Chapter Text
For the first time in many months, you are risking a trip into the outskirts of the city. You haven't dared come this close before - Not since you lost your gun - and now, even if you had one, its not worth the risk. Not alone.
The monsters out here are no longer just zombies, as they were in the beginning; Theyre skittering, stalking, hunting things. They grow, twist, fuse, into great walls of flesh and rust and kevlar.
And, as they have grown more vicious, you have grown more frail. The months after the cataclysm have been months you've spent surviving on insubstantial and dwindling food.
You're skeletal. You couldn't win a fight against a child.
But,
Tonight will be different.
You sit hunched at the treeline, staring out at the houses, watching a group of three disembark from a beaten pickup truck.
You've seen their basecamp before, though you've never been brave enough to approach. You know they're far better off than you. Even from here you can see how they're armed and armored, equipped with guns and spears and heavy axes.
The reason you are out here tonight is that you intend to follow them into the suburbs. While they march boldy along, clearing the danger, you will hang back and safely snag for yourself whatever they leave behind.
You watch them talk, each silhouetted against the cone of light cast by the truck's headlights. Your stomach aches.
It would be nice, you think, if they would shut their faces and just get moving. The sooner they move on, the sooner you can follow. The sooner you can follow, the sooner you might finally get something to eat.
But if you get rash, if you start making mistakes, you'll get yourself killed. You don't get to eat if you're dead.
So you hold your breath.
Finally, one of the trio gestures over her shoulder for the others to follow. You feel your heart thumping, fluttering, but still you make yourself wait, feeling the trembling in your tense muscles... wait until they have taken a few steps toward the city… Before you, yourself, move.
The first thing you do, the moment you think you can get away with it, is to run for the truck - Quietly, you have to remind yourself. Quietly, quietly.
You open the door, climb inside and lay flat across the seat. You go shuffling through the cupholders, the glove compartment, praying they had left something behind for you to take.
Under the driver's side seat, you find something: a single lonely can of soda. You all but lunge for it.
As soon as your fingers come in contact with the aluminum you know the can is too light, but it still hurts to look in and find the can empty. Completely empty.
You push yourself up out of the truck and throw the hollow can out into the grass.
For a few moments you just stare out after it, into the dark where it had landed, breathing harshly.
And then you make yourself composed, you close the truck door, and you move out after the trio.
As you approach, you see one of them climbing through the broken window of the first house - good, won't be long - so you park yourself behind a toolshed in the yard, close enough to watch for when they leave for the neighbors'.
You shuffle your feet. Then you slide down to a crouch. You hold out your hands and watch them tremble for a few moments, before tucking your fingers under your arms.
While you bide your time, you occupy your mind with studying the terrain, taking in every possible advantage. Maybe you could find something convenient to weaponize in the shed here? -but you discard that idea when you see the door is locked up with a heavy metal chain. You scoff. Figures.
It's hard to tell for how long you're waiting, really, but you begin to feel that it has been too long. What if something had killed them already, just like that? Would you know? What would you do? Surely something that killed them would then catch you, too, if you tried to go in and loot the bodies.
…Could take their truck, though. Ride it back to their camp, take all that over for yourself… Maybe they've even been stocking up for the winter, already? How much would you find?
Almost as soon as you think to drool over this idea, though, you hear a distant sound of glass shattering.
Poking your head round the corner, you spot the trio of bandits climbing out of a window on the opposite side from which they entered. The three of them don't spend long before they're moving into the next house, leaving the first one open and unguarded. Now's your chance.
You make a low run to the entry point of the first house, do a quick scan of your surroundings, and clamber in.
Your feet hit the floor inside, and it is silent. The air is near-still, disturbed tonight for the first time in months. The bandits might or might not have searched the whole house; you have only one goal. You make for the kitchen.
They've been here, though, obviously, and left a mess. You go through behind them anyway, checking the fridge, the pantry, and then also each of the drawers and cabinets around the room; every one has been thrown open already, but you file through every one all the same, hoping.
You find nothing. nothing edible. If there was even anything left to find, they've taken it and left you with just the mold and dust.
Which, you expected, you remind yourself. You knew this would be the case going in; the first few houses will be dry. As the bandits run out of space and willingness to carry more weight, you will start finding more.
You repeat this to yourself, trying to keep from getting too upset.
For good measure, you check the rest of the house, too, on the off chance there might have been food left in the bedrooms, or the basement. All you find are empty wrappers.
When you have finished your search - or rather, convinced yourself that conserving energy for later will be more productive than continuing here - you hop out of the same window the bandits left from, and drop into the overgrown grass. There you take a moment, catching your breath, looking to where the bandits had entered the next house on the block. Then you glance out down the side yard, to the street.
You catch in the dark a glimpse of a dog-shaped thing. Although, it takes your mind a second to make any further sense of it; its flesh seems to slither across its body, with the way it glitters in the moonlight.
It lifts its head up, briefly, when the night air shifts and the wind rustles the grass, and you freeze, worried it has seen you. But, as it holds its nose in the air and the light hits its face more clearly, you see that it has no eyes at all; only empty skull sockets.
You almost laugh. What a thing to bring you relief.
It turns its nose to the ground.
You let out your breath and move fast for the busted window of the neighboring house.
You ease inside over the windowsill, careful not to cut yourself on the bits of glass remaining in the frame. The soft scrape of your shoes on the cracked glass on the floor is the loudest thing in the room. And, lucky you, the kitchen in this house is just the next room over. You get searching quickly.
You scan the cupboards, the countertops, the refrigerator... Again, you are disappointed. If there was food in this kitchen, there isn't anymore. If there was food in this kitchen, you're not so lucky as to find anything carelessly, generously left behind for you.
You give the drawers a quick check anyway, pulling them open a little more roughly and loudly than you perhaps should. Nothing. Not a scrap of food in sight.
You linger for just a moment longer, your eyes drifting across the empty, desolate kitchen.
You suddenly feel very cold, very alone, as if nothing exists outside of this space. Not the bandits. Not the zombies. Just you, alone, hungry, hollow, in an empty kitchen in an empty house in an empty world.
You are thrown back to the present by the sound of a hundred-odd pounds of rotten flesh throwing itself through a window frame.
You startle into a ready stance, jaw clamped shut and silent.
It's the thing you saw on the street. The dog. Your fogged brain offers a realization: It must have caught your scent. Too late for that thought to matter, stupid, because now it's climbing to its feet beneath the window, just across the room from you.
You're afraid to move. If it hears you, it'll be on you in an instant.
If you do nothing, though, it'll find you anyway. It has already taken its sinuous snout back to the ground, snuffling without a care for getting shards of glass up its nose.
Moving slowly, you place one hand on the countertop, and lift one foot off the floor. You begin to untie your shoe, keeping your eyes on the dog.
In the light from the window, you get a real good look at it. The way each strand of flesh crawls across its body like a discreet organism. Blackish ooze squeezes from between the fibers and runs down its sides, dripping from its belly. You really hope that it's just congealed blood.
Your shoelaces come undone. You slide your foot free, and the pad of your foot falls back to the ground.
You watch the dog, still, holding your boot on one hand, getting a feel for its weight. Your arm shakes.
You wind up, and throw the boot over the dog's head, into the other room, and it lands with a jarring thump.
The dog's head shoots up, ears straightened, with a sound in its throat almost like a bark. It moves towards the sound, and you take your chance to slink away. You back up out of the kitchen and find a window you can quietly roll open, and from there you lower yourself to the ground.
The earth is cold and hard under your unprotected foot. You add new shoes to your list of things to find, and you duck across the side yard. You watch the ground now for broken glass or other things unpleasant to step on, moving as quickly as you dare... before climbing in the next window, and finally stopping to breathe in that small bedroom.
That was.. too close. Too close. The way your heart is still pounding, you feel lightheaded. You try to swallow the feeling, despite your throat seeming crowded out by your blood, and move on.
You open the bedroom door and slip into the hallway, easing it shut behind you to stop anything looking to follow you in through the window.
As soon as you let go of the handle, there is a cold steel blade pressed against your throat.
You freeze.
You don't have to see them to know who it is. Stupid, stupid, In your haste, you had forgotten to check that the bandits had left the building. Now one of them has a knife to your throat.
You’re not sure what to do. Is there anything you can do?
In your moment of need all your body tells you is that you're clumsy. You’re weak. You’re starving. You don't stand a chance against someone armed and ready. You don’t have the strength, the speed, the will or even the clarity of mind to take them on.
…You could beg. You could plead for your life.
Something tells you it wouldn’t help. It might make things worse.
So you don’t move. You barely breathe. Your heart, though, is still pounding so hard in your chest that you can feel the pulse in your neck thrumming against the cold metal blade.
After what feels like an eternity, you feel a shift, a slight easing of pressure as the bandit’s arm moves ever so slightly. Not a sign of mercy; Just making the threat a few millimeters less immediate.
The voice is low, a harsh whisper close to your ear.
"You were following us," She hisses. "Why?"
You can’t find the words. Your mouth is dry, your throat is tight. Suddenly you can't remember the last time you spoke at all.
"Answer me," she demands, her tone sharper now.
You think about lying. What a good idea. If only there were a lie out there that could save you.
You inhale slowly, steadying yourself, and then speak, your voice barely above a whisper.
“I wasn’t... trying to take anything.”
That's technically true. You aren't stealing from them, just, hopefully sifting through their leftovers. Like a stray mutt.
"Really. Then what *were* you doing?"
There’s a rustle behind you, and a second voice.
"Stalking us?" he asks.
"No!" you say quickly, though you know he isn't talking to you, "Looking for scraps! I was- I was just- hoping you would leave something behind. That's all."
It sounds pathetic even to you. It sounds pathetic because you *are* pathetic. The silence that follows is thick enough to cut.
"What do you think?" The one with the knife says to the other.
"If he's just taking what we don't want..."
"If he's telling the truth," the one with the knife reminds.
"No," a third voice joins in, "No, no, Listen: it doesn't really matter if he's lying. Either way, we can't just let him go do whatever he likes. Who knows what that will be; He could attract trouble, Cause a mess. Get us killed, intentionally or not."
Your heart sinks with fear as she speaks, and the others seem to agree with her point. Still, you try, "I won't..! I'll-!"
and you are met with the blade against your throat again. You shut up.
"...So, what? It's him or us?" The man says, ignoring you.
"I don't know. I'm just laying out the stakes. I'd rather *not * kill him if we don't have to, but we need to be certain he's out of our way."
"... We could just lock him up somewhere." Says the one primed to kill you. "Put him in the basement, maybe?"
Silence for a moment.
"What if he gets out?"
"I dunno, good for him? If we do it right we can be long gone by then."
You have a very different concern: What if you don't get out? What if you cannot muster the strength, the focus, or what if something comes for you first?
Of course, you don't get to voice any of this.
You hear them shuffle. Maybe a shrug?
"Works for me."
The one holding you taps your bare heel with her steel toe. "Alright, then. Move."
You hesitate a second, wondering if getting your neck cut now would be better than wasting away in a basement. You aren't ready to give up just yet, though, however slim your chances. You move.
You are led down the hall, The whole time your mind racing, calculating, searching for an escape route. One of the bandits shuffles past you to open the basement door, further boxing you in. There has to be something, though, some way out of this...
But you find yourself standing in front of the open basement door.
A cold horror coils in your chest as you look down the unfinished stairs, not unlike how you imagine it would feel staring into your grave.
You are shoved.
In that moment of freefall and primal panic you swing your arms out to catch yourself. You latch onto someone's arm and coat, dig your nails in, intent to either right yourself or drag them tumbling down the staircase with you, but you receive a kick in the stomach and the fabric tears from your fingers.
You land hard, your boney back and limbs hitting against the edges of the stairs, but you only tumble a moment before catching yourself on the walls. You struggle to right yourself, though. Your body will not move with the coordination you wish from it. You hear the door shut before you see it.
"NO!" you shout.
You climb, throw yourself against the door, rattling the handle, but one of the bandits on the other side keeps it forced from opening more than a crack. You brace yourself against the door and shove with all your strength.
Despite your best efforts, the gap never widens to more than a few centimeters, and ever less as your endurance fails you. By the time you hear them sliding a large piece of furniture in front of the door, you are already out of breath. Dizzy.
You hear them talking for a moment. About you, maybe, but you don't care to make out the words. You pound your fist against the door. They pause. Say something else. And then you hear them moving away.
"HEY!" You shout, hammering your fists against the door now, reinvigorated by something like rage. "COME BACK!"
A moment of silence, listening for a response, even any indication of life, something to tell you that you haven't been left alone down here. Nothing comes.
You roar. Throw your body full force against the door again, pound your arms against the wood, bash and beat and howl. Your face is twisted to bare your teeth and there are tears streaming down your cheeks.
Until finally, The painful fury in your chest burns its course, and it leaves you with nothing. You sit in a crumpled heap on the top stair, empty and alone in the dark.