The Darkest Storm

Dead, once average, citizens line the road. Their faces, covered with coats and blankets, are gaunt and scathed beyond recognition. There is no pattern of how they are strewn about the yard beside the tracks. They are simply left behind; forgotten.

Birds sing even as walker’s growls thunder close by. Darcy stares mutely at the bodies. Spanning down, she is pressing a spare bit of cloth with her left hand over her right shoulder. It is soaked, deemed useless, still continuing to overflow between her fingers and staining them a warm red. The fight to survive, although over for these people, goes on.

The orange-yellow hues of the setting sun stare directly into her eyes. Barely gripping her pistol, she winces as he re-holsters her weapon to bend over and remove one of the coverings; a camouflaged rain poncho. She stops mid-way of folding it up. Looking back up at her are lifeless, clouded grey, eyes.

A man, maybe mid-forties when he passed, baring a tangled mess of dark-brown locks, brings a familiar feeling to the pit of her stomach. She seems suddenly and strangely detached from her grim surroundings.

Eyes scrunched and mouth pressed firmly into a thin line, she takes the poncho and covers him up again. She softly tucks it underneath his head and around his shoulders. Before she leaves, she rests a hand on the chest of the body. When she stands, she takes one last look at the body and falls into step with the tracks.

With red-rimmed eyes and a blackened face – a mixture from days of dirt, dust, and smoke – continues to slowly trudge up the road; tired, dirty, and still trying to find another sign pointing her towards Terminus after three days of just wandering.

She winces and stops when she moves the cloth against her wound. Peeling the thin fabric back, her stomach twists at the sight of deep tissue staring straight up at her and still oozing a significant amount of blood. Breathing heavily and quite exhausted from the past few days, she stares up at the sky for some relief.

Being chased by a heard, she tripped awhile back – sending her flying over a steep ravine and into a pile of rocks and sharp sticks. Her right shoulder caught the brunt of her fall; now with a nice wide gash still hemorrhaging even hours after.

Darcy takes the cap from her canteen and tips it over the lesion, but nothing comes out. Frustrated and panicked, she shakes as she takes her arm and wipes it over her forehead. The thought of no water sends her into frenzy. Her lips are suddenly dry, cracked. Her throat parched as she tries to frantically swallow something.

It was never this hard. She wipes her eyes. It’s never been this hard.

Slow at getting up, Darcy stands and manages to hobble off the tracks. Her hands and feet are weaker than before. As she does so, she rubs her eyes while taking a few deep breaths and blinking repeatedly at her surroundings.

She looks ahead in the tracks direction, trying to focus on the intersection she somehow stepped into, and the sign that is set right in front of her. Energized and in disbelief, Darcy doesn’t know what to say.

Next to the Terminus map, written in blood: GLENN GO TO TERMINUS. MAGGIE, SASHA, BOB.

Darcy lifts her hand to touch the writing. In this moment, it is almost peaceful and full of hope. But from behind her, intense and focused, a butt of a shotgun knocks her out cold.

“She bit?”

Spanning up from her body, two men hover over her weak and matted frame. They seem unusual: you’d expect two men like this to be haggard, exhausted, unshaven, and desperate. But they’re not.

The two men appear seemingly perfect, way more spit-and-polish than anyone could imagine, wearing bullet-proof vests, white-as-snow cuffed shirts, and sparkling-gold badges on either one of the men’s shoulders reading: ATLANTA POLICE.

A rough hand grabs Darcy and flips her onto her back. Officer O’Donnell takes a good look at her shoulder, the cloth still sticking to it, and shakes his head. “Nah. Just a cut. A good one, too.”

“Alright.” Officer Gorman, holding the shotgun, nods. “Let’s patch that up ‘n get gone. Don’ want Dawn up my ass again ‘bout gettin’ back before it’s too dark.”

“Yes, sir.” O’Donnell throws Darcy’s body over his shoulder and follows suite his superior officer. “You think she’ll stay cold the whole ride?”

“We’ll keep an eye on her.” He opens the back seat of the black car - unusual for a cop’s patrol vehicle – while his partner lays her body inside.

“She’s packin’ a lot of heat.” O’Donnell’s muffled voice states from inside the car. “Look at this shit.” He points, standing outside the door now. “Dawn won’t like this.”

Gorman shrugs, “So we toss the weapons in the armory when we get back. Say we found ‘em on the road.” He walks around to the driver’s door and slides inside. “The girl was hangin’ on by a thread. Ain’t no way she’d have anything left to even think about puttin’ up a fight. We need more people like her anyhow. Can’ deal with anymore of these fuckin’ weak things all day.”

“‘Sides,” Turning the car keys, he winks at O’Donnell. “I like a good fight.”