Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness Ch.5
Title: Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness
By: Pink Rabbit Productions
Chapter: 5
Date: 4 September, 2010
Disclaimer: Hmmm, characters, not mine, situation, mine, though with the proviso that certain scenarios owe a major debt of gratitude to George Romero. Sex? Likely. Genders involved? Likely all female (at least anything on camera). Also there are likely to be very bad things in this story. I'm not one for prodigious amounts of gore, but this is horror and there is likely to be ickiness and things that might disturb some folks. Seriously. If it's gonna bother you, move along.
Summary: When the dead rise, civilization falls.
Author's Notes: Awhile back, just for fun, I did a faux movie poster that set Otalia in a horror setting and used some elements from an idea I've had running around for ages (what can I say---it was the Halloween season). Sooo, at some point, it seemed like fun to take a gander at writing them in that universe. I've quite deliberately tried to break away from my usual style and make it a bit faster moving, with frequent chapter breaks, deliberate cliffhangers, shorter scenes and more directed pov. We'll see if I can keep to one pov per chapter (well, they are short chapters...lol).
Previous Chapters: | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |
Afterworld:
Into the Arms of Darkness
Chapter 5
No time to think, no time to plan, only time to react.
Diving through the door Josh Lewis had so carefully camouflaged, Natalia Rivera spun and slammed it shut, then flipped the locks and dropped the bar to keep it braced shut. Two more bars could be put into place at the top and bottom and she quickly rammed them down. Even as she worked, she could see the wood jerk and move as it was jostled from the outside. With all the noise, the crowd would grow and keep pressing. If enough showed up, the door wouldn't hold against the increasing pressure, not unless she could something to get rid of the stench of blood that drew more attention and drove the frenzy of the dead.
She secured the final bar and spun. The woman she'd saved lay sprawled on the floor on her back, arms and legs akimbo, utterly limp. As she watched, the child skidded to her knees beside her mother, grabbing for her coat and shaking desperately in an effort to wake her.
Natalia didn't know what the hell she was doing dragging the pair into her home, not after what she'd seen through Blake's window. She'd been watching for some sign of life for days, hoping Blake was just lying low and avoiding the reavers she'd glimpsed in the area the same way she was.
Then she'd seen movement.
A wooden shutter opened for the first time in days, then the woman briefly leaned out, her hair loose and flying in a gentle breeze as it glossed with the amber of the setting sun. Against the green backdrop of a lush summer day she'd been heart-breakingly beautiful and for the briefest second, it had been as though the old world never went away.
Then Natalia saw the guns and the black leather-reaver gear-and she'd grabbed for binoculars, getting them focused through the window, squinting to make out the interior of the darkened room just in time to see her friend's last moments, how they'd used her, and how carelessly the woman from the window had murdered her.
Natalia had never been a violent person. In fact, she'd tried all of her life to be kind and decent, often in the face of spiteful cruelty.
But in that moment, she'd fully intended to kill her friend's murderer. Blake Marler had been sweet and chatty and a little dim, but always harmless. Even after her mind wasn't quite right anymore, she'd been kind and gentle in refusing Natalia's entreaties to move in with her after the others were all gone.
She'd been the only friend Natalia had left.
And Natalia had been determined to see her murder avenged, carefully tracking the woman as she exited the back of the house to avoid the dead gathering on the other side. No sign of her friends. Good. Divide and conquer.
The problem was, when the time came and she had the killer in her sights, she couldn't pull the trigger and kill in cold blood. She'd had to confront the woman, had to confirm her guilt.
Only she hadn't seen guilt, only fury and frustration and she'd let it throw her off her game, allowed herself to lose control of the situation so that it turned into a fight rather than a killing.
Then the child had come running, panic in her eyes, the dead on her heels.
Screaming for her mommy.
And Natalia couldn't do it.
Couldn't blow a mother away in front of her child, couldn't let the dead have that child, couldn't even just turn away and leave them to their fate.
So now, here she was, a half dead woman on her floor, bleeding heavily enough to drive every dead thing on her doorstep crazy with hunger-and after all the shooting, there were going to be plenty of dead things on her doorstep in the next hours-and a child, frightened and desperate and...
Natalia blinked, automatically swinging the shotgun around as her eyes caught sight of a dull glint in small hands that rose and pointed her way.
...and armed...
* * * * * *
TBC