What Walks Among Us (book one)

I'd Rather Not Be A Slave

Voices started to make their way through the haze in my mind. I wanted to open my eyes but they felt heavy, glued some how. The voices were foggy and it took a little bit of concentration before they cleared up.

"... she's not dead, right?" The heavy accented voice said, the deep rumbles of it was contrasted by the gentle disposition.

"No," replied an irritated voice, "I think she's just passed out, let's take her to Evan's old house, and get out of the damn street. It's not safe," his voice was firm, and in control.

"Alright, alright..." a third voice said,  "what do we do about the woman who was bit?"

There was a slight pause and I faded out of consciousness before I could receive and answer.

*

*

When I totally woke up I was in a living room, I assumed. The house wasn't clean but it wasn't dirty. It looked more abandoned that anything. The air felt stale but at the same time I could smell that people had recently been walking around, stirring it up.

The smell of forest was the strongest sent but there were a few other scents under that one. I sat up tentatively and looked around the room. Nobody was in here with me but after I concentrated for a moment I could hear a low murmuring of voices upstairs somewhere. It took me a moment to find the upstairs, and it took me longer than it should have because I was trying to stay silent.

I walked up the stairs without making a sound and the voices got clearer the higher up I went until I could have stopped on the stairs and just listened in. But I didn't, I continued on to stand just outside the door that the voices where coming from, the door was barely cracked but I could hear one of the male's voices.

I shivered. I remembered what had happened but it bothered me. Would these men expect me to pay them back somehow? How do they expect me to pay them back? I couldn't gather food, obviously.

The tellings of my mother shot back to me, I could remember before, when she had cornered me in the kitchen and started going off about a little girl who had been snatched out of her yard and raped. How men were beasts who would do anything to take a girl as their own and dispose of her afterwards. Often during these "lessons" I wondered if she had always been this way, and if she had, why did she have Mabel? Why did she stay with my father.. why was she with him in the first place?

The realization that these men could be helping me just to rape me later scared me, and then I realized that they could have already accomplished this while I was passed out. The thought took my breath away and I stepped back in fear of where my thoughts were leading me.

The floorboard under the carpet creaked. Not loud but apparently loud enough because the voices cut off abruptly.

And then footsteps started towards the door. I scrambled to put my brain together, and by the time I did I was thumping rather noisily down the stairs while the door was being flung open behind me. It made me barrel down the steps faster and on the last one I lost my footing and tumbled onto the ground.

I shot to my feet as I heard more than one person go down the stairs, chasing after me. My heart thumped in my chest and I was freaking out. They were going to overtake me, I was going to be a sex slave, they were going to-

My thoughts were cut off rather abruptly as I ran into something solid. At first I thought I had made a mistake and run into a wall. But walls don't have hands that reach out and keep you from falling. Walls don't have blue eyes and a scowl while still being very attractive, and walls definitely don't have voices.

"Woah, hey what's going on?"

I gulped and tried to buck out of his arms but he grunted and held on a little tighter. My arms were pinned down, I had people coming towards me from behind and I had no weapon. I did the only thing that my frazzled brain could think of, and I bit down on his wrist.

He yanked his hand away even though I hadn't bit him hard enough to break the skin, "Ow, what the fuck?!" his blue eyes demanded an answer even though he made no move to come any closer.

I heard three people behind me step up but none of them made a grab for me either. The boy with the dark eyes looked past me and up a little, "who is she?"

I didn't wait around for an answer though as I ducked around him and ran towards the open back door. I heard shuffling behind me and pumped my legs faster. I felt a cramp forming from running and having not done it for so long. I ran through the broken picket fence and into the woods, as I ran I realized that I knew these woods.. I was still in my neighborhood. Nearly running into a tree, I turned towards the path I knew would lead me to my house and pushed myself harder.

Before everything had went to crap, I had been in these woods all the time, I knew them better than the back of my hand. I heard someone continue to chase after me and my heart kicked into overdrive, not that it wasn't already going crazy, what with the running and all.

What if he followed me home and got to Mabel?

The thought alone had my turning abruptly and going off path, I heard a swear somewhere behind me and started freaking out, if I could hear him swearing he could probably still see me. I sucked in a breath and ran a little faster, my eyes focusing on a low hanging limb. I hadn't been outside in a while and I wasn't exactly sure if I'd still be able to do it, but I'd sooner get caught then let the last of my family be sold as some sort of sex toy.

When I neared the branch I leaped up and grabbed onto it, I scrambled to pull myself up and as soon as I did I knew being inside for six weeks wouldn't be a problem. I smiled as I stood and lifted myself to a slightly higher branch that would still hold my weight and then I was jumping off the edge and landing on a near by tree's branch. I knew that whoever was chasing me wouldn't expect to be looking for some sort of monkey in the trees.

I went through several trees, occasionally double checking my location by looking at the ground, before jumping out of one into a pile of leaves and landing in a somersault. When I popped back up my momentum hadn't totally been squashed and I tripped into a rock, skidding my knee up pretty bad.

I shoved my hand over my mouth to keep from wimpering, and used some leaves to cover up the blood that had gotten onto the rock. I looked around and after I was sure I couldn't hear or see anyone, I made my way slower, and quieter to my house.

I made it about halfway before I stopped and had to tear a bit of my shirt off to wrap around my knee, making sure I wasn't bleeding all over the place. I was pretty upset, not only had I not gotten any food, but my step mother was missing, my gun was gone, and my dagger was also MIA.

I wanted to stomp back there, but I knew that even if I had managed to take out a few zombies, I'd never be able to overpower four men. Though thinking back on it maybe they weren't exactly men. The two that I had seen looked young, maybe my age.

I frowned to myself while double checking that I hadn't been followed and I opened the only unlocked window in the whole house, which it was unlocked in case the front was inaccessible, and I shimmied inside. The window lead into the laundry room and my knee smacked against the dryer, making a loud noise echo through the little room. I winced and climbed fully inside before shutting the window and waiting. I knew it was about noon or so, from the place the sun was in the sky, but the house was silent.

How long had I been asleep? Was Mabel still here?

I crept through the house and into the kitchen, the rest of the canned goods were gone, eaten and left on the counter in a sloppy manner. I frowned and crept towards the stairs, not hearing any of the music Mabel so often liked to play even though I worried that if she had it up too loud, the zombies would be attracted to the house.

Nothing. The house was silent, not even random creaks because it was an old house.

... did the boys already figure out where I had been holed up?