Barren Crossroads

Welcome the Blank Place

Sarah looked like she needed help. Like she needed just one person that cared about her. RIck wanted to help her. Maybe he could be that person, until she found the others she was looking for. He was very still, holding his hand out. "Sarah," he called to her, and she didn't respond right away, but her face pinched in confusion, and not for the first time, he figured that probably was not her actual name.

"Sarah, it's Rick. They're dead. They're gone- they can't- they won't hurt you anymore. No one else will. Can you come with me?" he asked. After several more moments, she shook herself, her red hair catching copper in the weak sunlight. She looked at his hand like it as poisonous, but she still took it and allowed him to lift her up to her feet.

"Sorry," she muttered in à very small voice. "I can- well, I should probably go. I don't need to be causing trouble for you here. Shit's hard enough as it is."

Rick raised an eyebrow at the curse word, but didn't mention it. It sounded funny in the sweet voice she did use, and he figured whoever she was pretending to be wasn't the type of person that cursed often. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm, another flinch, but she let him steer her away from the storehouse and down the path.

They stopped again after à few moments in front of his house. It wasn't really his of course, but it was still in rather nice shape, with only à few missing panes of glass in the windows. He grabbed à couple pieces of firewood from the pile on the porch and took her inside with him. He didn't speak for à while, just let her sit down and look around while he tinkered about and started the fire. Then, he sat cross legged on the hearth in front of her, his back to the fire, and leaned back on his hands.

He watched her in silence for several minutes while the fire cast deep shadows over her scarred throat and scabbed over eye. Her green eye shown brightly as she watched him back. Rick rubbed à hand over his face. It was still early in the day and he was already exhausted, thinking of all the many things he needed to do to keep à camp running, and how very much he didn't want to do any of it.

Eventually, he said, "Tell me what you're doing here."

Sarah looked at him still, and for à long while after he'd spoken. He supposed, if he were her, that he'd be thinking of how much of the truth he could say and how much he needed to dance around. He was going to let her. She didn't seem like an especially cruel person, just one who'd done some bad things to survive, out of necessity, and then, in this new world, who hadn't?

"I'm looking for something," she started and then rolled her eyes at herself. "I'm looking for something someone told me to find. À cure. Something I can use to allow my friends, my family, to be near me again, safely."

"À cure?" Rick repeated, watching her sharp green eye assess how much he was reading into what she told him. She nodded at him. "You're sick?"

"Something like that," she said. "Anyways, the cure wouldn't necessarily be just for me. It would be for some others as well, put them back they way they were meant to be. I don't pretend to think it would fix everything, but it would certainly give a good many of the people we've got left something less to worry about.

"The problem is, the person who told me it existed and told me to find it is dead. He's the one that made it, which is fitting since he's the one that caused the problem in the first place. I have to get back to where his lab was, I have to figure out his work, and make it," she said quietly. "And I have to hope that he wasn't lying the whole time."

Rick stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Things started to make sense- the ethereal beauty, the lies, the scars, the way she seemed a lot stronger and more intelligent than her soft voice led one to believe. He knew it, and it felt like à heavy stone in his stomach, and he didn't want to say it. Sarah was à Hunter. She had to be. The way she talked, what she said, it didn't make any sense otherwise.

He wasn't going to tell her that. He was going to wait for her to reveal it herself. He'd never met a Hunter that wasn't cruel, emotionless, and violent, but he supposed, like with all things, that there had to be an exception to every rule. "And you think this cure, you think it would make things better? Make you better?" he asked. He started to ask another question about Hunters, but stopped himself. Better to save that information for later.

Sarah nodded. "I think it will give me my family back," she told him. And then, much quieter, like she hoped he wouldn't hear, "Maybe it will let them love me again."

He considered her for a while, the way her full mouth settled into the ghost of à smirk, like her natural expression was somewhat laughing and maybe à little condescending. It suited her more than the fake nice one she wore around him. "You know, when it first started, it was some funny stories on the news. Some break ins, some fires, groups of people who seemed to be incredibly strong, too strong, too fast, and impossible to fight off," he started.

"They were just stories. And then they kept coming, and then some of my friends down the street were killed. And then it started to feel methodical. They came every day, every hour, and they destroyed, and they made examples. They tortured, and killed, and broke, and took and made sure that we had nothing, that we had no technology, no food, no medicine, and nowhere to go.

"My daughter and I, we tried to get out. We did for à while. We were able to hide, and find ways around. Eventually, we found à few other people, and we made our way here. We tried to fortify, as much as we could. For maybe à month, it felt like it would work. We wouldn't have things the way they were before- the Hunters had seen to that, no running water, no light, not enough of anything. But it felt like we might be able to pull through. And then the red head started to come through on patrols. She didn't always. But she'd send groups of Hunters to take what we managed to find, and each time, each time she had one of us killed. It didn't matter who, how old or young, just someone. They said it was à warning, à reminder to all of us that it was by their mercy that most of us lived. And then she came with one day. One of her crew tried to- they tried to rape my daughter. And she shot him. Point blank, without even à minute's hesitation, and I thought- I don't know what I thought.

"She turned to my daughter, and asked if she was okay. And then she killed her. Bled her out, took our stuff, and left." Rick watched Sarah's face as he talked, and it grew more and more ashen, her breathing too fast and shallow. Her face was tight, eyes looking through him. "I always vowed I'd find her and return the favor. Maybe- somehow, I just hope that whatever it is I'm about to help you do, it might let me do that. You're the kind of person my daughter would have begged me to take in. I'll do right by you," he finished.

It was quiet for à long time. Sarah looked to be having some sort of conversation with herself, but to Rick it looked more like à battle as it played out across her face. Her jaw set tight, but her voice was still too soft and sweet. "That's very kind. I think- I can go alone. I just need à little food to keep me going. I do not want any more of your people lost or hurt."

"That's the interesting thing- we haven't seen à Hunter in weeks. Not à single one. It's like they just vanished, or something. The only real thing we have to contend with now is other groups, but I'm sure you've seen that I can be quite effective at dealing with trash," he said. Sarah flinched at his choice of words. Interesting.

"I'm not going to fight you on going. I don't think I'll win, and I'm tired. It would be nice to have someone to back me up," she said. "Just- bad things seem to follow me around. And if, well, I'll just say, when they do, and you begin to see me differently, just leave. Just come back. Don't hurt me. I promise, I'll do what I can to protect you, but I won't ever stop you if you need to turn back."

Chapter 11

All Monsters are the Same

"I'd like you to stay with me tonight," Rick said in that deep, drawling voice.

Kaelie started, her head snapping up, and her arms going to wrap around herself. "What?" she asked blankly.

"We're going to need to leave. I'll tell them it's à supply run. We can go tomorrow, but I think you'd be safer here, where I can keep an eye on you," he said. She wanted to bristle at that- his tone said he thought she was just à scared little girl, and Kaelie wasn't stupid. She could tell that Rick did not believe her, not really. She also knew that when he was confronted fully with the actual truth of what he only just half suspected, he'd be the one trying to kill her, and he wouldn't feel the same affection.