Ch. 33
'Collections Part two'
[Baltimore, the next morning]
Water lapped endlessly in front of them, breaking softly against the pavement, standing tall above them were the empty shells of what used to be civilization's great works of Baltimore.
With the city in disrepair, the water from the nearby Patapsco river had flooded the area extensively, coupled with the seer systems no longer being pumped by the city workers, Baltimore now was underwater.
Torn and tattered banners hung from broken-out windows, Summer could make out the words on one of them. 'Desperate times' and another said 'Save us', both in bold red lettering against the weathered gray tarps they had been scrawled onto.
"So, uh, Genevieve can swim?" Blake asked over his shoulder as he looked out at the vast body of water.
He had been covered in a walker's guts, head to toe, Blake could be mistaken for a member of the undead quite easily.
Summer had also camouflaged herself as a walker, the near-miss they had back in Richmond, cost them their horses, the two barely escaped alive, yet they pressed on in hopes of finding Genevieve.
"Ya, she learned how to a few years ago, she's nothing spectacular at it, but she can tread water, float on her back, ya know, basics," Summer said as she crouched near the water, looking for any sign of a boat nearby.
Scanning the shore, Summer could see where boats had been launched, drag marks coming from one building, in particular, Blake looked over to where Summer was and recognized the place.
"That's where we kept the boats, but I think we should take a different route, there's one that goes through the tenth floor of that building, with bridges connecting it to other spots!" Blake explained, pointing to the building in question.
An explosion sounded a few blocks down from where the siblings stood, gunfire erupted in the same area immediately after, whoever was involved clearly didn't observe the fact that the undead would be attracted to the noise.
Standing up with eyes wide in anticipation, Summer walked closer to Blake, never tearing her eyes from the direction of the sounds. "Could that be her?" Summer whispered, instinctively due to the sound coming from not too far away.
Blake, who had also grown tense from the sudden loud noise, the intense gunfire had already woken the dead, the Ex-Saviour decided a boat might be beneficial now. "Screw the skyscraper idea, let's see about a boat," Blake exclaimed in a low voice as he moved past her.
Summer nodded but kept her eyes fixed on the buildings that were hiding a gunfight from her, after a short moment, the woman turned to follow Blake but saw he had frozen in place, looking at the makeshift boathouse, the sound of undead inside the structure gave the siblings pause.
The duo nodded before creeping over as quietly as they could, Summer peered in first and saw that these walking corpses were either pinned to walls or furniture or had various limbs amputated, some were even stuck in traps.
"What the fuck?!" Blake whispered in disbelief.
"I think this was Genevieve," Summer said seeing that the knots looked like the ones Amanda had taught both her and Genevieve.
"Damn… Let's go around, they kept canoes on the outside wall," Blake said before disappearing around the corner.
Summer followed suit, slipping around the building, the sound of a splat could be heard ahead of her rounding the bend, the woman saw her brother had defeated a walker with the hatchet he had found earlier.
"Ok, here we go!" Blake said, straining as he pulled the canoe down and dragged it to the water, stretching his spine after the short workout, Blake sighed at the relief as his bones popped lightly. "C'mon, we gotta move!" The man said as he stepped into the water vessel.
Stepping into the boat shakily, Summer slowly sat down, trying not to tip the canoe over. "Have you ever, uh, used one of these?" Summer asked, taking a paddle in her hands.
The duo began paddling towards the noise, an odd thought since it was often wise to do the opposite in this dreary world. "Yup, before and after all this happened," Blake replied, motioning to the dilapidated skyscrapers surrounding them.
Summer took solace in knowing one of them knew what they were doing, the canoe glided across the smooth surface of the water, the siblings did not take long to reach the objective, although, Summer noticed the gunfire had stopped.
[In the skyscrapers above, earlier]
Genevieve had figured out the traversal systems from following, quietly behind one of the guards on patrol, she had stalked the radio channels with the walkie talkie she had procured, telling her this was a forward operations base.
She crept towards the sounds of voices, all male voices and rather heated, Genevieve thought to herself as bird wings were heard fluttering overhead.
In the room ahead of her, Genevieve could see where the men's voices were coming from, staying in the dark, the survivor awaited a chance to exact her revenge.
"You have to be dealing wrong! You can't have all the fucking cards every time!" A Saviour bellowed as he slammed his fists on the small table he and a few other men were sitting at.
"Whoa, calm down man, no fuckin' reason to get pissed!" Another man said in a sly tone.
The men continued their heated conversation while Genevieve skulked just out of view, their raised voices covered any noise the young survivor made inadvertently.
Birds flew through the giant openings where glass walls had been, only their supports remained, watching the birds play for a moment, Genevieve analyzed the situation.
It appeared to be an armory she was hiding in at the moment, various explosives, guns, and melee weapons lined the floor, and the floors, all of which had padlocks on their cases, Genevieve had a tiny spool of wire that she could put to use if she could procure something explosive.
Creeping over to one of the cases, Genevieve pulled two bobby pins out of her half ponytail, held in place by her hair ties, taking the closed-end, Genevieve inserted it into the bottom portion of the lock and bent it to make a lever before turning the lock to apply pressure, and with the second bobby pin, the survivor used the straight end which had been stripped of the rubber piece long ago, was inserted into the top portion.
Jiggling the top pick, Genevieve found the seized pin and pushed it up, a small click could be heard as she did so, within a minute, the teenager had the lock open and was rummaging through the box, pulling out a frag grenade, Genevieve knew what type of trap she would set.
The room was dimly lit, covered with tarps, most likely so rivals wouldn't be able to see in the large glass windows that were present.
Pulling out the wire, Genevieve unspooled it, snaked it under the pin, and then tied it to the leg of a table, taking another length of wire, the teenager tied one end to the ring that held the pin in place.
Sneakily crossing the doorway with the other end of the wire, the men's arguing had subsided as Genevieve tied her trap off to one of the padlocks of a different weapon's case, the young survivor made sure it was tight before she carefully crawled under the tripwire and slipped into the room where the men played cards.
Wingbeats continued as the birds went in and out of the building, Genevieve hid behind the players using a crate as cover, a glass beer bottle laid at the feet of the man closest to her, biding her time, the survivor reached out, feeling for the bottle with her fingers, touching the cool glass of the bottle, she wrapped her fingers around the neck of the bottle and pulled it back to her unnoticed.
Watching the birds, Genevieve waited until they flew back into the armory room, throwing the bottle in a straight line so the men would see it sailing through the air with the crates obstructing their view.
Promptly after releasing the bottle, Genevieve snuck to the opposite end of the room, putting as much room between her and the armory.
"The fuck?" one of the men said, standing up. "Damned birds," he sneered as he began to sit back down.
"Whoa, go see what broke, if it's important we can at least clean it up and say it wasn't here on last shift's watch," another man said, matter of factly.
With a heavy sigh, the man stood up once again. "Whatever, man," he grumbled before stepping away from the table to investigate.
Stepping into the room, the thug never saw the explosion coming before he was pulverized, the explosion set off the other grenades, and it heated up the ammunition which sprayed in every direction.
"Attack at armory one! Need back up!" One of the men said before a stray round hit his neck causing him to fall to the floor.
The munitions began to dwindle as Genevieve fired her pistol hitting a man in the chest twice, she then turned her aim on another target and shot him once, hitting him in the neck.
The men recovered from the shock and pulled out their weapons and began to return fire on the elusive enemy that threatened their survival.
There were two of them and only one of her, the odds would be in their favor if she didn't try something else, Genevieve hunkered down and waited for the bullets to stop, when they did, Genevieve pulled the magazine out of her pistol and checked it.
Six bullets left, enough to kill both of the enemies, until Genevieve heard more incoming Saviours, the answer to that distress call no doubt.
This wouldn't go well for Genevieve, not as it was now… but she had to try, after all, they owed and she would collect.
Here we are! Almost done with S3, boy has Genevieve, got herself in a pickle! Find out if she will survive in the next chapter!