After Armageddon (Finished)

Ch 29 - Bird Calls

The next day, before Nina awoke, they had moved her. To were? They refused to tell us. I obviously hadn't told them I knew her, they'd kill her for revenge. Of course around them I still acted like a savage. Crazed occasionally. Red assured me she would be okay, and possibly back before nightfall when I told them of the planned escape. It was much clearer in the daylight that both of then were dangerously skinny. A kind I had only seen in the sad commercials of starving orphans in Africa my mom had sponsored.

The both of them got in trouble for undoing my ties and letting me move at all. Even so, they were fed plenty of amazingly good smelling food. They ate it like they had never had food that good before, or at least in a long time, and like they were afraid it would be taken away at any second. To my dismay, the food stayed, even with a second corse when Maxx finished and asked for more.

This must be some form of torture. I thought, starring at the steaming assortment of food. I felt my mouth begin to water and quickly looked away. My stomach groaned. I slammed my clenched fist into it to shut it up. A man walking nearby laughed. I glared at him as he turned my way.

"Recognize me, little monster?" He asked angrily waving a bandaged arm. There was a pale red stain around his wrist. He began to walk closer and speak again "Your lucky I couldn't convince them to kill you on the spot. They say we need more bait if we get attacked. More trading supplies too. They thought you were perfect, of course you little-" he cut off when he tripped on a pebble that stuck out of the ground. I laughed purposely obnoxiously.

"Looks like you'd be better bait. Even if you try to get away from them they'll eat you right up when you do that." I yelled childishly, making his face turn red with anger. He yelled an assortment of curses then turned back and stormed away.

"You are lucky." Maxx said stopping eating for a moment. I looked at him, half expecting him to be laughing too. Maxx wasn't smiling. His expression was more serious then I'd seen it yet. He stared at the cadge floor like it had just challenged him.

"They've killed, and tortured people for a whole lot less than even making one of them mad." He bit into another plump animal piece violently. Honestly I had no clue what it was, but it sure seemed like they liked it.

"They think your gonna help them," Red said looking up from his food, "The way you avoided the zombies outside the gate. No one has ever gotten in without having to kill at least five. And that was a landslide past the previous record. But... You did." He took a long drink from a water canteen and sighed.

"They don't know anything about them. They've only ventured out three times since the dead started coming back. One of them was just to move the corpses from their graves to outside the walls. The other times they came back with people. A month ago it was a whole group of twenty people. Almost week ago it was just Nina."

I processed this slowly. It seemed like a fortress from how he described it. But surely it wasn't that grand. After all, we had broken in, how hard could it be to break out?

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At dusk there were two guards around my cage. I sat quietly in wait for the signal. Bursting though the silence came a sharp whistle imitating a bird call. I opened my eyes slowly to see a shadow duck behind an alleyway.

The guards looked at each other and nodded for one to go check it out. The one right in front of the door stepped up and walked blindly to the sound. I counted to ten slowly, and looked to Red and Maxx who were bracing themselves and looking around their area suspiciously.

I reached ten and jumped up to the guard between their cage and mine, pulling my blade out on the unarmored man. He stuttered and stood still as he stared at the blade that separated his life and death.

"Hand that guy the keys. Now." I commanded as Red held out his hand. Time hung up on itself as the seconds began to feel like hours. Finally, he retreated a small ring of keys from his pocket and daintily set them on Red's palm.

The other guard had been so preoccupied with finding Casey that he didn't even notice when we slid out of the cages and forced the guard into Maxx and Red's old one. I didn't want to kill anyone. Not just yet.

Red and Maxx were wobbly on their feet, and it took them a minute to be able to stand properly and walk. I pulled the long rope that had previously bound me and slung it rolled up onto my shoulder. Returning the whistle, the three of us ran down the ally way Casey had disappeared into and found him standing over a guard that had been knocked out cold.

He joined us as we not-so silently set out to find Nina.