She couldn't go back to the den empty handed and showing all the signs of having eaten recently, not while her dominance over her tiny clan and their territory was still so fresh. The truck she had discovered was full of food, and while the meat wasn't warm and fresh, it was just as good, and cool in the summer heat.
She just wasn't sure she wanted to risk the Sprinters, Crusher and the transformed Glutton, any one of the three very capable of being in the place she needed to go. Crusher was something so obvious to avoid, being as big and as strong and as angry as he was, the Sprinters had lost a few members but were still dangerous enough as a group to give her trouble, and the Glutton…
The Glutton was transformed, which meant he was hungry.
Easing out of the room where she had been hiding, a room that smelled strongly of waste, urine and cleaning supplies, the Reaper peered up and down the brightly lit hallway. The coast was clear from what she could see, so she headed down into the street, her thoughts remaining on her brother and their Witch back at the den.
It had been some time since they had eaten, and she couldn't let them starve… hunger did terrible things to the infected. The Glutton was ever living testament to this fact, and she would be dead before she allowed her kind to reach that terrible point.
The steps leading down out of the school were filthy, covered with littered bones and discarded flesh, signs that something had been there recently and had been eating. It wasn't the Sprinters, they usually took their prey away with them rather than eating it on the spot, and it wasn't Crusher…
Crusher didn't leave anything behind, not even bones.
That meant the Glutton was still close, but if he was feeding, she would be able to get around him without him giving her too much trouble.
She came across a group of Sprinters on her way to the truck she had hidden herself and the girl in, but they were busy transporting a body they had liberated from the Glutton and offered her no more than warning growls and a few soft barks as she gave them wide berth and continued onwards. She was very lucky she didn't encounter humans… they had a terrible habit of popping up with their fire, their guns and their prejudice.
The doors at the back of the truck were still wide open, meaning that nothing had come along smart enough to close them, the trail of blood that led up to it and was smeared over the rear of it proving that something had come while she was gone.
She only hoped it had gone as quickly as it had come and that it had left something behind for her to take back to the den. If the blood had gotten onto anything, the food would spoil quickly. If it hadn't, she might still be able to salvage enough to keep her clan going until they found food again.
Approaching the truck cautiously, she caught the strong, musky scent that indicated the Glutton was near, but the scent was more faint than it had been before she had hidden in the room in the university. He must have seen them come from this truck and had deemed it safe, or he knew…
He knew she would be back.
Coming up to the back, keeping low so whatever was inside might not be able to see her, she peeked into the truck slowly and carefully, seeing that the inside was no more ransacked than when she had gotten her claws on it. She could hear breath coming from the back corner of the truck, labored, shallow and short, judging that the owner of the breath was no threat to her.
As she clamoured up into the truck, her eyes fell on the Glutton in his human form, slumped in the corner with his skin, torn sweater and ripped pants covered in blood and gore. His eyes were closed, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing and his limbs trembling in exhaustion.
She could tell just by looking that his transformation was complete… his rage was utterly spent and he would need rest and water before he would even be able to walk again.
Here, he was very vulnerable.
As she looked around, she realized the Glutton had also been very sick… it was a trend she had noticed with him, an unhealthy one that she worried he did on purpose. It was either a good sign, or a very bad one.
If he regurgitated every time he ate, he would never be able to keep up his strength. If it was for noble, human reasons, she admired it, but it was foolish none the less. They ate what they had to… even humans did in most extreme cases. It was morally wrong for the humans to do so, but the Glutton wasn't really human and was putting himself in unnecessary danger by doing this.
Her clan needed her… but the Glutton was here, right now, and he needed her more.
…
Chris could barely think through the exhaustion and the terrible fog of rage that still lingered on his mind. He had wasted so much of his energy trying not to give in… and when there wasn't any of him left to hold the Glutton back, it had gotten out and he woke up to find himself devouring the same infected he had just been killing.
He was sick… he was so sick. His skin felt even more flushed and hot with fever than usual, his stomach ached, his limbs were killing him and his head… His head was throbbing like someone had smashed it against a brick wall or dropped him from a very high place.
He blacked out again shortly after, woke to find himself roaming the streets, what remained of a Sprinter on the ground in front of him. Then the changes began to reverse themselves and he crawled back to the truck where the Reaper had been keeping Portia.
There was food in there, food that she didn't have to kill for, food she could scavenge without it being from another person or from an infected. Good food, easy food. The Reaper was sure to come back there, and he had shared food with her in the past, making him an ally of sorts.
He needed her help. It was strange to turn to such a creature for assistance, but he would take whatever he could right now, and he could honestly trust her far more than anyone else these days.
Collapsing in the corner of the truck, darkness claimed him once more, all of the energy he had tried to save now gone. He slept with his back and his head pressed into the cool metal, waiting…
His patience was soon rewarded.
Chris opened his eyes, the feeling of a rough tongue on his neck and cheek rousing his sluggish thoughts as he realized there was a smaller body pressed to his own. His arm felt tingly, proving that she had been at this for awhile, and despite the utter oddness of the situation, he didn't feel particularly inclined to move or try to stop her.
When she noticed he was awake, the Reaper pulled back ever so slightly, gazing at him with those glowing red eyes of hers and tilting her head to the side. She slid away from him, returning in seconds with a bottle of water she had found in the truck. She struggled to open it for a moment, then offered some to him after cutting the top of the bottle off with her claws.
Chris offered her a smile in return, too weak to talk, the water feeling so good on his throat. The throbbing of his head began to dull slightly after a few drinks, and the horrible taste in his mouth was washed away. Once the water was down, he felt the throbbing of his head lessen quite a bit, able to take a good look at her in the strange artificial light.
She had shed the hooded sweatshirt she had been wearing, clad now in a loose white tank top that looked as though it had been spotless before she started tending to him, dark stains on it now from all the blood that covered him. She was completely hairless… he hadn't realized that about them before, having never seen one up this close and definitely not this personal. Her eyes were luminescent, completely white but glowing red, no other color in them but the black pupils, and her features were almost Asian. She was very petite… almost pretty.
Pretty like a deadly spider was pretty.
She noticed Chris was staring and let out a hiss through bared teeth… very, very sharp bared teeth. Chris took in a breath and offered her a gentle smile, the Reaper curling her nose before picking up a piece of jerky she had liberated from one of the boxes.
She offered it to him, but Chris shook his head. There was no way he would be able to eat that sort of thing, not in his condition… it was pathetic, being too tired to even chew food.
Hissing again, the Reaper leaned down and continued cleaning him, Chris shifting uncomfortably. She was giving him the impression of being some sort of human shaped cat, and he had become a member of her clan, her pride. Then he realized they were sitting in a refrigerated truck, and from what he had seen of the infected, they disliked the cold.
She wasn't just trying to tend to him, she was also trying to keep warm.
"Under different circumstances, I'd be the luckiest fucking man alive." He muttered to himself, watching the Reaper sit back a bit and begin gnawing on the piece of jerky. "You're not gonna go Princess Mononoke on me, are you? Because that would come dangerously close to stripping me of all the dignity I have left."
She hissed softly in return, the only noise he had ever heard a Reaper make. He wondered if the infection had taken their vocal cords…
The Reaper stopped gnawing on the jerky and lowered it slowly, turning her eyes to the side of the truck and tilting her head as if listening for something, Chris' heart beginning to beat a little faster.
They were still in Crusher's territory… if the beast came for them, there was no way either of them could stop it.
Getting up, the Reaper made her way to the back of the truck and peeked out the open doors, Chris not daring to ask her what it was she was listening for.
The ground wasn't shaking, he couldn't hear the growling of the beast anywhere close, so there was a chance it wasn't Crusher that had the little Reaper suddenly spooked. Wetting his lips and attempting to sit up, Chris grit his teeth.
"Something bad coming?" He asked softly, the Reaper turning her glowing eyes to him and frowning.
An instant later, she was scurrying back towards him as the sound of an aircraft filled the air. Gathering his shirt in her hand, she dragged him up and began to run, impossibly fast. Leaping out of the truck, she landed with a crunch on a nearby car, Chris in tow, then began dodging and weaving through the vehicles on the road. Other infected were running with them, Chris seeing with a jolt of shock that Crusher was among them, the beast letting out a bellow of terror as the sound of the aircraft drew closer. A Witch they passed in their mad flight had gotten to her feet and was looking straight up into the air, Chris turning his gaze the same way to see what it was they were all running from.
The sight that met his eyes reminded him of something he had seen in a safe room before things had gotten really bad. He had brushed it off as people being paranoid or trying to stir up more fear than they needed… but now he understood that those things they wrote were actually true.
Planes are falling out of the sky.
Planes WERE falling out of the sky…
…
Portia had fallen asleep almost immediately after laying down, obviously wiped out from all the emotional and physical trauma she had suffered on her short journey. Roger stood guard by the door, sitting on the desk and kicking his feet while humming to himself to keep his mind occupied. He was bored stiff…
Gazing out the window of the safe room, he scanned the empty hallway for anything that might have been moving, but the infected seemed to be avoiding this area now. There was the sound of aircraft from outside, but it was more common in this place and no cause for alarm considering they were so close to the airport, so Roger chose to ignore it.
"Damn." He muttered, drumming the fingers of his free hand on his leg. "I'd give anything for a horde right about now."
Seconds later, he was thrown on his face as something hit the ground outside, the roar sounding every bit like a train wreck or an earthquake. Roger let out a shout, ducking backwards under the desk, the roof above him being torn off so quickly he couldn't see what had done it. Across the room, he could hear Portia screaming over the roar, pushing himself out from under the desk to go to her.
An explosion rocked the building a few seconds later, flame and smoke rising up into the sky. Portia gasped hoarsely when Roger grabbed her arms, and he had to give her a shake to get her to come to her senses.
"C'mon! Come back to me, Portia!"
"W-w-was that a b-bomb?!" Portia stammered, being jerked to her feet by Roger, who looked as shaken up as she felt.
"I don't know! It's not safe here, we have to go!" Roger shouted back, taking her hand in his and guiding her to the door.
It might not have been safe outside, either, but without a roof and in a locked room, they were sitting ducks here. Smokers, Spitters, Reapers and Hunters were just the beginning of their worries if they stayed here, and if it WAS a bomb that hit them, there might be more explosions to come.
Together, they ran down the hall and back out the front, Roger carrying his gun and Portia clutching her rifle for dear life.
"We have to go into the city! That will have started a fire, and I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the Okanagan Valley is best known for it's burning in the summertime!" Roger shouted to Portia, whose cheeks were wet with tears that carved tracks through the dust and grime now covering her face.
As soon as they exited the University, it appeared as if they had entered a war zone. The source of the explosion became very clear, a downed aircraft having crashed into a field nearby. Fire roared around it, making its way quickly up the nearby hillside. A second plane, a MUCH bigger one, had taken the roof off the University after nose diving into the highway. The pavement had been torn up and all the vehicles and any living thing in its way were crushed into the trench it had carved in the ground before it came to rest some distance away.
Portia's hand tightened in Roger's, the man sparing her a glance before tugging her down the ruined highway. There were no infected around them, but shapes were moving through the smoke ahead, Roger keeping his grip on his gun in case he needed to use it.
"Chris!" Portia bleated, Roger hushing her and pulling her up to run beside him, the two of them still clutching hands.
"I'm sure he got out of the way." Roger told her, hoping he sounded convincing… and convinced. This place was a mess…
"Oh God, there was a Reaper, too. She saved me." Portia's voice was hoarse, her breathing shakey. Roger had to calm her down before she became hysterical, so he pulled to a stop and sat her down on the ground, putting both hands on her shoulders.
"You survived a plane crash, Portia. This one didn't hurt you, and you've got me with you. You're not alone, you're going to be fine… we'll find Chris and your Reaper, alright, you've just got to stay with me." He put his hands on her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. "C'mon. Stay with me. Are you with me?"
Portia was quiet but for her labored breath for a time, then she nodded slowly, swallowing a few times. Roger smiled and wiped the tears from her cheeks, pulling her back up to her feet and glancing around. If they followed the highway, it was wide open, but Crusher's territory ended a short distance down and the infected would be easier to see. They would have to find a new safe room, but since Roger had lived in this city his whole life, he knew it fairly well and felt confident he would be able to find some place for them to rest.
He kept a faint hope that Chris had somehow made it out of the crash in one piece… he had the instincts of an infected after all, and he was fast when he was transformed. As for the Reaper, one less in the world wouldn't hurt, even if it had saved Portia's life.
Tugging Portia's hand, Roger began to make his way down the highway as fast as he dared, noticing that all the infected they came across were ignoring them completely, too agitated and stricken by the crash to know what was going on. The fire was also spreading, and the infected hated fire… They would probably be moving away from it, which meant the population in the city would be growing by the hour.
Best to be fast about this…
"You with me, Portia?" He asked again, looking over at her.
Portia took in a breath and nodded again. "Yeah." She said softly. "Yeah, I'm with you. Let's go."