Upon leaving the cafe, Arelia found two boxes of handgun ammunition, each containing thirty rounds. Bishop must have left them for me, she reasoned, stuffing the boxes into her jacket. Directly to her left she saw another restaurant, "Queen Burger". It suddenly occurred to her how hungry she was.

On the window sill, she found another medicine bottle, which she took as well. Another one of the flying demons came at her, and she took it out with four shots; three torso shots while it was in the air, and one head shot while it lay screeching on the ground. The radio she had taken lapsed into another period of droning that she was not certain she could stand much longer.

She could see a convenience store up ahead, but decided she had enough supplies to visit the alley.

Arelia followed the directions on the map, then put it away when landmarks from before became visible. Her memories of the alley were fuzzy, but certain things jumped out at her. The houses. The creaky gate. She walked between the rows of houses to get to the gate, all the while listening for the whine of the radio. She did not have to wait long.

It started out softly, then rose to a great pitch. Arelia held her gun with both hands, so that if one trigger finger failed, she'd have the other. Then she waited. The radio wailed. It was getting closer.

A dog limped out of the mist, seemingly with a lack of interest as to Arelia. It's skinless, malnutritioned body shuffled along, weaving as if rabid, a nasty yellow-white foam eating away at its mouth. Arelia aimed for the neck and took the first shot. A jet of blood pulsed out of the canine's jugular as it began a swift gallop toward her, suddenly aware of her presence.

She shot twice more and took a step back, holding her arm up as the dog leaped a magnificent height. It bit her forearm and retreated, running in a semi-circle to come back around. She fired, missed, and reloaded, then fired again. The dog fell back on its side. It wheezed until she blew its brains out all over the pavement.

You mangy piece of crap, Arelia snarled internally as her own blood dripped onto the ground, fizzling as it mixed with the dog's. The radio had not stopped screaming, and she became afraid that she might begin.

She fired six shots to her right and heard a dog drop. Droning again. Arelia reloaded just in case and found the gate. She spit on the "BEWARE OF DOG" sign and opened it.

She passed through the alley for the second time, seeing much more of it now than she had the first. There was half a mutilated corpse she had overlooked before. She kicked it aside, looking up at the windows as she walked between the wall of the alley. They were shuttered closed. Arelia expected something to jump out of them; something horrible and unreal like the things she had encountered earlier. It was more horrible when nothing did.

There was no blood in the alley now. It looked much as she expected an alley to look. There were various debris littering the ground, but nothing out of the ordinary. She wondered exactly when that expression would change for her. She picked up two boxes of bullets in the debris and did not stop to wonder why they were there.

Near the end of the alley, just before where she had been stabbed to death by the children, she found a problem. Some sort of freak deterioration had occurred. The walls had fallen in on one another and created a third wall of debris. Arelia cursed and kicked a metal pipe at her feet, sending up a flurry of papers. She grabbed one as it fell down and read the writing in red crayon.


To School


It was child's handwriting.

She looked at her map and circled the school, then sighed to herself and turned back to head out of the alley and into the roads again.

Arelia had always thought she'd end up dying and going to Hell. She had just assumed it would happen in that order.