The only sound Cate could hear was the wind caressing the leaves and the occasional noise of branches snapping under her boots. She tried to pass through the forest as quietly as possible but the moonless night made it difficult to make out the ground and lightning her flashlight would have been too much of a risk. This was their territory, and she did not want to find out what they did to trespassers. Or thieves for that matter. And for them, she was both. She had not only wandered into their territory but had stolen from them multiple times over the last couple of weeks. To the best of her knowledge, they hadn't noticed her activities, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Cate pulled the scarf tighter around her neck as she navigated her way through the treacherous terrain in the dark. It was early spring and while the days were getting warmer, the nights still felt chilly. Her feet felt sore reminding her that it was time to acquire a new pair of boots. The thought troubled her. It wasn't going to be easy to get decent shoes in her size. Or she could always steal a pair from them…
She learned the hard way not to trust anybody and to keep to herself. In the apocalypse, one may have had to fight the dead to survive, but the living were far worse. If there was crime and violence before the outbreak, it became standard after shit hit the global fan. There were no police, courts or prisons to keep people in line anymore, law and morals were wiped out from the face of the earth along with the majority of society. Theft, rape and murder were everyday occurrences and only punishable by the rules the individual communities set up, if there were any. But Cate didn't want to rely on the unlikely humanity of others and evaded all kinds of settlements deliberately.
She didn't have a choice. Not after what had happened at the Manor.
Initially, she looked for an abandoned house or a cottage, a place that she could return to every night, with a roof above her head, offering safety from walkers and humans alike. But most of the buildings in the area had been burnt out or in such a run-down state that there was no point setting up camp in them. So Cate built her own home instead. Not an actual house, she lacked the tools and skills for that, but a little tree house that was safely hidden in the canopy of the trees from prying eyes, with a make-shift roof from branches and leaves that kept her dry when it rained and cool when the relentless Virginian sun beat down on it. She installed a rope ladder that could be pulled up and down for safety. The house itself had a single room that was the living room, kitchen and bedroom combined. She had the necessary tools to set up a fire and warm water or cook a meal. It was small and lacked any luxury, but Cate liked the tree house very much, and for the first time since the apocalypse had started, she had a place that she could call her own. The forest offered her an ample choice of food from berries and seeds to roots, and there were plenty of clean lakes and streams nearby with an abundance of fish in them. It was a meagre diet, but it kept her going.
She had lost track of time. At the beginning she was marking the days in a diary she had found in an abandoned house. But when days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, she had to accept that hopes for a cure were slipping away. Nobody was coming to save mankind. There was no point in tracking time anymore. She kept the diary, but stopped making daily entries and eventually forgot what the actual date was. The only indication of time left was the changing of the seasons and how easy it was to scavenge for food. And that she came across dead beings along the way more often.
As time went by, she started to become aloof. She went through her daily routine methodically: wake up, gather food, eat, go to sleep, repeat. But she stopped to care. She had nobody to talk to, nobody she could trust, and finally, she lost interest in everything. Most of the days she just felt numb, sadness enveloping her mind like a constant grey cloud. She woke up early and walked the forest and the surrounding area until sundown, to keep herself from thinking about the future. But the nights were the most difficult. As darkness fell and she was forced to stay put in the tree house, without anything to occupy herself with, she couldn't help but think, her mind buzzing with questions and doubts. Sleep hardly provided any comfort. Her dreams always centered around people and memories from before that she couldn't escape from as darkness closed in on her. She would wake up in the middle of the night to her own screams, shaking and covered in sweat, too afraid to go back to sleep.
Then everything changed when one day she found the factory. And got addicted to the little game she made up.
She came upon the industrial complex by pure chance during one of her walks when she ventured further out into the forest than ever before. From far away it seemed to be deserted, but upon closer inspection, she realised that it was the complete opposite. At least two hundred people lived there, men, women and children even. They had not only several cars and trucks but even electricity and running water, which was unparalleled these days. Vast gardens surrounded the premises and the residents grew a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. From afar it looked safe, orderly, ideal almost. But Cate knew better than to believe first impressions.
Her first thought was to move camp as quickly as possible before they crossed paths with her in the forest accidentally. But then something stopped her. A voice in her head telling her to finally stop running from people. She liked the forest and the tree house and spent a substantial amount of time and effort setting it up. She wasn't going to abandon it just because there was a community nearby.
The first time around she only wanted to get a closer look at the building to determine if the community posed any danger to her, breaking in didn't even cross her mind. But then curiosity, or more likely the little devil on her shoulder got the better of her. The area was patrolled by armed guards, and there was even an extra layer of protection in the form of walkers roaming along the tall chain-link fence around the factory, but sneaking in and getting out went easy, almost too easy. Once Cate had climbed back over the fence and disappeared behind the rusting cars of the freight train parked next to the forest, she kept running for almost half an hour before allowing herself to rest. She expected to hear noises of people or cars approaching, but there was nothing except for the usual sounds coming from the forest. They did not see her enter or leave nor had they noticed that something was missing from the supplies, not then or later. Considering the vast quantity of supplies the factory people brought back from their daily scavenging trips, Cate wasn't surprised. It seemed as if they had gone to the nearest Wal-Mart to do the weekly shopping, except there was nobody at check-out anymore. But she was no fool: they took the supplies from other survivors by force. They acted like the kings of the land, and it was the tax the people of the surrounding communities paid for them.
The success of her first theft made her crave more. She wanted to taste the thrill of it again, and soon she was sneaking into the factory every day. The trips gave her a purpose and a sense of achievement, satisfaction even. For the first time in a while, she felt alive again. She enjoyed sketching out her late night visits, the route to be taken through the forest, what part of the factory she wanted to explore, which items she was going to steal. The pages in her diary were now filled with various plans and scribbling as well as the list of every single item she proudly managed to take with her. She even started tracking her time spent inside the factory for extra fun and felt like a champion every time she broke her previous record. But she was careful and never stole more than a couple of items at once: some canned food, a shirt or a pack of painkillers. Enough for her to survive on but not enough to raise any red flags with them.
Cate was aware that eventually she would have to give up her beloved game but found herself pushing back the deadline over and over again. The people at the factory may have been careless or sloppy with keeping track of rations, but they were not stupid and very much a threat. She knew the basic layout of the premises quite well by now, but breaking in every night was as dangerous as the first time around. And yet the possibility of getting caught only added to the thrill, even if her rational self always reminded her that such a mistake would cost her her life in this game. For she was certain that if the factory people ever got their hands on her, they would show her no mercy. The statue of a praying angel with a hand-made necklace of cut-off walker hands next to the road leading to the main entrance conveyed the message loud and clear: this was not a community to be messed with. But she still couldn't bring herself to stop. She got obsessed with her own little game and like every addict always promised to quit tomorrow and never today. But somehow that tomorrow never came.
She continued along the path in the forest deep in thought. She wanted to start a small fire and cook the fish from her last fishing trip with some herbs and finally put her feet up. Her thoughts were disrupted by a snapping sound coming from somewhere behind her. She froze mid-step and turned around, holding her breath and trying to make out what could have caused the noise. While the night was almost black, even the stars hidden behind a set of clouds on the sky, her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and she could see the outline of the trees around her clearly. An owl was howling on a nearby tree, but other than that, the forest remained quiet. After a few seconds, she allowed herself to relax and continued along the path. It must have been a deer or a fox, not human. After taking a few steps, she heard another branch crack, this time merely a couple of steps from her. She stopped abruptly and gulped hard, the hair on the back of her hand standing up. Something was wrong.
Run.
She obeyed her instinct and pulled up the scarf from around her neck to cover her mouth and nose. She started running, not paying attention to how much noise she was making, the only thing that mattered now was for her to get away from whoever was lurking in the dark. The next moment she heard a whistle: an eerie tune, loud and sharp, cutting through the dark of the forest. It was coming from her left and made the blood freeze in her veins. Cate knew the forest like the back of her hand, and if she reached the hill after the clearing, she could find shelter from her chaser. She didn't want to take him anywhere near her tree house, so this route was her best option. She hoped that whoever was following her, they were alone and didn't know their way around the area, but her hopes were shattered when another whistle cut through the night air, this time coming from her right. There must have been at least two people chasing her by now.
Shit. Could it be them?
She didn't have time to worry about the suspicions of her subconscious and sped up her steps. The clearing was not far, she was going to reach it in a minute at this pace, but then she heard another whistle, this time ahead of her. She stopped running and listened intently. She tried to muffle her heavy breathing but felt like her heartbeat could be heard even at the other end of the forest. The whistle was joined by another one and then by another one, forming a choir of at least 8 to 10 people whistling together like members of a sect chanting a prayer. There were more of them. Too many of them. And they were all around her in every direction and getting closer. Panic struck her like lightning, and a cold sweat broke out on her back. She started to run again. It didn't matter anymore where she was going as long as she was moving.
Her mind frantically searched for an explanation of what could have possibly gone wrong, how they had found her. But she knew it didn't matter anymore. She got complacent and now if she wasn't fast enough, she was going to meet her maker before sunrise. While pulling up in advance different worst-case scenarios in her head about how she could reason with them if captured, she didn't notice a log hidden behind a small bush and her left foot got caught up in it making her land face-down on the ground. The air left her lungs with a loud groan, and she felt dizzy from the hard fall. She tried to free her foot from the log but lost valuable seconds in the process, and by the time she was back on her feet again, a pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind and pushed her up against the nearest tree. She winced from the pain of the impact as her face hit the rough bark of the tree.
Spinning around on her heels, she managed to catch her attacker off guard and kicked him in the crotch, effectively disarming him. She continued to run for the clearing, but the man was on her already and grabbed her once again, this time caging her arms behind her back and pushing her down on the ground. He climbed on top of her and pinned her down with his knees. Cate tried to fight him off, but he was heavier and probably on a more varied diet than her. He took both her wrists in an iron grip and twisted them behind her back, holding them there. Pulling her up from the forest floor by the arms, he started to push her along the path.
Both of them were panting hard, and Cate could feel warm blood dripping down her temple, the metallic taste of it reaching the corner of her lips through the fabric of the scarf that was still covering her nose and mouth. She tried to turn around to look her captor in the eyes, but his grip on her arms was firm and held her in place. He was pushing her towards the clearing she was so desperately trying to reach earlier.
But Cate wished otherwise as soon as they stepped out of the tree line. There were at least a dozen armed men in the middle of the clearing, standing in a half circle and surrounded by various cars with their headlights on. Her captor pushed her forward, and once she had reached the center, the men moved closer to each other to close the circle around her. The man turned her around and started checking her clothes for concealed weapons. The car lights shone on his face, and the sight made Cate gasp: a giant burn scar marred his skin from his temple to his chin, resembling the surface of the moon.
But that wasn't the only thing Cate noticed about him. His face might have been scarred, but it looked familiar. Then it occurred to her that she had seen him before, a couple of weeks ago out in the forest. He was with a tall brunette and a petite blonde girl, and they were arguing so loud that she could hear them from a mile away. She watched them from the safety of a couple of thick bushes and overheard them debating which way they should go. They seemed to be running from somewhere or someone but must have taken off in haste and without a plan or proper supplies. Cate knew better than to make her presence known to them and waited for the trio to move on before going the other way hoping never to see them again. She dismissed the event quickly but now it all came back to her, and she wondered where the brunette and the blonde were now and how the man had got burnt.
"What do you want from me, Scarface? Let me go!" Cate protested but to no avail. The man finished searching her clothes and pulled the backpack off of her shoulders.
"Get on your knees. He will be here soon to decide your fate," he barked without sparing a look at her.
"Who?"
"Negan," the scarred man pointed his index finger down. "On your knees!"
"I ain't gonna kneel for any son of a bitch!" Cate exclaimed defiantly ignoring the silly command. "And who the fuck is Negan?"
She felt somebody kick her in the leg from behind and fell to the ground.
"You will learn the hard way if you don't watch your mouth," the man replied with malice.
The eerie whistling of earlier pierced through the clearing from somewhere behind the circle of men, ending in a low chuckle. She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see another man enter the circle in front of her.
Fuck.
It was him. Cate recognized his face immediately. She had seen him several times from her hiding place in the forest while spying on the factory. She had quickly figured out that he was the leader, from the way he was carrying himself, commanding respect and authority, the aura of power surrounding him like a dark coat. He was tall and lean, probably in his mid to late 40s, she wouldn't have been able to tell. He was wearing black boots, grey trousers, a black leather jacket complemented with a red scarf around his neck and looked like as if he had just stepped off from the catwalk for the apocalypse's best-dressed men. His short, black hair was slicked back from his face, and a neatly trimmed beard lined his face. His eyes were dark and impenetrable and were studying her with a mix of curiosity and amusement. In another life, in another place, she would have called him handsome. But Cate didn't let appearances fool her and didn't miss the baseball bat in his leather-glove-clad right hand, the end of it wrapped in barbed wire. This man was danger incarnate and had no doubt heard her derogatory remark about him. His voice was firm and commanding as it cut through the silence of the night.
"I am fucking Negan. Are we pissin' our pants yet?"
Negan felt a jolt of adrenaline course through his veins as he advanced on the thief kneeling in the dirt in front of him. A satisfied smirk spread on his lips as he stopped two steps away from the hooded figure. He stood silently for a couple of seconds, enjoying the dramatic effect of his entrance. Moments like this were the favourite part of his job as leader of the Sanctuary.
But not even the stimulating cocktail of hormones from the successful capture could dull the burning heat of his anger. Frankie was in the middle of giving him a deep-tissue massage in his room, and his mind was already on his wife giving him another kind of massage on the tissue located between his legs when they got interrupted by the buzzing of the walkie-talkie. His right-hand man, Simon had found the footsteps in the yard and alerted him right away. Negan gave the order to dispatch a search party after the suspect with a personal warning added over the radio that if he wasn't caught, his men were going to be scraping toilets with their toothbrushes for a month. He didn't know if that did the trick or luck was on their side, but not more than ten minutes later he received the second radio message confirming that his men had the intruder in custody, awaiting further instructions. He didn't have to go out to the forest but wanted to. It was so much fun to line up his new toys and deliver them his usual spiel on the new world order. He couldn't pass up on the opportunity, especially not with this one. Whichever community he belonged to, every single member there was going to pay a heavy price for this.
When Negan arrived at the meeting point, he was horny and thirsting for blood. Within a couple of minutes, he was going to sate the latter and after his return to the Sanctuary also the former. His dick pressed uncomfortably against the fabric of his trousers and the thought that he could have been balls-deep in his wife already instead of being out in the cold forest in the middle of the goddamn night fuelled his anger to a boiling rage.
The little shit had been stealing from the Sanctuary for at least a few weeks now, at least that's when his men had noticed that something was not right with the inventory. There was never a lot of supplies missing, some food, a smaller weapon or a few items of clothing, which could easily be dismissed as a mathematical error or loss. But there was a strange pattern to the items disappearing, which raised a red flag with Negan. First, he thought that one of his Saviors must have grown greedy, hoping to earn extra benefits on the side by selling the stolen items. He had to rule out this possibility, and while he was relieved when the investigation found nothing, the result puzzled him. He acknowledged with pride that his Saviors were loyal or at least smart enough not to steal from their leader, but this meant that the thief must have come from the outside. And he found that possibility less than reassuring.
At first, the thief pissed him off. Anyone breaking the rules pissed him off, and this one not only broke them but kept doing so as if he had been aiming for the fucking Guinness World Record in rule breaking. It made Negan want to have the furnace fired up to a thousand degrees. Then he became curious. He wanted to know who did it and how. He was even amused by the stealth and cleverness with which the thief had evaded his Saviors for so long like a fucking phantom. But his luck ran out tonight and he was going to regret even thinking about stealing from him, Negan was going to make sure of that.
He let his eyes wander over the silhouette of the figure kneeling on the ground. The large hoodie must have seen better days, it was stained and faded out, the baggy pants torn at the knee and at least two sizes bigger on the slim frame, held together by what looked like rope. He must have been out in the woods on his own for a long period of time and had not been spoiled with the comforts of too much food or a proper shower. His long hair was in dire need of a wash and a cut, not necessarily in that order. Dirt and caked blood were smeared on his cheeks, but Negan could hardly make out his face as his nose and mouth were covered by what looked like a blue scarf. But not even the dirt and the blood could hide the most striking feature of the stranger: his eyes. Dark, defiant, and yet surprisingly soft. Even in the dark Negan could see a fiery spark burning in them.
"Well, well. What do we have here?" he chuckled gleefully and popped his beloved baseball bat over his shoulder. His question was purely rhetorical but when he received no reaction from the figure he grew impatient. "Get that hood out of your face. I want to see you when I talk to you," he commanded as if he were scolding a naughty student.
When his order was not obeyed, Negan took one step closer and crouched down, placing his bat gingerly on his lap. The thief tried to lean away from his reach, but Negan was quicker. He grabbed the hem of the hoodie and pulled it back from his face, then tugged on the scarf, letting the fabric fall on the ground. He narrowed his eyes at the sight when the realization hit him. It was anything but what he expected to find in the forest tonight. His lips curled up into a lopsided smile, and he knew that it was the right decision to come out here and meet his prey in person. If he had been enjoying the situation before, he was practically ecstatic now.
The dark, defiant eyes with a fiery spark burning in them belonged to none other than a woman.
[TO BE CONTINUED]