The Last Will – Chapter Twenty: A Change of Scenery
Thanks to Chuck, Azazel, Booker Dewitt, PinkayPinkPink, and two guests for reviewing.
From a crack in the wall, crawled a rabbit. It was young, no more than about five inches long, with dusty brown fur and a black nose that it pointed towards the heavens and wriggled furiously, searching for trouble. It must have found none on the tranquil wind of the catacombs, as it hopped forward gradually, approaching the far end of the hallway.
A metallic twang cut the air like a knife, and the rabbit was suddenly halted in it's tracks as a steel rod pinned it to the floor. It was quick, quiet, and clean, just the way Joanna like it, most of the time at least.
"Sorry about that, little guy." She chuckled, retrieving her crossbow bolt with her prize still attatached. "Had to be done."
She hung the carcass from her belt and took a second to reload her crossbow, before continuing down the corridor. This particular route was familiar to her, as she'd run it about a billion times in the… months that they'd been in the catacombs. She walked quietly through the path, light on her feet, checking traps as she went and keeping an eye out for any unlucky rodents, as well as anything substantially bigger.
As luck would have it, a vague shape in the dust at her feet caught her eye. Kneeling quickly, Joanna immediately identified a paw print pressed against the gritty ground, too small to be a wolf of some kind, so most likely a dog. Joanna licked her lips. It had been a long time since she and Mathew had managed to snag a dog.
With renewed vigor, she leveled her crossbow and set off again, following the tracks where she could into the darkness. She could already picture Mathew now, grinning proudly as she dragged their latest meal through the crack in their wall. Ever since Isaac and his group had passed through, he'd been acting rather strangely, a little more talkative and quicker to laugh at the things she said. She couldn't relate to that. If she was being honest with herself, she missed Isaac and his friends, and their absence left her with a heavy feeling in her chest that she couldn't seem to shake. Half of the time she spent out hunting was divided between actual scavenging and searching for signs of actual people, in the hopes that she might stumble upon Isaac, Cain, Maggie or one of the others.
She never did though. The maze was just as lifeless as always, save for the rats and the zombies.
The trail of paw prints came to an abrupt end before a pool of blood. Joanna cursed her luck and knelt down to examine the pile of red, finding it to be pretty fresh. Against her better judgment, she continued forward, following the trail now comprised of fat droplets of blood.
If the dog was bleeding out somewhere up the road, then that just made her job a whole lot easier and if something else had killed her prey, then who was she to pass up on some old fashion revenge? Rounding a corner, Joanna followed the trail right up to the foot of a sealed, wooden door. Claw marks were scored in the wood and in the surrounding stone. She hesitated in front of it, weighing her options.
This was one of the few doors she had neglected to investigate during her many trips out into the catacombs, mostly because there had always been some collection of monster or another milling around outside of it. Today, however, the hallway was vacant, and the door and room beyond was ripe for the taking. That is, if there wasn't something waiting on the other side.
And there most definitely was.
She reached out and scratched at one of the many claw marks with her nail. Mathew would be upset with her for risking her life to investigate a possible dead end like this, but then again, she'd been growing more and more defiant to his domineering ways for a while now and, of course, there was the possibility of scoring a big catch. The biggest reason though, in all honesty, for why Joanna gripped the handle of the door and wrenched it open, was because she was just flat out bored.
Squatting in a cave with a cripple just wasn't doing it for her anymore, not after she'd met Isaac and his friends. They were out there exploring, getting into trouble, meeting new people, doing things, and she was spending her days in the same hallways, doing exactly what she'd been doing since day one. It was a vaguely frustrating feeling.
She entered the room.
The interior beyond the door was dark, go figure, but Joanna quickly solved that by lighting a makeshift torch. What followed next, she would vehemently deny as actually happening, if there was anyone there to play witness to it. A startled shriek tore from her lips as she leapt against the wall and slapped a swift hand over her mouth. In the center of the room, first of all, was one of the big ones. It was easily the size of a train car, with a massive maw about as long as Joanna was tall. No flesh covered it's segmented form, showing plainly the snow-white bone and powerful muscle that should by all intensive purposes remain hidden.
Needless to say, it was the scariest worm Joanna had ever seen and she seriously doubted that her crossbow would be anything more than dead weight if the monster turned it's massive head to see her and decided to attack.
Joanna slowly began making her way back to the hallway.
The ground was covered with a thick carpet of carrion that muffled Joanna's footsteps, but caused her eyes to water to no end, among the corpses was a dog, freshly killed and still bleeding heavily. Joanna decided to let the giant worm beast have her dinner. It was just common courtesy.
Keeping her keen eyes trained on the monster, who had remained motionless thus far, Joanna felt along the sticky walls for the doorframe, upon finding it, she slipped out, and quietly shut the door behind her. Blood was pounding in her ears and she felt nearly sure that her heart was but a few beats from actually punching a hole up through her ribcage. However, she didn't pause to breathe until she had sprinted away and put a good dozen twists and turns between herself and the creature's den.
Mathew was sewing clothes when Joanna returned. He looked up when she emerged from the crevice in the wall and grinned widely, sure to show all of his teeth. Joanna returned the smile half-heartedly. He'd been making efforts where he could to cheer her up recently, to show how much he appreciated her and what not. His gestures were all good-intentioned, and they probably would have succeeded in the past, but now Joanna just couldn't bring herself to reciprocate.
"What do you think, hmmm?" Mathew held up one of her shirts, with a neatly sewn patch hiding a rip in the side. "I had to use the last of our blue string, but considering the mileage you'll get out of this top, I consider it worth the investment."
"Thanks, Matty. It looks great."
"Yes. It does, doesn't it?" He watched her as she dropped her bundle of corpses in the dirt next to the dying fire, before retreating further into the cave. "Light haul today?" He called after her.
A low grunt was her only response, followed by a sharp zip and the rustling of fabric as she shed her pants for something more comfortable. Mathew kept his eyes on his work. He had learned to tell when Joanna was in a bad mood and when to keep his distance. Still, that didn't stop him from pressing the boundaries every now and then. When Joanna joined him again, she was draped in a loose fitting shirt and a pair of ratty shorts. Mathew frowned.
"I just finished washing your other clothes." He gestured towards a bin against the wall, brimming with an assortment of garments. "Wouldn't you rather wear those?"
"This is more comfortable."
He watched her pull a rabbit into her lap and begin hacking at it with a knife, her mouth drawn into a thin line and her eyes downtrodden. This was more than just depression, Matthew realized, she was putting on a show.
"Joanna, is something-"
"I found another den today." She began before he finished getting the words out. "Over by the rabbit holes."
Mathew sighed and climbed to his feet, deciding to address her sour attitude later. Hobbling over towards the wall, he snatched a piece of chalk up off a nearby box and tapped the blunt end against a rough sketch of the surrounding maze drawn there against the stone, finding the area Joanna was referring to.
"Right there, just around that corner. It's a big room with claw marks all over the door," Joanna continued, pointing from across the cave with her bloodied knife as Mathew carefully labeled the offending square. "There were dead animals all over the place and she was just sittin' there, a fat old slug with no skin."
Mathew sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"Is it just me, or does it seem like more and more of them are just appearing out of nowhere?" He limped back over to her and sat down by her side, grumbling all the while. "How many does that make in this sector? Four? Five?"
"Six."
"Six?" Mathew shook his head in disbelief. "You need to start hunting more southward, Joanna, away from the dens." She grunted again. "I know, there are fewer places to hunt that way, but I'd feel a lot better about you going out there."
"Mhmm."
"Are you going to work on the pit tonight?"
"Yeah." Joanna's lip twisted as she finished gutting one rabbit and reached for the next. "Yeah, I'll work on the pit tonight." She repeated, a little scornfully.
"Good. Good. The sooner we strike fertile soil, the better. I look forward to the day where you'll never have to stray from our home in search of food again. One day we'll be completely self-sufficient. We can sit around and play cards all day, or perhaps work some other hobby." Mathew smiled at the prospect as he spoke. "I feel ashamed for this, but I honestly can't think of a hobby of yours that doesn't involve shooting or stabbing. We'll find something though, perhaps some type of crafting? You're good with your hands and… Mumph." He was silenced as Joanna pressed her hand over his mouth.
He looked at her indignantly, ready to slap her away, until he saw the way she was crouched on the floor, legs coiled beneath her and ready to spring. Her ears were pricked, her mouth slightly agape, and her narrowed eyes fiercely set on the entrance to their cave. Now that Mathew listened closely, he could hear it too: muffled words, footsteps, and the scraping of clothes against the jagged rocks. Someone was coming.
Joanna's blood-stained knife flashed as she slowly shifted her weight away from Mathew and crept towards the crack in the wall. Mathew quickly wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, ridding the metallic taste of her dirty fingers from his lips.
The hunter's bare feet were silent on the sandy ground and her breathing was shallow, quiet, like that of an experienced hunter. Mathew's eyes flickered over towards her crossbow, which was leaning against the opposite wall. There wasn't time to retrieve it; their visitors had all but arrived.
A blonde head came first, popping from the crawlspace like a small explosion of color, followed by a willowy frame shrouded in a faded dress. Joanna and Mathew were frozen in their respective positions, completely caught off guard.
"Hey, guys." Maggie beamed as Cain squeezed through behind her. "I- uh… hope we didn't scare you too much. I suppose announcing our presence would have been a good idea. Haha." She laughed nervously and eyed the knife, still clutched tightly in Joanna's hand. "Er… We're still friends, right?"
In response, Joanna shoved the blade into the waistband of her pants, stepped right up into Maggie's face, and wrapped the other girl tightly in a bear hug. Maggie stumbled slightly and let out a sharp gasp of surprise, while Joanna let out a high-pitched peal of laughter and rocked her back and forth.
"Holy shit." Joanna grinned, heart beating furiously, as she looked from Maggie to Cain. "Yall have no idea how good it is to see you."
"It's good to see you too." Cain agreed, smiling slightly. Joanna grinned.
"Ahem." There came a terse cough from across the cave. Joanna turned to find that Mathew had climbed to his feet and was working his way over to them. "As wonderful as it is to see you again, what are you doing here? And where are the others?"
Good question, thought Joanna, as she just realized Cain and Maggie were the only two to enter the cave. Immediately she thought of the worst, that Cain and Maggie were the sole survivors of a dastardly ambush or some other disaster. However, upon inspecting her friends, she found that they both actually looked far better than they had the last time Joanna had seen them.
Maggie was well-groomed and dressed in fresh clothes. For the first time, in what felt like forever, Joanna felt a little uncomfortable with her own appearance, standing in between Cain and the pretty blonde girl. She covertly tried to brush her fingers through her knotted hair as Maggie set to answering Mathew's questions.
"Everyone's alive and well." She proclaimed happily. "Isaac sent to the two of us back to find you guys."
"Why? Did you make it Eden?" Joanna turned to Cain, but before he could answer, Maggie excitedly bobbed her head, yes.
"We did! We followed the arrows right to the end of the line, and I bet you'll never guess what we found!" She clasped her hands together, eyes sparkling as she looked quickly between Mathew and Joanna. Neither made a guess, not that Maggie was all that keen to let them steal the thunder anyways. "A garden!" She eventually answered.
This revelation failed to elicit the reactions she was hoping for.
"What the hell is she talking about?" Mathew asked, looking to Cain.
"She means exactly what she said." He answered. "We found a garden."
There was a pause as Mathew and Joanna cast weary glances at one another. Apparently, some set of wires or another were crossing during this exchange. Maggie took it upon herself to establish some sort of order.
"Why don't we all sit down?" She made her way further into the cave, motioning for the rest to join her. "We can explain everything fully and rest our legs. We've been walking for what feels like days. Haha."
Joanna worked quickly to rekindle the fire, while Maggie, Cain, and Mathew took seats in a rough circle on the fine sand. What followed next was a long, complicated, and rather energetic retelling of what transpired after Isaac and his friends left the cave and continued on their quest to Eden. As Maggie talked quickly, with lots of hand gestures and run-on sentences, Cain sat quietly and observed Mathew and Joanna.
They looked more or less the same since the last time he'd seen them, which honestly felt like a lifetime ago. Mathew was dressed as crisply as ever, with neatly combed hair and clean, white teeth. Joanna, on the other hand, obviously still hadn't learned anything more in terms of cleanliness. Her long hair was mattered with sweat, her knees and elbows sported fresh scrapes and bruises, and there was fine layer of grime dusted across her nose and cheeks. Her eyes met his for a fraction for a second and Cain quickly looked away, frowning slightly at having been caught staring.
Joanna smirked.
"It wasn't the easiest decision to make," Maggie drew her explanation to a close. "But Isaac eventually saw that I was right and let me and Cain leave the garden. And now we're here! Obliviously, haha." She twisted her fingers in her lap, looking between Mathew and Joanna expectantly. After a moment, she asked: "So what do you think? You've both been awfully quiet this whole time."
"What do we think about what?" Mathew asked, resting his chin in his palm.
"About coming back with us to the Garden!"
Her words bounced off the far wall of the cave and rebounded back across the group. A silence, like death, settled over the cave as Mathew's lip twisted in a small smile, understanding with a touch of condescension, much like one someone would give to a confused, and rather slow child.
"Tell me, Maggie." He began. "Why would we ever consider leaving the safety of our home to travel away with you to this… garden?"
Maggie looked confused momentarily. The answer was obvious, at least in her eyes.
"Because the garden is much better than this sandy old cave, Mathew!" She exclaimed. Quickly, she counted on her fingers: "We have water, light, shelter, food. It's perfect! Plus, you wouldn't have to be alone out here anymore. You could live with us."
"As nice as all of that sounds, getting to your garden would involve walked through miles of uncharted maze, filled with god knows what. You two may be crazy enough to attempt that, but I'm sorry; it just doesn't sound safe."
"Of course it's not safe. Nowhere is safe!" Maggie snapped back. She felt frustration bubbling in her chest. This was not how she expected this conversation to go. "But we're working on making the garden safe, and we're close too. What we're building will be a hundred- a billion times safer than this cave. Tell them, Cain." She appealed to her friend.
Mathew turned his attention to the one-eyed man, still smiling, clearly ready to shoot down any more arguments for the garden, but Cain ignored him. Instead, he turned to Joanna.
"What do you think?" He asked her.
Joanna suddenly felt all eyes on her, particularly that of her roommate's, which urged her silently to agree with him. That would be the easy thing to do, the normal thing. She could look both Cain and Maggie in the eye(s) and tell them that leaving the cave was simply too dangerous, that this garden sounded like a pipedream that wasn't worth the risk. That would make Mathew happy.
However, without so much as a moment of hesitation, Joanna squared her shoulders and nodded.
"I think this garden sounds fuckin' awesome." She proclaimed.
"Joanna!" Mathew's smile faded quickly, as if her words had been a physical wave that washed it away. "Think about this for a second-"
"I am thinking about it." She interrupted him. "And really, I can think of anything else I'd rather do than get the hell out of this cave." Shuffling her legs underneath her, Joanna turned to her old friend. "Come on, Matty. We can't stay here forever. This is our chance to get outta here."
"Where is this coming from? Why do you want to leave so badly?" He demanded. "We've been doing just fine by ourselves. We have a plan! All of our hard work will be for nothing if we just leave!"
"I know that you're scared…"
"I'm not afraid. It just makes no sense for us to jeopardize ourselves when we've been getting along just fine, just the two of us."
Joanna's eyes fell, settling somewhere in the sand between the two of them. Maggie, seeing that this was definitely going to be a struggle, opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced as Cain put a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a pointed look. They needed to stay out of this one.
"I know that you're scared." Joanna repeated, speaking slowly, not meeting anyone's gaze. "And I'm scared too. I'm scared that I'm gonna be stuck in this hell hole for the rest of my life. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to feel trapped all the time, and that's how I feel now, Matty. I feel like I'm trapped."
"Wha- what are you talking about?"
"I'm going with them. I'm going to leave with Cain and Maggie, no matter how stupid you think it is." Her jaw set, Joanna looked to Mathew again. "And you're going to come with us."
Mathew's lip trembled and his fingers tightly gripped the fabric of his pants on his bum leg, causing the material to creak loudly, as if it might rip under his touch. Maggie worried that he was going to have some sort of attack.
"Why?" He asked simply, swallowing hard to bring some moisture back to his mouth.
"Because I'm going." Joanna said, rising to her feet. Turning from the group, she retrieved her crossbow and a drawstring sack, which she began to fill with items from many boxes stacked near the wall. Maggie watched her, beaming, while Mathew's panic increased thrice-fold.
"R-right now?" He stammered. "Joanna." His voice wavered as he pleaded, clambering to his feet as well. "If you leave, what am I going to do alone? You… you'll leave me here to die?"
Joanna froze, halfway through folding a blanket it her bag, already bulging with supplies. She looked at Mathew again, quickly, little more than a glance. Then she cinched the top of her bag closed with a sharp finality.
"It's like I said." She explained. "You're comin' with us, because I'm not staying." Mathew staggered as she slapped him on the shoulder roughly. "And because there's no way in hell that I'm leaving you behind. Pack your bag, Matty. I think it's time for a change of scenery."
"I couldn't agree more." Interjected Maggie, grinning like a loon. She jumped to her feet as well and bowed deeply before Joanna, asking in a faux posh voice: "Do you need help packing your bags, milady?"
The hunter let out a bark of laughter and threw the sack into Maggie's chest, who caught it, despite having the wind knocked clean out of her.
"Knock yourself out. I'm guessing you're going to want to take some of our seeds along, huh?"
"As much as we can carry." Cain affirmed from his spot on the ground. Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. The hardest part of Maggie's mission was over.
With a wave of her hand, Joanna motioned him and Maggie up and into the recesses of the cave, where together they began to sort through what they could and couldn't take, prioritizing the types of seeds that would be most valuable and yield the most harvest when the time came around. It wasn't exciting work, but Joanna was acutely aware of how her face was beginning to grow sore, under stress of maintaining a truly unstoppable smile. Meanwhile Mathew stood alone on the other side of the cave, dumbstruck and momentarily forgotten in all the excitement.
How, he wondered to himself, could things have turned so badly so fast.
So I'm back! (for what it's worth) Sorry for the unexpected hiatus guys, this semester has totally kicked my ass. I basically had no time for anything except for school and work (and yes i actually did land that job for the interview i mentioned in my last author's note which was probably well over six months ago by now) It's finals week now though, and as of writing this, I have two more finals left, then I'll be done for the holidays. Hopefully then I'll get more writing done :)
How's everyone doing? Are you enjoying Afterbirth? I haven't played any of it yet, since I'm waiting for it to come out on PS4, but it looks amazing. Lilith will definitely be joining this story later on :3
Thanks for sticking with me, guys. (however many of you there still are) You're all one in a million. Thanks for reading!
- Mike