Raven's Hell (3 page)

But
although he had been searching for a woman since letting Sparrow leave, that
didn’t mean he’d actually find one. The ones he had come across had been with
groups, loyal to those members, and so rundown in appearance and spirit that
they hadn’t been what he wanted, either. Collin was specific in the taste he
had, the darker aspects of pleasure he wanted, and although he wasn’t hopeful
of finding a female for his own, he was also not a man that gave up. But the
desires he had once harbored in his former life didn’t much matter in this
world. Just finding a woman to be only his, to protect and give hope and
meaning to this hell, would make him keep going.

He
thought back to the night he had let Sparrow leave. He had given her his gun,
told her to run, and prayed that she would survive. Then he had taken his
knife, and killed every one of those flesh-eating motherfuckers when they had
come after him. The night had been bloody, grisly, and then it was like an
animal had broken loose inside of him. He had searched for Sparrow after that,
obsessed with the need to make sure she had survived. And then three months ago
he had found her, still with those two men she had traveled with, as they had
scavenged through an abandoned gas station. He hadn’t approached them, but
knowing she was safe had been enough to ease his obsessive need to make sure
she had found her peace. He had walked away and never looked back.

The
sound of a twig snapping in the background had him slowly rising, unsheathing
his hunting knife, and trying to see through the darkness. But he didn’t have
to wait long, because the moaning and groaning came right before he saw the
corpse of a man stumble out of the forest. He was still in Colorado, made camps
nightly in the Rocky Mountains, and was content that way. He was out in the
middle of nowhere, and although there were times one of the dead found him, it
was easy to take them out. The zombie—and he felt strange calling them that
since this was reality and not some book or movie—came closer. The fire didn’t
bother it, and it didn’t seem to be affected by the light or heat. It came
forward further, tripped over a small log, and fell right into the flames. It
started thrashing back and forth, trying to right itself, but when Collin moved
closer to it the corpse seemed to forget about the fire as it tried to reach
for Collin.

The
sounds coming from it were earsplitting, and the smell of its rotting flesh
being burned away from its bones was nauseating. It finally managed to move out
of the fire and crawled toward Collin. Cooked and burned rotting flesh hanging
from its face, arms and legs, his face was half gone from the decay, and his
mouth gaped open as its jaw was partially torn off. He moved a step
back,
kept his knife held tightly in his hand, and wondered
who this man had been before he was contaminated. He could be an original, one
that had gotten the vaccine and changed into what Collin was looking at right
now. Had he been a doctor, lawyer, or some other honorable profession that
helped others? Or had he been a bad man like Collin, killing people when they
crossed him, doing and selling
drugs,
and fucking any
and all women that were willing? Or maybe he had been bitten, turned into a
walking corpse?

It
didn’t matter now. As he stared at the grisly looking being in front of him,
with his skin burned and charred, blackened in areas from the fire and
necrosis, all he saw was the dead. The zombie lifted a thin arm toward Collin,
its fingers having flesh and muscle hanging from the bones, and opened its
mouth to let out a low, hungry howl. Collin plunged the blade in its skull, the
sound of the knife sinking into its decrepit body slightly sickening. It
dropped full to the ground, truly dead now since its brain, the control center
for it all, was destroyed.

Collin
cleaned his blade off on the tattered clothing of the corpse, and pulled the
body from the fire. There wasn’t any snowfall yet, but it was cold enough that
the body should be frozen within a few days, as long as the frigid temperatures
dropped. Once he had the body a good distance away, he took a step back and
looked at the corpse. The night and the heavy trees around him made it
impossible for him to really see the once living man.

He
turned without giving it another thought, knowing that he’d pack up in the
morning and find another place to set up camp. He stayed in the mountains, but
didn’t camp out in one place for any given amount of time. That was too
dangerous, and he wasn’t going to test his luck that way. Besides, his supplies
were low, and he needed to gather more. He knew there was a town close by, and
a hike down the mountain could bring him right in the heart of it.

Collin
sat back down, grabbed the small bottle of water he had, and cleaned his hands.
He picked up the can of peaches he had set on the ground, and started eating
them again as he watched the fire still burning brightly. He had always lived
his life any way he saw fit, but anymore he was living just to survive, because
there
were
no back alley deals, no pleasures handed to
him on demand. It was eat or be eaten, and Collin was going to be the biggest
fucking dog in the fight.
 

Chapter Three

The
warehouse Rebecca stayed in was about ten miles from the nearest town. She had
gone through another city before stopping and making her home in the loft, but
she had scouted out the surrounding area so she knew the lay of the land. She
certainly wasn’t one of those survival men she had seen on TV … well, back when
there had been TV, but she had learned a few things in the last seventeen
months. Fires were a necessity now, and so she had learned quickly how to make
one with only things she could find in the wilderness. It had been a lot of
trial and error, but she hadn’t given up, despite the fact she had wanted to.

She
stayed in the tree line and stared at the small town. The sign right before
entering the limits of the city said it had once been called Havens Peak. The
little calligraphy beneath it said it was the most beautiful place in Colorado.
Now it just looked like a sad and depressing visual of what life had once
looked like.

Rebecca
might have stayed there, hidden amongst the thick foliage of the Rocky
Mountains, waiting to make sure everything was as safe as it could be in this
situation, but her stomach cramped, her head ached, and she felt as though she
was coming down with something. It was the most inopportune time for her to
catch a cold or get the flu, but she did hope she could find some over the
counter medicine to stem off the symptoms.

If
she closed her eyes and imagined this town, she could visualize it as a quaint
little place a couple might go to retire. It had sidewalks that were intimate
and small, and the shops that lined the tiny street looked like something she
might have seen in
Pleasantville
. But
now it was just deserted, with trash blowing along the ground, windows broken
out of the little shops, and the vehicles parked on the curb having their doors
hanging open. Grass and weeds grew through the cracks in the sidewalks and
streets, and the stench of desolation filled the air.

She
moved away from the woods and into the street. The knife she held was more of a
shiv she had created herself after nearly being raped by a group of men. The
only thing that had saved her that day was the horde of walking corpses that
had come out of nowhere. The men had diverted their attention from her to the
infected, and she had made herself scarce. Rebecca had run so hard and fast
that when she had reached the warehouse and climbed her loft she hadn’t come
down for days. Not even the sound of zombies outside the warehouse had taken
her mind off the fact she had nearly been the disgusting plaything for a group
of vile fucking men.

But
then she had gotten out of her blankets she barricaded herself in, and found a
long piece of metal on the warehouse floor. In fact she had gotten several
pieces of metal, and shaped them into long, nasty looking shanks. The smallest
of the four she kept tucked in her sock by her ankle, the second she kept in
her bag, the third at the small of her back, and the fourth she held at all
times. She was ready to slice an asshole up if they looked at her the wrong
way. Rebecca wasn’t going to be a victim anymore, or at least she wasn’t about
to lie down and let this world swallow her up. She’d fight back until there was
nothing left of her.

Rebecca
stayed close to the buildings as she moved silently and slowly. She kept her
focus on anything and everything, and when she stopped by a truck that was half
on the curb, she stared inside. There was a horribly decomposed body sitting in
the driver’s seat. He, or she, because she couldn’t tell what gender the corpse
was, was not one of the living dead. The clothing was just a t-shirt and
pair
of jeans, and the shoes a pair of sneakers. This person
had been someone ordinary, who did average things, and was just now a rotting
pile of bones and flesh. It had its arm on the steering wheel, and its forehead
resting back against the seat. Its mouth was opened, its tongue hanging out,
and there was a bullet hole in the side of its head. She had long since gotten
rid of her need to gag at the vile aromas and sights that now covered the
earth.

Moving
forward, she focused on the street, on the buildings on either side of her, and
felt her pulse beat wildly in her ears. She moved her gaze back and forth along
the deserted, eerily silent town. The wind picked up and had a few shutters on
the mom-and-pop stores banging against the cement walls. She
stopped,
focused on each noise, and then moved forward when no corpses made themselves
knows because of the noise. She moved past a hardware store, a creamery, and
even a small clinic. Even though the town was now dead, it wasn’t that hard to
see how it might have been before the contamination hit the world.

A
small pharmacy was on the corner of the street, and she crossed the cobblestone
road, and pressed her back to the wall as soon as she made it across. Keeping
the knife held to eyelevel, she tapped it on the glass of the building, and
waited to see if anything came shuffling out. She repeated the action after a
few moments of silence. She waited again, and then slipped inside. The pharmacy
was small on the inside, with a few rows of shelving in front of her, the
actual pharmacy counter in the rear of the store, and a cashier’s counter
beside her. The large sign hanging in the center of the store had a mortar and
pestle with a
recipere
in bright red coloring. The
text beneath it read: “A community helping each other become one”.

Rebecca
focused on the trashed shelving, boxes scattered along the ground, and even
money lying on the counter with an inch of dust on it. The interior was dark
where the light didn’t penetrate it through the windows, and the stillness was
so damn spooky that she felt a chill race up her spine. Her shoes crunched over
broken glass as she moved through the shop, collecting what she could find that
was usable. Most of the items were destroyed, expired and unsafe to take with
her, or had been totally cleaned out by scavengers.

There
was a small room off to the side, and she could see a sink and toilet from
where she stood. Moving toward it, she grabbed her flashlight from her
backpack, turned it on, and shone it in the room. The bathroom was small enough
to hold one person, so when she realized it was empty she stepped inside.
Shining the light along the wall, she spotted what she had been hoping was in
here. A condom and pain reliever wall dispenser hung behind the door, and
although both were beat to shit and cracked wide open, she was able to get some
of the packages off the floor. A few single serve packets of ibuprofen and
Tylenol, and even some condoms were by her feet. Although sex wasn’t a part of
her life anymore for obvious reasons, she did take the condoms. They were
useful in other ways, such as containers for water, which sounded nasty, but
worked when she was desperate. She shoved the medicine and rubbers in the
backpack and stepped back out into the store.

Rebecca
moved behind the pharmacy counter, and although she had been hoping she could
find antibiotics, even if they were probably expired and wouldn’t help if she
had a cold or flu, she saw everything was pretty much cleared out. There was
hardly any light in this part of the store, so she swept her flashlight back
and forth until she spotted some first aid supplies. Crouching on her haunches
and balancing the flashlight between her neck and chin, she shoved the gauze,
alcohol swabs, A&D ointment, and other small supplies that had been kicked
under a shelf, into her bag. She took the flashlight again, shone the light
over the ground, and spotted a few small bottles of saline in the corner under
a box. They were filthy, and a few were already busted open, but the sterile
ones she picked up and kept. She stood and glanced around the room once more.
This place was picked clean already, and she wouldn’t be able to get anything
else of use from it.

Stepping
out of the pharmacy she immediately saw a clothing store a few shops down, and
made her way over to it. Repeating the same procedure she did for all buildings
before she entered, she waited for a few minutes to see if anything partially
dead came out. Inside the clothing store proved a little more positive as she
saw several racks of overturned clothing and even some vending machines in the
corner. The backpack she had only carried so much, but she was able to find a
tote bag, and started filling it with some undergarments, socks, even a couple
of pants and shirts that were a little too big for her, but were better than
nothing. A winter coat was pushed underneath a shelf, and although there was a
tear in the arm, and the coat itself was filthy from the dust and grime on the
ground, she took it and slipped it on. The clothing she wore was on its last
leg anyway, and anything other than what she had on was like gold.