Raven's Hell (2 page)

He
headed down the stairs and into his place. The sound of moaning came up from
the lower levels, and he knew getting through this building and past the
fucking infected was going to be a bitch. But he had been preparing for this,
plotting out his way to leave the city with as little hassle as possible. After
shutting the door behind him, he leaned against his door and stared at his
penthouse apartment. The entire upper level was his, with an open floor plan
that he had worked for from the floor up. He had everything packed: a backpack
with enough supplies—the rest of what he had—a few weapons, and a pair of
clothes. Those were the items he’d have to survive on until he found other
supplies. He was smart enough to know that the measures he’d have to take to
survive out in the world, to get more supplies, could very well mean he’d have
to kill and maim for them.

He
walked over, grabbed his coat and backpack, and shoved the jacket inside of it.
This was it. He was leaving all of this shit behind, going to set roots down
away from where the stench of death and decay covered the streets, filtered up
to the rooftops, and saturated him in vileness. He didn’t have a shirt on, and
his reflection in the wall mirror across from him showed the many scars he had
gotten leading a bad life, a few bullet holes in his shoulder, and the raven
tattoo that covered his back. He grabbed his shirt off of the couch, and once
it was on he went over to his things. Slinging his bag over his shoulder,
taking one more look at the life he had once lived, a life that was no more, he
set out to start over.

Collin
left his apartment, started making his way down the stairwell, and stepped over
a few rotting corpses. They wore employee outfits, their bodies partially eaten
from the few straggling infected that had made their way back here months ago.
The smell was intense, but Collin was used to it, used to the death that was
part of his world now. His descent was far since he had been on the top floor,
and when he finally reached the bottom he stopped, hearing the low groans and
shuffling coming from behind one of the two doors. One exit led out the back
alley that he knew was thick with infected, and the other went into the employee
kitchen. The groaning was coming from the staff entrance, and although he could
have taken a big chance and risked going out through the back entrance, he was
playing it smart. He had a better chance of going through the main part of the
apartment building and dealing with what leftover corpses were walking around,
than braving the small, narrow alley that wouldn’t allow him to move very well.

He
walked over to the staff entrance, listened to see if he could hear how many
infected were behind it, and when he heard only the one, he held onto the lead
pipe he had in one hand and gripped the door handle with the other. He had a
few weapons on him, one being the pipe, a couple of knives, even a thick bike
chain. He had two guns with him and a small amount of ammo he had stocked up
on. But Collin wasn’t going to waste the bullets on the sick so soon.

When
Collin pulled the door open, he held the pipe up high, saw the infected slowly
turn around and face him because of the noise, and watched a spark of energy come
to life in the asshole. The guy was badly decomposed, but not nearly enough for
him to be one of the original people who had gotten that damn vaccine that
started all of this shit. No, this poor bastard had been infected by a bite,
and that was confirmed when he lifted his arm toward Collin and the grisly
looking bite mark was prominent on his inner bicep. His head was cocked
unnaturally to the side, and when he opened his mouth Collin saw the way his
tongue hung over his mouth, no longer attached fully.

Collin
moved forward, bashed the pipe on the side of the man’s head, and heard the
sickening crunch of his skull caving in. The corpse fell to the ground, and
black blood was pooling beneath his body, covering the red tiled floor beneath.
He stared at the kitchen, the large stainless steel appliances, the few dead
bodies on the ground, and the fact it was scavenged clean. He had come down, as
had many of the people still toughing it out in the building, and taken what
supplies he could. There had been riots and looting, killing and overall chaos.
The apartment building he lived in had catered to the wealthy, served room
service even, and because he had been on top of the world, owning his own
empire, albeit an underground one, Collin had ruled like a King. But that was
in the past. He was alone now, and it was
kill
or be
killed.

The
building had been closed up, and with no windows in the kitchen, the only light
came through the open doorway from the stairwell, the one that led into the
main foyer of the complex. The place stank to high hell and looked like a dark
wasteland. He moved around the dead bodies, pressed himself up against the
wall, and listened to hear if there was any movement in the main lobby. When he
heard silence he leaned over the side, stared out the doorway, and saw that it
was clear. Collin moved through the lobby, stepped on broken glass, walked over
the body of the security officer that had been named Robert, and went over to
the front doors. The glass on the front part of the building was reinforced and
had withstood the destruction of the city. He peered through the foggy, filthy
glass, saw a few infected across the street, more down the way moving slowly
away from him, and he knew that he would need to just make a run for it.
Because the infected were already dead, the infection that killed them rotting
their bodies from the inside out, they were slow, had no conscious thought, and
were only intent on feeding. Collin could handle one or two head-on, but if he
got stuck, cornered with a horde of them, he’d be outnumbered and done for.
Even a scratch from one of these motherfuckers would infect him, and he wasn’t
going to die that way. If his life on this world ended, it would be because
he’d fought to survive, not because a nasty corpse got to him. He opened the
door, and the damn thing creaked. Pausing, he hoped those bastards didn’t hear
the sound, and waited to make sure everything was clear to go. When they didn’t
turn and notice him, he slipped out of the door, and started moving toward the
city limits. The road ahead of him would be pretty damn long, but he had
nothing but time anymore.

He
made his way quickly down the street, stayed close to the side of the
buildings, and kept his attention all around. There was the decomposing woman lying
on the sidewalk, her face unrecognizable, and her scraggly long dark hair
lightly blowing from the breeze. She held a small bundle wrapped in a pink
blanket, and the sight was heartbreaking. In all his life Collin had never felt
any kind of emotion aside from the power, violence, and rage that stayed with
him at all times. But things inside of him were changing. He was changing.

Another
infected moved out from an alleyway and crashed into Collin. They both
fell
backward, the corpse scenting fresh meat and starting
to try to bite at his neck. Black blood, bits of rotten flesh, and the stench
of death covered Collin. The pipe dropped to the side and rolled down the
sidewalk. He brought his knee up, grabbed for the knife at his ankle, and once
he had it slammed it into the fucker’s ear. The infected fell off of him, but
the scuffle had caused commotion, and the other assholes that had been moving
away were now moving toward him. Collin got up, grabbed his backpack that had
fallen during the scuffle, and the pipe, and moved quickly away from the death
and corpses, and out of the city.

****

One year later

Solitude.
Isolation.
Alone.

Those
three things meant the same, and they were definitely the worst things that had
happened since the world had ended, at least to Rebecca Shaw.

Walking
corpses needing, wanting to consume human flesh, men who were no longer decent
and honest, but intent on raping, maiming, and stealing anything and
everything, were what she lived with now. But those things weren’t as bad as the
silence that consumed her, at the fact she’d never be able to sleep next to a
warm body again, or the fact that she was utterly and miserably alone for the
rest of her life. She couldn’t trust anyone but herself now. With no family or
friends left, she was this lone person that was always looking over her
shoulder, always wondering if tonight would be the night she didn’t wake up, or
if she was taken and used as a plaything for depraved men.

Rebecca
stared out the single, tiny window in the loft she now called home. The moon’s
glow came through marginally, but she didn’t need much light. She was currently
staring at the small lake in the distance, at the way the light bounced off the
surface of the water and seemed to make it glow. The close, distinct sound of
moaning and groaning had her looking below the abandoned warehouse she was in.
She didn’t know what the building had been used for, but she assumed maybe
manufacturing farm machinery by some of the equipment scattered, slightly
dismantled, on the floor below.

The
moaning got a little louder, a little more desperate, and she knew the corpses
down below were hungry. She had been holed up in the loft for the last few
days, but she knew she’d have to venture out because her supplies were
dangerously low. She spotted a walking corpse directly across from her window.
Although Rebecca was a few stories up from the ground, she could see the woman
well enough because of the full moon. Rebecca didn’t know if the walking dead
were called zombies, but it didn’t matter much anyway. They were what they
were: rotting flesh, decomposing former people, and monsters needing
living
human flesh to survive.

The
corpse stopped and lifted her head to the sky. Her grisly looking mouth was
open, her teeth partially missing, and this dark ooze was coming out of every
orifice. The hair on her head was straggly and missing in
chunks,
and a piece of her skull looked to be absent, too. She cried out into the
night, a spine chilling sound that had
goosebumps
covering Rebecca’s arms. A few more corpses walked by, their slow, shuffling
gaits showing that they were weak and starving. In the last year and a half
since Rebecca had been on her own in this fucked up world, she had noticed a
few things in regard to these creatures that were now focused solely on
feeding. Since they were already dead they wouldn’t starve to death. They
became slow, immobile in some
cases,
and in some kind
of hibernating state until fresh meat was near. And then it was like they had
some kind of renewed energy, able to track and hunt in packs.

She
turned away from the window and stared at her small hovel of a home now. A
pallet of holey, dirty blankets and a sleeping bag were in one corner. She had
made
a makeshift
propane stove that was on the other
side, a bucket and a roll of toilet paper for her daily business, and overall
the sight was pathetic and depressing. Her propane had run out yesterday. The
small bags of jerky she had and the few cans of baked beans were nearing their
end, and if she stayed here any longer without stocking up on her supplies it
would only get worse. Although sleep wouldn’t come to her tonight, she would
start supply searching in the morning. It was safer that way since she only had
a few flashlights with working batteries.

Moving
over to her pallet, she covered herself with the blankets, closed her eyes, and
pictured her life before all of this. It was a memory she went back to over and
over and over again. But it soothed her, and those memories were all she had
anymore. The world was an evil, hate-filled place now, dangerous and not
friendly, and although a year and a half was a long time, being alone was what
suited her now. She knew the horrors that waited for her out there, had
experienced a few of them firsthand, too. Rebecca was more content in this
life, by herself, than surrounded by the ugliness human existence had succumbed
to.

She
covered her face with the blanket, feeling the chill of the winter air coming
in through the debilitated warehouse. It was November. Winter had already
settled in, and she was surviving anymore just by the skin of her teeth. Life
was even now more bleak and hopeless, and she didn’t know how much longer she
could last. She didn’t know how much longer she
wanted
to last.

****

Collin
scooped out a peach from the rusted as fuck can and stared at the fire in front
of him. He was alone, but he welcomed the solitude … to a point. It had been a
long time since he had actually interacted with another human being. Oh, there
had been a few altercations in the last six months or so since he had left the
group of men he had been traveling with. And those altercations had ended up in
a few dead bodies, some maimed assholes, and a whole lot of violence. Collin
knew that life well, had known it before all hell broke loose and civilization
ended. But this life now meant everyone was out for
themselves,
took care of no one but their own skins, and that was how it should be.

But
even though Collin liked his solitary life now, that didn’t mean he wasn’t
looking for a female. He wanted one, needed a woman like he needed to breathe,
and he wouldn’t stop until he found one. He had thought he’d found one a few
months ago. But it turned out the woman that had been taken by the group of men
he had been with, wasn’t what or whom he needed. He hadn’t backed off because
Sparrow had two men with her, watching over her, claiming her as their own. It
was because when he had actually had her in his grasp, taken her away from the
people she had been with, that Collin realized this wasn’t what he wanted. He
wanted a woman to come to him, to want him because she was desperate for human
contact that wasn’t tainted by this life.