24 April 2015, Dusk

The man was a spitting image of the actor, a dead ringer for a dead man. Wrinkles and creases lined his dirt-stained face which bore the coarse features of a workman, but they were underpinned by a curious poise to his bearing even if his head was bowed and his eyes lowered. He especially looked the part in his off-white overalls, with the straps of his collar hanging limply open; all he would've needed were red and blue stripes down the front of his outfit and he wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of Le Mans. In a different time, and definitely in a different place, it wouldn't be hard to imagine him actually being one.

It only occurred to Marlene, a lazy thought coming from the leaden lump that was her mind, that she probably should've said something instead of merely observing Nadine walk into him. She might've been watching his approach vaguely, but Nadine's gaze had been firmly fixed on counting the ration cards in her hands.

Which scattered onto the pavement as their shoulders bumped, and the chain link fence beside them rattled as the man stumbled against it, barely managing to right himself by grasping at the wires for support.

"Hey!" yelled Nadine, only managing to break her fall in time by grasping at Marlene's arms. "Fucking watch it!"

The man glared at Nadine, affronted by her gall. "The hell's your problem, missy? You're the one that walked into me!" he yelled back.

"No problem here, buddy," began Nadine, easing the tone of her voice to a faux-easygoing manner as she smoothed out the rumples in her pale blue shirt. Then she added, rolling her neck and reaching a hand into the pocket of her jeans with deliberation, "Unless you want one."

Marlene watched in stony silence as the man stood at arm's length from them, looking like he was considering his options for a moment. Her thoughts were mostly with the cards still laying on the pavement, which would definitely blow away if a gust showed up that moment, but she had a bit of sympathy for the ruggedly handsome fella. It was Nadine that walked into him after all, she reasoned, even as she assumed a hard look on her face to match the glower of Nadine and similarly moved her hand pointedly towards her back pocket, making it clear to the man that he would do well to let it pass. And let them pass. Two on one, even if it was closer to one and a half on one considering how diminutive her friend was, were poor odds.

It seemed the man thought the same as he settled for flicking a finger at the women before walking away, and Nadine's eyes narrowed as she did likewise. Futilely though; the man's back was already turned.

"Fuck," sighed Marlene, as she crouched to pick the cards up.

"What?"

"Wish I didn't forget my blade," she said tersely, feeling furious for leaving it behind in the rush to get going in the morning. And though it was mild, they'd come pretty close to needing it just then.

Nadine huffed through her nose. "Doesn't matter. I've got mine," she said in a clipped tone, patting her pocket.

Exasperation coursed through Marlene when she saw that Nadine was still looking like she wasn't finished with the guy. "Why don't you leave counting these until later?" she said, as she handed the cards back.

"Goddamn Steve McQueen looking motherfucker," the scowling woman muttered, pocketing the cards.

"Let's just go," said Marlene, moving her friend along with a forceful tug of the arm.

They hadn't far left to go, but the gradual darkening of the red-orange tint on the warehouses' white corrugated metal sidings told them it was getting close to curfew. Those warehouses around the docks were a couple of blocks further away from the factories of the industrial district where they'd picked up the liquor last night, and in amongst them was a back street lying between two blocks where, common knowledge among the residents of Wilmington, one could trade for supplies. Food, clothes, and everything in between one would need to fill the gaps between the ration lines.

A black market, in short. Perhaps ironically, ration cards were the preferred medium of exchange there in place of simple barter, but it wasn't rare to see citizens with the occasional knick-knack in hand – Marlene and her figurines all those months back, for example – looking to trade them for whatever value they still had. And it was all quite subjective; to the right customer something like five to ten paperbacks, or an entire collection of Savage Starlight comics, could be swapped for a utility knife.

Which Marlene did of course, and the memory did nothing for her mood. Short fuses all round that evening, but there wasn't really anyone to blame for the kerfuffle with the man.

He had probably just got off a grueling shift and wanted nothing more than to get home. His overalls were that of those who worked on the Outside. The jobs varied; agriculture was the most common – there were no farms within the zone limits – but they were just as easily deployed in construction, and there'd been increasingly more of those since the coup. His overalls may have been off-white, but his collar was definitely blue. And what did he earn for the thankless task? Double what most people, like her mother, got for Inside work. It evidently justified the risk for the man, but FEDRA could've been paying quadruple the amount and Marlene still wouldn't have blinked. She and Nadine could earn the same in a day after all.

Usually, that was. The bottles in their backpacks kept up their rattling taunt as they continued walking; Nadine had managed to push out two of them, but Marlene hadn't managed as well. About two less well, for a whole afternoon's work. It'd been an undeniably slow day, and Nadine had already been pissed off all morning to begin with. Over what, Marlene didn't know exactly; she hadn't blamed her for waking up late, and she would've thought her hangover would've subsided by now. Either way, the poor business didn't help.

Nadine massaged her temples as they walked, and the scowl on her face deepened. "We need to rethink the price of those things," she said, pointing a thumb at her backpack.

Eight was a really fair price. The seven they had to resort to by late afternoon was an even better deal, and even then it was only through some marvellous salesmanship that Nadine had managed to shift those two bottles.

"Six?" suggested Marlene.

"Six," repeated Nadine, not bothering to hide the ridicule in her voice.

Marlene fought the urge to reply in the same tone. "Can't go any lower than five," she said factually.

"Sure it can. All the way down to fucking zilch," Nadine spat bitterly, shoving the cards into her pocket as she finally finished with her stock take. It'd taken longer than it should have; they only had the fourteen to split between them. "Stupid cards are worthless, if you ask me."

Marlene thought about her words for a few yards. Those cards were how they earned their rations; why they were there right that moment. Those cards were why that man was risking working outside the city limits, and those cards why her mother worked fourteen-hour shifts at the factory each day.

She failed to see Nadine's point completely. "What the hell are you going on about?" she asked, her genuine curiosity tinged by the impatience of fatigue.

"You work all day; you bust your balls all week to earn the things. Then they say, without any warning, that it's gonna be half-rations until who knows when."

"Bah, so we fucked up…"

That it would be a slow day had already been obvious that morning at the distribution centre which was set up in, of all places, their old high school. They'd woken up late, thinking they'd missed the queue, but the snaking line leading out from the canteen into the corridors told otherwise. The distribution had been late, and that was only the first of two pieces of bad news the residents of Wilmington received that day - double the cards were now needed for the same allocation of food just a week earlier.

"Fine, I fucked up," Marlene corrected, seeing that Nadine's scowl was now aimed squarely at her. "Bad idea to spend most of our stash at one go."

"It's not that…" said Nadine. The unnecessary revision softened her scowl, but also added to the frustration in her voice. "It's just how they don't care."

"This your first day in a quarantine zone, miss?"

"Not that they have to, I guess. But it just gets tiring, man," continued Nadine, swatting aside Marlene's mocking interlude. "Work harder or starve, it's your choice. Not like you can exchange those cards anywhere else."

It was true; come down to it, those cards were only ultimately worth what rations FEDRA deigned to pay out. And what choice did anyone have about it? Whether it was her mom and that man, or any of the traders in the alley, it all boiled down to the two choices Nadine laid out. A rumour had been floating around that it was also to shut the black market down, but Marlene doubted it; FEDRA just needed to send their regiments in if they really wanted to. The short of it was that the agency had, by choice or otherwise, simply made those cards more expensive. And thus everything those cards were good for. People now had to work twice as hard to earn them, and what meagre accruals they'd scrimped up were instantly eroded in half, leaving little room for luxuries in the immediate future.

Which was more relevant for the two women. They'd taken a gamble on the bottles yesterday, and already it'd paid off badly. What use was having the moonshine to sell there if there weren't customers around to afford them? They could drink themselves merry as they starved.

"It's something like that 'price of money' horseshit, right?" continued Nadine, echoing Marlene's thoughts, the note of derision in her voice indicating her dislike of the subject. "Fucking FEDRA…"

Marlene snorted a laugh – what knowledge of economics she had came from the one module in freshman year at college, but ol' Prof McGovern would probably have had something to say about the art major's half-baked assessment of FEDRA's policy. Also, it was an unusually weighty line of thought, coming from her friend.

"That's what that's been eating you all day?"

A ghost of a smile formed on Nadine's lips as she massaged her temples again. "You're the one who started this shit last night. I actually listen, you know," she said, tossing her hair haughtily and finally starting to resemble the woman Marlene knew well. "And I'm not drinking again, ever…" she groaned.

The conversation died down as the checkpoint came into sight at last, but it was better to keep mostly quiet around those places, at any rate.

It wasn't difficult to tell the new buildings from the old ones in the zone. Not only through obvious signs like freshly whitewashed walls with the dust of dried paint gathering at the bottom like baby powder, or even the blue tattoos of FEDRA's roundel over those walls. Even in their decaying shape there was mostly a warmth to buildings built from Before, manifested in soft features like the odd bench or two outside them, planter boxes and other niceties, all of which were absent from FEDRA's architecture. Nowhere was the contrast more apparent than at the checkpoints where concrete jersey barriers funneled vehicles and people alike – no amenities there, not even for the sentry manning the gate, whose flecked fatigues contrasted against the blue of his FEDRA comrade, who Marlene saw was a sergeant from the stripes on his epaulettes.

"IDs," said the sergeant simply, placing a hand out for the proof that the women belonged to the district they were entering. Marlene's eyes ran over to the fence beside as she handed the papers over, where off in the distance on the other side was the still uncompleted wall that FEDRA had been building over the past few months.

A necessary thing, she thought sardonically, thinking of the broadcast from a year ago. The clicking and flashing of cameras had been the only accompaniment to the deferential silence of reporters, who would've otherwise been shouting a barrage of questions if it'd been the spokesperson of a civilian administration up there on the rostrum. "…With the bureaucrats out of power we can finally take the necessary steps to protect our way of life…" the official said to the nation in a broadcast on both television and radio, with armed soldiers lined up on both sides of the briefing room. All with fingers held over the triggers of their rifles; suggesting some excellent training on trigger discipline no doubt, but also equally that they definitely had bullets loaded inside those magazines. All within the frame for the broadcast – that had been part of the message, and FEDRA did messages very well.

As much as any practical uses the wall would have, it was also already a monument to the agency's rule. It wasn't for nothing that the no-man's land separated by the fence was inside the wall, after all. FEDRA wasn't military by itself, even if the two branches worked closely during the initial outbreak. And while most of the military folded under their wing, there'd been a fair few who resisted. Leading the way, not for self but for country, and always faithful, even as bullets tore through their bodies. That went on for a while, until it seemed that most of them had given up. That or they all died…

"Fifteen minutes 'til curfew," the sergeant said, returning the IDs.

"Gonna head straight home, sir," explained Marlene.

She received a curt nod in reply. The soubriquet wasn't strictly necessary from civilians, but it was a helpful lubricant at those checkpoints. Didn't take much to say it, and one didn't even need to be sincerely respectful. Even so, Nadine's eyes were rolling as they passed through the gate, her lips mouthing the word silently, curling in disgust as if Marlene had uttered an expletive.

They really didn't have far left to go. Just two more blocks, in fact. They were so close to reaching home after a hard day's work, made all the more so because they had nothing to show for it.

They were tired and distracted, but they really should've noticed the man behind them, who was keeping a distance away – and that the distance remained constant as they turned the corners through the streets. Also that the other man across the street seemed to be keeping pace with him, almost.

In fairness, why should they have? They were no different from any of the other denizens of the district; clad in tattered, long-unwashed tops and jeans that would've once been fashionably ripped but were now in desperate need of replacing. It was urban camouflage of the finest quality; they blended into the decaying city, hungry chameleons amongst rotting leaves. They hadn't even noticed them yet even when a third stepped in front of them as they cut through an alleyway.

"Let's just hold up a moment there, ladies," began the man.

His oddly polite manner was a stunning contrast to his bedraggled appearance and bloodshot eyes, which suggested that he'd spent at least all afternoon, if not all day, imbibing beverages not unlike those they had in their backpacks. Something about him – the metal pipe that he was tapping lazily in his hands, for one – suggested that he probably wasn't used to having to pay for his habit, nor that this was some sort of social call. The footsteps of his colleagues bringing up the rear came into earshot, and it was only then that Marlene had the first notion that they were in an ambush. The shortcut was necessary to make time in view of the impending curfew, but that was the least of their worries now.

"We're clear, no patrols about," said one of them, addressing no one in particular.

The head asshole looked pleased as the three of them closed in, forming a semi circle that neatly surrounded the two women, all the while tapping his metal pipe meaningfully.

"What you got in those packs?" he asked.

There was little doubt in Marlene's mind that he genuinely needed an answer to the question. A reply of 'none of your business' was already working its way to her lips, but a skittish Nadine drew out her switchblade right then – causing the bottles in her pack to rattle inconveniently, drawing a smirk from the robbers who'd found their answer.

"Back the fuck off," Nadine warned fiercely. Or as best she could manage, with the tiny quiver in her voice betraying what she had done so well in concealing up to the point.

She was as rattled as those bottles, understandably so given her experience with these situations. Certainly the assholes didn't miss it; the switchblade was a fiercely utilitarian thing furnished with plain wood and little else by way of ornamentation, and even though its business end was pointed right at them, Nadine might as well have been pointing a toothpick for all the good it did.

Before Nadine could swing her blade one of the robbers rushed forward, pinning her arm out and away from the both of them. Thrown off balance, she struggled feebly and staggered as she was pushed backwards. With momentum on his side, the man swung his knee towards her abdomen. Her knees buckled as it connected, which was followed quickly by a sharp yell of agony as he moved behind her, grabbing and twisting her arm as he did. Her fingers loosened as he tightened his grip around her wrist, and her switchblade fell and clanked gently onto the ground.

Marlene would've intervened, were it not for the second robber who did pretty much the same thing simultaneously, sans blade from her. She would've yelled as Nadine did, but she didn't even have the time for that as the asshole put his hand to the back of her head, shoving her down onto the ground. Each mouthful of air Marlene was struggling to gasp in was permeated by the stench of alley; the asshole was pinning her down on her belly, with her face hard against the dirty tarmac. He brought down his face till it was inches away from hers, and she flinched from the heavy odour of tobacco - or whatever the heck it was - wafting at her.

"Down, motherfucker," he sneered. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

Marlene tried struggling, but he was right – it was pointless. Three on one-point-five were shit odds, and it showed. The takedown was clinically executed, and there was little else she could do but try to catch her breath as the man removed the pack off her back. But the weight of the man on her back eased slightly, it seemed his attention was drawn towards Nadine. Who clearly didn't receive the memo – she was struggling with every ounce she had, it seemed, reaching her arm out desperately for her switchblade which lay inches away from her.

"Get...the fuck...off -" she grunted.

"Little help over here, boss!" yelled the robber on her back, his hands full keeping her pinned down.

The head asshole looked almost irritated as he stepped over. He kicked the switchblade away from Nadine, and held his pipe up at the ready. Marlene had to wince at the sound of metal thudding against denim, covered over only slightly by Nadine's shrieks. And even then the woman kept struggling; she managed to work her hand loose, which she connected against the face of the man on her back. Down went the pipe again, this time broadly in the region of Nadine's ribs, drawing out an even sharper cry.

Anger clouded the face of the robber whom Nadine had clouted, and Marlene watched as he crawled over to pick up Nadine's switchblade. She resumed struggling against the asshole on her back, but that earned her a sharp twist of the arm and a further shove of her head on the ground. Her eyes cringed on instinct, and so she didn't see what happened after.

She damn well heard Nadine's scream, though. Fighting to open her eyes against the force holding her head down, she saw a deepening patch formed near the side of Nadine's stomach, a cloud of red against the pale blue of her shirt.

"You…fucking…cowards!"

The robber on her back gave a scoff before spitting on her face. "What we got, boss?" he asked, raising a hand to wipe his mouth.

Boss-asshole already had both packs in hand, and he seemed mightily pleased at their haul as he dangled them in the air, the rattling of bottles probably seeming like the jingles of a fruit machine hitting the jackpot to him. He was in the midst of opening his mouth to reply when a groaning from further down the alley caught everybody's attention.

It was difficult to make out the shapes, silhouetted against what little of the fading sunlight there was in that alley, but it really wasn't all that difficult. Those things were human; certainly they walked on two legs like humans. Only that they didn't; they staggered and limped, groaning as they did. As if two parts of their mind were fighting against each other, as if they were in pain. Even the run they broke into upon catching sight of the women and robbers was unbalanced and inelegant. Those things were human, but none of them needed to actually see the things to know what they were – and further proof came, as if it were needed, when their groans turned to sickly, blood-curdling shrieks.

"INFECTED!" yelled the robber on Marlene's back, quite redundantly, and very foolishly.

But it was well that he did – it drew them away from a relatively quiet Marlene who felt the weight lift off her back at last. The infected headed straight after the three robbers, and Marlene staggered to her feet, feeling a slight pang of regret for the packs that were still in boss-asshole's hands as he hightailed it out of the alley with his comrades following closely. But Marlene didn't have long to brood over those. One straggler had remained, and it was headed straight for the softly moaning Nadine, still clutching at the wound on her side. Marlene wasn't thinking as she watched the thing stagger towards Nadine. She couldn't think, didn't have time to think.

She only had one thing in mind, and that was to reach the switchblade, and Nadine, before that thing did.

Adrenaline does strange things for a person, and it did for Marlene then. There was no wasted movement to her actions; each step seemed to have been choreographed as she watched her fingers close around the wood handle of the switchblade and lift it up. Even her turn was the efficient one of an athlete; she'd stepped off even as she was still completing the swivel. And it was well that she did – Nadine was already pinning an arm against the infected when Marlene's foot connected against it, driving it away from her friend, and blood spurted across her shirt as she drove the blade into the back of its head.

Adrenaline also does strange things to a person. The infected had been a woman before; its shoulder-length brunette hair was pulled back by a bandanna. Even with the stalks of fungus sprouting around the edges of its nose and eyes and the bloodied veins around them, it would've probably been considered pretty before, Marlene found herself noting morbidly, even as she drove the blade into its head again, this time finding its eyes.

And again, again, and yet again, until it stopped moving. Finally Marlene released the infected, letting it slump onto the ground. She didn't realize she was breathing quite as heavily as she was, and for a moment she wanted nothing more than to lie down on the ground and sleep for a while. Until she remembered Nadine, who was still bleeding just beside her. Who'd been fighting off the infected just before she reached it…

The adrenaline that'd just been beginning to ebb away kicked through Marlene's veins again as she scrambled to her feet, stumbling over to Nadine. She ran her palms across her friend's arms, then her neck, and then over her clothes, all the while looking desperately with her eyes for that which she didn't want to see. Nadine seemed to know what she was doing; while it may've been more a function of her having been stabbed in the gut, she was remarkably still throughout the process.

But there were none. No bites.

"Fuck..." groaned the blonde. "First time's free. Now get your paws off me…"

Despite herself, Marlene felt a grin form on her face, a grin that found itself reflected in Nadine's face. Leave it to Nadine make a wisecrack even as she lay bleeding on the ground, but it changed nothing about the situation as her eyes took stock of it.

"Okay…" she began.

She was saying it even if the sight before her plainly wasn't. A dead infected lay at her feet, and just beside it, a near-dead, but at least not-infected, woman with blood pooling at her abdomen.

"Okay, we gotta get you to the hospital."

"N-not there," Nadine said, grimacing as she tried to sit up. "They'll think I've been bit…"

"They won't, for fuck's sake."

"Lookit, Marley. Just -"

"It'll be fine. Let's go," said Marlene, cutting across Nadine and making to pick her up off the ground.

"NO!" yelled Nadine, an outburst that seemed to drain all remaining energy out of her. Her strength faded as she grasped at Marlene's arm, voice trailing off even as she stared her dead in the eyes. "Look…Not. Fucking. There…"

Nadine then slipped out of consciousness, falling limp in Marlene's arms, making it difficult to move her. From the street came the sound of a humvee coming to a halt, followed shortly by indistinguishable shouting, and then the sound of automatic gunfire. Probably a patrol had run across the robbers and infected. Marlene felt a prick of pity for the assholes; FEDRA didn't bother much with friend-or-foe in those situations. Human or Infected. Crucially however, it meant that they needed to get out of that alley. Quickly. And without being seen.

She noticed that she was still holding onto Nadine's switchblade, for some reason. It was stained with the blood of the infected – she gave it a thorough wipe against the dead thing's clothes before retracting the blade and stowing it away, and wrapped Nadine's arm around her shoulder.

"Fucking hell, Nade," grunted Marlene, heaving as she struggled to get to her feet.


A/N: Didn't even realize it was a cliffhanger until PA told me :p Thanks all for the faves, follows, reviews, and of course (and never least), thanks for reading! See you in the next chapter!