Chapter two: Fury
All characters are property of Valve. I own nothing, not even anything remotely related to this great game.
Reviews appreciated ^_^
She remembered opening her eyes to a metallic clanging and some guttural sounds, followed by cussing and gunshots.
It sounded familiar, like when they had been in a safe room and-
'They': this sent her heart slipping downwards into the ever darkening pit of her being.
'Francis…' she had heard her self say out loud before closing her eyes against fatigue, the image of Louis and Bill throbbing in the dark of her inner eyelids like the pain in her shoulder.
So…it wasn't a dream.
She realized that, before dozing off despite the sounds of a possible horde, clawing at the reinforced metal door. Heck, she didn't even care if they got her…no, not anymore.
The next time she awoke, it was silent.
Zoey hated silence the same way Francis hated, well, a lot of things. But she despised it, because it had been her only answer that fateful night, when the horde drove her into some dark end of the street. No one else in sight. For all the miles she limped, she had found nothing but the infected.
That silence…if it were real and had a physical shape it would be as ugly as a tank and as eerie as a witch. But far scarier than both combined.
She remembered stopping there (giving up? Losing hope?) near an alley, calling out for what seemed to be the thousandth time, for Francis…for Bill…for Lois.
No answer, just silence and the pain from injuries past, like every wound her body had ever incurred up to that point, had decided to pounce, like a hunter.
What happened after that was set in a blur of tears. She had broken for the first time: cried, sobbed.
The gunshot, her shoulder, it had all been a haze washed by rain and water too saline.
Now, her drowsy vision cleared and set revealing the ceiling of the room. Light oozed in like a pale yellow tongue, silhouetting the metal bars of the door upon the off-white paint above.
She groaned and tried to sit up. Her shoulder protested, as all the nerve endings there came alive in a furious riot. She winced.
But there was something else holding her down. Just before she could panic, she looked down to notice she was zipped into a black sleeping bag, rendered grey with a carpeting of dust that reveled swooshed and hurried hand prints – possibly belonging to the person who zipped her in.
She sighed and rested her head back. Perfect.
All of last night came seeping back, into memory in jarring fragments - images like reflections on a broken mirror:
The echo of a gunshot, the thrust of impact, and her own scream, that sounded so wonderfully annoying.
She frowned. Her shoulder still hurt…to say the least.
Cringing and cranky she tried to wriggle her hand over to the wound. That was when she realized something was wrong. Very wrong.
Her hand moved just fine. It was her right hand so that was good. But there was something deeply disturbing and it set her pulse ablaze:
As her hand made its way to the aching left shoulder, all she felt on its way up, was her own skin – the smooth and tight skin over her abdomen, her firm and slick abs, the sweat that collected in the area tucked beneath the swell of her –
Her breath caught. Nothing escaped her lips during the onset of her horror but in her head she was screaming.
She turned her head to the right and made out what was the source of a steady breathing: a young man, asleep, sitting with his back against the graffiti bombed wall. His head was bent down and further hidden by his cap.
He was just a few feet from her, but between them, laid out on the floor, were her clothes. Underwear and all.
At once her rage bloomed on her cheeks in a seriously understated hue of pink.
How. Dare. He…she thought, her hands forming fists. Nails dug into her palms.
Slowly with controlled fury, she unzipped herself. Her body was covered by some old white sheet. She sat up slowly, ignoring the pain, holding the sheet against her chest.
Now it all made sense: that gunshot: it had been his doing! What could have happened after that? Did he…
She looked at his hand, limply resting it's wrist on his bent knee. Where had it been? What had it done?
had he …?
Of course he had! It was stupid to assume otherwise. Even someone like Louis couldn't be so blinded by white optimism to not guess what this…this…pervert might have done to her!
She held back an angry yell, smothering it with an alien need for vengeance. She had been injured; else, she could never had let something like this happen!
His hands…the sight of them made her tighten her grip on the sheet she held against herself. Fuming, she pressed her thighs against each other in a vain attempt to convince herself that she was still intact. It was foolish to believe it.
She had plans for what was now, most likely, stolen from her. Heck, even though her college friends had laughed at her virginity, she still valued it. She wanted to wait. For fear of being ravished and then forsaken, she wanted to wait. For some stupid well-hidden Cinderella dream to come true: she wanted to wait!
Looking around in the faint dawn light she saw her colt anaconda lying forgotten on an old crate. She sighed with relief that it had been within her reach.
Sheet in one hand, she reached for it.
"If I had my goddamn clothes on…"she hissed into her silence.
She knew she had been hunted down for this- this violation!
"…I would tare you apart where it matters most!"
she held her arm firm and straight, pointing the .44 magnum at him. Heaving with rage.
She prepared to pull the trigger.
"Survivor or not, you're gonna pay…"