"Time to get up!" Rachel said to herself, brushing the hair out of her face that seemed to have gone ballistic somehow during the night.
She looked around the room and realized it was near to the bare minimum essentials. A measly single bed, clothes scattered across the floor and a small desk that was covered in several books. It was relatively small but it was all that she necessarily needed at the moment.
Rachel walked to the door and reached for the doorknob and looked up and noticed a sticky note that was placed basically eye level with her on the door that said "Deliver packages today to Peter."
"Almost forgot!" Rachel said to herself as she ran back to her bedside. She pulled up the comforter that hung really far over the edge, revealing 3 small packages that were tightly sealed together. She didn't really know exactly what was inside but it was her job to move supplies back and forth between different people in the city along with the person she was sharing the place with.
Rachel left her room and walked into the middle of the little run-down apartment. In the middle of the apartment was basically a small kitchen, there were no appliances left, only cabinets remained and off to the side there was a two person table and a little couch. She never really found it necessary to actually make the place really nice because this place was simply just a place to sleep and not much more. It's not like she ever intended for this to be a permanent house or place of living in the area of work she was involved in.
Rachel walked over to the edge of the kitchen counter and grabbed an apple from the bowl and noticed the door of the other bedroom off to the side opening up.
Out stepped a teenage guy, he ran his fingers through his dark blonde hair trying to make it look somewhat acceptable for the day. He had on a plain dark red flannel shirt, dark blue jeans and a pair of running shoes that had definite signs of wear throughout their lifetime. He was whistling and stopped when he realized that Rachel was standing there in the kitchen with an apple in her hand.
"Oh, hey Rachel." He said to her and smiled, noticing she was wearing a purple flannel shirt, dark blue jeans as well as running shoes. "You wanted me match me, aw how sweet!" He teased with his laughter.
"Shut up! I'm pretty sure I was up before you." Rachel replied back trying not to sound too sassy.
"Yeah I definitely heard you yelling earlier so thanks for the extra alarm clock there." He said walking over to grab an apple for himself.
Rachel growled back at him. "Are you ready to leave yet Chris-Hey wait what is this?!" Her tone totally changed with she noticed there was some dried blood on his face. "Come here." She grabbed him and wet a napkin and started cleaning Chris's face before he could react.
"Hey! Wait! No what are you doing?!"
"You got blood on you!"
"So?!"
"Why in the world are you getting into fights by yourself?! Who did this?"
"It was just a small group of guys don't worry about it! Needless to say, they are still alive, don't worry. They won't be messing with me anytime soon." Chris smirked back and had a face of pride.
"You are ridiculous." Rachel smacked him in the face and walked over to her backpack and placed the packages from the counter into the backpack. "And with that note... Let's go!"
Chris sighed and grabbed his backpack as well and followed behind Rachel out the front door.
Rachel stepped outside and looked up into the sky and the buildings that surrounded the two of them. As she looked around her eyes danced back and forth between the buildings that were now covered in dark green foliage and broken windows and torn down walls in certain sections seemed to be a very common thing around them. Their apartment was the only one around the area which actually had someone living in it. Basically most of the furniture in their apartment was scavenged from the nearby apartments and buildings that had been abandoned.
Chris bumped into Rachel and continued walking, "Let's go slowpoke! We're on a schedule today missy!"
"I hear ya, I hear ya." Rachel grumbled back and started walking behind him.
They began to walk through the back alleyways. It was so quiet. Nothing but broken down and abandoned buildings met them along the way. Occasionally a cat would heard but Rachel hated cats so they wouldn't be around for long. Rachel was always a little tense when it came to walking from their safe house pretty much and into where most people lived and the strongest part of the city where the military had basically total control of everything. She never knew if anyone would end up finding out where her and Chris lived and wait until this person could kill them and take everything from them, it wasn't that uncommon now days, the city life was almost as dangerous as outside the walls. (So they've always been told, Rachel thought it may be possible however.)
They came to a dead end.
"Where'd you put the ladder at?" Rachel asked Chris.
The both of them began searching for the ladder in the middle of what used to be an old playground that had been overgrown with different plants and trees. Chris was looking over by a couple of broken down cars and Rachel was looking around the old equipment.
"There's no way he would leave it over here." She thought to herself as she was moving bushes back and forth to look for the ladder. "I think this is..."
"-Found it!" Chris called out, maybe just a little louder than he should have.
Chris set it up against the wall that led up to the second floor of a building. There was a huge hole in the side so it was perfect and easy to get into.
"After you!" Chris gestured for Rachel to go up the ladder first as he held it for her to make sure it was secure.
"Oh you're such a gentleman, Chris." Rachel replied sarcastically as she went up the ladder and into the open room that was the second floor and began looking around for something around the broken down bookshelves and trash scattered around on the floor.
"What are you looking for?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow showing curiousity what Rachel was doing.
"Nothing." Rachel sighed and began walking towards the long hallway that wrapped around the building. There was something that Rachel thought was there but she couldn't find it and it bugged her a little bit. She began to hum a tune and air drum in the air while she led the both of them down the hall. The building definitely showed some age and the wallpaper was all messed up. Once again, this used to be populated city but so many people were either killed off by the infection itself or by other gangs or the military. Rachel gave a big sigh and brushed her brown hair to the other side of her face. "Almost there." She said as she opened the door in front of them. She was getting tired of such a difficult life she had just to survive and get by day and day.
Rachel stepped into the room. Inside the room was hardly decorated if you could say that at least. The walls had once been bright and colorful with a light green but now were faded and torn up, who knows what caused that to be exact. The floor was hardwood but what used to be a pretty and polished light hardwood floor now showed significant wear throughout the majority of the room. The floor was mostly covered in parts of the ceiling that had fallen, a layer of dust covered it as well with most of the other objects in the room. Someone sat at the couch in the front of them facing the fireplace and was making sure it didn't go out. The couch looked out of place because it was the only thing in the room that looked the newest and had a coffee table in front of it with boards underneath. The guy facing the fire had a small beard and was a little bit older than Rachel and Chris. He wore a light jacket and a pair of jeans with combat boots. The guy looked up and over when he heard the doorknob moving to see who it was as he grabbed the shotgun laying next to his leg.
"Oh. It's just you, Rachel." The guy said. "You're a little earlier than I expected."
"Yeah no worries man, we made good time this morning and I wanted to get this over with." Rachel replied back walking over to the coffee table.
"Alright, good. Just be safe and make it back in one piece, okay?" He replied back while helping her move the coffee table back and moving the boards out of the way, revealing a secret door that seemed really deep. The bottom wasn't even visible, a ladder was the only option down.
"We got this, you know us." Rachel flashed back a smirk as she pulled out her flashlight and secured it onto her backpack shoulder strap and began to descend down into the dark. Chris followed behind her but was quiet the whole time until they got to the bottom of the ladder. They looked around to what was an underground pathway that had lights every now and then to make sure you could somewhat see where you were going.
It was about a five minute walk until Christ finally spoke again. Normally Rachel wasn't one to openly speak out unless she felt it was necessary or she just wanted to ramble, but for Chris being really quiet was a little out of the norm.
"Something about this job just seems different than usual, I can't explain it. I feel like it's going to go wrong for some reason." Chris fidgetted with his hands and studdered a little.
Rachel turned around and leaned into him playfully, "It's not that different than what we do most of the time silly. We sneak past the military guards. We do some awesome jumping across buildings-that's always fun you know that, then we make it to the head honcho guy of this group that wants the drugs. Get paid. Make our way back home and good as usual. It's just a little different of a route, that's all!" She turned around again and walked forward into the end of the path that ended up and into a big storage room and turned on the lights. Rachel walked up to one of the walls that was covered in different materials and weapons that they had accumulated through trade with the different jobs that the two of them had completed in the past.
"Yeah I know, it's.. I don't know, something's going to happen, that's all I know." Chris said while taking off his backpack to pack more gear into it from the wall.
Rachel grabbed her bow and several arrows and put them across her shoulder along with her backpack which now had more food and camping supplies incase they got caught up out late at night and needed to survive to make it back to the house. She also grabbed her hunting and throwing knives and put them in a side pocket.
"Hey." Rachel said putting her hands up onto Chris's shoulders. "Look at me. We'll be okay, we have eachother's backs like always and nothing is going to change that. Be great as always and we both will be safe and there'll be nothing to worry about."
Chris grabbed a rifle hanging from the wall and slung it over his shoulder and put a couple of smoke bombs they had made last week in his backpack as well as some extra ammo, there could never be enough ammo, seriously. He pulled out his green notebook that was in his bag and looked at his journal entry, "Tell her today!" it read. Chris made a determined face and closed the book, stuffed it back into his backpack and walked over to Rachel who was tieing up her running shoes and looking ready to go. He kept having the conversations of her mentioning about after this job that they'll not have to worry about having to scramble around for money for quite a while compared to the stuff they did in the past. There was something he needed to tell her and it was bothering him the longer he held it to himself. With the uneasiness also about today wasn't a great combination with this other thing on his heart.
"Hey Rachel-"
"Alright! Let's suit up!" Rachel jumped up and kinda gave him a little butt-check, "Ready to go?" She flashed her big smile at him.
"Yeah. Let's go." Chris responded back trying not sound normal and that nothing was up. Right now wasn't the time apparently, Rachel was too focused about heading out.
Rachel noticed Chris wasn't himself and reached out and hugged him tight, "After this we can relax a while, okay? Let's finish strong and then it'll be over! Get some rest, I'll wake you up when it's time to go!" Rachel smiled and laughed.
Chris walked over to the couch and not long after laying down, was sound asleep...
