off the mission. Sleep evaded him in spite of the immense fatigue he felt from walking so far, and he knew he’d worn out his soles a great deal. Finally, he’d chosen to relax. It was as though he was washing off all of his stress and fears into the Krasivaya Mecha River as the sun refused to greet him, water pouring over his chest and freeing him of grime and soot. It felt euphoric to be clean at last, and it was a rare treat that he indulged in whenever it was presented. He was at peace. That is, until he heard a branch crack behind him, causing him to hide behind a bush and pick up his staff resting against it. “Whoever you are, I’m naked and armed,” he said with a commanding tone. “Don’t even think about it, man.”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

Beverly wasn’t anyone who made decisions, who called the shots. How long they would stay in this part of Russia, she didn’t know. Nor did she know where they would go next. She just knew that she would follow, as she had done from the moment she first found them, gratefully placed her life and her salvation in the hands of the group. And she believed that one day they would find what they were looking for, though she didn’t know when they would find it, didn’t know when they would stop looking, settle down, and start building—she just knew she wanted it. Wanted what they spoke of: a community, a home; something permanent, where they could build things and grow things and make things. Something where they could start again, birth the world anew.

But while that remained ever the far-off dream, there was still relief to be found in the places they settled along the way. When the paths marked by dirt roads and crumbling pavement became familiar, when the remnants of falling-down villages became landmarks calling her home. They would leave, and go on in search of something better, but still she would feel a little pang of sadness when they left, for a place that had briefly been something like home. A place that had become familiar, and been safe.

Safe, despite the militia to the south, a force they knew they could not fight if they were ever attacked, if they ever came to close. A force that, by all accounts, they could not bargain with, either. So their safety was in their vigilance, keeping an eye out for movement towards where they had made their current base. Beverly may not have been any good in a fight—(not many among them necessarily were)—but she was slight of frame and fleet of foot, and had grown adept at navigating. She could make her way South, and then make her way back, hopefully encountering nothing that might threaten danger along the way.

The river was as far as she would go. Once she reached its banks, she would turn back—this time, with nothing to report. The relative quiet had made her more languid in her step, when every noise and every movement so far had been nothing but animals, rare as they were, keeping to themselves as Beverly kept to herself. She was sure someone would have chastised her, if they were there, for of course once she dropped her guard there was someone there, not the wind or an animal but a person—which, as far south as she had scouted, could mean a militia member, could mean danger. 

And her, only with a knife she did not know if she would or could use, when the time came. She swallowed hard, cast her eyes towards the river and a figure she couldn’t even see, naked or not, beyond the suggestion of movement through some branches. She raised her voice enough to be heard, but it was thin to her own ears, nothing to inspire fear—though, granted, that wasn’t her intention. “I don’t mean any harm, I promise. I didn’t mean to—disturb you.”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

castilloerik:

The world was as cruel as the people who lived in it. Sometimes, even more. It was a conundrum if the world had always been this cruel so as to make the people in it just as cruel as it was, or whether people had been the first one to strike a hand of cruelty against the only home they had. At one point, the answer had gotten lost. The state of the world didn’t give a lot of space for one to ponder, as the ending would always be true, always be the same. And, the ending was thus: the world was cruel either way, and people, just as.

Erik Castillo had learned this early on: as a child on the Alexandrov farm, with a mother starving to death, and the workload of a full-grown adult at the age of fifteen. He had been born to work the fields and the small herd of cattle there, and hadn’t really an education anywhere else to be able to do anything other than that. And so, life had never been a pretty picture. If it had been a pretty picture of a field full of flowers for anybody else, that would only be because Erik had worked day and night to ensure the bushes on which flowers grew on were in prime condition when spring arrived.

He’d gotten so used to the thorns, to surviving in the way he needed to, to the harsh hands of the world, to the cruelty. Erik so rarely believed in the good now. It was even rarer to witness it.

So, to find a gift was not simply finding a gift. It was waiting for the attack, too. It was waiting for the trade, for the catch, for the return. The woman before him stood with a smile, willing Erik with her words to take what she had left for him, but it was all too good to be true. There had to be something she wanted — whether his belongings, or his life. Nobody gave anything anymore, not unless there was something they would take in return. Nobody had hearts so giving, so generous.

Erik remained where he stood by the door of the building. He did not move, but his eyes searched the area — for any signs of another exit, for any signs of trouble. He did not look at the woman when he spoke. “What do you want in return?”

She knew how it looked, and it wasn’t what she had intended. She knew that a gift would have been more readily accepted if it were anonymous, if the person who picked it up did not have to look the giver in the face, wonder what the catch was, and wait for the other shoe to drop. But that was the position the man who opened the door found himself in, it seemed, unwilling to take what she had given and unwilling, even, to fully enter into the building.

What he feared, she thought, had to be what he imagined lurked in the shadows, and not Beverly herself. She was on the taller side, for a woman, but not particularly imposing. She was alone, and with empty hands. And she was telling the truth—all of the shadows he examined would yield nothing: no traps, no others of her faction waiting to strike. So that meant that, if she were patient, he would realize that she was sincere. And so she was willing to wait.

She wasn’t a fool: she didn’t make a habit of giving all she had away, and she knew that no one else did either. Like everyone else, it was rarely that she was in a position where she felt like she had enough, that she didn’t have to take any more. But, when she was, why not leave something for someone else? Why not spare a thought for the hungry and the needy who might come after her? For someone else, that can of fish might be their only can, as opposed to one among the few that clinked dully together in Beverly’s bag, wrapped in bits of fabric and wool that had been the other aim of her scavenging trip.

He didn’t look at her, and she wished he would. So he could see her, and she could see him: see if the militant way his eyes seemed to search out all the corners of the room was because he was wary, or afraid, or because he was a predator himself, and the trap was of his own making and not Beverly’s. But if he seemed ill-at-ease, she knew that moving closer to him, or sudden movements, might not be the thing to soothe him.

And so she stood where she was, and tried to keep her posture relaxed, her expression welcoming, her hands empty and arms held loosely at her sides. “Nothing—I meant what I said, I was leaving it for someone to find. I didn’t think anyone would until I was already gone. If you need it, please take it.”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

marialucias:

To stand alone was fatal.

Maria wished there had been someone who warned her of the unwanted isolation before she’d trodden on a solitary path, though she was certain such an inquiry would have been fruitless. In the past few months companions had been scarce, and those whom she hadn’t managed to scare off found themselves with knives deeply buried in their backs.

As time ticked so did the realization of a world’s finality, and Maria could only drag her feet and pray that some deity out there would listen to a lonely heart’s woes and to end a life for good.  

So she dreamed, and fought, dreamed again, and as a habit scratched the little piece of skin hanging out on her pale finger. There was almost an underlying masochism there, herself wondering why it was the small things that hurt the most. The pain it triggered was much more than when her thigh, now lined with makeshift tourniquet from a piece of an old cloth, had been clawed by an unforeseen green-eyed rodent from weeks past. The blood was dried out now, and the medicine she’d foraged from some forgotten hospital did it some healing, but she didn’t want to take the fabric out yet. Not when it had been fashioned by herself so elegantly and had made her look as if having fought a much greater battle.

Discernment was ignored in favor of walking aimlessly, but with steadfast scrutiny concerning her surroundings towards some oblast of long ago. The Cyrillic script of some rubble, which could’ve been a store sign in a past life, beneath her feet was indicative that she remained on Slavic ground — even though what was left of it was a mere pile of furor resembling the color of ash and gunmetal, much as she was now just measly flesh and bone.

It was on this cusp of sleep and consciousness that she found herself reminded of what was left in her own knapsack. Zipping it down, she looked at its nearly empty contents and almost wept. She’d found herself on occasions like this more than not; herself running on the bare minimum and possessing weapons that assured nothing but the barest protection. She had been absent for company for weeks now, which meant that she had not found anyone to loot from, to steal from. To live off from.  

But God provided. God always fucking provided. Only he wasn’t raising her up like a pig for slaughter, but rather like a cockroach meant to survive with the little they have left. The faux miracle came like this: a tin can and a hat, both commodities in this mess of a world.

Her feet were in the imminence of sprinting towards the treasure before she’d registered a soft voice addressing her. She blinked and saw her then: a comely woman speaking in English, with a smile more radiant than the hat’s assorted colors. Can’t be more than two or three years older, but possessing little of her own miserable look, chewed hair and all. Ensued was a tilt of her head, almost innocent. She’d fallen for the kindness of strangers once, and all she’d gotten were years of reckless abandon, even if she was in the company of many.

“Are you real?” was her lone utterance. 

The question alarmed her. She didn’t want to see another human as an animal, wonder if they were lost to a place she couldn’t reach or reason with, if they’d lost their grip on reality along with everything else all of them had lost. But, at the very least, it seemed like her gift had found its way into the hands of someone who really did need it. And that—that was a good thing.

But her heart kicked against her chest anyway, and she wondered if those words were a sign of danger. If so, she’d be pretty close to helpless. There was a knife in her pack, folded in on itself, surely sunk to the bottom after days of travel without being touched. She carried it for protection, sure, when she ventured away from her fellow, when they thrust it into her hand and told her to use it to keep herself safe. But if she couldn’t even begin to imagine pulling it on another person, than what protection was it really?

All she had were empty hands, open palms, and the hope that a little bit of kindness still meant something in this world.

Look at Beverly, always picking up strays, they’d said to her back in Romanian, when she’d sat outside the orphanage and tried to coax a street cat she’d seen hanging around out with bits of food. What, the orphans aren’t enough for you? This urge felt much the same. Leaving gifts behind, like a breadcrumb trail that could draw someone who needed help to her—someone who needed the True Path.

It was hard to see someone who seemed afraid, who seemed hungry, and not wonder if they could be helped by being brought into the fold, kept safe and warm in a ring of fire, the hope that Beverly held onto that something better was waiting for them on the other side, if only they survived long enough to build it.

And so, while her smile had faltered, she tried to make it grow again, open hands outstretched like an offering of friendship, or at least of her own existence: “I’m real,” she said. And then: “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

LOCATION: The Greenhouse, Northern Belarus WHEN: A few months prior (@doctorbyrd)

The True Pathers were not known for their mettle—if anything, they were known for their lack of it, relying on their numbers for their strength, and their ability to keep to themselves their greatest defense against skirmishes with other groups. It was important, then, for them to know who was friendly, who could be trusted.  Maybe one day they could be self-sustaining, when they achieved that hope that Beverly held in her heart—(something more permanent, a home, a life)—but they weren’t yet, and so they relied on those they could rely upon.

And so maybe that was why the True Pathers found Donna and her greenhouse useful, but it was more than that to Beverly. And so, if there was ever a reason for any of their number to come this way, anything that they needed that they thought maybe Donna could provide, Beverly was almost always the one to volunteer to come.

Maybe it was presumptuous, maybe she was projecting, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she ever got lonely in that greenhouse, all by herself. Beverly would. And there was a part of her, too, that wondered about every stranger she encountered: Who were you, before all of this happened? Who were you going to become? Most of the time, had to resign herself to never knowing. The average skittish figure met on the road, maybe never to be seen again, wasn’t about to tell Beverly their life story, all of their lost hopes and dreams and the ones, if any, that had taken their place. 

But there was something about the greenhouse, or about Donna herself, that made Beverly think that she could know. Maybe with enough time, maybe with enough patience. From the inside of the greenhouse, the world looked a little bit less cruel. Made some of the weight feel like it was lifted off her shoulders, even if it was only for the length of one visit. From the inside of her bag, Beverly pulled out a box, found dusty in someone’s pantry however many miles away, a handful of teabags kept safe inside their battered cardboard packaging.“I found this and thought you might like it. I didn’t see any mold or anything, so that means it’s still good, right?”

Even though, at this point, a little bit of mold wouldn’t even seem like much of a deterrent.

[antigonick]

What a fool you must be, said my head to my heart, or my sterner to my softer self.

Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (via antigonick)

[beverlymcneil-blog]

zoyasokolov:

In the beginning the twins swore to stay away from the other factions, from any group too large for them to take on. Now, things were getting desperate, they took risks they wouldn’t have tried before. There were fewer loners on the road, less opportunity to raid, to produce their timeless act. They separated for longer times to scavenge, now days could span before they would see each other. This time, Zoya had counted three sunsets since they parted ways, and the pack nestled between her shoulders not yet full, the few cans and a sealed bag of dried fruit rubbing against the knobs of her spine.

This would be her last afternoon before she headed back to their predetermined meeting place, and she spent it picking through small villages. The few she’d passed so far were looted almost completely, a few dented cans buried in some rubble. The seal inside might be disturbed, the contents could be nothing more than sludge, but it was worth a try. The next village was almost flattened entirely, with one building left to stand erect. It was usually the churches that remained, people built their places of worship more carefully than their own homes.

There wasn’t much in churches in terms of food, but they were still something to marvel at, what little beauty that remained. Zoya stepped towards it almost timidly, she wasn’t raised in the church, but it was still something she respected. Maybe she could hear the ghosts of the past singing, their hymns rising to swallow up the everlasting silence. Her eye caught on the bright crimson of the knit item, and she frowned, stooping to pick up the two things at the base of the door, turning them over in her hands.

They were put there purposefully, a can of fish and a homemade hat. Reaching behind her, she put the can in her pack for later, the hat she held onto. She felt the ribs of the knit, closing her eyes and envisioning her mother for a moment, bent over her handiwork, the clicking of needles like the tap of fingernails on a stone countertop. Gritting her teeth, Zoya brought herself back to the present. This could be a trap, no one left gifts anymore. There was trade, bartering. Nothing without a price attached.

She pushed open the door, willing it to be silent, but the rusted hinges betrayed her. There was a woman, to the side of the room, with dark hair and an open smile. Zoya’s hand hovered over the hilt of her knife, ready to draw it. The woman spoke English with an American accent, a language she’d never mastered. The words swam over her, she could pick up a few but not enough to string them together with any meaning. Shaking her head, she frowned. “English… no.” Her accent was thick, pitiful. “Russian? Polish?” She held the hat up, “You make?”

An American an ocean away from home. She was the fish out of water here, she was the one that didn’t belong. She’d gotten training in Romanian, when she joined the Peace Corps, four hours a day spent trying to cram words into her head until she was sent to her placement and had to try and use whatever she’d managed to retain as a life raft to hold herself afloat, try to pick up more along the way.

And now she spent her nights sitting around a fire, a confluence of lives and languages and nationalities, passing the time by pointing at things and saying what’s that? and how do you say this? learning words in four different languages at once, trying and failing to keep them all straight. It was a diversion, at best, and nothing more.

But at least, in a group like theirs, in a faction, you could usually count on somebody to translate for somebody else. They were all one whole, one family, and whatever strengths she lacked, someone was there to lift her up, to make up for it. Alone, she felt more exposed, more aware of her weaknesses. So maybe she’d learned at least three different words for fire—but what good would that do her now?

There was a girl in front of her. Younger than she was, seemingly alone. Beverly didn’t know if she had someone else to go back to, couldn’t see the marks of a faction upon her like the burn scars that littered her own arms underneath the knit layers she’d swaddled herself in. And Beverly ached to communicate, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to. At least, not in any way that counted.

But she was holding the hat that Beverly had left in her hands, the can nowhere to be seen—probably safe in the pack on her back. And that was something. It would have to be enough. And what she couldn’t put into words, she tried to put into her smile: reassuring, sincere. She wasn’t afraid, and she didn’t want the younger woman to be afraid. Didn’t want either of them to feel like they had to give the other a reason to be afraid.

“Sorry. Prosti.” She said, the syllables feeling thick and clumsy in her mouth. But that, at least, she knew. That was an important word to know in any language. “I don’t—just English. But yes, I make.” She nodded her head at the hat again, kept her arms firmly at her side, as if that could convey that she wasn’t asking for it back, or for anything in return. “You take. You keep.” 

[beverlymcneil-blog]

colonelstonewall:

The trip was less about scavenging and more about scouting. Trying to find a place that needed taking care of, a place to settle even if only for a week or two. But this place wasn’t that; Stonewall could tell even with just a quick once over of the small town, already picked clean, no walkers in sight. It wasn’t where they needed to be, so they would keep heading South.

But something had caught his eye before he could tear himself away, something he could’ve sworn hadn’t been there when he found the place. Right there in the center of the doorway of one of the buildings that seemed to have held up the best; a can nestled in the middle of a bundle of red yarn.

It wasn’t a sight you ran into often while out scavenging, and for a long moment he considered that it might just be a poorly laid trap, the shocking red of the yarn meant to draw those who were more careless to the position. But for what? More senseless violence, a little trick played, cat and mouse, someone who wanted to mess with their prey before doing the deed? He was well aware there were people like that out there. Hell, he had been with those people for a short time, before moving on. There was still the vague knowledge that they might come looking for him in the back of his mind, something that was neither a fear or a concern, but more of an inconvenience. It meant that there was the possibility this was just that, though.

But he was certain he hadn’t been followed. He had been trained to know if someone was watching, following behind, even far enough they couldn’t have been seen, and this trip had been nothing if uneventful. A few walkers here and there, but seemingly no one in the village, at least one first glance. This was proof he had been wrong, though. The constant haze his head seemed to swim in, from the almost dehydration and the radiation poisoning alike, had him off his game. And maybe that was why it didn’t feel like such a bad idea to check it out, to move quietly past the little offering, beretta drawn just in case, and push the door open.

What he hadn’t been expecting was to be greeted by a lone woman. Even more surprising was the smile she offered, and the accent accompanying her words. Still, he didn’t put away his gun.

“American. Not often you run into another patriot wanderin’ out here,” Stonewall commented, not exactly ready to let his guard down, just in case. “Even less often you run into kindness. That’s awfully nice of you; I’m sure there’s someone who’ll come through here who needs it more than I do, though.”

Beverly isn’t foolish—she didn’t think she was foolish. She knew that there was cruelty in the world, from both the living and the dead. Knew that, too often, the world had devolved to kill or be killed. But she knew herself. Knew what she didn’t have the heart or the stomach for. Knew that, if she tried to play by that set of rules, she would lose every time. That was why she’d been so quick to shelter herself in a larger group, let their self-isolating ways temper her otherwise unchecked altruism. But she still, when she could, tried to meet others with an extended hand of friendship. Hoping that, just maybe, they’d reach back.

Maybe, if people had forgotten how to be kind, they just needed one moment, one person, to help them remember.

The voice wasn’t from her America—(she’d traded the drab Midwest for sunny California, pouring coffee in a 24-hour diner to get as close as she could to the bright lights of Los Angeles, and then back to Ohio again)—but it made her ache for home all the same. There had been so many times, both before the end and after, that she’d cried and cursed herself for being so eager to leave. She’d wanted the chance to start over, and it felt like all home had to offer her was a reminder of her mistakes and her sorrows, pressing in like a prison she’d never be able to grow out of.

So she’d gone to Romania, full of ideals and a desire to help, and felt so small in the face of all the was wrong, all that needed to be fixed but couldn’t. But she didn’t quit. She put in her two years, and was just months away from going home again—only for the bombs to fall, and the world to be destroyed, leaving her stranded. She’d never go home again. Never know what happened to her parents, in the house on the cul-de-sac they’d lived in all her life. Never know what happened to anyone else, either, all of her neighbors and all the people she’d grown up with, the people she’d met in college classes and AA meetings.

But she still tried to smile at him. The familiarity was bittersweet, sure, but what wasn’t bittersweet these days? And—he must have been missing home, too. At the very least, he hadn’t attacked her, and he didn’t even want to take what she was willingly giving away. “No, you don’t. We’re both—a very long way from home. Where are you from?” And then, like just thinking about it had kicked up all the dust of what she’d left behind, she felt the words pressing up against her teeth, babbling to a stranger just because he seemed familiar enough to make her homesick, and because he seemed kind. “I grew up in Ohio—just outside of Columbus. Went to school there, too. And, oh, I’m Beverly, sorry—you’re right, it’s really been a long time since I’ve met someone from home.”

[beverlymcneil-blog]

LOCATION: Kaluga Oblast, Russia WHEN: Present, or recent past OPEN

The True Pathers kept to themselves, and often Beverly was grateful for that: a family, kept small and close, to make up for the family she’d never see again, now that what was once only a day away by plane might as well have been on another planet. But sometimes the enormity of what was still out there overwhelmed her: so many people, so much suffering. It was more than one person could comprehend.

Like everyone else, they didn’t have much to give away. Needed every bite of food they could get, every small scrap of something that could contribute to their survival. But, awhile removed from their current base and towards the end of a scavenging trip that had lasted the better part of two weeks, she’d gathered more than she could easily carry back.

And so, a gift: a can of fish left in the center of the entryway of the tallest, sturdiest building still standing in the small town she’d spent the morning picking over. Around the can, a shock of red yarn run through with other colors, all of them worn and faded but still brighter than anything surrounding it. A hat, once made around small campfires the past few nights, using up some of the materials she’d scavenged along the way.

It was a skill picked up what felt like a lifetime ago, trying to keep her hands busy and her nerves calm in hospital waiting rooms, when life seemed like nothing but doctor’s appointments and waiting for things to get worse. A hobby, but an idle one, something she’d never predicted would became as useful as it has. But Beverly already had a hat on her own head, as did those she called family back at the True Pathers’ base. The things she made now, she mostly made to trade, but she would part with one now, who knew who was out there now who needed one, who might find it days or weeks from now. 

Or now, as the door creaked slightly on its hinges behind her. The village had seemed empty when she had found it, as had the others she’d passed through on this trip, but there were always other people out there. Looking, searching, surviving. “Oh,” she said, putting a smile on over her surprise. “You can have that. I left it for whoever would find it first. Looks like it’s you.”