Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness Ch.14
Title: Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness
By: Pink Rabbit Productions
Chapter: 14
Date: 17 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). See the poster here: http://altfic.com/artgallery/otalia/glafterworld01b.htm . 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).
Dedicated to: My mom. Seriously. All of my growing up years, she would constantly throw me these what-if scenarios and press me to figure out logical ways to survive/get out of various emergency situations. Now, she never mentioned the zombie apocalypse, but I'm sure that was just an oversight or a desire not to scare a little kid (because, really, I grew up as the daughter of a top secret type during the cold war...I already had enough fear issues), but really, that odd little game was the genesis of...well...not just this story, but a lot of my love of writing. So, thanks mom.
Previous Chapters: | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 |
Afterworld:
Into the Arms of Darkness
Chapter 14
Olivia tightened her hold as Emma burrowed deeper into her neck, absorbing the tiny shudders that shook her daughter and intensely aware of the hot tears falling against her skin where Emma had pressed her cheek. Despite the exhaustion that threatened to send her careening to the floor in a heap, she gently rocked her daughter, whispering soothing nonsense as she waited for her to calm.
Natalia was still gently petting Emma's hair and rubbing her back, her eyes wide and sad. More than once she rubbed at tears that coated her lashes.
Amazing that someone in her situation could still have tears left for anyone besides themselves.
God, what a mess. That was three times now they'd been on the verge of killing each other. Or was it four? She suddenly wasn't sure. Either way, not the most auspicious beginning to a relationship. Certainly, not the ideal for someone who might wind up taking care of her kid if she was gone.
But that promise...
It seemed sincere. Not that Olivia was wont to trust promises, no matter how sincere they might seem in the moment. But she appeared to care about Emma, who appeared to have been well treated during the intervening hours.
Besides, it wasn't like there were a lot of choices. There was no one else and Natalia-whoever had survived this long. That suggested she had the skills to do what was necessary. Plus Emma seemed to trust her. That was a big mark in her favor. Emma had a knack when it came to people, a sixth sense that Olivia had learned to listen to. It had saved both their lives more than once.
She watched as Natalia rested her forehead lightly against Emma's upper back, dark bangs blending with lighter auburn. The woman's shoulders shook gently and Olivia thought she heard the soft sound of a tiny sob.
"I'll be here for you, Emma," Natalia promised after a long moment, her voice choked and hoarse, "but we're going to do everything to fight for your mom...everything."
Emma's response was almost instant. "Can't do anything if it's bite," she insisted in a voice that was muffled and thick with tears. Only eight years old and she'd already had to accept the harsh reality that mommy wasn't perfect and couldn't fix some things.
Her touch gentle, Natalia petted Emma's hair back from her temple and cheek until the girl tipped her chin around until she could see.
Watching them, Olivia could feel the arc of emotion between the stranger and her child. Acid resentment lit a fire in her gut at the thought that this woman might get to see Emma grow when she was gone and buried, but she pushed it down even as her eyes burned with unshed tears.
She should be grateful that maybe this woman had the capacity to love Emma. Should be grateful, but it was damned hard and a helluva a bitter pill. One minute they were beating on each other, the next she was maybe annointing her Emma's new mommy.
Helluva bitter pill.
"Emma," Natalia promised, her entire focus visibly on the girl, "she's still here and there are things we can try."
Olivia wanted to yell at the younger woman for making a promise like that. Afterworld wasn't a place for lying even if it came with a neat, socially acceptable title like denial. Lying was a one-way ticket to dead. And if you did it just right, you could usually take a few people with you just for fun. A real, end-of-the-world vacation package.
And that was a road she had no intention of seeing her daughter travel.
But she didn't have the heart to argue when Emma settled against her, relaxing ever so slightly, her voice soft with hope as she asked, "Really?"
"Really."
It wasn't really a kindness, offering false hope. If she'd been bitten, it would only be that much harder for Emma to accept the truth. Olivia knew that painfully well, but she was too tired and heartsick to force that much reality into her daughter's life.
And hell, maybe it wasn't a bite. Maybe it was just a deeply embedded bootprint.
As if to deny that thought, she suddenly realized that it felt like she'd gotten the sunburn from hell on that hand. Slowly opening and closing her fingers, she winced at the stiff, uneven response of bone and muscle.
Shit. That wasn't good.
Just a bootprint. Please, God, just a bootprint. As many times as she'd felt ready to let go, like she'd stop fighting if not for Emma, faced with the possibility, she found herself totally unready. "Hey, Em," she said abruptly, pushing the panic down for fear of getting lost in it. She tucked a gentle finger under her daughter's chin and drew her head up until their eyes met. "I heard a rumor you've been working on some artwork." If they could have just a moment of normalcy between them, maybe she could handle all of this.
She got a tiny nod in return. It was her daughter's one reliable escape. Even in the midst of the zombie Armageddon, Emma could lose herself in crayons and a sketchbook. "She had crayons, 'n' colored pens 'n' stuff, but I-"
"Why don't you show me," Olivia requested, hungry for even a few minutes of something positive between them. They had so few opportunities. She managed a small, encouraging smile, doing her damnedest to be strong for her child when all she really wanted to do was dissolve into an endless puddle of tears. She looked at Natalia for some kind of help, relieved to get a small nod in return. The other woman didn't intend to stand in the way.
In fact, she tugged lightly on a lock of Emma's hair to get her attention and offered an encouraging smile. "You should show her the pond you were drawing." She directed a reassuring looking Olivia's way, apparently wanting her to know the inspiration hadn't come from looking out the windows. "It's of a photo mural in the..."
She paused momentarily. Not long, but enough that Olivia heard the tiny hitch in her voice and was comfortably certain she changed whatever word she'd been about to use as she continued.
"...other bedroom."
Nodding quickly, Emma almost looked like herself for a moment. "Yeah, it's of a pond and there's lotsa trees, a cow and even some ducks." She managed a tiny smile. "I drew some of 'em."
"Well, I think you should show me your ducks," Olivia said. She met Natalia's gaze again and pointedly laid the shotgun aside as a silent peace offering.
The other woman nodded ever so slightly in another of the strange deals they seemed to constantly be negotiating.
Returning her focus to her daughter, she carefully set Emma on her feet and tucked a small hand in her own. No longer running on adrenaline, her body protested any movement, but she pushed to her feet, careful to cover any flinches. A few happy minutes, she promised herself, just a few. She ignored the pain a second later when Emma silently looked to Natalia for permission and got a nod of approval in return.
Christ, my kid needs her permission.
And may wind up as her kid if things go wrong.
Shaking off the urge to cry-and she'd foolishly thought she was past tears-she let Emma lead her, concentrating on memorizing every detail of their surroundings as she moved, pointedly ignoring the dark wraith that followed along behind them.
The door to her cell led to a good-sized room that she remembered from her brief bout of consciousness upon arriving. Yeah, there was the Rube Goldberg pulley system and some kind of locking mechanism with it. Not quite so bizarre in the light of day, but still a confusing array of metal and cabling.
The room, meanwhile, was intended as the common room of the attic apartment by the look of things, though every bit of space had been turned into some kind of storage. Boxes, crates, drawers were all stacked and neatly arranged. Food mostly by the look of things, but there were several large glass and plastic containers of water as well. Dormer windows on both sides overlooked thick forest on one side and more similarly rustic homes on the other. They were also higher than she expected. Looked like the house probably had a second floor, but the kitchen stairs to the attic simply bypassed it.
Jump out a window and probably break a leg. That would be death sentence.
Yet another avenue of escape blocked.
They reached another door. It led to a short hallway flanked by narrow doors on either side. Probably storage, she automatically catalogued them, since they were too narrow to be much more than crawl spaces.
Then Emma tugged very lightly on her hand, drawing her attention back down. Her daughter risked a quick glance over her shoulder, tracking their jailer almost as closely as her mother was. Good girl, always on your toes. "I picked the locks just like you taught me," she whispered, the news clearly intended for their ears only.
Olivia grinned and offered the tiniest wink. "That's my girl," she murmured sotto voce. So much for anyone else stepping into her shoes with her kid.
"Did you say something?" Natalia asked from behind them.
Apparently Ms. Natalia didn't like being left out of the loop because she sounded-well, not so much pissed as peeved. Which was strangely comical to Olivia because peeved seemed like such an old world emotion and utterly lacking in the drama required to be a player in Afterworld. And yet it fit so perfectly.
Then Emma led her through another door and Olivia's breath caught.
It was a child's room. Large, bright colors on three walls, a huge photomural of a bright summer day on the fourth, tiny furniture in multi-hued plastic, a wide sunroof that looked up at the sky and let natural light in.
A crib wrapped in welded, steel rebar and tucked between the teddy-bear-themed dresser and the polka dotted toybox.
It was topped with more welded steel bars and there was a padlock.
What. The. Fuck?
Emma was babbling gently, getting her artwork and showing Olivia.
Olivia was panicking, sweat gathering between her shoulderblades, her hands shaking violently.
What the fuck had they stumbled into? What kind of charnel house had a cage for an infant? And how the fuck could she get her daughter out of it? Her eyes flashed down as she remembered the shotgun. Only her hands were empty. Jesus, why had she laid it down. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Never. EVER. Trust in Afterworld. That was rule one and she'd let herself forget it for just long enough to make a fatal error.
A hand suddenly landed on her shoulder and it took all of her will power not to wrench it off, grab Emma and run like hell. Screaming like the proverbial banshee was also a distinct possibility.
Instead, she went perfectly still, a rabbit in the headlights. She barely even breathed. Emma was still talking, god love her, something about how hard she'd tried to get the color right on the ducks. Olivia tried to listen, she really did.
But it was hard when the only thing she could really see in the room was a fucking, iron-barred baby cage.
"It's not what you think..."
Moving carefully, Olivia turned her head just enough to see the other woman out of the corner of her eye. Dark eyes were face forward and fixed on the crib.
Emma had fallen silent and was standing, watching them, her eyes wide.
Olivia did a slow turn, putting herself between Emma and their jailer. She dropped her gaze, huffing out a puff of air as she saw that the other woman's hands were empty. "Okay," she exhaled softly. "Then what is it?"
Dark eyes tipped down to touch on Emma where she peered around Olivia's side, then turned back up to meet Olivia's gaze. "Maybe you and I could...."
Olivia just shook her head. No way in hell was she leaving her daughter alone until she knew exactly what was going on.
Natalia closed her eyes for a moment and drew in a deep breath. "Emma...sweetie...could you put your hands over your ears?"
Olivia started to deny the request, but something in dark eyes held her back. She never lied to her daughter, but there were still a few things she tried to shield her from. "Do as she says, Em," she instructed, but reached back, resting a hand on her daughter's shoulder, knowing Emma would react if signaled. "Okay," she said a moment later when Emma had complied. "Explain."
Gnawing on her lower lip, Natalia swallowed hard and ran a hand through her hair, showing enough stress-ticks to keep a psychologist busy for a few hours-if there were any left that hadn't been eaten. Finally, she took a deep breath. "This house...it belonged to friends. They opted not to evac when the army came through...didn't trust them. A lot of us didn't..." she added, then fell silent for a long moment.
Olivia understood that impulse. By then much of the military had been acting pretty much on their own, and their aims had been bad as often as they'd been good. And even when they'd been good, they'd been mostly incompetent. Armies were run by bureaucracies that didn't respond well to changing paradigms. Generals were trained to fight the last war.
Only nobody had ever been trained to fight a war with the dead.
So they came in with lots of Sturm und Drang, thinking tanks and air support would make all the difference.
They did. Armies weren't the only ones who liked Sturm und Drang. So too did the dead.
It was a match made in hell.
So, no, it was no surprise there were survivors who'd stuck together and avoided that particular death trap.
"They had a little boy..." Natalia explained after a long beat of uncomfortable silence, her gaze distant and unfocused. "...Colin...they set this up for him...so he'd have a safe place to play...until things...went back to normal...only he got sick...."
Despite her intent to keep her eyes on the other woman, Olivia snapped them shut, blocking the world out. Her stomach rolled violently. She didn't want this knowledge, didn't want the images appearing in her head.
"...and when he...they just couldn't..." Natalia choked to a halt and Olivia could her the roughness of her breathing as she dragged in air. "...couldn't accept it..." This time she trailed off and didn't continue.
She didn't need to. Olivia's imagination was, unfortunately, more than up to the task of filling in the blanks. Her eyes snapped open and she stared, her gaze going no higher than the other woman's outstretched hands. Palms up, fingers spread wide, a Madonna pose of supplication, silently begging for what? Forgiveness, understanding, the bliss of forgetfulness?
"But this room..." Natalia began again in that same, tremulous, for-Olivia's-ears-only voice, "it was built to keep him safe...before...it's the most secure spot in the house..."
And Olivia was suddenly looking around herself, seeing the bars on the windows and the steel reinforcements on the door and the frame as well as the bottled water and spare food. A fallback position, she realized in a rush, a safehouse for a beloved child who hadn't survived long enough to need it.
"...that's why I put Emma here..."
Logical choice with the enemy at the gates, the pragmatic part of Olivia's mind pointed out with cold practicality. She'd made harder decisions in recent months.
"...not because of any...anything but keeping her safe..."
Olivia finally risked another look at the woman who stood before her. She was pale, her chin and lower lip quivering ever so slightly, her eyes huge and wounded with an edging of thick, tear-spiked lashes. If she was acting, Meryl Streep oughta be glad she'd long since been eaten, because she'd never have won another award against that kind of competition.
"Honestly...I didn't think about that...thing," Natalia whispered, her voice soft and ragged. "I should've thrown it... out...but...I haven't even been in here since..." Swallowing hard, she just stood there slowly shaking her head. "...since..."
Since whatever the hell happened to the poor kid's parents, Olivia mentally filled in for her. Helluva thing to forget, but she could understand why any sane body would want to. Not for the first time, she wished she could use a bit of brain bleach and wash so many things out of her head. Tugging Emma more firmly against the protection of her body, she took comfort from the reassuring solidity and warmth of her daughter's small frame.
"One more thing..." Natalia said after a brief moment, her eyes downcast, voice low and rough.
"What?" Olivia questioned, her tone surprisingly crisp with an edge of remaining suspicion. She didn't know what she believed yet, but if Miss Natalia was going to put more strictures on things, she wasn't terribly inclined to go along.
Straightening her shoulders, Natalia looked up again. "I owe you an apology," she said very softly. "I didn't...when you..." She trailed off, worrying her lower lip between her teeth for a moment before trying again. "When I saw your hand, all I could think that was that you might have been bitten...and you were so beat up..." Her eyes rolled back, touching on the ceiling. "Honestly, I didn't expect you to even...even make it through the night...so mostly I was just focused on...on making sure you couldn't..." She looked back down, finally meeting Olivia's gaze. "...couldn't hurt...anyone...if...you..."
"I think I get the picture," Olivia allowed.
Natalia looked away, then looked back again, her tone defensive. "But I was trying to treat your injuries as best as I could...and make sure that Emma was safe."
"I got that," Olivia bit out. Really, she did. Half dead and bitten was not the description of someone who should be handled lightly in Afterworld.
The younger woman flinched and took another breath. "But in trying to maintain control...I didn't handle things well when you woke up...and I'm sorry for that...I didn't mean to scare you...about...Emma."
Startled by the compression of stomach muscles that felt almost like she'd taken a punch to the gut, Olivia nodded her understanding. This wasn't what she expected at all, and it made a part of her curl up in sick shame over her own behavior. "I...uh...I handled a few moments in there pretty badly, myself," she mumbled haltingly, the hesitantly spoken words the closest she'd come to an apology in more years than she could count.
Not bothering to argue, Natalia just flinched and looked away.
Feeling her stomach roll in sheer revulsion, it was on the tip of Olivia's tongue to insist she wouldn't have gone that far. Except she wasn't so sure. Finally, she just muttered, "I'm sorry...I...I...I'm just sorry." Nothing else she could say, really. At least not without far more therapy and navel-gazing than they really had time for.
Which still left her with the problem of deciding whether or not to believe.
Whether or not to trust.
She became aware of the throb in her hand and in the rest of her body. Kind of the description of boxed in, she thought resentfully as the pain reminded her of some harsh truths. Tapping Emma's shoulder lightly, she signaled she could listen in again. Olivia's gaze was silently questioning, and she flicked a quick look at Natalia. It was a kind of shorthand they'd developed through the crush of trying to survive and Emma easily understood the silently asked question.
Emma's chin tipped up and she flashed an equally quick gaze at Natalia before looking back to her mother. A slow nod signaled her vote.
She might not have listened in-might not, though Olivia knew her daughter well enough to realize there was a 50/50 shot little hands hadn't been all that firm on little ears-but she'd watched and made her decision.
Emma voted to trust.
And Olivia didn't have a lot of latitude or much in the way of options.
Which was why she pointedly kept her back to the nightmare crib, focusing on her daughter as she slid down to a sitting position, tugging Emma onto her lap when she was seated, comfortably certain the gesture would be taken for what it was, an acceptance of the olive branch and a peace offering of her own. "Hey, Jellybean, why doncha show me how you did that," she teased gently as she pointed at Emma's painstakingly colored ducks. Resting her chin on a small shoulder, she hugged her daughter close, though she looked up long enough to share a look with Natalia.
The other woman nodded, silently signaling her assent.
"Cos you know me..." Olivia continue, her focus returning to her child, "I'm all about the ducks."
Emma was struggling to be brave just as hard as she was. Olivia could see the tragedy lurking in her watery smile.
A few happy minutes, she silently begged the universe, just give us a few happy minutes. It was the most she asked for anymore.
And maybe Emma was asking for the same thing, because she settled against Olivia, the pad of paper on her lap, an appropriately duckish color of crayon in hand, and began carefully showing her the patented Emma Spencer duck-drawing method.
Lost in the heart-warming normalcy of it all, Olivia could almost ignore the pains shooting from her left palm up the length of her arm...
* * * * * *
TBC