They found the town in time, the landscape rolling in an easy gradient from barren to populated; trees to houses to full-fledged buildings. Each street and alley was vacant; the town, no doubt once a bustling hub of life, was now scarred and scorched with testaments to the pandemic that ravaged the area.
As the road became more crowded with debris, Scout eased the truck to a stop, resting finally along a curb. The parking wasn’t pretty. Maybe one of these days she’d actually learn to drive. When the engine cut, the space was once again shrouded in silence, an eerie absence of activity or life at all. The usual call of birds and cry of bugs was absent around them, and the temperature, lowering as days went on, kept the sun from sizzling against the pavement as it usually did. Sounds of closing car doors and shuffling feet and rustling bags were the only interruption to the air.
She didn’t need to hold Chuck’s hand on this. He was capable, and he picked up her movements and air easily. She appreciated his penchant for quick learning. The two didn’t converse; all communication was conveyed through movement and gestures. It seemed smarter that way. The area, however clear it may have seemed, hadn’t been checked.
Scout set about clearing the corners of the restaurant before her muscles relaxed and she gave her companion the okay to proceed further. The machete hung from her hand, a precaution she kept out even when she felt safe (or what semblance close to it she could manage,) nearly dragging along the floor and slicing through the air with periodic metallic noises. The establishment seemed relatively unlooted. There were signs of the chaos it had faced ages ago - likely years, at the instance of the outbreak - not only physically, but practically painting the very air through which they walked. The silence held screams and the specks dancing in swaths of sunlight swirled where no doubt bodies fell before. The smell crept into Scout’s nostrils after minutes of walking through the space. It was faint, but the sickly sweet of death lingered there, amongst the must of dust and unchurned air. The girl grimaced to herself.
Behind her, Chuck was making progress with his search. The scavenger figured she’d leave his specifics up to him. Nothing in the place interested her, much; she picked up various items, turned them in her hand, and replaced the void in dust they left on their respective surface. Things like cell phones, wallets, keys and purses and sunglasses - they all told stories of a time that no longer existed. Things like that seemed so foreign, now. Sometimes, these trips out made her feel less like a looter and more like a space explorer, rocketed to a distant planet, exploring a world and a lifeform that was not her own, observing objects she found no use for. It was a disorienting process if you let it get to you. Scout could not afford to, but often failed at keeping herself focused.
She didn’t feel the need to tell Wagon to check his corners. He knew that. Everyone knew that. It was like telling a child to look both ways before crossing the street. So she nodded, calling out an approving noise, not tearing her eyes from the dull interest they held in the junk littering the place. The only other sound of movement besides her own slow steady pace was Chuck’s brief struggle to work his way into a shut room.
Until - until, there was more; there was a rush, a flood of noise and movement, a rumble of activity she felt before she heard. It was so close. And yet, it seemed to take her some stretch of infinity to turn, to face the subject of disturbance. Like her muscles wouldn’t move; she reacted, or so it felt, the way one would in a dream, lethargic, stuck. Chuck’s cry reached her ears in disjointed echoes.
Did you hear that, Scout?
Another dead man calling your name?
She didn’t breathe. The spurt of crimson flashed across her vision like it was the only color in the room. Her weapon was up, swinging, violent hits and misses against a monster she barely saw. Was he screaming? Was she? Was there any noise at all?
It took years to kill it. Centuries to pull it from its victim; the planets fell from orbit by the time she finished hacking, again, again, into flesh long rotting. The puddle it left flooded the space, and finally, once again, there were two.
It wasn’t a plea. It was an order. Chuck was too big in her too small arms; there was too much blood, slippery and pungent.
"Don’t. Just don’t. C’mon, please. You’re fine, it didn’t -"
Stop shaking. Breathe. Fucking. Breathe.
"Look at me. It’s just a scratch. Yeah?"
He wasn’t gone. No, he was too lucid, too there. Still very much alive.
snowghoul
stormborns
2087
pixelskylines
