Chapter Text
The engine noise of the stock car vanished into the ether, leaving only the fresh tread marks on the newly lowered bridge. She gave it one last glance in silence.
“Good luck to them,” said Louis.
The man winced as he rubbed his lame left leg, hastily bandaged and almost certainly too tight. His bronze skin has ashed from the all the smoke and dust, but a finger to loosen the frayed red tie around his neck was all the self-grooming he was likely to get for a while.
“Why are you still holding onto that thing, man?” asked Francis, a half-chuckle escaping his dried lips. “What if you die because some zombie grabbed it?”
Louis gave him a snide glare.
“Same reason you’re still hanging onto that ugly ass vest of yours.” He pointed at a brown spot at the bottom of the lining. “You may not be able to, but the rest of us sure can still smell the puke on it.”
For a brief second, Francis looked genuinely offended. His lips parted as insults prepared to fly out, much slower than they came to his thoughts.
“Guys,” Zoey interrupted. The words came out hoarse, as if she hasn’t spoken in days. “Can you guys not start?”
“This guy just…” Francis began, and finished as soon as he saw the glare she was giving. “Fine.”
She put a fresh magazine into her M16, firm with a satisfying click, then hit the bolt catch, just how she was taught. She has perfected it from the thousands of times she has needed to do the same over the last few weeks, however.
“Help Louis to the boat when you’re ready,” she told Francis. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Where are you going?”
Zoey didn’t answer. She trusted him to figure it out, eventually.
The ladder climb was more difficult than she thought. Someone must have caked her shoes with cement, she mused. Whether because of the soreness in her legs or the aversion to the stink of what could have been a thousand decomposing bodies, it was a long trudge. Zoey was on high alert as she marched past the old generator into the nearby warehouse, but the only thing her senses could make out was death. Nauseating, but not dangerous. She only cared about one of these corpses.
Bill was where she though he was, slumped over, battered, bled out. She could see his last cigarette on his lap, barely smoked. There was no sign of his gun, however. The other group must have taken it. They must have closed his eyes too, she thought.
She sat down next to him, leaning against an idle factory wheel.
“I’m so tired, Bill.” She took a long, yet shallow breath, trying to ignore the stench of the loosened bowls from the body next to her. “But I got one last thing to do. Just need to rest for a bit.”
Presently, Zoey blinked back to consciousness, a mild panic rising. She had dozed off, she realised. Not much time had passed if she had to guess, since Francis hasn’t come looking. It was a few minutes, perhaps. Bill’s body was still there where she left it, his scraggly grey beard stained with dried blood. It was time, she decided.
Grabbing Bill’s arm, she pulled it over her shoulder. It was heavy, as she tried to raise him up with a grunt. Regret crossed her mind. Perhaps she should come back with Francis after all, since walking out with a corpse like this put her at a risk of being jumped. Speaking of…
Someone’s crying.
She didn’t notice it until now, for how faint it was. It was definitely not here when she came in, and the light sniffling echoed within the confines of the warehouse. Zoey couldn’t pin point its direction because of that, but it has to have arrived while she was drowsy. A witch, undoubtedly, but she needed to know where it was to avoid it.
Zoey let Bill’s arm fall as she searched his person for a torch. Holding onto her rifle, she turned on the flashlight and rolled it across the floor. She had no delusions of eliminating the threat on her own, but knowing its location would allow her to avoid it on her way out.
Eventually, the crying stopped, and she could make out a slow approach from her left. Hiding behind the wheel, she watched as the Witch appeared in sight. It led with massive deformed fingers that has turned into claws, hair short in a tattered gray colour, barely any clothes on which showed its pale, emaciated form. Notably, its claws were not drenched in blood. They were by no means clean, but no dirtier than Zoey’s own. She watched, entranced, as the Witch began to fumble with the torch.
“What’s this?”
Zoey blinked in amazement as the Witch tried to grab the item, successfully but with great difficulty, and pushed the button to turn off the light. It was only then that Zoey realised she just heard words. Understandable ones, at that, coming from the infected before her. Zombies had never had anything to accompany their gurgle and screams, until then if her ears could be believed. Could this one possibly be different? She felt so stupid to even consider it, but curiosity overtook her. A firm grip on the firearm, she spoke.
“Hey.”
It was an innocent greeting on its face, but a naïve probe in truth. Zoey expected the sound to trigger a charge, that within a heartbeat the Witch would be on her, sullying those unbloodied claws with the red of her innards as Bill’s lifeless body watched in mocked disappointment, for his sacrifice amounted to nothing in the end.
Instead, it triggered a retreat.
The Witch’s withdrawal only emboldened Zoey’s resolve. She followed with careful steps, eyes darting back and forth, looking for the inevitable ambush which never came. In the end, she found the Witch cowering in a deeper corner of the warehouse, the flashlight still in its clumsy grasp.
“Please don’t shoot,” it begged.