Smack-dab, in the Middle of Nowhere (Waste Stories #1)

15. The Acquiring of the Three (Part 3)

A seven-hour walk, plus a fair old chilly night later...

The fresh, crisp dawn hit Bert like a hammer. Then it hit her again out of malice, and kicked her in the lungs with its boots. Bert was waking up, groggily to say the least, inside a decrepit Old World structure along the Back Road, having slept there overnight. She was hiding in a cupboard, where the Things couldn't find her - but nobody would ever need to know that. If they asked, she had chased the Things off singlehandedly with her pistol, guffawed at their cowardice, then slept out in the open in a mark of defiance. Of course, the reality was in fact that she had been ambushed quite suddenly by Things just down the road, punched one in the face, fled for her life, then hid in the aforementioned cupboard for what semblance of safety it could offer.

Now, the morning's dismal little rays leaked through deep gouges and bullet holes in the cupboard's aged, rotten door, splashing a murky, chickenpox light on Bert's grumpy face. She pushed gently at the door handle, but found that it wouldn't budge. The door then bowed almost soggily outwards upon a firm second test with her shoulder, but seemed intent in remaining fixed rudely shut. Bert scowled for a moment, then drew back her robotic fist.

A blanket of dull, shadowless light enveloped Bert like a hug from a Thing as a cascade of door splinters scattered about the dusty, pockmarked floorboards. Next came a stinging slap in the nostrils from a dead Thing nearby, the sheer sticky sweetness of the awful smell threatening to reach inside her stomach and yank out the breakfast she hadn't even eaten yet.

Bert covered her mouth with the large collar of her trench coat, hoping the musty old fabric would help keep out any airborne nasties that might threaten to turn her into one of those ... those Things. Nobody was quite sure whether Thing disease spread via blood or air, but it never hurt to be careful. Especially because it would hurt a whole lot more to not be careful, particularly when the disease made your bones start growing into claws right where they had no business growing, let alone into claws. So, rather than brave stepping around the lifeless, twisted corpse that had the gall to die at the front door and bleed its filthy green ichor all over the entranceway, Bert took up the mantel of adulterous lovers the world over, and climbed out the window.

It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, which is to say that the noxious sky wasn't as greasy as it was yesterday or the day before, suggesting the worst of the acid had moved on to ruin someone else's property. A moderate wind gusted past in thick, quick blasts, carrying dust from one location to another for its own nefarious purposes. Bert pulled her coat tighter around her waist and allowed her head to sink into it, stuffing her hands into deep pockets.

As her boots crunched quietly on the gravel driveway, heading down back to the Back Road, a gentle chorus of birds twittered around her, except they didn't because this is the Waste and they were all dead. But the few survivors let out a squawk every now and then to remind the world that they were still here, and occasionally a gullpidgeon would fly past twittering opera.

Bert was at a junction in her life, both metaphorically and quite literally. A few feet from her lay the end of the Back Road, where it finally intersected with the Highway. An ancient, warped, rusting street sign stood meekly on her left, pointing out the various Old World towns you could see along the Highway's northern arm to the left. All the words had long become illegible, but some do-gooding travellers from who knows how long ago had painted new letters on:

Second Thought (not far, mate)
Rangi's Aura (Pretty far - pack snacks)
Wipe Arr (Bloody ages)
If you see Trader Bill, tell him he owes me an arm anna leg. Thieving bastard.
I don't owe you shit. I paid for these limbs an I'll keep them. Greedy prick.
Stop writing on the sign, you're both assholes.