Violent Delights¹︎ | D.Dixon

3.03 ➸︎

╔═════════════╗
CHAPTER THREE
╚═════════════╝

➸︎

WHEN LIVING IN A WORLD more dead than alive, one since rotted to its very core, there were certain things-discoveries about who she was, about what the world had warped into in the absence of civilization-that Leona was quickly forced to come to terms with. The world was no longer good, and neither was she. Like the earth beneath her feet, Leona's hands were soaked in the blood cut from decaying flesh, and neither she nor the world she existed in could go on unscathed.

Death had a way of carving its mark upon each of its victims with rabid fervor.

The farm was destroyed months ago, back as the air was just beginning to chill with the threat of a harsh oncoming winter. From that moment until now, there was no thought more pressing than the safety of her unborn child. It plagued her every waking moment, and occasion delved into her dreams. In her head, the father of her child haunted her still, with a face so blurred that she hardly recognized him, but it was him. She would always know him, even when her mind shrouded him in fog, the haze of time drowning away all that he is and ever was.

Stepping out of the front passenger seat of the old, rusted car they'd hotwired, Leona moved slowly, hands raised in the air on either side of her head. Margot was a few feet to her left, and Lorraine stepped out from the backseat and overtook them both with a few long strides. The older woman beat both of her younger companions to the concrete path before them.

Not once daring to drop her hands, even as her injured shoulder protested, Leona took in the view before her. Lorraine hadn't told her much about where they were going, and Margot had been even less forthcoming, as if realizing only now that she was welcoming a near-total stranger into her home. A haven, if its name was to be believed. Sanctuary. The name made her uneasy. To Leona, it sounded more like a brag, a boast, than a name of one's home. She only hoped it was, instead, meant as a promise.

The Sanctuary was an old factory, gray and bleak and unassuming to outsiders. It was nearly all metal and concrete, a set of ugly boxes stacked together to create a building. The side closest to them, hiding behind the triple set of chain-link fences, had a wall of musty windows. Bullet holes littered the glass, each individual rectangular pane maybe a few feet high and a foot across, several having been patched while others seemed too high to fix.

Below, there was a small open yard of concrete, beyond two sets of gates that held together all three rows of fencing. Between the two rows closest to the outside world, both attached to the first gate, were walkers. While the fences seemed to go all the way around the large building, the front alone was filled with them, each stabbed into place by metal spikes or wooden stakes. There were a few chained to either fence, guarding every inch of space.

A bit gory, but Leona couldn't help but admire the genius in the actions. The whole building would be guarded from herds of walkers coming through, both smell and noise drowned out by their own horde of the dead. From the outside, the gates were the only way in or out without traversing through the walkers.

Beyond them was the second gate, soldiers armed with guns paused beside a large U-Haul truck as they took in Leona's companions. Another pair stood behind the first gate, rifles slung over their shoulders and hats hiding their scalps from the heat of the sun hanging high in the sky.

"Bringing back the scraps, are we?" The first man chuckled, chewing on a piece of gum as his eyes darted over the cut on Leona's face, then to the makeshift sling holding her shoulder in place, earning a sharp look from Lorraine as Leona stopped behind her. Margot stepped up beside the older woman, drawing the man's attention. "Don't be an ass, Simon. Let us in."