Twenty years later...Hartford QZ
Jenny clung tight to her aunt Natalie, nearly choking her as she ran from the infected that had ambushed them. She and her aunt had gotten separated from her dad and brother. Jenny watched over her aunt's shoulder as the infected gained on them. She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her face into Natalie's shoulder, attempting to block out what was happening. The shrieks and screams and clicks made that impossible, however.
Jenny opened her eyes again. She shrieked just as the nearest runner lunged at them. He fell short, but managed to catch Natalie's foot and cause her to stumble. Natalie went down hard onto her side and she lost her grip on Jenny, sending the girl rolling. She scrambled trying to get to her feet, but before she could, a clicker tackled her hard.
"Aunty Nat!" Jenny shrieked as Natalie wrestled with the clicker. She was losing fast and the clicker lunged in and sunk his teeth deep into her neck, ripping out a large chunk of flesh.
Jenny screamed in terror, causing the clicker to turn its attention on her. It lunged at her, teeth bared, ready to rip her apart.
Jenny's eyes shot wide open as she nearly jumped from her bed. She was soaked with a cold sweat. It had been more than 15 years since she lost her aunt and got separated from her father, but the nightmare kept coming back. She remembered that day like it had happened only yesterday.
She got up from her bed and walked to the large window. The window took up most of the wall and provided an excellent view of the river. "Well, you're a mess," she said to herself, looking at her faint reflection in the window. Her long, light brown hair was knotted and tangled. Small strands clung to her forehead and cheeks. The long, white t-shirt she wore normally hung halfway to her knees, but it was all twisted and clung haphazardly from her small thin frame, one shoulder partially sticking out.
She heard the bed frame creak on the other side of the makeshift divider and then footsteps headed her way. "Are you alright?" Isaac asked, standing in the doorway to her room.
"Yeah," she replied, straightening her shirt and pulling it down over her once-bright-red pajama pants, "just a bad dream."
Jenny lived in a rundown 2 bedroom apartment with Nate, his wife Marian, and their son Isaac. Isaac and Jenny shared the larger bedroom. Nate had built a series of dividers from a bunch of old pallets stood on edge, nailed together using some old lumber and draped with old curtains and bed sheets. It was crude but it effectively created two bedrooms from one. Nate and Marian had the other bedroom.
Isaac stepped into the room, "Same one as always?"
"Yeah, same one as always," she replied, turning to look at him. He was a few inches shy of six feet tall with an average build. Not really thin, but not really all that big either. He didn't appear all that muscular, but she knew he could handle himself pretty well. He had short, dark brown, almost black, hair and big brown eyes.
She turned back towards the window as he stepped up beside her. He wasn't really a big guy, but he made Jenny look rather small by comparison. She was a full head or more shorter than him and slightly thinner.
"They sure have enough guards out there, huh?" Isaac said, trying to change the subject away from the nightmare. "I guess those Fireflies really got the military on edge."
"Yeah, and it's putting everyone else on edge, too," she responded, watching the guards patrol the checkpoint on the bridge. Ever since the Fireflies had shown up in other zones, the military here had been on edge, but it wasn't until a little over a year ago, when the Fireflies set their sights on Boston, that the military started actively increasing security. Boston was the nearest functional zone, and the Firefly activity there really ignited the military's paranoia. They started putting more soldiers at checkpoints and even added a half dozen more checkpoints. There had to have been about a dozen soldiers at the checkpoint on the bridge. There was another bridge to the north and although she couldn't see it from here, she guessed there were just as many at that checkpoint. They started stopping people in the street and doing random searches. They searched homes. They took people in for questioning. They even executed two "suspected" Fireflies about a month ago, even though they had no evidence they were actually Fireflies.
"Yep," he agreed. After a long pause, he said, "Hey, did you hear we got a bunch of supply trucks in today?"
Jenny smiled at him. "You mean yesterday? It's two in the morning," she said pointing at the clock on the stand next to her bed. "Whatever," he responded, giving her a little shove.
"More squirt guns?" she asked, only half joking. Isaac laughed. "Yeah like we'd ever get anything that useful again!"
A few years back, the two had snuck into the warehouse looking for nothing in particular. They were bored and wanted to see if they could get in. They got in and stumbled across a crate packed full of squirt guns. There were some other toys in there, too, but the majority of it was squirt guns of all shapes and sizes. Exactly how and why the zone had received a crate of squirt guns remained a mystery but over the next week or so, they'd emptied the crate and distributed the goods to the children in the zone. No one noticed the crate being emptied, but they sure noticed the sudden onslaught of armed children.
"All I know is they damn well better have plenty of rations in those trucks," Isaac said hopefully.
"I hope so. Lot of people are starting to get hungry," Jenny replied. "Why the hell won't they let us grow our own food? I mean, we got that gigantic park inside the wall. It ain't ever used. Never see anyone around there. Why couldn't we just dig it all up and make a community garden?"
The military had recently started getting stingy with distribution of rations. Hartford used to be one of the best zones to be in, but it was quickly headed downhill what with all the Firefly paranoia.
"I don't know, but I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to give it a try," Isaac said with a slight chuckle.
"Hey! You wanna go shoot some hoops?" he said giving Jenny a wink and a nudge with his elbow. "Yeah, like you could beat me!" she challenged. They both laughed and headed for the basketball court housed in the lower levels of the apartment complex they lived in.
After about an hour of HORSE, and Jenny completely dominating, the two made their way back to their bedrooms.
"You really need to work on your shots," Jenny teased.
"I think you cheated," Isaac shot back, playfully shoving her as they walked.
"How did I cheat?! You just can't aim."
The pair arrived at their apartment door and stood just outside, trying to quiet their chuckling so as not to wake Nate or Marian. When they had themselves under control they opened the door and walked in, closing the door behind them and locking it.
"And where have you two been?" Nate asked, arms crossed and glaring at them.
Jenny and Isaac both jumped at the sound of his voice, but immediately calmed once they realized who it was. It was a little unusual for him to be awake at this hour since he always slept so soundly. His "job" sometimes called for late night work, though, so it wasn't unheard of.
"Relax, dad. We were just playing some HORSE downstairs. Never even left the building." Isaac explained coolly.
Nate was a near copy of Isaac, or rather, Isaac a copy of Nate, except that Nate's hair was just a little lighter and he was a bit taller.
"All right, fine. But I don't need to tell you how edgy the military is lately, and I don't want you two going out on your own," Nate scolded.
Nate was a smuggler and sometimes brought Isaac and Jenny along on certain drops, so he couldn't get too mad at them for sneaking around the city. But that didn't mean he couldn't worry when they did it on their own.
"Oh, come on, dad. I'm 23. And Jenny's only a few months away from 20. I think we're old enough to handle ourselves," Isaac shot back.
"You're probably right, but as your father, it's my job to worry about you," Nate said.
He hadn't really directed his usage of the word "father" toward Jenny, but she knew it included her. Nate had saved Jenny's life the night her aunt died. He'd shot the clicker just before it could sink its teeth into her and then killed the three runners. He'd stayed by her side while she and her aunt said their final goodbyes. After her aunt passed, he took her in his arms and comforted her, carrying her away from the awful scene. He's looked after her ever since. She didn't feel right calling him dad since she vaguely remembered her own father and he had never once even given a hint that she should refer to him as such. Even so, he did include her in the family and would occasionally refer to her as though she were his own daughter. She never argued, though, because she did love him like a father.
Jenny and Isaac just grinned at him innocently. He grinned back and playfully slapped Isaac's shoulder. "All right you two, back to bed. You know we gotta be down at the warehouse in a few hours, right?"
"Yeah, we know. Trucks ain't gonna unload themselves," Jenny sighed.
"All right, see you in the morning...er...in a couple hours," Nate said as he turned around and shuffled back to his bedroom.
Jenny and Isaac headed back to their own rooms. "Sweet dreams," Isaac said with sincerity as he turned away from Jenny toward his room. "Thanks, you too," she replied.
She went into her own room but instead of going to her bed she walked to the window. She listened to the squeaky metal bed frame as Isaac crawled in. No more than 30 seconds later, she could hear him snoring lightly. She laughed to herself. She was always amazed at how quickly he could fall asleep. She stared out at the checkpoint for a while longer, watching the soldiers patrol. Her thoughts lingered on her nightmare and on the edginess of the military. Just as she was about to turn and head for her bed, she caught movement in the shadows across the street. She strained to see what it was and realized that it was the shadow of a person.
Infected? she wondered. No, the movement is too deliberate.
Dismissing it as some teenager sneaking around looking for trouble or a smuggler making a drop (after all, Nate wasn't the only one), she turned and walked to her bed. She lay down and before long she was out.