Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness Ch.42
Title: Afterworld: Into the Arms of Darkness
By: Pink Rabbit Productions
Chapter: 42
Date: 28 November, 2010
Rating: R (for sex and violence)
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 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29 | Chapter 30 | Chapter 31 | Chapter 32 | Chapter 33 | Chapter 34 | Chapter 35 | Chapter 36 | Chapter 37 | Chapter 38 | Chapter 39 | Chapter 40 | Chapter 41 |
Author's Note: Many thanks to all who've responded and offered feedback. I wish I had more time to respond, but unfortunately, real life events are taking precedence right now. However, the comments are being read and are much appreciated.
Afterworld:
Into the Arms of Darkness
Chapter 42
Something smelled heavenly.
Olivia's nose twitched as she tried to remember something important.
She had a vague memory of ordering housekeeping to send up breakfast for Emma. That had to be the smell, though she couldn't remember it had ever had quite that delicious an odor before. Frowning, she tried to remember if she'd added a new chef anytime recently.
Then it occurred to her that she wasn't sure which hotel she was staying at. The Vegas casino, the Frisco disco, Phoenix fat farm, possibly the resort outside of Denver?
No.
Her nose twitched again.
Maybe the D.C. convention center? It was almost sinfully palatial in deference to the flood of lobbyists and politicians...
...and mercenaries...
...that stayed...there...
And then she remembered everything. It went by in a rush. Life, death, riots, protests, more death, evacuation centers...still more death...lies, promises...and more death...murder, combat, escape, constant fear...and still more death...
Then a quiet house and a tiny woman with fire in her eyes...
And...
She sat up in a cold sweat, desperately searching the room, terrified she'd find that the source of the wonderful smell teasing her nostrils and making her stomach growl was her daughter or Natalia.
Or what was left of them.
"Mommy."
Olivia's gaze dropped to meet her daughter's eyes. Bright, alert, a hopeful smile on her small face. No demon, no delusion.
Emma was sitting cross-legged in front of the couch, a plate on her lap, Olivia realized abruptly, and a fork in hand.
It was all so very...normal...that Olivia found herself hesitant to know what to do for a moment. "Emma?" she croaked at last, her voice sounding harsh and raspy even to her own ears. She searched out the corners of the room. The scene before her so very pastoral that she fully expected something horrible to jump out of the shadows.
Her daughter nodded quickly and held up the plate. "Natalia made pancakes," she said by way of explanation. "With bacon gravy. I never had 'em that way before, but they're really good."
It took Olivia an extra second or two to process her daughter's words. A second or two during which Emma stared at her with increasing trepidation. That too took an extra beat to recognize, but when she did, Olivia swallowed hard in an effort to wet her parched throat. "That's wonderful, baby," she rasped, her voice sounding like air running over forty-grit sandpaper. And feeling like it too. Emma's look of relief was worth any discomfort a hundred times over. She sniffed, recognizing the smell of fresh pancakes and bacon all melded together.
Not human flesh. Not even a little.
Just really good cooking. Maybe not even that good, but compared to anything she or Emma had eaten in months, probably fucking ambrosia. Then she tipped her chin up and found a pair of chocolate eyes tracking the situation from the doorway.
Natalia had changed clothes and was wearing Olivia's shoulder holster. The .45 wasn't settled in its spot under her armpit though. It was in hand, and her body language was tense. She'd obviously been watching.
Straightening her shoulders, Olivia nodded and held up a hand, hoping to show she knew who she was.
In response, the younger woman's expression cleared and she slipped the handgun back into its holster. She offered a worried smile. "Feel better?"
Olivia nodded, blinked, looked at Emma and her plate of fresh-cooked food, then back at Natalia. Without planning, she raised a hand to her throat, searching out the pulse point under the curve of her jaw. It throbbed steadily under her fingertips.
"It's beating," Natalia assured her, while Emma swung her head back and forth, focusing on one and then the other adult in the room, then back again.
"You should have some of the pancakes, Mommy," Emma said abruptly, her tone hopeful. "They're really good," she repeated to drive the point home.
Breathing in the smell, Olivia heard her stomach growl. She'd eaten to please Emma during her illness, but this time it actually sounded good. "That would be really nice," she admitted.
Natalia crouched down enough to pet Emma's hair gently. "Hey, sweetie, why don't you go grab some food for your mom. There's plenty left."
Olivia couldn't decide between jealousy and relief as she saw the way her daughter brightened under the other woman's tender smile as she quickly hopped up and hurried off to do as asked.
Natalia glanced over her shoulder, clearly tracking the girl's exit, then looked back to Olivia. "How're you doing?" She sounded so genuinely caring that something deep inside of Olivia thawed a little bit, easing the desire to snap and growl.
Swallowing to ease the dryness in her throat, Olivia considered the question. "Better...not so...warm," she said at last as it occurred to her that her skin didn't feel like she was baking in the hot sun. Somewhere along the way, she seemed to have escaped her little Saharan adventure. Or at least gotten a bit of a reprieve. She peered at Natalia, uncertain whether her sense of being cooler was accurate or just one more mind trick.
Natalia seemed to grasp the question implicit in the look. "Your fever broke sometime before dawn," she explained as she stepped closer. "It's been normal for hours now." She paused a beat, then added, "I tracked it."
Feeling the sand dune in her throat protest, Olivia swallowed hard, a frown creasing her brow. Normal wasn't a word that really made sense any longer, but it did register that for the first time in days she didn't feel like she was living inside a sauna set dangerously high. "So maybe...still..." she said, the words coming in discordant, disorganized half finished thoughts, that reflected equal measures of hope and fear. "What if-" She took a breath as she tried to organize her thoughts. "What happened?" she asked at last, uncertain about the missing hours.
"You passed out after your fever spiked," Natalia explained. "I spoke to you a couple of times, but you didn't really wake up...just sorta stirred, mumbled something about sending up pancakes for Emma and a Valium for you...then rolled over and went back to sleep." She grinned. "You snore by the way."
"I do not," Olivia said instantly, offended by even the mere suggestion of such a thing, then pulled up short as she realized what Natalia was suggesting. She'd slept some during the past few days, trusting Natalia to watch her back, but never deeply, barely dozing for fear of the things that might come for her in the dark.
"Any nightmares?" Natalia asked abruptly, her manner becoming serious again in an instant, leaving Olivia with the sense that the younger woman hadn't meant to let her manner slip and become so friendly before asking some important questions.
Olivia shook her head. No nightmares, no dreams, just uninterrupted sleep like she hadn't enjoyed in months.
"Voices?" the other woman questioned while Olivia was still contemplating the concept of peaceful slumber.
Olivia paused, mentally testing herself, searching all the shadowed places in her brain for any sign of watching eyes or horns and pitchforks. Nothing, and where before the juvenile image of devils and demons had terrorized her, now they only seemed mildly silly. Finally, she shook her head. "They're gone." She considered the memories of those hellish hours for a moment. "Were never there really," she added after a short beat as she accepted that whatever she'd seen and heard had come from inside her own head, a horrifying mix of all her tortured emotions anthropomorphized into a dangerous blend of adult failures and childhood terrors. She held up a hand, unconsciously drawing images in the air with her finger as she tried to explain. "It's like...for a little while...the barrier between my subconscious and conscious was gone...so dreams and nightmares were...real."
Natalia's frown deepened. "And now?"
A definitive headshake. The world was real again, the hazy, shadowy quality a thing of the past. Her mind felt like her own again, her perceptions accurate. She felt her heart start to thud against the inside of her breastbone as she contemplated the meaning. That too-a heartbeat she could feel-was a welcome change.
Arched eyebrows rose in silent question when Olivia didn't continue, and concern was easily visible in chocolate eyes.
"I think maybe it's..." Olivia couldn't finish, too afraid of having her hopes smashed to give voice to the notion that maybe she was through the worst of whatever illness had infected her.
Because if she was, she might well have been the first to survive.
"I understand," Natalia said very softly, the same haunting mix of hope and fear visible in her eyes. Dark eyes trailed over Olivia, taking in every detail with palpable intensity. "How do you feel?" she asked as she tipped her gaze back up to lock with Olivia's. This time the question was all about the physical, not the mental.
"Dead tired," Olivia answered even as she fought a yawn. It took her a beat to master the exhaustion, then she added, "but not bad." She considered the state of things for a moment. "Feels really good not being so hot."
Natalia smiled at that, then grinned, her eyes dancing with mirth. "Never thought I'd hear you admit to not being hot," she said, neatly poking a hole in Olivia's most recent means of teasing.
Olivia blinked, opened her mouth to shoot back something smart and snarky...
And came up with nothing.
Cursing under her breath, she glared balefully which only made Natalia's grin a little broader. Hoist by her own petard. That was so unfair. "Brat," she muttered at last.
Then Emma returned with food that smelled so much like heaven, Olivia was ready to conclude God was a short order cook and Natalia was his highest order of angel, because nothing made by human hands could possibly smell that good. She dug in and quickly found it tasted even better than it smelled. It was the first warm food she'd eaten in months that came without the stench of the MRE chemical heaters, and it warmed something in her soul along with her belly.
Then a thought occurred. Olivia peered at Natalia between bites. "I thought the gas was off," she said by way of question.
Emma retook her seat on the floor and started tucking into her food once again.
Natalia shrugged. "It is...Josh had an alcohol camp stove. It's not fast, but it does the job."
Right. That made sense. Josh and the rest of the Lewis boys were always about the hunting, camping, and fishing. Probably had a ton of camping supplies around. Olivia took another bite. The gravy was creamy and hot with floating chunks of bacon that were more chewy than crisp while the pancakes were small and thin, but flavorful and pleasantly tart. "Emma's right...this is really good," she murmured.
Crouching down, Natalia ruffled Emma's hair with a tender hand and looked up under the cover of overlong bangs. "Glad you like. Did the best I could with the supplies I have on hand."
Watching her daughter dig in with the kind of abandon she'd reserved for burgers and fries in the old world, Olivia smiled. Even if the food tasted lousy, she'd have been thrilled to see Emma actually eating with such relish. "Well, it may be the best thing I've ever tasted."
Natalia just smiled.
Returning the smile, Olivia felt the pull of muscles that had gone mostly unused for far too long. It was strange, sitting here in this place and time, eating food she would once have disdained, feeling almost normal after months of being scared and hungry and hunted. Each of the faces she'd shown to that point had been a mask: the tough survivor, the loving mother, the dangerous seductress, the feral hunter, the brave patient facing almost certain death.
But for the first time she didn't have a game to play or an act to use to cover her real feelings...not that she'd allowed herself any beyond her love for Emma in months.
For the first time, she was just herself.
And she didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad one...
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TBC