USPS Office, Linden Avenue, SoNo, Downtown, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 17:05
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Taking cover against the wall of the post office, a girl used binoculars to scout ahead.
"Sixth floor of the tower, the wall to the left of the four-panel window next to the balcony," Sara droned as she revealed the location of yet another gang member.
They made good time crossing this section of downtown, plotting the best route and without sensing any person along the way. Sara hoped the remaining gang members had scattered.
Kyle's drones didn't follow them this far, probably because of signal range or battery or a combination of that with other factors.
Hainsworth claimed that he told Martha to keep everyone in their group inside the Bank of America building. Anyone outside was a gang member or an independent survivor. Lurking in a building right next to the skyscraper, armed with a rifle, odds of being the latter were close to zero. In any case, they were a threat that had to be eliminated for the greater good, according to the officer.
The Barret M82A1 popped another .50 Cal API shell which pierced the wall like it was made out of cardboard and caused the outline to vanish from Sara's sight.
> > You gained 1 point of Skill Boost.
"Kill confirmed," Sara said. "Abby, any more targets?"
"All clear," Sara signaled with a thumbs up.
"Sara, before we move on, I need to ask. How are you holding up?"
"About?"
"The terrorists. Gang members."
She closed her eyes. "Cannibals and rapists. No better than ghouls. Monsters wearing human skin. They're not people."
Sara's coping mechanism was to dehumanize the enemy. It was easier than with Joe since she had never met these guys before and didn't even know their names. No, she was sure that was a nickname. They were faceless goons. Faceless. Yes. Stop insisting.
"What about your arms?" The Major asked.
Sara tugged at the bandages. "I'll be fine. Give me a few days to rest and heal. My magic doesn't even leave scars," she grinned at him.
"That's fine by now," the veteran soldier said, a hand on her shoulder, gaze firmly on her eyes. "When we come back, if you need to talk, I'll always be available."
She blushed and broke eye contact, "Th-thank you," He had unwittingly struck at Sara's weak point.
Hainsworth unslung his backpack and took five cardboard cylinders. "Flares. Time to signal the evacuation."
He shot the flares one after the other in different angles. Red, White, Green, Yellow, and Blue. They trailed smoke, creating the weirdest rainbow the post-apocalyptic world had seen.
*
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*
Floor 45 meeting room, Bank of America Plaza, SoNo, Downtown, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 17:00
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Martha stared at the Sun deep in the southwest with bated breath. Above the celestial body, the Moon, just a faint grin she thought was mocking her. She had a bad feeling. Her eyes darted to and fro, her heart danced inside her ribcage. It was the tenth time she forgot to breathe.
It was late and she had no news of her father. The young woman bit her thumb. She should've flown the balloon. At least inflated it. Now it was too late. She would spend Halloween here, and things were dire.
Her eyes landed on the Connector. The Heart of Darkness was pulsing ferociously. Nobody else but her could see it. It was spewing horrors the likes Earth had never seen since forgotten times when magic ran free in the land.
Nobody else could see it. Martha stopped telling people about it because they thought she was crazy. She also didn't speak about the tingling at her extremities, the feeling that something was right there next to her, a thin veil separating her from it. What? She had no idea.
The supplies the drone brought yesterday helped lighten the people's moods but many were trying to find a way to fight the undead, especially after she said her father had found a solution to the impassable freeways.
She felt trapped, like a caged beast. Helpless. With that dark thing growing in size and power at the heart of the Connector. Martha sensed that thing would soon burst and leak bad things all over the ruined city. As if it was just waiting for the sun to go away.
Meanwhile the people at the Clayton University were throwing parties and planning elections. Elections! They were here, scavenging and infighting for a can of beans, and they had electricity, internet, cellphone signals, and were thinking of reviving fucking government!
Nobody said a peep about how all these people died, who was responsible, what would be done to indemnify everyone for their losses, insurance, supply chains, food production, land rights, the Constitution, federal government, succession, records, taxation, social security, aid programs, and whatever else was needed to make the country operate.
Worse yet, what happened to all the children and elderly people? Of those, she only found bodies, tiny and old, in homes and cars.
She felt trapped, a prisoner inside the skyscraper. People had been using the toilets in the lower floors until they stank too much to be used, then climbed up. Floors eight and below were now a permanent stink bomb and she could smell it all the way on the tenth.
If things progressed like this, they would turn the building into a tower of shit. It was a bank to start with, so it might be alright.
A stream of red smoke rose up, led by a glowing flare, a couple blocks away from the skyscraper. "White!" Martha squealed moments before the second flare was fired. She called color by color, more and more excited as the right code came up.
"THEY ARE HERE! WE'RE GOING HOME!" She shouted, out of herself. For most people, there was no home, not anymore.
*
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*
Peachtree Street, SoNo, Downtown, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 17:45
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"What is taking them so long?" Sara asked, impatient. "Sun is setting in an hour, we have at least six miles to walk!"
"They have wounded people with them," Hainsworth explained. "And climbing down dozens of floors takes time."
The girl was grumpy, hurting, irritated, on her period, worried, and tired. Probably a dozen other things too, but if the world needed her to be patient, then it was doomed.
"Bloody hell, couldn't they stay ready to evacuate in the parking garage? Why do they need to stay perched on the top of that giant concrete dick when they'll never again come back here?"
"They've been using the lower floors to relieve themselves. They are uninhabitable."
"Ohh, I see. Thanks for reminding me, man. Now I am even more certain I won't let anyone move in to live in the hotel. People need to take a dump now and then, fancy that."
"Is that sarcasm I hear?" The Major grinned.
"Whatever," Sara waved a dismissive hand. "How do I look?" She grinned.
"Like a soldier that fought well," Hainsworth said with no small amount of pride. "Sara, what you did today was fantastic. You dedicated your time, risked your life, hells, you even jumped on a tiger barehanded, all for a bunch of strangers. Words won't convey my appreciation," he said like a proud father.
Flattery seemed to ease her mood a little.
"Crazy, huh?" She rubbed her chin. "No, seriously. If I'm going to meet Ms. Hainsworth, I want to make a good first impression. Do these blood smears make me look fat? Are blouses with bullet holes all the rage in Milan and Paris?" She asked with an affected tone. "This season's fashion theme is wardrobe failure!"
She'd looted a sports bra from a shop on the way. After her flight on the hospital rooftop, her old one was... a wardrobe failure.
The officer bent over laughing at her antics. "I don't know. No idea, honestly. You look perfect. Anyone criticizes you because of your appearance, I'll give them the Hainsworth treatment."
"Ship them to Guantanamo?" She joked.
"Who need Guantanamo anymore! Look around you. Everywhere is Guantanamo now." The Major spread his arms.
"It's free real estate!" She shouted.
"There they are!" The Major said as a woman came running from the access ramp.
"DADDY!" She, which Sara assumed was Martha Hainsworth, was crying. The Major left his rifles leaning against a car and ran to hug her.
"Cupcake!" Hainsworth spoke an octave above his normal register.
Hainsworth called in a tone Sara had never believed he was capable of making. It gave her a pang of jealousy. She wished her father would hug her like that, but he went to fight a stupid war and fucking died in Hell. Literal hell.
If Abby was to be believed.
Maybe she should've tried the feather. Would she grow wings like in Mary's dream? One thing was certain, she wouldn't do it in a place she minded burning. Just in case.
More survivors came out of the ramp after Martha, all of them looking like they were going to take a...
A... (Sara couldn't believe it).
A... (she gawked. It was so surreal for the Apocalypse they were living in).
A... (what kind of sheltered existences did they lead this whole month, to think that it was reasonable to do this?)
A fucking airplane.
Yeah. They looked like tourists expecting to board a fucking airplane. They came out with their carry-on bags rolling on the asphalt behind them, some with large luggage cases, and one with a flat cart filled with backpacks and luggage. A vein popped on Sara's temples. Especially when she saw some fancy-dressed women wearing heels.
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Who the fuck evacuates on heels? Well, there's Sara's answer. These people, apparently. They were so full of shit the whole skyscraper had that green haze around it. Or so Sara imagined.
The odds of reaching the M1 Abrams tanks with daylight, carrying all that luggage, with gang members armed to the teeth, wandering undead, and the FUCKING ALL HALLOWS EVE right upon them was not even zero. They had to resurrect that physicist's cat nine times for that to happen. While guessing right if it was alive or dead each time.
She stopped counting when the thirtieth person came out of the building's bowels. Heh, they came out of the building's bowels, Sara laughed at her own joke. They shat all over the place and now came out of what could only be described as the skyscraper's asshole. Sara counted the coincidences. It was behind the front of the building, it had an orifice, and everything that came out of it was a turd so full of shit she wanted to gag and retch.
No, it was too much. Fuck, no. Especially because the last stragglers came pushing six people on wheelchairs. With their stupid luggage behind them. She also counted two cats and five dogs with the survivors.
She blew a fuse and was no longer content with staying on the sidelines while Hainsworth's daughter tried to retell everything that happened to her...
A silver lining!
At least nobody was trying to take the fucking hot fucking air fucking balloon with them. Sara wouldn't put it behind them.
Fuck that.
"Oi, Hainsworth!" Sara called, more than a little annoyed.
The woman, Martha, poked her head behind the wall of flesh and military camouflage uniform that was her father. "Which one of us?"
Sara looked at Martha, Martha looked at Sara. The two females shared that eternal moment where they intrinsically understand each other in a way only two females can and establish a whole hierarchy of social contracts and accommodations. It was a moment where they bared their souls to each other. Roses would flourish around each other to frame their faces with sparkles and a sweet scent.
A moment to be remembered.
Also, the moment Martha screamed like no slasher flick heroine ever screamed.
"Eeeeeekkkkkk! GET AWAY FROM ME!"
She struggled and broke free of her father's embrace and ran away on the driveway going around the garage ramp (the building's perineum?), screeching all the way.
"Ahhh! Noooo! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"
Sara wasn't even fucking moving. Which was wrong, they were burning Godsdamned sunlight.
Every other survivor was staring at one of them. Weirded out, Sara scratched her head. "What the fuck is wrong with this woman?"
Hainsworth, the father, jogged to catch up with his hysterical spawn. "Martha, what's wrong?"
"KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME!" The woman pointed at the girl.
It was like she had been invisible all this time. Just a homeless zombie that wasn't attacking.
Several survivors scrunched their noses at Sara. There she was, a teenager girl with short hair, hard-to-pinpoint ethnicity, short stature, no breasts worth of note, covered in blood smears, bruises, clothed in rags full of claw marks, bullet holes, threadbare to be concise, too many weapons on her person, and an attitude.
It was a child any mother would kiss, and only the mother. After said mother gave the child a good scrub, shampooed it twice, and let her to soak in the bathtub for a couple of hours. Then wiped with rubbing alcohol for good measure.
"Martha, what's going on?"
Martha was openly weeping and trembling like a lonely bamboo shoot during a hurricane. She stared at Sara with eyes trembling in fear. "That THING! Why did you have to bring THAT THING here?"
"Oi, watch your damn mouth, woman!" Sara protested as she shouted back.
"Martha!" Hainsworth, senior, became angry. "Sara was crucial to this operation! She had no obligation to come, to fight, and God knows I didn't want to force a girl to fight!" The Major stood tall, and looked around slowly, making sure to meet the eyes of every survivor and their stupid carry-on cases. "She volunteered to come here rescue all of you. She did not know any you—"
"Still don't," Sara quipped. Then in a lower voice, "Neither wanna to."
"She did not know any of you," Hainsworth, the pissed-off soldier, continued, "She had her own business to mind, but she decided to come here. She killed hundreds of undead—"
Hainsworth, the lady, quipped, "No surprise there, she's the angel of death!"
"Zip it, Martha Calliope Hainsworth! Whatever misconception you have about Sara, I don't want to hear it!"
Martha looked offended her father didn't believe her.
"Tsss," Sara pretended to be burnt, "Dad played the middle name card. Watch out."
Half the survivors were expecting a catfight to break at any time. A few in the back might have even started a betting ring, but this last part is hearsay.
The young woman, apparently in her college years, shouted back like a possessed vestal virgin.
"SHE'S THE ANGEL OF DEATH! THE GRIM REAPER! A THOUSAND SOULS IN HER GRASP!"
Sara bit her lower lip. Martha's words stung deeply in her core. Not the Core. She would be glad if words could hurt the bastard living there.
"Stop that! Sara fought hordes of undead on her own. She was so important to this mission that the terrorists risked their inside man to assassinate her. Last night, she survived it. I'll tell you; it traumatizes anyone. I told her to stay home but she insisted to come."
Hainsworth, military officer, scanned around, and said with a imposing, commanding voice, "You get a chance to go back to the last bastion of civilization because of her. If you survive tonight, it's because of her efforts."
Hainsworth, quixotic lady, opened her mouth. Hainsworth, senior, made her shut it after only making an atonal squeal.
"She jumped in front of a tiger for you. That's how she got those gashes in her pants. She was forced to engage and kill no less than eight terrorists. She ran under a hail of bullets that would make veteran soldiers piss their pants. She secured a retreat path and THIS is how you treat her?" Hainsworth, badass action hero, continued to lay down the truth.
Sara, weak to praise, was using all her willpower to hold it in. She couldn't let her tough action hero exterior drop but all she wanted was to cry. She too thought she didn't deserve that from a bunch of people that survived the Apocalypse basically on their charity while they tried to enter the Guinness Book for the tallest poop tower in the world. Spoiler alert, The Guinness Book company no longer existed (no company existed, period), and they didn't accept such gross records.
"That's stupid," a woman decked in Gucci brand accessories scoffed. "A tiger would split that scrawny thin girl in half!"
"Yeah," some goofball in the rear shouted.
"Hainsworth!" Sara shouted over the jeering audience. "No, not you, Princess Cupcake! Your dad. I'm going to leave. People don't want a dirty waif around and I want to find the women the terrorists kept as sex slaves and release them. Perhaps they'll be more appreciative of our efforts."
Hainsworth, the sane one, started. "What? No, Sara, we need —"
"We? Dude, I'm not a skyscraper to take all these guy's shit," Sara cut him off, angry. "I'm going to weather All Hallow's Eve and all the evil it will release in my penthouse, stargazing at the reflections on the lake. It is exactly as you said. I have no business being here. You got your daughter, congratulations, you are a one in ten million lucky family, everyone envies you because everyone lost every single person they loved. Now, if they want to turn their noses at me, more power to them."
"HAH!" Gucci Karen pointed a well-manicured fingernail at her. "You? Living in a penthouse?"
"Think what you want, Karen," Sara snorted a chortle.
"You miserable —" Gucci Karen was cut off by a wave of nausea.
Sara leaned her spear against the car door, bracing it on the rearview mirror. She boosted {Presence} for this stunt, her aura transmitting her outrage and doubling in pressure.
"I..." Sara stomped the ground
"Don't..." She approached the woman slowly.
"Give..." Her voice rose in volume.
"A single..." Her pitch rose to her highest register.
"Fuck!" Sara yelled a shower of spittle at the woman's face. Gucci Karen flinched.
Watched closely by the crowd of disgusted survivors, Sara went back to the parked car with the rifles on top, grabbed her spear, turned around, and was ready to Spiderman it out of there, but she thought better.
The girl's mind settled in a dark mood that craved schadenfreude.
"Oh, well. It's a six-and-a-half-mile hike back home. I can't do it on an empty stomach," she theatrically bemoaned with the back of her hand against her forehead.
Then, like the spiteful bitch she was, she opened her backpack and took out the bloody paper bag with the yellow upturned round W. She held it for a while like a prosecutor would hold the murder weapon for all to see before committing it to evidence.
"is that a...?"
She opened the bag and took out a saggy fry. She ate it with a loud gormandizing groan. Then another, another. She pushed her hand against her cheek and closed her eyes, chewing on wilted fries.
"Boy, that hits the spot! As greasy as I remember from before the world went to shit. And now, the main course."
"Sara, don't," Hainsworth, the career soldier, warned.
"They started it, Major. Now, I'm going thermonuclear," Sara deadpanned, then started to sing. "Two whole beef patties, special sauce, still forgot the middle..." as she unwrapped the stupid burger. "Cheese, pickles, fuck all ya'all, sesame bun."
She held the thing like it was baby Simba in the Lion King. The fucking gazelles didn't kneel. Their loss.
She bit the burger, ripped a chunk like a wild beast, and pulled with a strategically dangling slice of pickles sticking out of her mouth. She shook her head, causing everyone to follow the fate of the pickles like the last episode of Homeland or Supernatural they would never get to watch because the last season of these shows were scheduled for 2020.
The girl moved the pickles to her pursed lips as she freed her teeth to chew on the burger. Finally, Sara flicked her head up, throwing the pickles up. It flew, spun, and then she snatched it out of the air with aplomb.
"Uh, delish," she rumbled with her cheeks puffed, full of half-chewed burger. She bit more and more, finishing the last Big Mac on Earth (until someone cooked another, but good luck with that a month into the Apocalypse) and licking her bloodstained fingers.
She met Gucci Karen's eyes and shrugged nonchalantly, "No ketchup, had to use the blood of my enemies." Then she stared at the bag. "Oh, my bad. Here's a packet. A packet of ketchup I have no use for, not anymore."
She wondered she could get someone to punch Gucci Karen if she offered them a packet of ketchup as payment. Sara quickly dismissed such dark thoughts.
"Oh, bloody hell. What a waste! Wait, I can use this packet of ketchup. I have a second meal!" She took the other bag out of her backpack while staring daggers at Gucci Karen. Then she squealed in a falsetto, "I'm a widdle scrawny thin girl, I need my food pyramid nutrients to grow."
Perhaps no good deed shall go unpunished, but Sara intended to give as good as she took.
*
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*
Peachtree Street, SoNo, Downtown, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 18:10
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Hainsworth, the worn-out warrior, crossed his arms as he glared at the nonchalant girl. Sara was finishing her second golden UU burger.
"Are you done?"
"Hold a second," she ripped the packet of ketchup she "forgot" at the bottom of the bag, and squeezed it in her upturned, gaping maw like she was at the same time the baby and momma bird. "All done."
"Good. we need to go. Half an hour of sunlight."
The girl gasped in sheer mockery.
"No shit," Sara shrugged. "That's what I was trying to say ever since Princess Cupcake climbed up that ramp. But then this people came after her, and they are so full of shit they needed the twenty-fourth tallest skyscraper in the country, tallest of all in the Peach State to dump their crap in. Now, tell me, how the fuck are they going to cross six and a half miles with luggage and fucking designer heels?" She screeched in crescendo.
"By car, of course," Gucci Karen rebutted. "You can't possibly expect me to walk six miles."
"Not until nightfall, no," Sara rejoindered. "And night comes, all of you, including Princess Cupcake, are fucked. This Halloween, the dead is coming back to trick or treat, and they don't like candy."
"They never leave the freeways!" Some bozo retorted.
"Until now, you mean?" Sara derided. She pointed at the mess of ramps and roads people call a marvel of engineering. "You see that shit growing in the Connector? It has a hundred times as much Hell inside of it as you put crap inside the building behind you. In an hour or two, that thing is going to break open, and I swear to you, you will prefer to be in a live-action zombie movie than what's coming. Literal Hell if you weren't paying attention."
"There's a bus that still works parked on North Avenue, right there. We can ride on it." Another Bozo suggested.
"Dude, we had MBTs parked back home. Why do you think we came on foot? Wait, why the fuck didn't we ride in on a tank, Hainsworth dad?"
Hainsworth, the male one, facepalmed. Sara was forcing him to be the straight man. "Because drone surveillance showed some places would give even on a bloody M1 Abrams a hard time to cross."
"See Squid Deed, motherfuckers," Sara mispronounced the famous Latin acronym very used in mathematics. "You aren't riding no buses, no, no, no. Time to walk, hup, hup, hup," she clapped her hands.
"We can spend one more night in the building," some goofball suggested.
Sara sputtered.
"I won't. I'm outta here, and I am not coming back. Radio the guys and tell them to use those fancy foam guns tomorrow, Hainsworth. I'll be in my heated swimming pool, eating burgers and drinking non-alcoholic margheritas, because I'm underage. Hope the US Army had tons of foam."
"What's wrong with this kid's attitude?" Another survivor angrily berated.
They started muttering among themselves.
Sara packed her tings. "Yeah, I wonder what. Maybe it's because I'm in my fucking period and I've been shot the whole day from start to finish. But know what? I'm chill. I didn't do it for praise or for anything. I came here for the kills. And kill I did."
Hainsworth, the scaredy cat woman cowering a couple dozen yards away, whimpered, and flinched at that last sentence. Some beta guy who seemed so friendzoned he was hopeless was helping her.
Then Hainsworth, the other one, approached Sara and held her back. "No, I think we can ride the bus. If you agree to help us, I won't let them utter a single word against you, ever again."
That was the straw that broke the girl's back.
Sara slapped his hand off of her, "Bloody hell, Major! You are part of the US military! Why in tarnation are you fucking suggesting to fucking violate the fucking first fucking amendment? This is fucking America, if people want to fucking run their poop-fucking mouths and burn the fucking bridges with fucking people they shouldn't be fucking crossing, they are fucking allowed to do that. You are part of the fucking government unless you have fucking discharged yourself. Please fucking don't."
Hainsworth, the sane one, guffawed at her antics. "Okay then. You all exercise your constitutional rights. But Sara, we're going on the bus, now. I think I can make it happen. Did you remember what you said to me?"
The girl figured she had a migraine. For some time now.
Sara thought the man was out of himself. She had half a mind to just pick Hainsworth, the family, up and run, one on each shoulder. With the time left, she could do two round trips. Make it happen? What convoluted route did he plot and how did he know they could find a contiguous set of roads upon which a fucking bus could ride on? She saw how wrecked the terrain was, especially in the belt outside Verachiel's exclusion zone. The whole idea felt so stupid and this rescue operation would come to a huge failure because they decided to accommodate Karen refugees.
"I fucking don't have a fucking idea what you are fucking saying, Major. I said a fucking lot of fucking things, meant fucking less than fucking half of them."
He sucked in a big breath. "Sara, I fucking need to fucking see you fucking flip some cars."
"Jeez, dad, language!" Hainsworth, the daughter, gaped.
"Fucking Hell," Sara pushed her fucking spear against Hainsworth, then picked up his fucking rifles from the car hood and pushed those to him too. She slung her fucking backpack back on her fucking back, then boosted fucking Brawn and fucking flipped the fucking car that was fucking behind her.
"Let's fucking go," she grumbled.
No good deed shall go unpunished, indeed.