After... Chapter 1: Alone Read online

can help, someone with food. She slowly creeps down the stairs, sword in hand.

  At the bottom, she stops, frozen. At her feet, an arm, a human arm, from a child or small adult. Still fresh and wet with blood. Up front, in the beam of sunlight from the basement window, two Muties eating and occasionally fighting over a Norm adult female. She hadn't died too long ago, blood still flows out of her corpse. Between the Wanderer and the dinner feast, a small boy, ripped to shreds. Bones exposed, bits of organ spewed about, mostly picked clean. So much blood everywhere, the filters of the Wanderer's mask can't even remove the scent of raw iron.

  She thinks of the Stranger she saw at the stream. Does it always end like this? Will she always be alone to wander. Another look at the violent feeding frenzy ahead of her, their meal is not the Stranger. Even though there's not much to go on in the way of identification, the clothes are all wrong. A sigh of relief, then silence. The two Muties look over, aware that they are not alone. The Wanderer panics and rushes up the stairs. Stops at the side of the door, sword drawn and waits. Breathing rushed, adrenaline pumping, waiting. Nothing, nothing but silence. Then the wet sounds of tearing flesh apart. The Muties are too busy with their catch to worry about her.

  The Wander walks out of the house. Flashes of the scene she just witnessed, the savagery of it. Flashes of happy people, enjoying each other's company, eating. Flashes of Muties eating human flesh. Flashes of dealing death to countless Muties in her travels. She starts to cough, choke. Flashes of the past, fathers kneeling before an alter to take the wafer. Flashes of a headless Mutie falling to it's knees as it's head rolls on the cement. She coughs up something, she tries to hold it back. Flashes of a woman holding the hand of a child, walking through a park. Flashes of holding a sword covered in blood, walking through a forrest. She falls to the hard street, coughing, choking. She pulls her mask off, breathing deep, then throwing up. The inside of the mask drips wet. A mixture of blood and black fluid flows along the cement. Coughing, choking, then nothing but blackness.

  A mile past the town, the Stranger approaches a large metal double door. She turns around, pulls out her binoculars and does a few scans of the area. Nothing, she turns to the gate, and pounds out a pattern. The doors slide into the wall. Even after they have opened enough to walk through, she waits. As she stares forward, down the street of the fortified town, a shimmer appears across her field of vision.

  Out from the side of the wall, a tall black man steps in front of the Stranger. Clean cut, muscular, fresh pressed blue button up shirt and jeans. Well fed and well trained by the way he carries himself. AK-47 in hand, ready for anything. A smile slowly appears on his face, right arm waves upward. The air between them shimmers, then disappears. The mild hum, now gone, the shield is down for the moment. The Stranger walks in and past the guard. The steel doors close, and the humming returns.

  To Be Continued…