After Armageddon (Finished)

Ch 28 - Red and Maxx

When I finally awoke, my head pounded and I was still tied up, now my feet were as well. Now I was in a cage, just like the one Nina was in. With my hands behind my back, I could hardly sit up, none the less remove the gag tied on my mouth. Which, of course, still held in dry, cracking blood that made me gag.

I finally pushed myself up against one of the square wire sides of the cage. I looked around in a haze. It was very quiet, and dark. The only light being softly glowing embers of the fire pit. Next to me, in another cage, two scared faces stared at me. I tried to talk to them, but only managed a mumble through the gag.

"If I untie that thing, are you going to bite me?" The boy with shaggy black hair asked slowly. I shook my head and turned so he could undo the knot. A moment later, there were a few tugs on the gag, then the blood stained cloth fell into my lap. He then started on the rope that tied my arms together.

"Thank you, my names Lei. I promise I usually don't attack like that." I said, forcing an awkward laugh.

"I figured. There's a little girl one cage over. Before she fell asleep she told us she knew you, and that you were good." He said quietly as he finished the ties.

"Nina is really here? That's good, I'm not completely crazy yet. Is she okay? Thank you, by the way." I said going back into a panic mode. I shook the rope off my hands and stretched my aching muscles.

"Yeah, she is. She's really a sweet little thing, how did you lose her?" The first boy said almost accusingly.

"I... I told her to run if she got scared. The house we were at got attacked... I didn't think she would run unless she saw any of them but... She got scared I guess and... Well you know the rest." I held back some tears and bit my tongue to hide it.

"She passes." The second boy said. "I'm Red, this is my baby brother Maxx." He finally spoke up.

"Baby? I'm only two years younger than you!" Maxx whisper-yelled. Red shushed him and laughed a short chuckle.

"How long have you guys been here?" I asked curiously. Red looked down and poked different areas of their cadge floor and counted under his breath.

"Six hundred thirty five nightfalls." He said sighing. My eyes widened. That was before the zombies had even come around.

"Or so" Maxx added, "they've moved our cage once or twice towards the beginning so we had to start our marks over."

"But, that's impossible. Wouldn't your parents have come looking for you if you were kidnapped? I mean that's over a year before everything started happening right?" The words slipped out too soon, I instantly regretted saying anything as they looked at each other in the darkness.

"Yeah, they would have if they weren't murdered first." Maxx said angrily. He hit a wired wall with his fist, then let out a small cry of pain. Red sighed.

"I'm sorry." I said, "I-I shouldn't have said anything." I looked down at the metal bottom of the cage and began to pull at the tight rope on my feet, only making the rope tighter in some places.

"It's not your fault." Red said "They only did it because of us. We found their last camp and well, they didn't exactly like that. They tracked us down and as soon as we got home they killed our family and took us back to these cages..." There was a long moment of quiet breathing that seemed to interrupt him, "what's been going on out there?" Red asked suddenly.

"Well, corpses are up and walking around. Eating people and everything. The Super Bowl got canceled last year because some guy shut off all the power for a whole three days." I made up the last part, but it made them smile so it was worth it. "And in other news, this might be your last nightfall caged. Well here anyway, not sure what kind of trouble you two get yourselves into."

Maxx looked up quickly "What? Why?" His eyes grew large like a child's that was promised a treat.

"Because I've got some friends. Friends that won't leave you behind either." I stated finishing struggling with the rope as it fell limp. I reached into my back pocket, the stone was missing. But it successfully covered my knife.

"Sorry they took your rock," Red started, "I yelled at them and told them they shouldn't mess with a lady like that to try to help you out, but they still took it."

"It's okay, you obviously stopped them from taking the real important thing." I said flipping open my blade to show them. Red laughed, Maxx shook his head and clapped slowly. Putting it away for now, I remembered Nina's butterfly hair clip.

I reached up, relived when it was still clipped into my hair. Pulling it out of my hair, I handed it to Maxx, who was paying more attention, and asked him to put it in Nina's hair. He fumbled with it and finally clipped it into her hair on the right side. My little butterfly had her butterfly back.