Authors Note:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This story is set between the conclusion of Cost of Survival and the Epilogue. While it isn't required that a person reads Cost of survival first to enjoy this story, reading it beforehand will give greater knowledge of the characters contained in this episode.
Chapter One: Ahma
The grass beneath her was wet. It hadn't rained that day; it was just the morning dew but it was enough it seemed to dampen the front of her jeans and top as she lay face down on the ground.
"There it is again," a voice to her left sounded off. CJ, or Crazy Jeff to give the man his full title.
"Shut your cake hole," hissed a second voice, this time coming from her immediate right. Lester, the new head of the group she was travelling with.
Ahma kept her own mouth closed, concentrating on the sound that had caused the entire group to drop to their faces in the long grass of the meadow they were currently crossing. It faded in and out, a constant drone. Everyone there knew what it was but so rare was it to hear one, nobody quite believed their ears.
The sound picked up, throbbing louder now. Not closer but whatever features of the landscape that had been blocking and deflecting the sound had been passed by it seemed. Louder still and there was no longer denying its existence or origin.
"I think north, yeah north of us," Dillon ventured hesitantly. Slim to the point of emaciation, the young man always carried an air of anxiety about him.
Beside Ahma, Lester rose to one knee, raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes, training them to the north, sweeping slowly across the area as he sought out the source of the sound. She ventured a quick sideways glance at him, could see the smile spreading across his face as he found what he sought.
"One motorcycle, some kind of trailer on it. Looks like he is heading to that small town up ahead. What's it called?"
"Hopeville" CJ supplied. Ahma looked away disgusted as the fat balding CJ shoved a finger up his nose, rooting around before carefully examining what he had removed, now stuck to his fingernail.
Lester stood up, signaling for the others to follow suit. He was the shortest of the three men, almost as short as Ahma herself. It was only the vicious streak that ran a mile wide through him that had been enough for him to become the unacknowledged leader. He scratched at the greying whiskers that covered his chin. All four of them were in sore need of some of the simple pleasures of life that had once been so common place. A wash, a shave, a haircut... a sandwich. The thought of food made Ahma's empty belly cramp painfully.
"Let's get going, we push hard, we can catch this guy. Take what we need from him," Lester declared. That was it, plan made. The four people began to move at a brisk speed, crossing the field, heading towards the town of Hopeville.
<<>>
After a short time, the spritely pace fell off to a walk, that dropping off further still to what could only be described as a weary shamble. They walked in line, Lester leading, CJ behind him, then Ahma with Dillon bringing up the rear.
As she trudged behind the slovenly CJ, her gaze fixed on the back of his neck where a large yellowing spot was forming, Ahma allowed her mind to wander, retreating into her memories to keep the problems of the present at bay.
At eighteen she had gotten a student visa, leaving her home in Japan to attend university in the USA. Her parents had been ambitious for her, wanting her to play a role in revitalizing Japan's station on the world's stage both economically and politically. This was why she had been studying international law and languages. Things had been good, she'd settled well, made friends and was always in the top five percent of her class. Then of course everything went to shit.
To be fair, it went to shit for the entire world, not just for her but that didn't stop her bemoaning her lost life. She had spent years preparing, study, extra lessons in English, late night cramming sessions, private tutelage. All that time, money and energy... wasted. The skills and knowledge she had at her fingertips were completely useless to her in this new world she found herself in. There was no longer a functioning society. No laws, no courts, no justice. That meant there was no call for legal students.
She had fled her college campus, the zombie infection spreading quickly through the student population. Many of the initial victims had gone to their deaths or had been turned into the undead, still thinking it was some kind of elaborate fraternity joke. The survivors, disabused of this idea, had fled, scattering from the campus into the city proper. Things had been no better there. The police and other emergency services had been overwhelmed in a matter of hours. Non existent in a matter of days. Ahma had managed to keep ahead of the zombie packs, fleeing constantly, moving further and further from the urban sprawl into the less populated rural area.
This is when she first realized how useless she was, how ill prepared her life had made her for this situation. Ahma had no clue how to forage for food, she couldn't light a fire, build a shelter. For two or three days she had blundered about, lost, hungry, cold and miserable. Then she had met Jake and Wendy, an older couple who had taken her under their wing, helping her to survive those first days.
Days passed and others joined them, fellow survivors seeking the safety of numbers. The ranks of the group grew, swelling to nearly thirty people. For a time, Ahma felt better, not good, but better now she had people to rely upon, to help her, keep her safe.
Time passed as the group travelled on. Some people sickened and died, unused to the hardships of their new life. Some left, finding the dynamics of the group or the shared foraging an issue. Others fell prey to the occasional zombie attack, either dying outright before the zombie could be slain or finished off by their former comrades who feared the wounded would turn. As some departed, some new people joined. Bit by bit, the group changed. Moving from a frightened group of survivors, led by good hearted people like Jake and Wendy, into a more vicious entity, seeking to survive in whatever way necessary, forage, robbery or murder. Those who objected died, their possessions shared between the killers. Everyone had to play a part, bring something to the group.
Some had served in the military or had at least a knowledge of weapons. There were a few who could hunt or track. Others had attributes if not skills, strength, stamina or just a willingness to support the small core of alpha's who now steered the group.
Ahma had no such skills, no talents to keep her place in the group. She was short, very short, not even five feet tall. Her slim almost skinny frame had never seen the inside of a gym, libraries being more her speed. So, her strength and stamina were no asset to the others. With nothing to offer, Ahma had sought the protection of one of the men, a burly hunter who had been pleased enough to take the pretty bespeckled Asian woman under his wing. All he had asked was for access to her body in return. Faced with the option of fending for herself or giving herself over to his lust, it had been an easy if somewhat degrading choice.
More time passed, the nature of the group leading to a high turnover in membership as squabbles now claimed lives as much as the external elements and dangers had. The hunter died; Ahma being claimed by another male within a day. He too succumbing to wounds within a week so that she became another's straight after.
Things looked set to continue in that vein when, just three days ago, their group had come on a small campsite. Food at this point was running low, tensions among the men running at an all-time high. Ahma had feared for her own safety as sex had lost its appeal among men who hungered for food above all else. Seeing the possibility of loot, there had been no planning, just a general agreement that attack was the only option. They had charged in en maase, gripping their crude weapons in their raised fists, ammunition for the few guns they had possessed long expended.
The small campsite had turned out to be larger than expected, the inhabitants more than willing to defend the little they owned with their lives. The raid quickly became a battle, nearly fifty people struggling in pairs or small groups, seeking to kill one another. Ahma's party did not come off well, one by one their most effective fighters were brought down, killed. It was the likes of Lester, CJ and Dillon, cowards for the most part, who had survived by remaining on the fringe of the battle, quick to recognize the fruitlessness of their cause, quicker still to flee.
Ahma had fled as well, her small contribution to the fight was to catch a thrown elbow on the righthand side of her jaw, sinking to her knees in agony before crawling free of the melee. Three days later a purple and yellow bruise marked where she had been struck, a dull throb of pain whenever she explored the tender spot with her fingertips. At least her glasses had remained undamaged. Black framed Matsuda's, the idea of somehow finding an optician to replace them was almost enough to make her smile.
It took an hour at their sluggish pace before they reached the outskirts of the small hamlet. Before the world turned to shit, Hopeville had been home to five hundred inhabitants, spread out between the small town and some outlying farms and small residential developments. Of the man on the motorcycle, there was no sign of him or his transport.
Lester cleared his nose, stopping up one nostril and then the other as he blew down, flicking away what shot out before rubbing the remnant on his filthy pants leg. He raised the rough wooden club her carried in one hand, filling his other hand with a short-bladed hunting knife. Copying their would-be leader, CJ and Dillon armed themselves, the first with a hatchet, the second with an axe handle that was missing a half foot of its length. Ahma pulled out the small knife she carried on her belt, the four-inch blade dulled from use but still retaining its point if not its edge.
"CJ, you and Dillon skirt to the left, check through the windows an' such as you go. Me 'n the girl will go right. You see him, don't do nuthin' stoopid like holler'n out. Jes't one of you come get me. We'll do the same. We take him four on one an' it'll go easy for us. Right?"
"Right," CJ and Dillon echoed, heading off immediately to the wrong side of the street. Lester clapped a hand in exasperation across his face, drawing it down slowly as if covering his eyes would somehow hide the moronic actions of his men. It didn't, so instead he made the best of it, heading to the left side of the street, Ahma trotting behind him, nervously wiping her palms on her clothing before gripping her knife tightly once more.
They passed a dozen houses in this manner, all boarded up or the doors and windows caved in. The building empty and silent of life. They reached a crossroads, Lester flapping a hand toward CJ and Dillon, urging them to go right, Lester leading the young Japanese woman left.
Somewhere in the jumble of houses, a dog began barking, shrill and high. All four of them froze at the sudden noise, poised between steps as they strained to identify where the barking was coming from.
It died off as suddenly as it had started and with genuine reluctance the two pairs continued on their way, Lester and Ahma following the curve of the street until CJ and Dillon were lost from view. It took them five more minutes to establish that the motorcycle and its rider were not hiding on that side of the small town, Lester and Ahma back tracking to the crossroads where they had split up with CJ and Dillon.
About halfway down the street they could see CJ's unmistakable bulk leaning against a house, his head seemingly thrust through a window or door, examining the interior of the building. Lester waited a full ten seconds for CJ to move before his patience ran out.
