Chapter 3: The Return of the Blonde Bimbo
The grey light of dawn did nothing to lift the weight from Nate's shoulders. It was a colourless, cold affair, the sun a muted smear behind a blanket of perpetual cloud. He moved through the woods not like a man, but like a wisp of smoke, his boots finding silent purchase on the damp, leaf-strewn ground. Every few steps, he would freeze, his entire being focused on listening. The forest had its own language, the scolding of a squirrel, the rustle of a bird and he had learned to distinguish its normalcy from the discordant notes of danger.
The fifteen-mile trek to the derelict general store was a gauntlet of memory. Every snapped twig was the crunch of bone under a Ripper's foot. Every shadow that moved with the wind was a lurching, hungry form. His knuckles were white on the stock of his .22, the metal of the barrel cold against his skin. He was a taut wire, humming with a fear so profound it had become a part of his metabolism.
It was on the ridge overlooking the valley where the store stood that he saw them. Movement. Not the shambling, erratic gait of the infected, but the cautious, purposeful strides of survivors. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, caged bird. He dropped instantly into a crouch behind a fallen pine, his breath held.
There were three of them. Two men, one tall and lean with a scavenged police vest, the other shorter and broader, wielding a fire axe. They moved with a practiced coordination, scanning the trees, covering each other. And then, there was the woman.
Nate's blood ran cold.
Even from this distance, even clad in stained cargo pants and a bulky jacket, her hair a messy knot instead of a perfect cascade, he recognized her. Skylar. The woman from the Presidential Suite. The one who had sighed with such profound annoyance that the entertainment center wasn't working while the world was ending outside. He could still see her, a vision of bored privilege on the cream-colored sofa, a stark contrast to the grim, hardened survivor she was now. A heavy backpack was slung over her shoulders, and she held a compound bow, an arrow nocked and ready. The sight was so surreal it felt like a hallucination brought on by hunger.
A primal, desperate part of him screamed to call out. To break the three months of silence with a human voice. To say, "I know you. I was there." But the instinct that had kept him alive for six months was louder, a cold, clear voice of reason. Trust was a currency that had devalued to worthlessness. What would he even say? That he was the handyman? That he'd taken twenty dollars from her boyfriend? They were a unit, a pack. He was a lone wolf, starved and desperate. Introducing himself now would make him a variable, a liability, or worse, a resource to be stripped and discarded.
He watched them move down the slope, heading in the same direction he was, towards the store. He let them get a ten-minute head start, his mind racing. He couldn't follow their path. He needed his own.
He cut east, moving parallel to their route but staying deep within the tree line, using the rugged terrain as his cover. It was harder, slower going, scrambling over moss-slick rocks and pushing through thickets of thorny bushes that tore at his clothes. But it was his. He was operating on his own terms, in his own silence.
An hour later, the store came into view. It was a sorry sight. The "Miller's General" sign was shot through with bullet holes and hung askew. The windows were shattered, the door torn from its hinges. His heart sank. It had been picked clean. He watched from the tree line for a long time, seeing no sign of Skylar's group. They must have already been and gone.
Desperation, a sharper goad than fear, pushed him forward. He slipped inside, the crunch of broken glass under his boots sounding like a thunderclap in the silence. The place was a wreck. Shelves were overturned, empty cans and packaging littered the floor, and a thick layer of dust and decay coated everything. The smell of rot and old blood was suffocating. He moved to the back, to the stockroom, his last, fading hope.
The door was ajar. Inside, it was just as ransacked. But then, his eyes, trained by months of searching for the overlooked, found it. A large, heavy shelving unit had been pulled away from the wall, but not all the way. Behind it, half-hidden in the shadow, was a trap door in the floor. A root cellar.
His breath caught. He strained, muscles screaming, and shoved the shelving unit another foot. He pried the trapdoor open. The smell that wafted up was not of decay, but of dusty, preserved food. It was a treasure trove. Tins of vegetables, sacks of dried beans and rice that rodents had thankfully not found, a few jars of preserves, and, miraculously, a full case of bottled water. There were other useful things too: a roll of heavy-duty duct tape, a box of water purification tablets, a sharp, untouched hatchet, and a first-aid kit that was still mostly full.
He worked with frantic, silent efficiency, transferring the priceless haul into his pack and a burlap sack he found. It was heavy, almost too heavy to run with, but it was life. He was just securing the last strap when he heard it.
The sound he'd been dreading.
A low, wet gurgle, right outside the stockroom door.
He froze, his blood turning to ice.
Another joined it. Then another. A chorus of hungry, rattling breaths.
They were in the store.
He drew his hatchet, his .22 useless against more than one. He had to move. Now. He burst out of the stockroom, and there they were. Four of them, their clothes hanging in rags, skin pallid and blotched, eyes milky with death. They turned towards him in unison, their movements jerky but fast.
Nate didn't think. He ran. He plowed through the shattered front entrance, the heavy pack throwing off his balance. A scream tore from his throat, not of fear, but of sheer, desperate effort. He could hear them behind him, their footfalls a relentless percussion of pursuit.
He made it maybe fifty yards into the parking lot before one, faster than the others, lunged and caught the burlap sack. He spun, hacking with the hatchet. It bit deep into the thing's shoulder with a sickening crunch, but it didn't stop. It snarled, black fluid bubbling from its lips.
He kicked it back, but two more were on him. He swung the hatchet in a wide, panicked arc, keeping them at bay. He backed up, his boots slipping on the gravel, and his back hit something solid, the rusted shell of an old pickup truck. He was cornered.
They closed in, a semi-circle of snapping jaws and grasping, broken-nailed hands. The guttural sounds they made filled his ears, drowning out all other thought. This was it. This was how it ended. Not in a blaze of glory, but torn apart in a derelict parking lot, his hard-won supplies spilled at his feet.
He raised the hatchet for one last, futile swing.
Thwip.
A sound, clean and sharp, cut through the snarls. One of the Rippers, the one closest to him, jolted forward, a feathered arrow suddenly protruding from its temple. It crumpled.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two more arrows found their marks in rapid succession, dropping two more creatures with terrifying precision.
The last Ripper turned towards the new threat, and in that split second, the man with the fire axe charged in from the side, burying the blade in its skull with a grunt of effort.
Silence, sudden and shocking, descended.
Nate stood panting, back against the truck, hatchet still raised, his body trembling with adrenaline and shock. Through the haze, he saw them emerge from the tree line at the edge of the parking lot.
The two men, and Skylar. She lowered her compound bow, her expression unreadable, her eyes, the same eyes that had once looked at him with utter dismissal, now scanned him, the scene, the dead Rippers, with a cold, analytical competence. She had just saved his life. The handyman. The man she'd told to "hurry up" before the world ended. And in her gaze, there was not a flicker of recognition.