Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (2 page)

Not that the bitches at the
library didn't ride him like he was their personal whipping boy. That was due
to the fact that he couldn't really fight back. If he tried, then Glenda, the Location
Manager, would have fired him so fast his glasses wouldn't have even stopped
spinning before he was out of there.

That would be a mistake, because
even if Wally wasn't going to get any off of her, she
would
kill some
people if that happened. That part of things always left her feeling a little
odd, because she knew, for a fact, that she didn't care about most people.
Still, anyone going after Wally wouldn't last long, if she had anything to do
about it. Blackie either, which was at least as certain.

Her feet fell with a regular, but
soft, patter on the pavement. It felt like every sense was heightened at the
moment, even though she knew that it was all about her feelings, not actual
improvement in her ability to see or hear. The cement sidewalk, rather than the
street itself, felt decently smooth as she moved. Her goal was to seem normal,
so as to not be noticed. Not that it was simple, being dark out already. Too
cold for her simple hoodie, too. That meant anyone seeing a small woman might
take note of her.

It was late November, which
indicated, unfortunately, that she was going to have to take a few months off
soon from her hobby. It was way too easy to track people in the snow. A
fool
could do it, and even if no one would think she was a suspect at the moment, if
they got the idea of size six women's shoes moving from the scene of the crime,
that could change.

So, hands out of her pockets,
trying not to seem furtive, she moved with purpose. It took a while for her to
find the right location, nearly an hour. Having it that far away was a risk, if
she had blood on her, or any kind of injury. She didn't think that was the case
at the moment, but it was possible. It had happened before without her
realizing it, and in different locations. Once her entire back had been covered
with bright red as she walked away.

No one had noticed, but that was
luck. Counting on things like that would end up with her being caught. Then...
Well, she didn't really have a plan for that. It would probably happen someday,
since things could go wrong in life. If she got in front of a camera, or some
other Infected ratted her out for instance. Telepaths were a thing to avoid in
her life, she knew full well. Others might find her too. Like Proxy, the
killer. The man could just show up and start fighting, taking the place of a
victim. That he hadn't so far... She didn't really understand it. The man
supposedly hit most of the serial killers in the U.S. As in that kind of thing
almost didn't happen anymore. That one was the real risk in her life.

Being found by Infected that
didn't like what she had to do.

The police just didn't look at
small white women as criminals. Not the serial killing kind.
Maybe
the
kind that would float bad checks or steal identities, but that was about it. It
wasn't the real truth, because women committed at least half of all crimes, but
that wasn't her problem. If they didn't think she could be what she was, that
just worked in her favor. If the Infected Protection Bureau decided to look at
what she was doing, then... She wouldn't last long. What would take place then,
she didn't know. Arrest at the very least, but she couldn't count on them being
that soft with her.

She'd seen what had happened in
the last year after all. It had been all over the television, and all that
anyone had talked about at work for months on end. That girl, Impulse, had gone
from place to place for the government and just killed anyone that fought against
her. It was a wonderful slaughter. Done with a combination of raw power and
skill that left Cin in quiet awe, if she were to be honest about it. Cindy had
killed, it was true. On purpose and more than ten times. The tiny government
agent had done a thousand times more than that. By herself.

Really, she probably wasn't a
vast threat. No one was going to send that kind of force out just over her, not
if the only sign was normal white bread men being killed by someone with a
knife. She'd never so much as taken a wallet, but so far no one had put it all
together. Not in any public fashion. They hadn't even been sniffing around
behind her back. Not near her at any rate. If they had, then it would show in
the script above people's heads.

The fallback area wasn't nice. It
smelled like trash, human waste and dirt. The whole thing was constantly damp
too, being in a small ravine, behind the three story brick thing that was
protecting her from being seen from the street.

Under a leafy bush, Cin found the
black bag, and trying to work silently, she moved downward, into the trench. It
was about ten feet deep, so that would have hidden her too, but it didn't hurt
to have a bit of extra coverage. Quickly she pulled the clothing out of the
bag, along with the materials she'd need to start a small fire, and got to
work. She went all the way to the skin, not bothering with underwear, either
from her used clothing selection, or before that. Not for a kill. That could
lead to mistakes, and blood soaked underthings.

She was decently small up top, so
could get away without wearing a bra for special occasions. A 'B-cup'. It
worked for her, so she didn't worry over it most days.

Her entire body was shaved, from
the neck down. It had taken time, and care, but nothing had been left. Then her
whole form had been covered in coconut oil. It gave her a distinctive odor, but
not one strong enough for most people to notice. That was to moisturize, and
worked well for it. She didn't have any cracked skin, or chapped lips, so it
seemed to be working. It kept her from leaving bits and pieces of her flesh
behind too easily. A protective layer that was all part of her clever plan to
keep not being caught for as long as possible.

If anyone ever saw her nude, she
could just claim it was all part of her beauty regime. Which it sort of
was
.
No one had complained about her soft hands yet, at any rate.

Once dressed, she collected everything,
dumped an ample amount of lighter fluid over it, and used several strike
anywhere matches to set the whole thing on fire. It was at the bottom of the
tiny valley, which had mud in it, but no real water, so she pulled back, and
listened to the world around her, while the thing burned, and the scent of the
plastic bag hit her nose. It took about fifteen minutes for everything to be
destroyed, at which point she walked along the large ditch for a while.

It wouldn't even remotely take
her in the direction of home, and she had to be careful to stumble along the
side of the thing, since mud made shoe prints about as well as snow did. The
major thing here was that no one would think much of the burned clothing that
she'd produced. There wouldn't be much of anything left, even if it was found
the next morning. If it was, well, a pile of clothing, stuff that was clearly
trash, wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

It was part of why she always
left her knife behind. Not
always
in the body, but nearby. Those varied
in type, however. Some had been large hunting blades, and others had been
fairly delicate looking things that spoke to a lot of money being spent on
them. All had been stolen, at various times in her life, so again, would be
hard to trace back to her directly. In her back yard she had a plastic case
with nine more of the things, buried safely.

Near her flower bed, which she
made a point of working with all year long, so there was always an excuse for
her to be out there, weeding and playing with dirt. Even if anyone ever found
them, they weren't illegal to have or own. If things were too bad, she could
just claim that they belonged to someone else. A previous tenant or something
like that.

The route she took to get back
home was the long way, so she didn't get in until nearly two a.m. The clock on
the wall, a cheap one that had been purchased from Wal-Mart, told her that she
had about six hours of rest coming, if she hurried.

That required a shower, and then
her scrubbing her teeth really well, since going to bed without taking care of
that kind of thing would have been far too nasty for her. There could be bits
of recently produced corpse on her, and that wasn't what anyone sane wanted in
bed with them. Not that she counted herself that way, but it was close enough
for her at the moment.

Then, climbing into her nice bed,
under the attractive bedspread that she'd picked out for herself, Cindy slept.
Peacefully. It was always easiest for her right after someone had died. Even if
she had nothing to do with it. There was just something restful about death.
Calm and certain. Everyone did it, in the end which gave life a bit of
certainty. True, she
could
have felt the same way about sneezing, but
that just wasn't enough for her, for some strange reason.

Probably because there was less
blood involved.

She didn't dream, not that she
knew of. That was her life, day to day. She went dark for several hours, and
then got up. When her alarm went off, a nice, and very old fashion thing with a
little hammer that struck two bells. It was loud, obnoxious and horrible. She
jolted up to stop it, having to take several steps to get to it. That was on
purpose, so that she wouldn't be as tempted to just roll back over and snooze
for a while.

She was due in to work at ten,
and made herself get up at nine, so that she could do her makeup and hair
before work. Not that it wasn't simple enough, but she'd built in extra time,
just because she knew that she might have to try and hide a black eye. Again.

After the first event, where
Wally had followed her around for a month, she'd started taking martial arts
lessons. It was a mixed martial art, one that combined Brazilian jujitsu,
boxing and sports applications. She was too small to become a real fighter, but
it allowed her to show up at work, and shrug when people acted concerned.

No husband. No boyfriend, or even
girlfriend to be beating her. So they bought it when she told them about her
new fighting classes. That had been going on for a few years, and while she
was
getting decent at it, her lack of size made it pretty impractical in real life,
other than as a cover.

Still, she wasn't going around
claiming that she could outfight men. If it came to it, she was going to
freaking stab someone anyway. This gave her a cover for a lot of wounds and
bruises that might happen however, and was good exercise. She could even diet
without anyone thinking much of it. Eating healthy and all that, because she
was kind of an athlete now.

On top of that she ran regularly.
Not too far, but enough so that her feet didn't hurt from all of her walking
the day before. Really, she felt good. Chipper, even.

Sexy.

To that end she moved through her
normal daily paces, getting herself ready with a bit of extra effort. There was
no real reason for it, but she added some foundation, blush, and lipstick. Nothing
too bold, since working at the library wasn't exactly a nightclub gig. That
thought got her to smile. Hardly anyone even came in anymore.

It was like with newspapers. They
still existed, as ghosts of what they used to be, but around. Slowly turning to
dust. People still read. That wasn't the problem. In fact, they'd added some
digital media that was fairly popular in the last years. Downloaded books, and
some movies.

Still, most readers got that kind
of thing on-line now, which was faster and easier than actually going
someplace, so the numbers of individuals in the physical building were small,
most days. That was a shame, since she could be working two or three times
harder without having any problem with it. Cindy had to spend nearly half her
time just straightening books on the shelves, competing with the others for the
privilege of having something to do. For years. Eventually that meant her job
was going the way of the dinosaurs.

The day was cool, and it looked a
lot like rain when she went out to the car. For her that meant a walk between
the tiny house she rented and the one car garage. Both were gray, and kind of
normal looking. Both things she enjoyed. The clouds were foreboding, nearly
black in places. A bit of a cold wind had come in, making it cooler now than it
had been the night before. That probably didn't mean snow, but the conditions
felt right for it. It was Vancouver though, so cold and rainy was normal for
November. Snow wasn't.

The drive wasn't that long, since
her house was just off of down town, and so was the new library building. She
even had an honest to goodness garage, and it was nearly as large as the house
she lived in. That was pretty rare for the part of the city she lived in. There
was no automatic opener, so she had to do it all by hand, using the rope
attached to the bottom after pulling the vehicle out, in order to get it closed
again. That meant jumping for it, since tall wasn't a thing that she did well,
on most days.

The drive was peaceful enough.
The wind was really picking up, and a bit of rain started to fall. It was
driven pretty hard, but wasn't so powerful that seeing was impossible. Still,
the four lane road through town had very narrow lanes, making paying attention
important. Her car was a tiny thing, and it was hard to keep it in the lane.
Several times she had to veer a bit, in order to keep trucks and large vehicles
from ripping the side off of her Camry. It was a sunny yellow color,
thankfully. That meant people could see it.