Hannah tossed a gun and the radios into the nearby bushes. The other loaded gun she lifted from the guard near the door, she kept clutched in her free hand. Hiding behind the siding of a cottage to avoid her hunters, Hannah moves behind the line of houses, watching the men she knew searching for her with their lent weapons. If they found her, they'd gain favor. A prize, Russell made certain to hang over them all, that being noticed by him, in proving loyalty and servitude, meant to lead a great life in the colony.
Catching her breath for just a moment in her hiding place behind an oak tree, her brief reprieve is ruined when the radio waves jump back to life. The sound, alerting the nearest person that comes to pass on the other side of her tree. And, in turning to run, Hannah is tackled to the ground by her captor.
"No! No!" She screams as if she's being butchered, her fate curdles in the demonic shriek of her voice. It's so loud, that she doesn't hear the shushing, the calling for her name, and demanding she stay quiet.
As she's spun around and comes to realize the comforting caress to her hair, the blurred face of Ethan processes through teary eyes. She wraps around him, holding him close in relief and astounded in her luck. He was one of two friends remaining. Just Ethan and now, Dalton left behind.
"I'm getting you out of here," Ethan urges, pulling her up as Hannah tries to process what the usual shy bystander to all drama is doing.
He has his backpack stuffed, his own outfit ready for the elements out beyond the colony's walls. Hannah is in no way mentally prepared to embrace that world again. It spelled death, but not as legibly as it did here presently. Though she hated the thought of districts or even the wild, it seemed she had no choice but to escape Russel's wrath.
Giving in to Ethan's tug, Hannah embraces this sudden shift of courage from her friend. Her suspect of Ethan's allegiance to his uncle fades with his help. The crinkles of her distrust smooth with the dissection of all he risked in taking her hand.
Hannah worries now, about the sniper that might be at the top of the watchtower they climb. Did he think all this through? Did he know what he was doing? All of this was so unlike him. Ethan had never once shown to be a leader or an executor of plans, but then again, Hannah's life had never been threatened in such a way before. Perhaps, he finally found the light to step out of his uncle's stretching shadow.
Ethan says down to her from the ladder, "This sniper never showed up for his shift. The other sniper on the east tower reported you, but Russell called them all to the ground to look for you...we should be fine once we get on the other side."
"And what about the dead?!" She asks.
He doesn't respond. Her question is lost to the breeze as they make their way to the edge of the watchtower to stare down at the staggering infected that wander aimlessly around the walls.
Pulling over a rope that tied to the side of the tower, Hannah's dumbfounded by the amount of effort Ethan put in to save her. As if, he'd been planning for this moment and knew exactly what he'd do should they ever need to escape. Yet, at this moment, she had to reflect on if this scenario played out for them in regard to the takeover of the dead, or in how much he knew of his uncle's hatred for her. Had this been a long time coming?
He shakes his head against whatever he sees in those igneous eyes of hers, "You go first. Climb!"
Easier said than done when Hannah steps up and teeters on the line of the watchtower's edge. One step still leaves her as a Richmond Hill colonist. The other propels her down as nothing more than zombie food.
She holds her breath and swings mercilessly from the thick rope. Clinging, swaying to the beat of her madness as it pulsates a migraine into shooting pain behind her eyes. Descending slowly, Hannah grunts against the burn, splinters of rope embeds into her raw palms, as some of the dead begin to gather at the rope's treacherous end.
Ethan voices from above her as he too makes the descent with her to hell, "Get your gun out, Hannah! Shoot when we get closer. I've got your back!"
She stops when she manages to reach the end. The point where her fall would no longer break her back, but the dead's fingers meet the soles of her shoes promising a worse death. Though she doesn't remember shedding them, the hot water from her eyes has pooled down her cheeks, cooling as she dangles as nothing more than fresh meat on a hook.
With one hand she holds herself to the rope as she draws out her gun to point at the chomping jaws she hoped to never lay eyes on again. Closing her eyes after she's aimed, one zombie is downed as Ethan shoots at them down before she can fire.
"Go! Go!" Ethan shouts as they both hit the hard, rank bed of the slain zombies beneath them.
Exposed, out in the open and ready for every enemy in this cruel new world, each breath weighs heavier in knowing it holds higher odds for it being her last. She runs, a young woman in flight, and in the fight for her life. Her ally, alongside her, in the blurring mess of tears, they aim bullets into barren souls reaching after them in their frantic escape from Richmond Hill.
Their bullets not only alert the cannibals but those who hunted her on the other side of the high-walls. A sniper has returned to the tower they escaped. A shot rings out after them, then another. More fire out, in whatever desperate command Russell gave to take down not just Hannah, but his own nephew.
One nearly misses her, whizzing past her ear and brings her to look backward at the tower she suspected for the near-perfect shot.
Once in the woods, it's harder to gain traction from the dead pursuing them over mossy rocks and trees that block a straight path.
Though they walk in their hunt for the living pair, it takes one fall, one blunder, to give the infected the advantage. They wouldn't stop, they didn't need rest. And, unlike the dead, eventually, Hannah and Ethan would have to stop running.
Safe from Russell, Hannah finally took a moment of regret for that first trigger she pulled, which sky-rocketed her into the land of the damned.
***
Two Years Ago
A stack of coupons later, scan after scan, Hannah knows she'll be hearing that sound in her sleep again when she goes home tonight.
Digit by digit, the number decreases, and the woman with long acrylic nails bedazzled to the nine watches eagerly. The line grows longer behind her and out of this stack of scans, Hannah knows some of them aren't counting toward the total. Like many others who go this far to collect coupons, they've either expired or are doubles that can't be applied to the same item.
Rules, that she's explained over and over to people, but now, Hannah's learned to not say a thing about it. There's no argument she wishes to instigate or debate she wishes to have in front of a manager, about why the twelve out of the fifty coupons are invalid.
Announcing her total, the woman's expression contorts in confusion above the N95 mask.
Already, Hannah knows it's coming. The war that'll leave her trampled over and upset about for hours to come, leaving her to qustion every moment of her life that's lead her to this dead-end job.
"That can't be right," the woman says, "Can we scan them over again? It should be at least ten dollars lower..."
That stupid question, like a thousand others, burdened down her blinks harsher than any other part of her job. She hated people, she hated the pay, she hated scanning a novel's worth of coupons, and she hated this woman's crooked haircut that fell messily underneath the clinching of the bands of her mask.
"This is the total, ma'am. It might not have applied some coupons, since we don't accept doubles and some may even be expired. Each one was scanned," Hannah struggles to control her attitude, her annoyance, her impatience with humanity in general.
The designer bag that matched every other of her kind dropped tartly on the small counter and those acrylic nails point higher than they should in tension. She needed to get those nails redone, but like most these days, salon visits didn't happen, and the virus was taking its toll on those requiring high-maintenance.
The woman asks in a hiss, "Can I speak to your manager, Hannah?" Her name read sourly off of her tag on those overdrawn lips and sounded like a cat drowning in a sinking cardboard box. She continues, "I went through each coupon and none of them are expired..."
"I am the manager," Hannah lies as she had a thousand times before. Her shifty eyes survey down the long line now finding curiosity to the tense situation with her latest adversary.
Others seemingly feel Hannah's pain as they groan out, roll their eyes, or try to stare down the profile of the woman who had ten dollars worth of savings on her mind. Savings, that weren't valid, and she wouldn't hear no matter how many times Hannah repeated herself or showed the evidence printed on those tiny pieces of paper.
"Oh really? Why do I find that so hard to believe?" The woman replies, her chunky highlights fraying before Hannah's eyes as she continues, "If you're the manager, then I'd like to talk to someone above you."
Hannah replies flatly, "Only God is above me and I think he's a little busy dealing with those who are dying now, over coming to speak with you about coupons..."
Hannah flips off the light for her line, as she shouts down to the crowd, "Line's closed, sorry!"
Walking away, a man wearing the vest of a different color boxes her in before she can make her abrupt exit.
"What's the problem here, Hannah?" He asks, the title manager in bold red under his own name.
"This girl needs to be fired, she's extremely rude!" Designer Bag screams through her mask.
The chain of sheep in the line chime in as Manager Dave works to calm down the flock. A sheep in his own right, for playing into this bullshit system and being intimidated by the confrontation for a measly fifteen dollars an hour and no mask provided.
Why Dave always came to her defense, she didn't know. Lord knew she didn't deserve it with her behavior. In truth, she wondered what exactly it would take for her to get fired and though she needed this job and had it since High School, a part of her didn't care. The reality of it was, she'd just find another bullshit job if she needed to. Though, she had a freedom here that she probably wouldn't find most other places.
As Hannah stares at Dave, her eyes stern and vacant, she clearly did not give a shit about Priscilla Prissy Pants and her organic fruit and pre-breaded, free-range chicken, Dave shifts to the side, letting her pass.
"Thanks," Hannah dismisses, turning to look back as the commotion erupts from behind her. Their eyes shift to a subtle amber glare. A rumored new symptom of the mutated Carrion virus that she read on Twitter just yesterday had started to develop. In seeing the proof, Hannah walks on, out the electric parting doors, and notices that amber light flickering in each of the other faces she comes to pass.
Quickening her pace, she makes it to her rusted old Chevy before the coupon Queen from inside chases after her. The infected Karen is running unnaturally fast until she reaches Hannah's closed door, then begins to slam her fist into Hannah's window. An inhuman scream shrieks, setting those ocher eyes aflame as the blood absorbs into her mask, pooling, then drips out.
Hannah hurriedly starts her car and shifts it into reverse as those creepy eyes stare after her.
In the side view mirror, Hannah watches, noticing that hell is breaking loose within the supermarket and that infected coupon lady has moved on to the next bystander and begins to attack her with arms swinging.
Alarms from an ambulance blare as she drives and smoke from some giant fire begins to cloud up over her small town.
***
Present Day
Run.
It's all she could do under the starved glare of zombie eyes.
Run back. Run to those walls. Run into the arms of Russell himself if you need to, she says to herself over and over.
Ethan, somewhere behind her, couldn't be heard in the cacophony of growls and tight shrieks.
Her speed counted for nothing when the dead came from all sides. In her hurried escape from certain death, she darted into the only clearing available. The passing flutter of her long hair lures a zombie's stretching hand. Narrowly, it misses.
Her heart in her throat and her vision blurred, she doesn't stop running. She can't. To the high walls she aims her desperate direction. Between the space of sanctuary and death, Russell and the guard are armed to the hilt. Then, they begin shooting to what pursued her from behind.
Right into the arms of Russell she ends up. A far safer place to end up than in the arms of the infected.
Though he doesn't return it, she doesn't seek shelter from the man who made her skin crawl either. It became a collision of opposing forces, forced to be on the same side by means of survival and survival alone. An alliance, that ended the second she pulled that trigger on the sheriff and before that, the moment suspicion arose on the murder of her brother.
The rest of his men slaughtered the horde enough to give them retreat to the trucks in waiting. Hannah is cuffed, thrown in the back by the very man whose arms she flew into. Never, had she been so relieved to see him, to be arrested and to pay for her crimes, as long as she was away from the grips of the dead.
In spite of her saving, Hannah saw what she previously feared as he glared through the window. In Russell, she saw a different death. One, that surely waited for her at the end of the week, when the colony's trials commenced. Hers, would be the biggest in all their days. She'd pay. So would Ethan.
Ethan...
She looks. Left, right, then desperately scanning ahead for any sign of him.
There's nothing but the dead, the spray of blood across the living, and the angry glares her way.
Through a fresh set of tears she scans the bodies of the slain. Crying out in agony, she believes that the legion of dead have taken him down in his attempt to help her escape.
In her panicked scan, she sobers as she spies others through the trees watching. None belonging to the shine of the dead peer at her through the treeline. A woman, who shifts away at being spotted when their gazes meet. Another, a man, dark-skinned, towering, who eases back behind the tree with far more stealth than someone of his size should be able to pull off.
If she were on Russell's good graces, Hannah might've exposed them. She may not have recognized the woman, but she would recognize the man anywhere.
He was their first exiled and left to brace the dead with nothing but the clothes on his back.
It was Isaac.
Perhaps, Hannah thought, if she were lucky, they wouldn't get a chance to give her a trial, to verdict the same fate as Isaac. Isaac, like the rest of the military they've wronged in Richmond Hill upon their arrival, hated Russell more than she did. He was certainly more capable of exacting a revenge she couldn't even dream of.
The corner of her mouth lifts in a cocky grin and as the glares of her once friends and new enemies shoot her way, her hope remains that power would shift again.