Category : Adult

Sub Category : Horror

After chowing down on a few more stale but sweet cookies and filling her belly with some much needed protein and tea, Danny packed up as much food as she could carry. There were a few other supplies she took with her as well, a rope, toiletries, and a few bandanas. The first aid supplies had been cleaned out, so the small supply of bandanas would be nice, in case of injury. Or sweat.

She left the shop, after un-latching and disposing of the small brass bell in the trashcan, and peered out at main street. There was hardly a sound other than the gentle breeze whipping away stray papers and rustling the leaves in the un-trimmed hedges and trees that lined the sidewalks. Weeds had started taking over the cracks and potholes in the cement, the lack of foot-traffic giving way to nature once more.

Overall, the town was very quaint, and from the look of the map, very small and secluded. Mostly residential area with a few markets and shops, and a park near the west end. As much as she wanted to hunker down into one of the houses, she needed to be wary. There was no telling what kind of dwellers were inside the walls, living or dead. 

She had mistakenly got caught up and ran with a group in the early days of the end of things, a rough and rowdy bunch who thought shooting at everything that moved and gorging on everything edible they found was the way to survive. Like suicidal locusts with big red targets on their backs, they starved when their rations ran out and drew too much attention from the dead during every escursion. Even with her limited survival knowledge back then, Danny saw where their story ended and left their company before she was eventually devoured too.

Survival was not wasteful feasts and careless slaughter. Survival was going hungry and waiting out a wandering group of the dead instead of braving the pack to cross the street to the nearest Food's Mart. Survival was a quiet and uncomfortable nap, one that curled up in the crook of a tree to ensure even a wink of precious sleep. Danny knew how to survive, not in the beginning of course... But this new world required a certain learned skill, and the longer you remained on the living side of the spectrum, the more you stood a chance. 

As risky as the journey into this town was, it was calculated. Danny had left the previous town and knew how long her supplies would last. She knew it would be cutting it close, but without another town for miles, this was the best choice. Some of her wise decisions turned out to be terrible ones, towns ransacked and cleaned out, packed with waves of corpses, even filled with other people who would rather shoot than share.

It was funny how often the key to survival translated to pure luck of the draw, you could do everything right and still fail, still end up as one of the dead. Danny could easily chalk a lot of her victories up as lucky strikes, and thinking too long on that fact was troubling. 

Danny was ready to leave the town, continue heading North until she found a decent Outskirt-hugging home or maintenence shed to barricade for the night, when she heard the fainted SNAP of a twig. Her body turned and her eyes flew to the source of the sound, her arm instinctively raising the sour-bloodied pipe at swinging height.

Only when she spotted the figure did she hesitate to run, or attack.

A little girl stared down at the broken twig that her muddied sneakers had broken before her big brown eyes shot a look to Danny, looking like a tiny baby deer standing in the middle of a busy highway. Her orange T-shirt and baby blue jean skirt were filthy, but the muck looked recent. Peeking through the mud on her shirt was a tiny picture of a sun wearing sunglasses, but the little dialogue bubble coming from his mouth was caked in filth. It looked like she had been clean not too long ago, but had been since double-dipped in a mud puddle. The little girl's mouth dropped open, obviously trying to speak.

"Hey... are you okay?" Was the only thing Danny could think of to say, she lowered her weapon a bit to keep the child from running. Judging by how exhausted the little girl looked, she assumed she wouldn't be able to go very far. The girl didnt say anything at first, as if trying to think of an answer for Danny's question.

"I lost my Mom and Dad." Was her tiny answer, and Danny briefly worried if the girl had simply meant that she had gotten lost or that her parents were dead. By the slightly frustrated, but worried look on her tiny, dirty face, Danny deduced that the meaning of her words seemed to be the former.

"Do you know where they were trying to go?" Danny asked, hoping the girl's parents weren't too far gone. She'd never leave a little girl all by her lonesome, but if she could find her parents and unburden herself, she could go back to normal survival mode.

"Daddy said 'Wait'... But I already ate all my snacks... so I got really really hungry and I couldn't wait no more." The girl did look on the skinny side, her cheekbones sunk in a bit and her arms were boney. Though the arm part might have just been the fact that she was a kid. 

"Come on, there's some food in the market. I'll clean you up and we'll have some cookies." Danny took care to add the friendliest smile she could muster, although it had been a long time since she last interacted with a living being. For all she knew, she had probably just smiled like a crazed hyena. 

Hyena grin or not, the girl perked up at the promise of food. She hurried over to Danny, holding her hand up so they could cross the street together. Seeing her move, Danny saw the limp in her walk. She seemed to favor her more mud-covered foot, so it seemed a good idea to remember to clean that area more. 

"What happened to your foot?" Danny asked, taking her hand and walking back to the market. Her hands felt a bit cold, she had probably been wandering around all night by herself. 

"Got an owie." The girl said plainly, shrugging her shoulders as they walked. Danny stopped before she opened the door for the girl, pausing and taking a knee to face the little girl.

"There's a gross thing in the corner, so don't look at it. We're going to go straight to the back and look straight ahead, okay?" Danny instructed, remembering the now properly decaying Granny Mabel by the window inside. This kid had probably seen far worse things, but Danny wanted to keep the childhood trauma to the minimum as best she could. The girl nodded slowly, looking at the glass door and focusing on the back of the store. Danny stood and opened the door, pulling the girl along with her until they reached the back. Good. There was an employee bathroom with a sink.

"Alright. Let's get all this muddy stuff off o'ya." Danny soaked a washcloth she had snagged on the way through the aisle and started by cleaning the little girl's face. 

"So, what's your name?" Danny asked as she started revealing the girl's face, which was tinted a bright pink, probably the beginnings of a sunburn. 

"Valerie Fowler." She said with a smile, deep dimples giving details to her gaunt, pink face. It sounded like she had a hard time saying her own first name.

"Do you mind if I call you Val?" Danny asked, hoping kids liked nicknames. The little girl glowed, a weary chuckle leaving her mouth as she moved down to her neck, which was apparently very ticklish. 

"Mommy and Daddy call me Val. But you can too, if you want to." She said as Danny handed her a frosted cookie. She slowly bit all of the pink frosting off before letting the rest of her cookie soften on her tongue.

"What's your name?" Val asked, mouth full and already sneaking another cookie from the bag while her shirt was being cleaned off.

"My name is Danielle. Most people call me Danny. 'Cuz it's shorter." Danny gave her a little wink which elicited another wry giggle from Val, who did her best to sit still for the rest of her half-bath. She looked like she was ready for a nap, her eyes looking more tired by the minute.

Danny cleaned the girl's jean skirt off and got to her feet, cleaning the left foot, then pausing at the right. She remembered to be careful around the 'Owie', she didn't want Val screaming and waking up every dead person in town. Danny slowly pulled off the other shoe and her mouth dropped open.

The bottom of her foot was covered in mud, yes... But there was a pool of blood in her shoe. Through the dirt and grime, it was easy to see what the wound was. There was a very clear bite wound on the side of her tiny foot. Danny fought the urge to worry the kid, but when she looked up at her, Val's eyes were full of hot, fat tears.

"That old stinky man bit my foot... and Daddy had to make him go away..." Her tired demeanor made sense now, she wasn't exhausted from the journey... She was slowly becoming...

"Daddy said 'Wait'... Then him and Mommy went away..." Danny couldn't help feel her own face fill with tears, a sick feeling rising up in her stomach and squeezing uncomfortably at her heart.

"They said they were gonna be right back..." Val's shoulders were trembling, the action of crying too much for her weak little body. Unable to hold herself up much longer, she sunk into Danny's chest, the quiet shudders slowly fading.

"Thanks... for... cookies..." Danny barely heard the words as the frail shuddering stopped completely, the tiny girl falling limp in her arms. She willed herself to think of her as sleeping, but knew she would not be able to hold her in her arms for very long. She closed her eyes and laid her body down on the table by the sink, cleaning her little shoes and putting them back on. 

It would happen soon.






Some time later, Danny left the Market and stumbled into one of the nearby houses she had previously been set on not occupying. She checked to see if it was clear, which thankfully it was, and locked down every exit and window. She climbed up to the second story and locked herself into the bathroom, slowly turning on the faucet. 

The sink water flowed with a bit of a grind somewhere in the pipes, Danny assumed the town well must be going dry little by little. She winced at the sight of water, eyes red and swollen, nose looking similar as she held her knife under the lukewarm tap. The water changed quickly from pristine pure to tainted, dark red as it gargled down the drain, Danny only stared as she said her silent, final goodbyes to Valerie Fowler.