Originally inspired by my favourite fanfic, Among The Bodies, by BamSaraKilledYou
"Alright, goober," Zoey leans down, rolls her wrist and blinks stalely, eyes alight with bleary disregard. There's fingers on her pistol and the firearm leans towards a hooded snarl, "Here's how this is 'gon go:"
Now, there's a little town called Riverside, that resides out in the Northern part of Pennsylvania, strangled by forest and lakes and oh, it has its very own river. It's not a very good river, at the moment atleast, muddy and bloody and filled with wood, but when you look out towards Newburgh sometimes the water seems to shine, shine with death or fire she doesn't know. It auctioned itself as something to see and camp and swim and boat; and people would come and do just that. Tourists from down south, renters from the north, livers from the west. Now it sits twisted with blood and sick; broken and battered, its' buildings collapsed in on themselves, its' trees filled with the dead souls of its inhabitants, and its' river burning. There's a church too.
Wade would take her there, sneak her out for a week, once two when she was eleven, when her mother walked out on them, left them to their own devices, and they'd come to the little town on the river. Rent the cabin with the rotting wood on the edges, buy her favorite chips and they'd sit down and watch Shaun of the Dead and pretend Mom didn't exist for a little while.
"You," – the gun tips closer towards it as she points at it, "are going to not, try to bite me. Or scratch me. I know, really hard. It'd be hard for me too if my skin were peeling off and I had the urge to claw everything happy in the world. Very hard."
Somewhere in the North of Pennsylvania there's a hunter curled in on itself in the ruins of little brick and wood house in the middle of nowhere. It was white, the house, but now it's a sleepy blood-stained mess, half caved in on itself at the back and that's where he hangs. The silhouette is speared on a pipe like some mockery of a memorial to the dead of the nearby town (maybe they're not actually zombies; but they're not people, either. They're dead, dead and gone and by far whatever made them them is never coming back.) after their fight. After they were forced to leave (but not her, oh no). The pipe is tall, spindly, looks like it sidestepped the thing's intestines but its' the only thing its weight is hanging by. At this point and she's worried its whole back might tear away and his entrails will spill and ruin the carpet peeking out of the debris if it stays like this for longer than like, an hour.
Okay, saying she's worried about it is going too far. Worried is bad. She's not really worried about it; Worried describes what she feels about the current no Bill, Louis or Francis situation. It's more like being upset about a hurt dog. A little harder to compare an infected to a dog when it's tree-sized, but this is a hunter. It growls and she's heard them bark sometimes; much smaller in size, 'cause it sure ain't tall enough to throw a car.
She breathes in, breathes out. Cold breathes, cold air around her. It's like a really shit dog.
Zoey closes the distance between them; there's a pistol in its face now and it cowers, brings its' legs up, shrugging itself into the pole as if it would disappear. And when her foot falls into a hole in the rubble right beneath her it shrieks, and then all of a sudden it swipes.
She smacks the shit out of it with the barrel, crack sounding out when the metal of the firearm's front meets its' hand, and it yelps, scoots up on the pole, and the hole where it enters it oozes with blood the consistency of honey, and oh god, she'll never be able to eat honey again.
"Je-zus! Stop being so snippy, you absolute jerkass," The words are spat at it and yet it snarls right back; draws the lines of its mouth up and lets its teeth show but she's not afraid of him. She's the one with the gun.
They're in a house but they're not really in Riverside. No, the house is somewhere on the shore of the river, but not in the town, not in view of it, atleast – too many trees and too little roads. She and the others never really passed through the town, and she's sad and just as snippy as the hunter because of it, because of everything. She was hoping they could've gotten to see main street, because Wade is dead and she doubts that after the military saved them Bill would take her back here and watch movies with her; but to make up for it, they did get to see a really shitty lighthouse (they probably think she's dead).
Four tanks, and she hid under a boat. There was a rowboat in a shed on the sand – she overturns it, and hides and the tanks are having a pissing contest outside but then they're not, and then there's sand in her clothes.
"You guys are so ungrateful nowadays, always being so snarky- and put your claws down now." It's arms go slack and it sniffles at her and she sniffles back, mocks it and now there's no distance between them. She grabs it by the torso and it squawks like there's a bird on the pole and not a bloodthirsty monster; "Be ready," and then she's lifting.
It takes a minute- she wraps her arms around it tightly and heaves and breathes in and then loses her grip- loosens her arms for a moment's break, and repeats until it's body is high enough up the pole that if she stops she'll lose it and have to repeat it all again, and it cries- though not in a teary way.
She lifts, gives it all her strength like it's Bill she's lifting up outta there, and she slides the abdomen up and up the pole and scoots forward so she's right there and can feel it's stale breath on her neck and oh god, it could kill her right here and right now. Her forearm muscles seize, it's like lifting a boulder; made of rock and stone, naught but dead weight, and then the boulders almost off the pole, one more push, one more heave:
The hunter-shit dog's body falls into the rubble, bellowing as it hits the ground. It's breath hitches; and finishes probably cursing her out in shit-dog-talk, it clasps a piece of rotting wood in attempt to hold its' weight, and crawls away pitifully.
She herself falls back, body stunned by the sudden loss of grip and crumbles into the rubble. She just saved a hunter; something's whose natures dictates that it will most likely kill her in the next few seconds.
Zoey breathes in, breathes out, rolls her wrist and closes her eyes; opens them, "Keep those claws to yourself, you hear me? I don't really feel like killing you after putting all that work into getting you off of there, buddy."
It's back stiffens, straight as wood, hood turned away from her; it's heaving, chest heavy and sunken and breath light and airy. She can't see its eyes. She doesn't think she wants to, hell she doesn't even think it has eyes; but if it did, they'd be gone to pain, fuzzy and pleading. The body language says it all; it's bleeding out in front of her and she sits there fine, gets the opportunity to laugh while it suffers. Haha, so funny: call the mortician.
He's half buried in rubble. She stands on top of the rubble. There's a pistol in her hands. She could put it out of its misery, she could make herself worry about one less hunter watching her goddamn back.
Another yelp. Pathetic.
She looks to him – shadowed crevices between molding and peeling duct-tape, navy blue hoodie caked with blood; the visible parts of its face painted an ill gray. Blood spills from its' peeling lips, trickles down, slides from the hole under its' ribs. Incoherent mumbles and cries come from where the blood doesn't, and wow, what a shit dog. She couldn't just leave it here. She promises, promises to Bill and Francis and Louis, that just this once she will help it, because what if it were one of them lying there? It wouldn't really be possible, because they're not stupid enough to be impaled by a pole, but let her rationalize this dammit. They're gone and the lighthouse is gone and there's no more shed, there's no more boat. No way to go after them. Wow. Maybe she's the pathetic one. Helping a hunter. Crazy, am I right?
"Alright. Okay. Either get over here or I'm coming over there."
It snorts. Shakes a bit, twitches all over, and then stops. There's no more movement from it, no more squirming.
"Y'alright, fine. Be like that," She starts walking towards it, slipping on crumbled rubble, crunching rotting wood; it squeals, tries to use its' arms to drag itself away from her but she keeps stumbling towards it, reaches its' position, grabs it by its' shoulders- she plops down, and hoists it backwards and into her lap.
They're on the floor, there's something metal digging into her leg. Slight pressure. Just enough to hurt. It doesn't move, lies on her legs, she snakes her left arm around its torso, slips her right rand behind her back and into her pack. There's an alcohol wipe in her hand now, small and white, barely two inches across – its damp in her fingers, she curls them around it and brings it out.
The hoodie rolls up – lets her witness a kaleidoscope of dead gray skin and popping boils, open wounds, scratches and cuts. She locates the wound, jabs the alcohol wipe at it and smears the blood around a bit, wiping it down and cleaning it out. The hunters' jaw clenches, its' chest tightens and its' jowls snarl up in a defensive position.
She watches its' face, nose crumpled up, eyes hard. Her hands are still moving, hard at the task while her brain wanders; Her friends are gone and she's not sure she can follow. Fun. Maybe she should just give up now; maybe she should keep going. Find a new group or get a bullet put between her eyes; die a horrible death to a river of violent, stupid infected. Get rescued. The bleeding slows - she's not sure if its' due to clotting or blood loss. It croaks; frog-like, dog-like even.
"You can squeak all you want, man. But if it gets infected, you'll probably die a lot slower than I will."
She throws the bleeding alcohol wipe into the debris; slinks her arm back to her pack, grabs a roll of medical tape – as white as the wipe once was, but not as good as gauze. She snaps a fairly long piece away from the roll, tears it off with her teeth and wraps it against the oozey wound. Blood slips away in a few spaces where the tape is too loose; she presses down, smooths it over, and good as new. Good as dead, really, because that's what this guy looked like under the hoodie. She's the one to snort this time.
She slides back, looks the hunter up and down, good and less bloody, and: "Alright, shoo, go on now."
It rolls back on its' elbows, looks to her – questioningly, quizzically, even, "Get outta here, weirdo."
It grunts in response, and then it overturns itself onto its' haunches, four-legged in a way that almost makes her question whether or not it was really ever bipedal, looks back to her, and sprints off. And that was that.
Zoey picks herself up, gathers her bearings, grabs her pistol and then stalks off.
The house with no back and a bloody-spear pipe sits alone now.
Her name is Zoey and she's from Philadelphia. Born and raised. Nineteen and promises herself she's going to reach twenty. Brown hair, thin nose, red jacket and sneakers.
Mom hated her and dad, she flunked college and then promptly watched her mom die a shitty, bloody death. Shot her dad too. Got three boys who helped her survive the end of the world, and a picture of her probably dead roommate Amanda Stillson in her back pocket.
There's some dirty wipes, a zip-lock bag filled with rice and some painkillers on her back, sat in a small red pack with a first-aid symbol on it.
Zoey's in the woods.
Bill once freaked out, when she was accidentally out of sight. Long night and wanted some semblance of privacy, ended up falling asleep behind some boxes; woke to yells and threats, and that's when she knew she was with the right people. Bill was worried as shit for the rest of the day but in the end they hugged and Francis snickered and Louis smiled.
Trees spiral around her; surround her, pierce the sky, some half dead and some needle-filled. There's dirt, rocks under her feet, grass sometimes, brown and dehydrated. She stumbles about; fingers curled on her trigger. Sometimes she comes across the odd picnic table, but the paths are lined with bodies magot-infested and swarmed by flies. There are bullets in their heads.
They should've been back for her by now. She's alone, she's alone. She's alone and cold. She wraps her hands around herself, pull the track-jacket tighter. There's something there, something following close behind, strangled by shadows and trees and grass. How long does it take to turn a boat around?
She hit her head too hard once, split it open like a melon. Francis shared his pain-pills with her and they didn't find anymore for two days but he still smiled at her like she and the other guys were his whole world. Lips quirked up at the left, slanted down a little on the right. Eyes small and stupid and kind. She thinks it was only two days ago, before the helicopter crash, after the stink of the sewers.
Trunks surround her; birch, pine. Maybe oak. She doesn't know her trees very well, knowing tree-types doesn't help you survive the end of the world. Bill would know. Wade would know too. Would sit her down on his lap, under the shade of the leaves of a birch and spill about all the trees that lie at the end of the world.
Infected stand in a blank stupor, head in their hands, dotting the woods, only to wither away eventually; crow out gently at the slightest sound, shrouded by shade and the dark air. There are stars above her, although most are blanketed by snaking, thin clouds. She can see naught but three feet in front of her, feel the shadows on her hands, her face and lips and nose – chilled and dark.
She walks on. Puts one foot in front of the other, repeats, keeps walking. She can hear something behind her, something breathing down her neck – the trees are thinning.
Maybe Bill's still mad at her for forgetting those pills a day or two ago. Maybe Francis is still mad at her for shooting him, accidentally. That's fair. Maybe they left her on purpose.
There's rocks and grass under her feet, and she walks and walks and walks, and then there's a fence. Chicken-wire, mesh-like, wooden posts every now and then; behind the fence a road sits splayed, right in front of her, on the other side of the fence. Lights.
She sees lights; half the road is blocked by twisted metal, an eighteen-wheeler adorned by a white shipping container with its' cabin gone, a crashed car, stripped of parts and paint. And the house.
There's a house that stands proudly, on the other side of the road, burned a dim orange glow; of wooden shingles and knocked out windows, a porch wrapped around its' front.
She grabs the fences' top, hoists herself over and almost looses her gun in the process, and rushes towards it. For once, she runs.
Maybe Bill and Louis and Francis won't come back for her. Maybe they will, maybe they finally turned the boat around. Maybe they're dead. Maybe there's still something following behind her.