DOVE SEASON
chapter one
It happened so fast that she wasn't even sure it really did happened. You started to see things this far in, started to fear the noises at night, doubted the safety of wherever you were hiding. It wouldn't be surprising to her if this was all just a terrible, horrific dream. A nightmare. That's what was happening right in front of her, what was happening in the second that her brain pressed the pause button and everything stopped.
She knew that it was happening right in front of her, that Karen was dying two feet from her, and that she needed to move before she was right there next to her. But her feet didn't run, her finger didn't pull the trigger, and her brain didn't understand what was happening. Karen screamed for her, begged her to end her suffering, begged to be killed by her rather than by some corpse, but she couldn't move. Her body was frozen, her head pounding, her ears ringing. This couldn't be happening.
How could this be happening?
They had been so careful, so aware, so mistrusting. They had stayed off the roads, avoided heavily populated areas, and had kept to themselves. In the beginning they had debated finding others and of the likelihood that any of their family members had survived. They had tried to reach their parents in the suburbs but had given up after trying to go through Atlanta, which had become a breeding ground for walkers.
After a few months of looking for them as they traveled, Karen had been the one to finally suggest they accept that they were alone and to give up their half-hearted search. She hadn't argued because she couldn't bring herself to disagree. Too much time had passed. Their parents were survivors just as much as they were, she had faith in that, but there was no way of knowing anymore where they could be holed up. If they were alive, she just hoped that they were safe and continued to stay that way. If they were dead, well, Ruth prayed that it had been quick.
There was no way around running into other survivors, but the sisters had done their best to move along quickly, never staying long enough to become attached or held back. It had been key to their survival – them against the world; it had saved their lives more times than either could count.
But this was not one of those times.
No, it had finally happened.
The ravaged world around her had finally taken the only thing that she had left. It might as well have taken her – what else did she have left now? The world had taken them hostage months ago and only released people into the welcoming arms of Death. No one had control of their life anymore, that luxury left the moment that the first walker reanimated. Now people were forced to live moment to moment hoping that they had made the right choices, taken the right precautions, hoping that they would be survive another night. Hoping that the morning would bring another sunrise for them.
It all came rushing back like a wave breaking against the rocks. Her knees grew weak as the screams quieted and the only noise she heard was the ringing in her head. Faintly she could hear the walker continue to digest her sister but it didn't process in her brain. This wasn't really happening, it couldn't.
One second she was holding her hand, screaming as what was left of the gas station attendant ripped into her neck, and the next moment, Karen was gone. Empty space. She could feel the place where her hand had just been in hers and looked down to see it slick with blood. Karen's blood. Her sister's blood.
It didn't feel real.
How could it be real if it didn't feel real?
A supply run.
An easy in and out, a walk in the park. That's what Ruth had said that morning while trying to rally her sister to join her for a run to a grocery store she had spotted the day before. It looked to be fortified by a previous army battalion that had been posted outside it, rationing the supplies in to survivors in the early days of the outbreak. Ruth had been surprised by the lack of walkers around the store but hadn't trusted her ability to handle trouble if she ran into it inside and had decided to come back the next day with Karen. It took a little coercing on the younger sister's part, but finally Karen had agreed to join her, if only to ensure that Ruth would return safely.
It had been Ruth's idea to go. They needed the supplies more than either sister cared to admit and this was an easy solution. Both had a list of separate supplies and would meet back at the registers in twenty minutes. It was an easy run. It was supposed to be an easy run. She'd scouted the building once more the night before, counting only a dozen or so walkers casting shadows through the store windows. They could handle a dozen walkers. If it had not been for the door leading to the back rooms breaking down, releasing a swarm of walkers that she couldn't have known were there.
Had that been for nothing? It had to be, if this was Karen's fate. They did something wrong, took a wrong turn, made a bad judgment call. Went left instead of right. It was the only explanation. It was the only thing that made it all make sense. They had just gotten lost on the path like so many before them. People who forget die. And Karen had forgotten. They both had.
They had survived for so long that Ruth had almost forgotten that they could die. She forgot that the world didn't want them anymore. She forgot that they weren't meant to survive, that they couldn't. Humanity wasn't meant to occupy the earth anymore, Mother Nature had made that painfully obvious. They weren't meant to be here anymore. Their cities didn't want them, their homes couldn't protect them. There was nothing but death for humanity now and finally, it had found them.
She couldn't handle the idea of it being solely her fault for this happening. But Karen knew the risks, knew the dangers of living in a devastated world filled with the walking dead. She knew that by getting up in the morning she was accepting the possibility that she could die at any moment. They both did every morning and considered themselves blessed every night when they went to sleep. They had survived another day. Tomorrow it would begin all over again, but at least they had made it for just one more day. It was enough for them.
Karen had been the one to find her when the televisions stopped broadcasting and people were panicking in the streets. She had left her Jeep running in front of Ruth's house and had come in announcing that they were leaving in twenty minutes. Grabbing everything that they could carry, they loaded supplies into the back of her Jeep and had taken off into the night. Neither of them talked much, both too caught up in their own thoughts.
Three hours into their drive they passed a burning church that had flaming walkers stumbling out of its front doors. Ruth looked away from the horrifying scene and focused back at the map in front of her, trying to determine their current route. The radio was playing an emergency broadcast that was telling people to head for Fort Benning, outside of Atlanta. Her sister had watched in the rear view mirrors until the church disappeared from view and both pretended not notice her tears.
When Karen finally pulled the Jeep off the side of the road and parked it behind a small group of trees, Ruth had almost fallen asleep. She had awoke to the jerk of the Jeep coming to a full stop and blearily looked around them, confused by their location.
"Keeps us hidden from the road," Karen had explained. "Don't know what to expect in times like these. Better safe than sorry, right?"
Ruth had only shrugged in agreement before pulling a blanket out of her backpack, throwing it over herself before settling deeper into her seat. That first night she didn't have trouble falling asleep, didn't have the nightmares that kept her from falling asleep now.
If she had known then that in only a few short months Karen would be dead, she would have stayed awake and talked with her. She would have asked any and every question that she could think of, soak up all the knowledge that her sister had to share. Karen was seven years older than her and had always played the part of big sister perfectly. Even at twenty-nine, Ruth had still gone to her sister first about anything that had mattered before.
Boy problems had been Karen's forte while Ruth was in high-school. When it came to real-life decisions such as college, Karen had been the one with answers. Every memorable moment in her life and Karen had been there to celebrate with her. She could remember all the times that they had sat on her front porch, laughing and drinking glasses of blackberry wine. A happy married life they had rejoiced over. A job promotion had been worth an all-night girls' celebration at the bar. A string of failed pregnancies. A broken marriage.
It all seemed meaningless now.
If she had known then what she knew now, Ruth would have talked about anything. She just wanted to laugh with her one more time, to tell her how much she loved her, to see her sister smile just once more. She would give anything to have just one more second with her. She needed her. She couldn't leave her alone here. She couldn't go.
How could it be real if it didn't feel real?
You cut off your hand and you feel pain. You have a brain tumor and even then you'll have physical symptoms. You have your heart ripped through an invisible string, tying you to the person you love most in the world, and you don't feel it. How fucked up is that? You can't feel that kind of pain, your brain can't process it, and your heart won't believe it. It doesn't feel real because it shouldn't ever be real. You shouldn't have to feel that much pain and your brain tries to protect itself by shutting down and your body takes over.
Shock, that's what it was.
She knew that was what was happening. Her brain couldn't handle the images that her eyes were sending it, so it pressed the emergency shut-down and cut power to everything but the essentials. Her mind had left the building, leaving behind only enough of herself to keep things running. It was just her now. Ruth was alone.
Her legs threatened to give out under her, her arms hung uselessly at her sides, her face was smeared with blood and tears. It couldn't be real, but it was. The sounds of Karen screaming pulled her to the present. Nothing had ever been more real in her entire life. The rest of her life paled in comparison to this moment.
She needed to move. She needed to go. Time was running short and she needed to get somewhere safe, somewhere that she could process everything in peace. She needed to get out of there. Her feet started to move, legs tensing to run. Karen's screams were drawing walkers to their location and already there were six more shambling up the street towards them. There wasn't any more time, she needed to go.
Get your shit together, man. Ain't no place for crybabies anymore. Get your ass moving.
Her vision sharpened as reality crashed down around her and she was running to the fallen body of her sister. Her hands moved without having to think and the walker standing closest to her fell to the ground, bullet hole smoking in its forehead. Ruth kicked the walker off her sister with a scream, bringing her boot down hard on its cranium. Brains exploded onto the pavement as she grabbed Karen by the arm, dragging her behind her. She shot two more walkers that were getting too close before pulling her sister into a nearby alley.
It was too late, she knew that, but she had a promise to keep and not a lot of time left for it be fulfilled. Checking quickly around the corner for any impending danger, Ruth reloaded her clip before shoving it back on her .22 Remington. She took a deep breath and looked down at her sister, doing her best to keep her breathing even. She couldn't stop now.
It felt like she was swallowing nails as she took in her sister's appearance. The bloody broken body in front of her wasn't Karen, not anymore. The walker had taken a chuck out of her throat before moving down to her abdomen. He had ripped through her skin as easily as he had her shirt, leaving her whole front shredded and allowing for her intestines to spill out. The bile escaped Ruth before she could stop it and she was on her knees, vomiting at her sister's feet. As she caught her breath and wiped a dirty sleeve across her mouth, she saw Karen's foot twitch and felt like puking again.
There was an unspoken rule in this new world: if you've got any decency left, you put a bullet in a dying man's head. You don't let them become one of those things, not ever. You end their suffering and hope that when it's you on the ground someone will pay you the same kindness. Ruth had done it before, with people that had been attacked in their last group.
But that had been different, they were people that hardly more than an acquaintance. Karen wasn't some woman that she had only met after the outbreak, she was her sister. She was the yang to Ruth's yin, the person who understood her most of all, the one that was Ruth's only reason for living. And now she was just.. gone. Killing her wasn't the same as the others. Ruth couldn't let it be.
She couldn't stop the tears from falling as she lifted her pistol with a shaking hand. Karen's legs were moving now and Ruth could hear her start to growl, eyes bugging open as she looked for her nearest prey. Everything stopped. She didn't look as she pulled the trigger.
I'm so sorry.
The heavy thud following the gun shot told her that the promise had been kept.
I love you.
Black edged into her vision as the oxygen left her body. Her throat burned as she tried to catch her breath, doing her best to keep herself standing. Leaning heavily against the brick wall behind her, she put a shaking hand to her mouth, trying to muffle her sobs. Her other hand dropped the gun on the pavement as she held herself up. She wanted to puke but there was nothing left in her stomach. Her heart felt like it was going to break its way through her chest.
Oh, god. Why?
Moans forced her to look to the road and she felt her stomach drop. Eight more walkers were coming towards her, arms outstretched and mouths biting the air around them. There was never enough time to mourn the dead anymore. She looked at Karen one last time, trying to remember her before her head was caved in from a gunshot and her intestines were where they belonged.
There was a photo tucked in the breast pocket of her shirt, the only photo that she had left of them. It was a college graduation photo that they had taken over six years ago. The photo was from a low angle and slightly out of focus but it didn't matter. The two sisters had their arms wrapped around one another, both with arms stretched the sky, reaching for the graduation cap floating above their heads. Smiles took up their entire faces, and their happiness was evident in every way. It had been a candid shot that their father had taken by mistake while dropping his camera.
Ruth had hated the photo, it was a vivid reminder of the terrible hair cut that she'd had at the time, but Karen had loved the photo. She had tucked it under the frame of her vanity mirror and had claimed to look at it every day before the outbreak. She said that it had been one of her proudest moments, watching her baby sister take her first steps in real world and being able to share in that moment with her.
A few months ago, Karen had given her the photo before going out on a supply run. Ruth had been out for two days with a sprained ankle that was a result of her last attempted run that had gone sour. The two had been separated for the night since Ruth wasn't able to make it back to their camp before dark. When Karen had found her the next morning in the backseat of an SUV, the older woman was in tears.
"I thought that I'd lost you," she whispered, pulling her sister into a hug when Ruth climbed out of the vehicle.
Together they returned to their camp, Karen keeping her from tripping over the wooded terrain as they went. Nothing was said about the supplies that had been lost when Ruth was attacked. Karen had given her the photo before taking off in the Jeep, not giving Ruth enough time to question her decision. She had looked at the photo, confused to see which one it was and grimaced at her hair cut before putting it in her jacket pocket.
Looking down at the bloody mess in front of her, Ruth didn't recognize her sister any more. Pulling the photo out with a shaking hand, she held it up beside what was left of Karen, choking back more tears. She brought the photo to her lips and kissed it, looking at it with sorrow. With a shaky breath she returned the photo to its proper place and stood up. All she saw when she closed her eyes was the bloody scene before her and that was when Ruth knew it was time to go.
There was nothing left for her here.
She holstered her pistol at her hip as she stood up, pulling a knife off her belt as she did so. The walkers were easy to deal with, she kept herself with room to back up and filtered them through the alley, bringing her knife down on each of their skulls as they got closer. Soon she was the only one left in the alley and the moaning ceased. Kicking her way through the bodies, she ran to the end of the alley, glancing around the street quickly. A few stranglers were roaming a block down but otherwise it seemed to be clear.
Jogging back up the block, Ruth scooped up the second duffel full of supplies that Karen had been carrying before being attacked. Her own duffel had been torn apart by walkers as they were fleeing the store, so she was thankful that she at least had some supplies left. She tried not to think about how much easier it would be to ration supplies with only herself to worry about.
How could she already be thinking that way? It had only been five minutes since Karen had died. Was she that far gone?
Ruth shook her head as she continued up the street. It was shock. She had done the unthinkable when shooting Karen and was now fleeing for her life. Again. It was understandable. She didn't need to worry about whether or not she was still sane or a good person right now, she needed to find some place safe first. She wasn't thinking clearly and that was a risk while she was out the open.
Swinging the duffel onto her back so that she had both arms through the straps, Ruth headed to the left, turning up a side street. Keeping the knife tightly in one hand, she didn't stop running until she was a good three blocks away from where Karen had been. She didn't see any walkers in her immediate vicinity so she slowed to a walk and worked to catch her breath. As she rounded another corner, she ducked to the ground as gun shots rang out and she scrambled to hide behind a dumpster.
A group of four people were running towards her, a crowd of walkers following close behind. It looked to be a group of around twenty with a dozen or so stranglers another two blocks down the street. These people were sprinting towards her, shooting over their shoulders to wean down the number of attackers behind them. Other survivors. People. She held her breath and watched.
One of the men had a cross-bow and the woman in the group had a fire axe that she was using to chop through walkers with ease. The other two men with them shot walkers with precision and if it wasn't for the overall force of so many walkers coming at once, Ruth thought that maybe these people could have survived. They moved together and stayed in formation, backing down the street as a cohesive unit. Bullets weren't being wasted when hand weapons could be used. No one missed a headshot if they did shoot, and no walker was left with its brains intact as they sprinted up the block. Still, there were only four of them and dozens of walkers. It looked like they were going to be overwhelmed if they didn't move quickly or if no one came to their aid.
In any other situation, if Karen had been there, if she hadn't just been abandoned by the last living person that she knew, Ruth would have run the other way. She would have turned and run, hoping that these fellow survivors hadn't seen her or which way she was going. She had done it before and would do it again, free of any guilt. It was survival of the fittest but also survival of the cautious.
Other people could get her killed, or worse, they could be the ones doing the killing. Adding unknown factors to an already unpredictable situation was something that only made matters worse. You didn't know anymore who the good people were. She and Karen had agreed. No one else, just them. They couldn't worry about anyone else if they were going to keep each other alive. No distractions.
Ruth watched as more walkers started to come out of surrounding streets and she knew that she had to make her choice fast. Hand tight on her rifle, she stood up from behind the dumpster, waving her other arm in the air. No one could be alone in this world.
Read and review.
Peace.