Molly - Part 1

Chapter 4

There, a human being, a man of flesh and thought, torn apart and left on the wayside, his only conscription now that of the eternal pact above.

They had been searching the streets but they were organized and thus slow. Sometimes there was gunfire, consistently inconsistent despite all of man's learnings.

A crawler, massive, a bulbous bug with a million legs. It shuddered, then a man with a goatee and a bald head came out one side of the machine and whistled.

"Where's Bailey?" he asked, smiling

Casey turned away. "Fuck off."

"You should come with us. We got all the firepower we're ever going to need. Think we'll try and find Mountain Pure. Maybe find god."

Casey stopped and stared.

"If you're going to kill me, do it."

He chuckled. "A nihilist, through-and-through."

Casey walked beneath a woman hanging from a streetlamp, wire wrapped around her neck.

"I don't think so, Gordon," she said. "You made your move too soon. Now you've got eyes on you." She shook her head a little. "This is all just the beginning."

She went on. Part of the ocean ran alongside her. Below, the creaking of wood, the soft sound of bodies hitting the pier. There were no seagulls and so it seemed as if the ocean was dead, as was the city which had absconded even with the skyline, its towers spiraling up and touching heaven.

"You're not going to survive out there," Gordon cried out. "Tell them I told you that!"

And with that, the crawler belched, crawling up and towards the other end of the street, passing marble courthouses long dead.

Now her mind wandered, thinking about both past and future, and before she realized it she was alone in a dark place, surrounded by sheets of cloth in blues, violets, and oranges, wrapping around and taking the rest of the city. A couple urchins noticed Casey coming, scattering, their bodies so skinny it was a wonder they were able to walk at all.

Casey's heart began to beat faster. She looked over her shoulder but there was nothing. She could sense she was being watched.

She came to a certain door marred red. It was surrounded by brick and mortar. The faintest hint of vine was there. Casey looked down at her fingers, the earth growing slow and unwieldy, her vision swaying, her mind leaving, and lo she could sense the leylines buried below.

Past the red door were more vines, snaking along the wall. Casey listened to each footstep, her paranoia leaping with each strange shadow, each stirring below. And yet as she came closer to her destination she could feel some part of her returning, a memory coming back as the vines grew.

A great wind. Casey raised her hands to her face. Then, it was over, Casey falling to her knees and grasping the floor.

A spark wedged in the corner of the room flared up in static-rumbling, then a woman's voice:

"Who is it?"

Casey could only stare.

"It's me."

A line of fog passed underneath, tinged red. Casey went on, taking turn after turn, the walls closing in on her before she came to yet another door and forced herself through.

A garden, beautiful even beneath gray sky peeking through a hole in the metal. Casey breathed in the lilacs, the roses, the lilies. A particular tree fixed in the center of the orchard bloomed with white flowers.