SOUTH SPRING RIDGE

“Jack and I left Rory and traveled north toward the city of Spring Ridge. My right arm was badly burned after the terrible series of events in Rory, and I can remember the stinging and lasting grief I felt over the loss of James.

“During this grief, Jack turned female, one of the very few times ‘he’ looked like a ‘she’ and sounded like a ‘she,’ though ‘her’ voice was still so rough it was like listening to a woman choking on ash.

“I dimly remember asking her, ‘Why are you a girl now, Jack?’ and I remember her saying ‘Because you need me to be,’ and I, being so young, simply took this as fact and did not argue with such a nonsensical answer.

“I think Jack changed during this time of great hardship because I needed a motherly figure in order to deal with the pain and the grief, but considering what Jack was, ‘motherly’ was more of a mockery than a description, for even though Jack appeared to be physically female, ‘she’ was still the same old Jack, and that was of no help to me during that harsh time.

“Even so, my heart was lifted a million miles once we were outside of Spring Ridge, because it was there that we caught up with the residents of Shame and joined with them on their sojourn north.

Six of them had been picked off by the vampires in the area, two teenagers and four adults, but the rest were there and still alive and still healthy, twenty-one in all.

They were overjoyed to see me, and I was happy again for that short time, but they were not stupid…They were wary and a little scared of Jack, and that was in spite of Jack being a woman at the time. I assured them as only a child could that Jack had saved my life a number of times, and so they decided to allow us to travel with them for that time being.

Nevertheless, it was Helen who took me in and got me into a new dress and some better shoes. She treated my arm, and thankfully it had not become infected, or no amount of Jack’s protection would have saved me.

Jack was not happy with Helen’s overprotection or the woman’s reticence to allow Jack to watch me, but somehow, I think Jack knew that Helen was necessary. Jack agreed to Helen’s care for that short moment in my life, and we traveled into Spring Ridge together to look for food, water, and lodging, but thinking back upon Helen and the rest of the former citizens of Shame, I realize now that foresight is a far cry above hindsight, because I would have told them not to enter Spring Ridge. Even the wasteland and its open dangers at night would have been better than that hell.”

---

Helen looked down at the little girl who slept upon Helen’s own bedroll.

It was a miracle that little Maria had made it back to them; when they had left, they had completely forgotten about her and Old Nan. Maria had confirmed that Old Nan was dead…as were youngers Paige and Cory, one taken by vampires and the other by the wolves.

How Maria had made it this far so fast was due to that mysterious soldier she had traveled with, this “Jack” with her stoic and brutally honest attitude, but Helen did not trust her; there was something about her that was fundamentally wrong, and that feeling wasn’t just because the dark and enigmatic woman never took off that red and black combat mask of hers.

Jack simply rubbed Helen the wrong way; it was a primordial fear of the dark and everything in it that bubbled to the surface of her mind when she looked upon Jack, and that was a red flag in anyone’s book.

Nevertheless, the helpless little girl was back with them, and Helen had this “Jack” to thank for that. Maria had insisted that the woman had never touched her in a bad way or had done worse, because that was the first thing that had entered Helen’s mind when she saw them together. It was weird and discomforting to see that, this ominous and stoic soldier with this little girl, but Maria’s attitude and insistence spoke the truth for Helen; this Jack had obviously not molested her, and that was a small miracle in such a pittance of a world that was left between them all.

Helen studied the little girl for a moment but felt horrified inside about what this poor child had been forced to go through to make it to them.

Maria was only six, but she was a smart six-year-old and vigilant about her own safety. She had a precious little round face tanned from too much time in the scrubland sun, and it was framed by matted black curls that were accented by her big dark-blue eyes. She wore a decently clean orange dress in her size that Helen had found some time ago, along with a good set of only slightly-scuffed black shoes with rounded tips.

Helen still could not find panties for Maria, but those were not a requirement now that the world had been plunged into an unforgiving hell, and the little girl was not used to wearing them anyway. Still, the lack of undergarments set off Helen’s motherly instincts about this mysterious soldier “Jack”; she didn’t like the idea of Maria’s naked little bottom being observed by a stranger every time the wind blew.

People were supposed to stick together after the missiles had struck, but no structure meant no law, and no law meant the worst in humanity.

Speaking of the worst of humanity, Helen still felt guilty and angry at herself for what had happened to Paige…That girl had been worked over pretty badly by the Wilkes’ brothers and the other two, and though they had pitched those bastards out of Shame, the damage had already been done.

No one had done anything to help Paige cope with that damage, and so when the rumors of the abused teen’s inappropriate behavior with the younger girls had first surfaced, Helen just couldn’t believe it. She ignored it like everyone else, and now Paige and Cory were dead, and she had to live with that.

Everyone had thought that they had seen Paige and Cory at some point, and the pair had started off with their community on the sojourn north, but the two girls had obviously snuck away during the day, and no one had thought to check to see if they were still with them. It was little things like that which caused deaths, a simple belief that someone else was watching out for the kids, and that was something Helen now guarded against with all vigilance. She didn’t want to lose anyone else.

But Maria was back with them now. It was only justice that Helen took her in; she couldn’t leave that helpless child under the inept care of that soldier, especially since the poor child had been injured under Jack’s care. Maria had some terrible burns on her right arm, but the only thing Helen could gather from her new ward was that the little girl had received those burns when the town of Rory had burnt to the ground. Maria would not say how the fire had started or why it had started, but Helen was pretty damned sure that this soldier, “Jack,” had something to do with it.

They had avoided Rory and with good reason…It was populated by charred ones. Those walking nightmares would attack anything that came close to their territory, but they never left the area they populated. That behavior was odd to Helen; she had seen plenty of zombie films and TV programs before the nuclear hell that had come down upon them all, and not once had she seen such creatures act like the charred ones.

These things were territorial, as if they were trapped behind imaginary lines of their own making, but that kind of observance was more like magic, and Helen didn’t believe in magic. Still, there were vampires and werewolves out there, so maybe there was something to all of that superstitious stuff, anyway.

She’d delved into Wicca when she was younger, but as she had gotten older, she had abandoned all of that, religion included. She believed people made their own magic and made their own misery, so she had made her own living teaching pottery at the local community college, and she had been happy with it. Now she was in her mid-forties, and everything she had known and had believed about the world had been turned on its ear; it was all a nightmare, and it was a nightmare she had to live through each and every day.

Even so, she was determined to be optimistic and driven toward improving everyone’s lives, even if those lives were the few survivors that had once populated the poor shanties of the small encampment called Shame. Leaving Shame was metaphorical in the most important sense; it meant that the hard times were behind them and everything would be better from now on…or at least, that’s what she hoped would happen. At the present time, hope was the one thing that was more important than anything else.

Helen, herself, had been rather dumpy in weight, but she had actually lost quite a bit of that fat due to the shortage of necessary goods such as “food.” Now that the world was a ruin of humanity and monsters, things like food, clean water, and medicine were worth their weight in gold, and that was the actual reason they had all left Shame. It was time to leave that fading and dead campsite for better lands, and there was always the promise of communities that had structure and supplies and safety…Yes, there was always that.

Helen was now somewhat thin, and her time in the open sun had given her a beach-worthy tan. Her dark-brown hair curled at her shoulders, and every day she tried unsuccessfully for it to look even somewhat decent.

She still had her glasses, but not a day went by that she didn’t kick herself for not getting the laser surgery to fix her eyes before the world had vomited itself to death. She was constantly afraid her small round lenses would fracture and that she would effectively be left blind, like that poor man from that one TV show from way back when.

She had three sets of dresses, one of light-blue, one of white with red print, and this patchy and plain brown one she wore today, and they were just as valuable to her as her glasses. Her shoes were decent as well; she wore a pair of thick-soled shoes that were designed to be rugged and would last, and that latter fact was more important than she’d first realized.

There were so little supplies anywhere, so when they found necessary goods…toilet paper, soap, tampons, fishing line, camping equipment, weapons…they hoarded them. She couldn’t afford to lose the clothes she had. Unlike Maria, Helen still had a collection of panties in her size, and that was good…She preferred to wear dresses, and she did not want to flash her goods to the world if the wind picked up.

In spite of all of this musing misery, she looked down upon Maria and smiled. Maria and every other child her age were the future, and worry for the future was more important now than it had ever been. It was up to these children to rebuild everything, to root out the monsters and destroy what remained of them, to take back the world that had once belonged to humanity and solely to humanity, and to restore balance to the Earth.

Helen knew she and every other adult had a responsibility to work together toward restoration, and this nonsense of murder and theft and rape between the people that had survived?…That had to go once and for all. They all needed structure and order and discipline, but with a democratic leadership where everyone was treated equally and everyone had a say…Going any other way was like slipping backwards in human evolution.

But then there was Jack. The tall and slender woman wore dark-grey battle armor from head to toe, she was covered twenty-four-seven by that spotless black mantle/cape, her face was always hidden by that infuriating black mask with the red highlights and yellow eye lenses, and the only thing “human” about her was the long black hair that reached down to her shoulders.

Helen had not seen the woman eat or drink or sleep since she’d arrived with Maria two days ago, and she was beginning to wonder if Jack was human at all. That dark thought had crept around in her brain since early this morning, and that “what if” scenario of Jack being something else…such as a vampire…disturbed her greatly.

If Jack was one of those unholy bloodsuckers, then they all had a serious problem, because Helen had never heard of one of them walking openly in the daylight, even with full body covering. If that was the actual case, then either Jack was extremely powerful or she was something new…and both scenarios were equally bad.

Her fears only heightened as the tall woman in dark gear approached her. Jack stood at a comfortable distance of five feet, but to be honest, Helen would have preferred that she stood as far away as another state. Jack gave her a terrible feeling of insecure fear whenever she looked upon the terrible female, and that was something her rational mind was losing in its battle to explain away.

“We need to go,” said Jack in her rough voice.

Helen flinched every time this woman talked. Jack’s voice was rough, like gravel on stone, and it grated on her like nothing else.

Helen couldn’t help but scowl and shake her head no at Jack’s demand.

“We’re not leaving until tomorrow,” she said firmly. “And we’re not going anywhere until that little girl gets some rest and has some food in her belly. She’s half-starved and has those terrible burns…or did you notice?”

“Yes,” said Jack firmly.

“And you didn’t do anything to feed her or treat those burns?” asked Helen in disgust.

“I brought her here,” said Jack.

“And what if we hadn’t been here?” asked Helen. “Then what?”

“I would have taken her somewhere else,” said Jack.

Helen couldn’t stand this woman’s reservation over Maria’s health. It was negligent and stupid, and she’d rather Jack just left, but there was something about the female soldier that scared her, so she held her tongue on the matter of demanding that Jack leave.

She would always think of Jack as the female soldier, because soldiers were generally male, so for a woman to actually want to be a soldier was unsettling for her, because a soldier meant violence and bloodshed, and this was something Helen could not wrap her head around, why any woman anywhere would wish to engage in combat.

This, of course, only gave her fuel for rejection of Jack, because the woman simply did not fit into any category within Helen’s framed and simplified classification of things.

“I…I don’t think Maria should be travelling with you,” she said reluctantly.

There, she said it…but she was still intimidated by Jack’s presence. Jack, on the other hand, did not care what Helen thought, and that was a rather painful fact to have to deal with.

“She will come with me,” said Jack bluntly. “There is nothing you can do about it.”

That was not something Helen wanted to hear, but she was afraid of Jack, so she didn’t want to provoke the dark soldier, but it wasn’t right that Jack was dragging little Maria off to the ass end of who-knew-where, and that irked her more than her fear of Jack.

“You can’t continue to haul that little girl through the wastes like this,” she said bravely, albeit with a shaky voice. “You’re going to get her killed.”

“No,” said Jack firmly. “She is safe with me. She is not safe with you.”

“She’s safer with us than she would be with one person,” snorted Helen. “You came right up to us, and you didn’t even know if we were hostile or not. We don’t make mistakes like that.”

“You are not a threat,” replied Jack.

“Oh, really?” asked Helen indignantly. “And how do you know that?”

“Because I would have killed all of you by now,” said Jack.

She walked away without another word, but Helen was severely shaken by her last statement. It was not cryptic or threatening, no…She had stated it as fact, and that shook Helen.

Helen knew deep down that Jack could and would kill them all if necessary, and that it was Maria who was preventing that gruesome conclusion. She did not know why this little girl was so special to Jack, but she could not help but believe that the female soldier was taking Maria somewhere for some awful and nefarious purpose, and that did not sit well with her at all.

Jack was one to watch, and Helen would keep a close eye on the dangerous woman. If there was even the hint of trouble, she would…Actually, Helen had no idea how they would deal with her. Maybe if they asked her to leave, she would go, but…she would take Maria with her, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her. There were some rifles and pistols circulating amongst their little group, but no one had fired at another living person with them; they’d never needed to.

Of course, this pondering led to thoughts about who was left in their little group…

Helen went over a brief mental count of who was actually left within the Shame community. There was herself, Margaret, Mr. Lands, Barry, Giang, and Curtis…They were the oldest who were left. Out of the younger adults, there was Marcos, the twins, Camilla and Gabriella, Hien, Giang’s daughter, Joshua, and Blane. Then came the teens Debra, Tallia, Emery, Daeshawna, Kiaya, and Laura…and last came the children William, Niobe, Renee, and of course Maria. That made twenty-two, and that was twenty-two people whom Helen was responsible for in terms of their well-being and safety.

It was true that Mr. Lands was the oldest at seventy-nine years of age, but the elderly black man refused to let anyone help him, and he insisted that if anyone was going to be left behind, then it needed to be him. Helen was next at forty-six, and only Margaret was close to her in age at forty-one, and so the responsibility of their populace was squarely Helen’s, and she wasn’t keen on having that much responsibility.

They’d already lost Harold, Riald, Branson, Lyla, Rose, and Mr. Germuld to the vampires, and Helen had organized a short funeral service for each of them. That had been a dark and terrible thing to go through, but now Old Nan, Paige, and Cory were confirmed dead, and Helen would have to organize a funeral for those three as well.

Margaret was crippled over the death of Cory, and though the girl wasn’t even her relation, she had treated the young teen like her own anyway. Actually, organizing that funeral wasn’t going to bring those girls or Old Nan back, but Helen felt it necessary to honor them. They deserved that much, and Margaret needed some closure for Cory. Helen couldn’t think of anything else to do for her.

But her mind was spirited back toward the present.

She watched in wary silence as Jack walked to the edge of their makeshift encampment and stared out across the green-swept fields outside of Spring Ridge. The sun was going down in the distance, and once that happened, everyone would retire for the night in their makeshift shanties.

It was amazing what one could build in a short period of time…especially when their lives depended upon it. They had taken old sail-cloth with them, as well as rope, wooden poles, and other such materials for erecting their temporary homes. They were true nomads now, just like the ancient peoples of the past, but Helen did not look at it as a regression so much as a testimony to the strength of the human spirit and its need to thrive and survive.

But then there was Jack. The dark soldier did not fit in within their little community, did not fit in within their scheme of things, and this bothered Helen. She did not like that woman, did not trust that woman, and honestly did not want that woman around, and that was even if Jack was a human being…and not something…else. They couldn’t force Jack away, and if they couldn’t do that, then Jack needed to have some other use. If the enigmatic soldier was really so dangerous, and Helen suspected she was, then Jack could serve as a temporary guardian until she left…Helen hoped…without Maria.

They were safe here now that they had set up camp; the vampires could not enter without an invitation. It was the wolves that Helen was afraid of…and with good reason. The community of Shame had lived for two years in peaceful existence until the presence of the wolves had driven them to move northward. Those terrible creatures had migrated up from Mexico, and even the vampires would not mess with those foul beasts. Fire was the only thing that kept them at bay, and they were abhorrently difficult to kill by any sense of the word.

Fortunately, Maria had already mentioned that Jack had killed one of them, so Helen figured that she could elect the stoic woman to watch for the night. Jack never seemed to sleep anyway.

She made that decision in her mind as she marched up to Jack. The female soldier did not look in her direction, but Helen knew somehow that Jack was aware of her and everything else in the area. She did not really understand how the woman in grey and black could see or hear through that heavy battle mask, but if her suspicions about Jack were correct, then the answer was pretty obvious…Jack could simply see in the dark.

“Jack, we—” she said firmly, but Jack cut her short.

“There’s a full moon tonight,” interrupted Jack.

That bit of information was not good, and it did not sit well with Helen. She honestly did not know how to respond to it.

“Uhhh…” she stalled out.

“I will keep watch,” said Jack. “That is what you want, anyway.”

This was true, but Helen had no idea how she knew that. Helen had a sudden and quick flash of fear that maybe Jack could read minds, but that fear left her in light of what little information she had on the woman. If Jack could read minds, then the dangerous stranger would know she was not wanted, but she did not act like it.

Even so, Jack did seem to know that the former members of Shame were not hostile before she had come upon their little community, and Helen did not like the implications of that.

“Can you read minds, Jack?” she asked forthrightly.

Helen had no idea why she had asked such a question, but there it was, and there it would be until the dangerous woman answered it. Jack, however, did not hesitate in her reply.

“No,” she said firmly. “I can see fear…and you are afraid. It is all over you.”

What was strange about her statement was that she had said she could see fear. She hadn’t said she could sense it; she had said she could see it.

That bothered Helen a lot. Still, she would not let this woman get the better of her.

“As long as you understand we all have a role here,” she said firmly.

But her firm attitude was an illusion; Helen was secretly terrified of this woman and what she could possibly do. Maria would not talk about Jack; the only thing the girl would say in description of her was that she was really, really strong…and that was it. Helen did not know what that meant.

Helen did not move from her spot to the left and behind Jack; she wanted to watch the sun go down. As bad as the world had become, as bad as things had been made by mankind’s stupidity, there was still something beautiful about watching the sun set in the distance. It was haunting in a way, that great orb of light and the mysterious protection it granted them during the day, but it was beautiful and serene at the same time.

The sun spit forth its last rays of light and then sank beneath the horizon. Helen felt a quick breath of fear run through her; it was always that way when nightfall hit. In the beginning and right after the missiles had hit, none of them had been prepared for what had happened next.

Helen had cried a lot back then, crying for the loss of everything she had known, and she had fully expected to die from radiation sickness, dehydration, and starvation, but none of that had happened. She had awakened day after day to the same living nightmare of scrounging for survival, and that had eventually worn into routine, and that was where she was now.

There was no electricity, no cars, no internet, no anything, and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be…But then the vampires had come, and then other things, worse things, and suddenly what had been the soothing comfort of night had turned into hell, and no one had been ready for that.

Many of them had been lost to the vampires in the beginning, but those bloodsucking devils were actually the lowest on the totem pole when it came to the horrors that had crawled out of whatever deep and dark hole they had originated from.

There were things out there that Helen could not even begin to describe…and the things she could describe were still terrifying in their own right. She had seen a clockwork dragon rip apart a convenience store, she had witnessed a jet-black mannequin in a magician’s hat and suit set fire to someone with the wave of a plastic wand, and she had hidden as a swarm of rat-sized maggots with fly’s wings had descended upon a field of cattle. These things were unbelievable and surreal in real life, and yet they were in her real life, and that didn’t make any sense at all.

Nevertheless, she refused to give in to her fear now. She steeled herself and turned to walk away, but a loud and pitched metallic howl broke the silence of night over the distance of green and shadow. It froze her in her tracks, because she knew that sound, and she knew what it brought.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed as she turned to look into the open expanse of black that was south of Spring Ridge.

She walked up beside Jack as the other members of the community fearfully left their shanties to stand in a huddled mass of quivering fear…The wolves were back.

“I thought we were ahead of them!” said one of the younger women—Gabriella, Helen figured, but it was hard to tell.

Everyone began babbling at once in panic and frustration, but one line from Jack’s rough voice caught Helen’s attention over everything else that was said.

“She will not enter,” said the tall woman in grey and black.

“What?” asked Helen in surprise.

Jack was speaking of the wolf, but it was the fact that Jack had given it a distinct female gender that disturbed Helen. It was as if Jack knew who that wolf was and how it would behave.

Helen fixed her attention squarely upon the dark soldier and steeled her own courage to ask what needed to be asked.

“She?” she asked fearfully. “She, Jack? What do you mean she will not enter?”

Helen felt a gentle tugging at her left arm, and she looked down to see little Maria’s big blue eyes staring up at her, those twin sapphire orbs illuminated by the light of the full moon. That loud, pitched metallic howl rang out again, and Maria stared off into the distance of its direction.

“It’s Cory,” she said quietly.

Helen could barely hear her over the panicked discussions going on about the camp, but what she had heard hadn’t made any sense.

“Cory?” she asked fearfully. “What do you mean ‘It’s Cory,’ Maria?”

“The girl who was bitten,” said Jack in her gravel-like voice. “She did not die.”

Helen felt a deep stab in her heart. She knew exactly what that meant, and that old guilt struck her again, and hard.

“She’s looking for Paige,” said Maria quietly.

“What?” asked Helen in disbelief. “Paige is dead…”

“No, she is not,” said Jack firmly. “She is not alive, but she is not dead. She is with the vampires now.”

“What do you mea…” began Helen, but her voice trailed off, because she already knew the answer to her own question.

She felt the blood leave her face as she finally put the pieces together…It was a terrible tragedy when she had thought the two young teens had simply died, but this…this was far, far worse.

That terrible howl rang out again, but Jack stood firmly in her position of watch with her arms crossed as if in stoic defiance. Whatever it was that she knew, it was something she had learned through experience, and Helen had to count on that experience for protection…It was all the community had in the way of defense.

“What do you know about—” Helen started to say, but she was interrupted yet again.

Maria cried out in surprise as she was jerked backwards by a rough hand. Jack turned immediately, as did Helen, but Maria’s cry of surprise was not from a creature or hostile force, but from Margaret.

Margaret had owned a permanent and haggard look after the loss of Cory; her tanned face looked weathered and worn, and it was clear that new grey hairs had appeared upon her faded, auburn hair. The wind picked up and blew around her dirty white dress with blue flower print as she knelt before little Maria, and the piteous look upon her tired face raised an alarm within Helen’s sensibilities.

Margaret shook Maria in a heart-stricken panic.

“Is that Cory, Maria?” she asked in a panic. “Is that true! Answer me!”

Jack stepped toward her and planted one black-booted foot in the grass beside Margaret.

“Release her,” said Jack in her rough voice. “Now.”

“Is that Cory!” cried Margaret as she looked up at Jack.

Helen did not like where this was going, so she decided to intervene, though she would come to regret this action, and in the worst way.

“Cory is gone, Margaret!” she said fearfully. “She’s not Cory anymo—”

Margaret did not let her finish her heartfelt statement. The middle-aged woman stood, pushed Helen away, and then bolted out into the open stretch of grass and road and dead cars without looking back, and no one had been prepared for that action, so no one had stopped her.

“Cory!” screeched the older woman. “CORY!”

Helen took a step forward without thinking about what she was doing, but Jack’s powerful grip clamped firmly upon her right shoulder and prevented her from moving.

She watched in complete helplessness as Margaret ran out into that open stretch of night. Margaret did not slow her pace even as the others of the community shouted for the distraught woman to return, but no one ran out after her, and Helen knew they wouldn’t.

Their shouts and warnings were for naught. Margaret was cut down by the creature, that wolf that was the size of a black bear. She was cut down so quickly that no scream or cry of pain was uttered, and the only sounds of shrieking came from the community members the distraught woman had left behind.

Margaret’s head had popped loose from her neck from the first bite, so at least the poor woman had not felt any pain.

Helen choked out a cry as she watched her good friend fall, and she let her tears flow as she watched the beast tear into her, eat her like a dog would devour a wild rabbit. It was something she would have only seen on a film or show in the past, but now that it was a reality, it was horrible to watch and experience firsthand.

Helen wiped her eyes as she looked down at little Maria, but the small girl’s face was not grief-stricken or angry. There was simply nothing there. That look on the little girl’s small round face, that look of acceptance…That bothered Helen almost as much as losing her friend.

“It’s over,” said Jack roughly. “She will disappear now. She has her kill.”

Helen quietly sobbed as she dragged Maria back to their shanty. Living in Shame had been terrible, true, but leaving Shame was proving to be even more terrible, and now she regretted it with a deep and pulling anguish of both heart and spirit.

*****

Helen diligently worked in packing up what she could. The community had taken all morning to disassemble the shanties and stow all of their necessary gear, and the noon sun would soon be up and upon them all. Traveling at night was impossible for obvious reasons, and journeying into Spring Ridge was going to be dangerous even during the day. Traveling across open scrub and grass was actually safer than attempting such a journey through dense housing; enemies were much easier to spot and avoid when the community was out in the open.

But it was little Maria Helen was worried about. She needed to have a discussion with the little girl and right away. Maria’s reaction to Margaret’s untimely demise was disturbing and a serious red flag…Helen really hoped Maria was not a burgeoning psychopath, and if she was, it was best to find out now rather than find out later.

Helen knelt before Maria and gripped her by the shoulders, and the little girl looked surprised at her sudden and invasive attention.

“Maria, honey,” she said cautiously, “about last night…”

“Yes?” asked Maria.

Her little round face looked worried, but Helen was not sure if that was over last night’s memory or simply because an adult was questioning her. She really hoped Maria understood what she was about to say.

“Maria,” she sighed. “You do understand…You do understand that Margaret is dead? Do you understand what that means?”

Maria’s face paled, and she said nothing for a moment, but then she nodded in response to that weighted question.

“She’s gone, honey,” said Helen gently. “She’s not coming back. Doesn’t that make you sad?”

“Y…yes,” stammered Maria, but her face did not change in expression.

“When people die,” said Helen softly, “they don’t come back. Do you understand?”

Maria’s face twisted into a look of pure grief, and she jerked away from Helen with an angry push.

“I know what it means!” she screeched.

Helen had to grab her and hold onto her as the child struggled to get away. She pulled the little girl in close for a tight hug as Maria broke down into quiet sobs. She stroked the back of the poor thing’s matted black curls as the little girl cried into her arms. Helen was secretly relieved, however, because her fears of Maria’s mental state had been unfounded and unwarranted.

Of course, that didn’t mean much to Jack.

The tall and slender woman in full combat armor appeared so much as walked up to them, and she shone her unassuming if not dauntless gaze down at them in what Helen could only imagine was displeasure.

“What is this?” asked Jack in that horrible voice of hers.

“She’s upset because Margaret…passed away,” said Helen unhappily. “She has grief…unlike some people.”

“I know,” replied Jack, “and she’ll grieve when you die, too.”

Jack walked away without another word, but Helen was severely shaken at the woman’s comment. She did not know if that was a threat or a prediction or what, but she did not like Jack’s flat tone or the flat certainty within that statement, and this bothered her…a lot.

She let go of Maria and wiped the girl’s cheeks with a motherly hand. She took in a deep breath to calm herself before asking Maria yet another equally important question.

“Maria?” she whispered. “Is Jack going to hurt us?”

Maria wiped her big dark-blue eyes and shook her head no. Helen was not entirely convinced by that answer, so she delved deeper into that subject, a subject which had severe ramifications if it was not thoroughly explored and with urgent haste.

“Has Jack killed anyone, sweetie?” she breathed.

“She’s killed lots of things,” said Maria quietly. She’s killed lots of things when she was a boy.”

“Things?” asked Helen. “Do you mean monsters?…And when she was a boy? What do you mean by that?”

“He…He killed the big dog that bit Cory,” said Maria hesitantly. “He killed those ugly things with the red skin in Rory, and then he killed the big spider ladies that killed James…”

The little girl clammed up at that confession and said nothing more. Helen did not know who James was, but she wanted to know.

“Wait…Who is James?” she asked. “And what do you mean ‘When she was a boy?’”

Maria shook her head no.

“Did Jack kill James?” asked Helen.

Maria’s lips turned down into a scowl as she shook her head no.

“No,” she said angrily. “The big spider ladies killed James. I told you that already.”

“The spider ladies?” asked Helen. “Jack killed other…other women? You’re not making any sense, Maria.”

Maria shook her head no as her little face twisted in frustration.

“No,” she said firmly. “Those ladies were monsters that looked like ladies. The big one tried to eat me!”

“What?” asked Helen.

She wasn’t sure if she had heard right.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Did Jack tell you that these ladies were monsters?”

“No!” said Maria angrily. “No! That big spider lady was a monster! She tried to eat me!”

Helen took a deep breath and studied her new ward. The poor thing believed in her own story, so there had to be some truth to it, but that did not make Jack any less dangerous. Helen did not trust that woman, and Jack’s veiled threats were quickly wearing thin on her patience. She really wanted the female soldier to leave…

Plus, was Jack a man or a woman?

“Maria, honey, is Jack a man…uhhh…a boy or a girl?”

“Jack can be either,” said Maria. “Jack changed because of me, and she told me she’ll change back when I’m ready.”

“That…doesn’t make any sense, honey,” said Helen.

She thought about the big trans-movement from years past, but she knew with one-thousand-percent certainty that Jack was, in fact, a biological woman—she knew it in her soul—so unless Jack had simply been pretending to be a man before, then…

No, Maria was as honest as a child could be, so…

No human being could just suddenly change sexes; people weren’t amphibians, so either Jack had told Maria she was male before, or Jack could, in fact, change sexes on a whim, which, if that was the case, meant…Jack wasn’t human.

Of course, Helen did not wish to believe that, mainly for her own sanity, but regardless of that, Jack was…someone or something she did not wish to deal with.

“Maybe Jack should just leave, sweetie,” said Helen gently.

Maria scowled and shook her head no, and her little voice was filled with anger and frustration.

“Jack is the only one who can protect me!” she cried. “You can’t make Jack go! I won’t let you!”

Helen sighed and stood up. She motioned toward one of her packs and slowly nodded.

“Why don’t you grab that little pack,” she said gently. “We’re leaving soon, and…and I’ll go talk to Jack and see what she wants to do.”

Maria stepped back, but the little girl still looked angry and frustrated.

“Jack won’t go,” she said firmly. “You can’t make her go, either. She won’t go. She wouldn’t go when she was a boy, and she won’t go now that she’s a girl.”

The little girl was still pushing that sex-swapping story, but Maria was clearly distraught, so there was no reason to push back.

“Just grab the gear, Maria,” said Helen unhappily.

She shook her head in frustration as she walked toward the tall and slender woman in grey and black combat armor. She got that chill again, it braced right down to her bones, and that was something she was never going to get used to. This woman was something other than normal, and she needed to know what, and she needed to know what her intentions were.

She stood behind Jack a few feet as the female soldier peered south toward the grass fields and dead cars in the distance. She wanted to ask Jack some important questions, but for some reason she could not work up the courage to do so. It was like being held hostage in her own home; even with the community backing her, she was afraid to speak her mind with the dangerous woman.

“I am not leaving,” said Jack firmly. “I would not leave before, and I will not leave now…And I look like this now because Maria needs me to be this way.”

She was not facing Helen, but Helen knew somehow that Jack could sense her presence. She was frightened of Jack, but she wasn’t stupid.

“What are you, Jack?” she asked nervously. “If you can change sexes at will, then you’re not human, and if you’re not human, then you’re one of them…Are you going to kill us?”

“You are irrelevant,” said Jack without turning around. “And I am not one of them. I am something different, and I am not something you want to understand.”

On that, Helen could agree with a whole and firm heart. She did not know what Jack was or what the dark soldier was about, but if Jack considered Helen irrelevant, then perhaps the woman was not going to hurt her or anyone else…maybe.

“You said I was irrelevant,” said Helen nervously. “But that’s not an answer, Jack. Are you going to kill us?”

Jack gave her answer without altering her forward gaze; she did not so much as twitch in Helen’s direction.

“If you endanger Maria,” said Jack in her gravel-like voice, “I will slaughter you all.”

“W…Why?” stammered Helen. “Our lives are just as valuable as Maria’s.”

“No, they are not,” said Jack roughly. “Your time is over, this world is a lie, and I have a duty to perform. Do not get in my way, do not ask any more questions, and if Maria is threatened, then you will offer your life for hers…or I will torture you before I kill you. You will die screaming. That is all you need to know.”

Helen walked away trembling. There was no doubt in her mind that everything that woman had just said was something they both believed in with one-thousand-percent certainty.

*****

They traveled into South Spring Ridge, but it was mainly abandoned houses, some pristine, some ruined, but all abandoned. There were no charred ones, no signs of ragged and strung-out survivors…There was just…nothing. There were no animals, no birds chirping…not even the sound of a buzzing fly.

Helen was understandably disturbed by this, and she could tell the others were as well. The community had set out with their usual gusto, but walking down the empty and silent streets put them all on edge and on constant alert.

They followed Jack and Maria; the terrifying and enigmatic woman in grey armor carried the little girl in her arms as if she were a prize, and perhaps she was…Helen didn’t know and didn’t want to. No one got too close to the pair, except for Helen, but that was only because Maria was her responsibility…at least, that’s what she told herself.

They walked for some time through the outskirts and into the business district of Spring Ridge. Helen could tell that this area was what used to be the oldest or earliest part of the city but was now a not so much rundown but rather forgotten piece of history. It was, of course, now completely forgotten. There was no sign of life within it, either, and this made Helen more than nervous.

She took out her pocket watch and checked the time. If it was one thing she was grateful for within this wrecked and withered world, she was glad she had kept her grandfather’s timepiece. It did not run on batteries, because electricity, fuel, and even people were in short supply these days…That, and she knew how to repair it if it ever broke.

It would take them three hours to set up camp, and it was already past three-thirty in the afternoon. Darkness would be upon them by seven-thirty, so their window of opportunity was rapidly fading. She didn’t really want to, but she gave the signal to stop and called out to Jack to cease the woman’s relentless marching. She would have preferred it if Jack had kept going without Maria, but it was Maria she was concerned for, and not…whatever it was that Jack was.

The community gathered round to form a circle of sweaty brows and exhausted tempers.

“This is as good a place as any!” called out Helen.

It was Mr. Lands who shot forth the only protest to this decision. The elderly black man adjusted his straw hat and ambled up to Helen without batting an eye.

“Why are we setting up outside?” he asked in irritation.

He gave a motion with his leathery right hand toward the buildings on the left side of the street.

“We can get inside and out of the heat,” he said firmly.

“We should remain outside,” said Helen just as firmly. “It’s too quiet around here, and that’s…not good.”

“Too quiet?” asked Mr. Lands in confusion. “Why in the hell is that a problem?”

“She’s right,” said Jack in her gruff voice.

The tall and slender woman in combat armor walked up to them and set Maria down on the hot asphalt beneath them. Helen did not like Jack’s intrusion upon her business, but if Jack really was as dangerous as she believed her to be, then Jack might have intimate knowledge of the local dangers Helen simply did not possess.

“Do you know this place, Jack?” asked Helen nervously.

“No,” said Jack slowly, “but there is something wrong here.”

Helen did not like the sound of that. If Jack was wary of someplace…then it had to be bad.

“Maybe we should continue on,” said Helen quietly.

“What!” asked Mr. Lands unhappily. “No doing that, young lady. We need time to set up. Once night comes, we won’t have any protection at all if we’re still hanging our knickers out to dry…No. We should set up here.”

“We’ll need a fire,” said Jack.

“In this heat?” asked Mr. Lands. “Are you crazy?”

Jack fixed her expressionless mask upon the old man.

“Do you want to be eaten by a wolf?” she asked in what Helen could only assume was condescending for her.

“Hmmm,” said Mr. Lands thoughtfully. “Good point. I guess we’ll have to send people into those buildings to look for wood and tinder.”

“I’ll go,” said Jack roughly.

She turned that expressionless mask upon Helen and motioned toward Maria.

“You watch her,” she commanded.

Helen hated it when Jack ordered her around, but the female soldier was right. Still, Helen did not entirely trust Jack’s judgement, and furthermore, she wanted to study Jack’s scouting ability.

Helen came to a decision right then, and she hoped deep down that it was a decision she would not come to regret.

“Maria can stay with Giang and Hien,” she said in a brave voice.

She was determined to show this woman that she was not afraid of her, that Jack could not “see” her fear, and that Jack was nothing more than a woman like any other.

Helen pointed back toward the community members and motioned for Marcos and Blane to join them.

“Marcos, Blane, and I will go with you,” she said firmly. “You’ll need more than just yourself to get enough combustibles out here in time.”

Jack looked down at Maria but said nothing. She walked off toward a large red-brick building on the left side of the street without even looking back, and Helen swore under her breath at this action; Jack was nothing but infuriating to her, and the soldier had no business being among them.

Marcos and Blane joined her without anything in the way of question.

Ever since the loss of their former leader, Mr. Germuld, Helen had acted as an unofficial leader, and that was mainly due to her age. Aside from Mr. Lands, she was now the oldest, and the rest of the little community that had been Shame looked up to her for that very reason.

It was a responsibility she didn’t really want, but it was hers now anyway, and Jack was clearly undermining that authority. If Jack really had killed a number of things, however, then she was still a necessity for the community’s survival, because those things were still the biggest threat to everyone’s safety, and that meant they now had a weapon against that threat, even if that weapon was infuriating to Helen’s own sensibilities.

She followed behind Jack with Marcos and Blane in tow.

Both boys were in their mid-to-late twenties, though Marcos was older than Blane by a couple of years. Marcos was squat and muscular with a browner skin than most Latinos, but Blane was the poster child for what would have passed for “The Frat Boy” back in the day, tall and handsome with blonde curls in his short hair.

Marcos was the only surviving member of the Garcia family, that family wiped out by vampires and disease within the early days of Shame, but Blane had always been alone, though he now lived with Joshua, who was also an “orphan,” so to speak.

She had chosen them to come with her because they were the best for this sort of task. The community members had certain tasks that each of them performed, and these two were used to such duties.

Back in the early days of Shame, the community had been much larger, and they would organize large parties to go into the neighboring coastal city of Galvin to look for food and supplies, but over the course of two long years, such expeditions had become nightmarishly dangerous, and their once bustling community had been whittled down to what they were today.

Helen had been on more than one of those runs, and she was all too familiar with what they had been like. Their people had been woefully unprepared for the horrors that had awaited them back then, and this was why they were overly cautious now.

They could have stopped their northern sojourn at the little oasis named Part, but there was something wrong about an inviting little town out in the middle of nowhere, so no one had even considered it as an option. That caution was what kept them alive.

It bothered her tremendously that they had already lost so many people on their exodus north. She had known those victims for two long years now, and to know they were gone forever…It was a bitter pill to swallow. With Paige, Cory, Margaret, and Old Nan gone, that meant a total of ten of them had been taken, ten out of a total of thirty-two, almost one third of their little community. Helen was determined not to lose anyone else.

“I want you boys to stay behind Jack,” she said without turning to look at the two following her. “No heroics. If anything feels wrong, if you feel the hair standing up on the back of your neck, then you bark a warning and run.”

In truth, Jack, herself, was enough to raise the hairs on the back of Helen’s own neck, but she did not reiterate this fact.

“What are we looking for?” asked Blane from behind her. “Anything at all that will burn, or just, like, the rotted stuff? Do we want to keep good furniture intact, or…?”

“We’re not staying here,” said Helen. “It’s not safe. We need to find a community that has numbers, walls, and guns. One that isn’t suspicious…like that little town we passed in the desert.”

She stopped talking because Jack had reached the large, weathered, white wooden door set in the side of the three-story red-brick building before them. This place had an old wooden sign with a rocking chair on it; it read “Bartleby’s,” so it had been a store of some sort, and that was a good start.

Jack turned the handle of the door, but it did not budge. It was clearly locked, but this did not dissuade her in the slightest. She pushed against the door, and the big swinging slab of painted wood broke through the frame and swung open with ease.

This action gave Helen a slight jump in fear, because Maria’s description of Jack being really strong was not a description so much as it was a warning. She did not know how many pounds per square inch it took to bust a doorframe, but it was a good bet that no one in Shame had the strength to do it. Nevertheless, they were about to go in this abandoned building now, and they had to be on guard.

“Let’s stay close together,” said Helen quietly. “No one separate, okay? Just think about all of those movies where the college kids split up and then get picked off one by one. Let’s not do anything stupid like that.”

“No argument there,” snorted Blane.

The three of them followed Jack into the building, but they did not get far. Jack held out her right arm as if to hold them back, and with good reason…There was no floor five feet in.

The floor of this building had caved into yawning darkness below, and where that darkness went, Helen did not know, but it was a safe bet that it was nowhere good. The pit before them spanned the entire entry room of this place…They couldn’t even reach the stairs from here. They were cut off from grabbing any kind of wood or tinder anyway.

“This place is no good…” said Jack, but then she stopped talking as she cocked his head to one side.

It was as if she had heard something, but whatever it was she had heard, Helen did not hear anything, and this disturbed her.

“What is it?” she asked nervously. “What do you he…Oh…”

Her sentence was cut short by the smell that permeated the place. It seeped into her like black mold, a rotting, dead smell that was slightly damp in its invasiveness.

She was not the only one who noticed it.

“What is that smell?” asked Marcos in notable disgust.

“Nothing good,” said Jack in his guttural voice.

There was a strange rustling noise a second later, a fluttering of sound, and Helen covered her mouth as she strained to locate the source. She covered her mouth due to the awful stench that permeated this building, but that did not prevent her from speaking.

“What is that sound?” she asked in a muffled voice.

Jack had clearly heard it before she had, and this had to have been what had set the female soldier on edge. Helen strained to listen for it as it grew louder, because it sounded like…

“Out now,” ordered Jack, but that order was stated rather than shouted, which is the very reason Helen stood there for a second without moving.

A swarm of large black bugs came up from the pit, roaring upward on tiny fluttering wings, and the four of them were engulfed a second later. Helen panicked as she swatted the menacing insects off of her, feeling the painful nips and bites on her arms and bare legs. She backed out of the darkness of the abandoned building and followed Blane and Marcos out into the sunlit street. She brushed the bugs off of her before they could take large chunks of her skin with them, and in the light of day she could tell exactly what it was she was dealing with.

They were cockroaches, each the size of a fifty-cent piece.

She freaked at the sight of them. It was one thing to deal with wasps or bees or even hornets, but roaches…roaches were another story altogether.

She shrieked as she swatted them off and crushed as many as she could beneath the soles of her shoes. The foul little insects flew off as she batted them away, but that did not relieve the sheer panic and revulsion she held at that moment.

“Get them off! Get them off!” she cried, though her request meant little, for she had already chased off and/or crushed the majority of them.

Helen looked over to the boys and saw that they were busy clearing themselves of any bugs as well. A quick look toward the building showed her Jack stepping out, untouched, unmolested at all, and this just added more to her silent fear of the dark woman, for even the roaches would not touch her.

Helen was not thinking straight as she spoke to Jack; she was still in a panic, though that pandemonium of thought and action was rapidly leaving her, as it was not constructive in the slightest.

“They bit me!” she said in a strained rush. “They bit me!”

“You’re still alive,” said Jack in her monotone grunt. “If you had fallen in, they would have eaten you.”

“R…Roaches don’t eat people!” choked out Helen.

“Tell that to them,” replied Jack.

For once, Helen had nothing to say to the female soldier. She had bites on her arms and legs, and she did not know if they would get infected or not, especially since these particular insectile assailants were in the solid league of “disgusting,” and/or “diseased.” She had not heard of anything like this before, but then again, she had not heard of many of the things that wandered the world now, so this encounter should not have been a surprise. Even so, she had to will herself to be calm just to function in a sensible manner.

Jack did not say anything else but walked off toward the adjacent building.

The roaches had not followed them outside, so Helen could only surmise that they did not like daylight. It occurred to her that perhaps they were afraid of Jack, but that notion was crossing a line she did not wish to cross, as it implied some very dark ideas she did not wish to mentally toy with.

Still, Jack’s singular purpose of mind was frustrating at times, and this was one of those times. They needed a moment to recoup, to get themselves back into a proper mental and physical state, but Jack ignored their need and just went right back to searching. It really was infuriating, and this time Helen decided to call her out on it.

“Jack, wait!” Helen called out.

Jack stopped to turn and look at her, that faceless mask of hers a warning of something darker beneath it, but Helen did not care this time. They needed a moment to sort this out, and Jack was offering no respite.

“We need to search elsewhere!” hissed Helen in clear frustration.

“You don’t have time,” said Jack matter-of-factly. “They won’t hunt during the day. Once night falls, they will descend, and you will be eaten.”

It was the way she had said “you don’t have time” that really cut into Helen. Jack had not said “we don’t have time,” but instead had used the “you,” which implied that she was in no real danger of being eaten. Still, Jack’s point was valid, and that meant all of them were in danger, including little Maria, and that was something Jack could not ignore.

“Fine,” breathed out Helen. “Then we’ll just keep moving. We need to get across town and out of this area. Stopping and building a fire was a good idea, but not…not after this. It’s too dangerous to stay here, and that means all of us are at risk, including Maria. We need to leave, Jack, and we need to leave now.”

“So be it,” grunted Jack.

Helen did not approve of Jack’s attitude, but the dark soldier was not arguing with her, so that was good enough for the time being.

*****

Helen breathed out a sigh of relief as she rolled out her bedroll in her makeshift shelter. Their little company had traveled through most of South Spring Ridge, and now they were in a residential area, and within another couple of days they would be in downtown Spring Ridge.

They were slow due to the fact that they had picked up supplies from abandoned buildings along the way, but it was amazing in itself how much people had left behind, so the community could not let that bounty go to waste.

It occurred to Helen that perhaps people had simply disappeared, vanished into thin air when the world had collapsed, but that thought was a dark one, and she did not like to dwell on dark thoughts.

Convincing the community to leave the area they had previously wanted to stay in was not difficult. The attack by the swarm of killer cockroaches set everyone to moving at once, and there were no complaints over the matter. No one wanted to so much as see a roach, much less be eaten by a swarm of them.

They camped in the street, in a cul-de-sac actually, because sleeping in any abandoned buildings was too risky while on the move. It was true that squatting in a home meant some comfort and protection that being in the street did not offer, but that meant their community was separated, and a separated group was easy pickings.

She looked down at little Maria who was happily enjoying a can of peaches. Maria’s little cherub face had lit up like fireworks when Helen had handed that can to her. It was a rare thing to find a sweet treat like that, but the nearby houses were loaded with goods, so everyone took as much as they could find.

Still, the fact that there were goods at all was disturbing in itself. By all rights, the city should have been bustling with charred ones due to the lack of people here, but there was…nothing…and that bothered Helen. It bothered her a lot. It bothered everyone else, too, because the implications were that there was something worse than charred ones here, and that was not a happy thought.

Her fears, of course, were founded a moment later, because there were shouts of panic from outside.

Helen shot Maria’s surprised little face with a bark of warning before stepping outside to assess what was wrong.

“Stay here!” warned the older woman as she closed the sail-cloth flap behind her.

They were back. There were roaches buzzing about in the air, though not as many as Helen had first feared. Nevertheless, how the bugs had found them was a mystery to her, but that mystery would have to be solved at a later date. The sun was going down, the light was dimming in the distance, and these roaches had not wasted time in attacking once they’d had the opportunity.

Jack reached down into the fire at the center of their little camp and pulled out a flaming piece of wood. She waved it around as the people of the community rushed to grab their own portable insect repellent, and the burgeoning darkness of the oncoming night was suddenly lit by a menagerie of makeshift torches.

Helen did not hesitate to grab her own torch in an effort to drive off the small swarm. The attack only lasted a total of ten minutes, but that time felt like an hour to her, and her adrenaline was pumping in a furious thunder by the end of it. Thankfully, no one had accidently set any of the shanties on fire, and that was a huge blessing in and of itself.

She gathered the members of her community together as soon as the swarm had left, and the first thing she did was count the children, but they were all accounted for. However, not everyone was.

“Dad?” called out Hien. “Dad…? Has anyone seen my dad?”

Helen looked through the community faces for the older Vietnamese gentleman, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Has anyone seen Giang!” she called out. “Anyone?”

She looked to her left to see Jack exiting Helen’s own shelter, Maria in tow.

“Something’s wrong,” said Jack bluntly.

“What do you mean?” asked Helen. “Giang was just here. Those roaches couldn’t have gotten him…”

“No,” grunted Jack. “There’s something else…I can smell it. It smells like…death.”

Helen did not like the sound of that.

“What do you mean, Jack?” she demanded.

“Wait here,” said the tall and slender woman. “I’m going to go find it.”

“I’m coming with you,” blurted out Helen.

She had no idea why she had said that, but out it came, so she resolved herself to follow her decision, regardless of how stupidly dangerous that decision might be.

“If there’s some other threat out there, then I need to know what it is so that we can deal with it,” she said.

It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself rather than Jack, and when she gave two seconds of thought to it, that was exactly what she was doing.

“I don’t care,” said Jack. “Just make sure Maria is watched.”

“I’m coming too,” said Hien.

Helen turned and studied the young woman’s brown face. A look of fear and worry was etched all over it, and Helen genuinely felt sorry for her, because if what Jack had said was true…She did not want to think about it.

Jack did not seem to care. Helen could only surmise that the female soldier was going to find…whatever it was…because of Maria. If Maria were in danger, then it made sense for Jack to “expunge” the problem. This thought only further convinced Helen that Jack was a monster, because the woman followed certain rules to the point of self-destruction, and only monsters did that. Nevertheless, if there was a threat as Jack had insinuated, then the dark soldier was probably the only one amongst them who could deal with it.

Helen left Maria with the other children—those children under the care of the twins, Camilla and Gabriella—and followed Jack without any fanfare. Hien came with her, but in truth, Helen did not want the young woman to come along, because she feared the worst, and her fears were usually founded, and that was something Hien might not be able to handle.

Jack led them down the street toward a house like any other. There was nothing particularly special about it, but the tall and slender woman led them there all the same.

Helen and Hien carried makeshift torches with them for light, but Jack…Jack simply walked without hesitation despite her lack of light source. This further cemented Helen’s belief that Jack could see in the dark, and this further cemented her need for the woman to part ways with their group. She did not want something like Jack around, for she suspected Jack invited death by her mere presence, and that could not be tolerated. Helen could not lose anyone else, though it was a strong possibility that Giang was gone now, too.

Jack opened the front door to the house at the end of the street. It was clear the door had not been locked, but that was not what got Helen thinking. If Jack really was a monster, and if evil really could not enter a home uninvited, then how could Jack enter? How did Jack enter anywhere, for that matter? It was a conundrum to be solved at a later date, however, because they entered that dark house in an effort to find…whatever Jack was looking for. Helen did not know what that was, and she was not sure if she wanted to.

The first thing that hit them was the smell. It was the same rotting and damp smell that had hit them earlier in the day, back when they had investigated that first building. It was stronger this time, however, stronger because the source of it was right in front of them, right smack in the middle of this abandoned home’s living room.

The second thing that happened was Hien’s scream. The young Vietnamese-American woman screamed a high-pitched wail of both horror and grief, because her father’s body was lain out on the floor. Giang had been gutted, his entrails spilled out upon the hard wood of the living room, his worn blue work shirt torn open and stained black from all of that blood.

The third thing that happened was the open-mouthed hiss from the creature atop Giang’s lifeless body. This thing looked like a naked man, but it was all white, white as a wedding dress, its skin bald and shiny as if slick with some mucus. Its eyes were a deep red, and it opened its gore-soaked mouth to hiss at them, blood red on white, a disjointing of jaw from head, an open-mouthed drop that was a gaping maw of sharp teeth rather than a human orifice.

The last thing that happened was the swarm of roaches that spilled from the thing’s open mouth, buzzing outward in a gross and wretched aria of insanity, a song no one needed nor wanted to hear.

Jack rushed forward toward the thing, but it leapt straight up, clung to the plaster of the ceiling like some human-shaped spider, and crawled up the sidewall of the stairs to the second floor. How it stuck to the plaster without bringing down the ceiling was a mystery in itself, but considering how the world was now, such a wonder did not surprise Helen in the slightest.

Helen, however, was too busy franticly waving around her makeshift torch to pay attention to anything after that. The roaches swarmed her and Hien, a choking black cloud within the choking black darkness of the house, and the two of them were forced back through the front door and back outside.

It occurred to Helen that waving a lit flame around a house was a bad idea anyway; a blazing home could possibly burn down half the city, as there was no fire brigade anymore. Their little community could easily be caught up in such a blaze, and then there would be no more former members of Shame.

It took the two a couple of minutes to drive off the swarm of foul, biting insects. Hien was a sobbing mess after that, and though Helen felt sorry for her, this was neither the time nor the place to break down over it.

She led the poor girl back down the street, but it was clear to the others that something terrible had occurred as they walked back into their little encampment.

**********

They had not made much progress the next day. They were at the edges of downtown, Helen was sure of it, but the loss of Giang along with Hien’s grief put everyone in a slump. They had made camp in a Dalbers’ parking lot, for the clothing store still had some decent clothes within it. Helen had finally found some panties for Maria, and she made sure to take some other pairs in slightly larger sizes for when Maria grew out of her new pair, and with children her age, that would be sooner than later.

It was Mr. Lands who’d gotten Helen into a nervous mood. They stood together outside of Helen’s makeshift shelter, there in the summer heat of the day, but such heat was better than the stifling suffocation of the shelters themselves, but that was beside the point. The old man pointed out something vital and unnerving, and this got to Helen in a negative way.

“I don’t get it,” said the elderly black man as he adjusted his straw hat. “This store and everything else in this city should be empty…gone. It should all be a wrecked wasteland. Doesn’t make sense to me. Other groups should have migrated through here, and the people that lived here should have taken their goods with them…I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“I don’t know,” breathed Helen. “I really don’t. I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“Well, that creature you described couldn’t have driven off everyone,” said the old man. “It’s just one thing. You’d think a group would have cornered it and killed it by now…No, something else is going on here, and dollars to donuts, it ain’t good…I do not like it.”

“You said that already,” said Helen.

“I know,” replied Mr. Lands. “And I’ll keep saying it till we’re out of here.”

They were interrupted by the presence of Marcos. The young Latino walked up to them with a rather distinct frown upon his face, and this heightened Helen’s anxiety, because whatever the young man was going to say, it was not going to be good.

“Hien is missing,” he said in a blunt tone.

“What?” asked Helen in surprise.

“Hien is missing,” repeated Marcos.

“Since when?” asked Mr. Lands.

“For about an hour now,” replied Marcos.

“Where did you last see her?” asked Helen.

“She went into the store,” said Marcos.

“Alone?” asked Helen.

“Yeah,” replied Marcos.

“Dammit,” swore Mr. Lands.

This was not good. Helen repeated a mental swearing of Mr. Lands own expletive. For one thing, she was going to need Jack to look for the young woman. Hien was out of her head with grief, and considering what had happened to Margaret, Helen did not want a similar incident occurring with the young woman.

It did not take Helen more than a second to come to a swift and decisive conclusion.

“Marcos, you get Barry and Joshua to take watch while I get Jack,” she ordered. “I’ll have to go with her into the Dalbers. We’ve got to look for Hien or…for…Just…Just finish setting up after you get Barry and Joshua.”

“Okay,” said Marcos without argument.

He walked off without another word. Marcos was good like that, a quiet type that did as he was told, something he had learned, no doubt, from his late parents. Thinking about this raised Helen’s spirits a little, but it was Mr. Lands who brought her back down to earth.

“I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Lands.

Helen gave him a well-deserved look of surprise. In fact, she almost could not believe what he had just said.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m coming with you,” said the elderly black man.

“Why?” asked Helen.

It did not make sense to her at first. Mr. Lands was normally the first one to complain about the conditions their little community ran into, but as he quickly explained himself, his rationale as to that “why” became clear in Helen’s mind.

“Because you may need me,” said the old man. “If that thing or something else has taken Hien, then it’s still here. That means it will hunt again, and whatever it is will look for a weak target, and that Jack ain’t it. If I go, it’ll come for me first. That should give Jack enough time to kill whatever it is.”

This line of reasoning shocked Helen. True, it was like Mr. Lands to put himself out there like this, but it still didn’t sit well with her.

“I don’t know…” began Helen, but she was interrupted by the presence of Jack.

The female soldier appeared like a black shadow behind Mr. Lands, and the woman’s apparition of formation startled Helen into silence. She had not heard Jack coming, and the dark soldier’s sudden cutting and guttural voice made her blood freeze.

“He’s right,” said the tall and slender woman in combat armor.

Helen held her hand over her heart in order to catch her breath from shock.

“Oh, my word!” she breathed out.

But her startled state of being did not dissuade the female soldier.

“The old man is right,” said Jack. “If he’s bait, I will kill the ghoul when it comes for him.”

“Ghoul?” asked Helen in audible confusion. “What do you mean?”

“An eater of the dead,” said Jack. “You saw it. If it’s hunting living people, then it has run out of corpses to eat. That must be why there are no charred ones in this area. It has probably disposed of them all.”

“That’s not morbid at all,” muttered Mr. Lands.

Helen tried unsuccessfully to process this.

“What exactly is a ghoul?” she asked in stupid reply.

“I just told you,” grunted Jack. “It’s an evil spirt that eats the dead.”

“Like a ghost or a phantom?” asked Mr. Lands.

“Yes, but solid, corporeal,” said Jack. “It has a body, and if it has a body, I can kill it.”

“How are you going to do that?” asked the old black man.

“The old-fashioned way,” said Jack.

Helen was not sure what the “old-fashioned way” was, but she was positive that Jack would indeed kill this “ghoul” if she caught it.

“It’s undead,” said Jack matter-of-factly. “That means it won’t be out during the day. There are only a few types of undead that can journey outside in daylight.”

“Like those charred things?” asked Mr. Lands.

“Yes,” replied Jack.

“Wait, wait,” said Helen with a shake of her head. “Hien is missing. We don’t know if she’s dead, or if this…this ‘ghoul’ is even in the area. You chased it off last night, right?”

“It’s here,” grunted Jack.

“And how do you know that, Jack?” asked Mr. Lands.

“Because it has no food,” said Jack.

Unfortunately, this logic made perfect sense to Helen. She did not want to accept such a possibility, but Jack’s logic was sound for the matter at hand.

“We need to find Hien,” she frowned. “We can stand here all day and talk about it, but every minute Hien is missing is another minute she could be killed…or worse. I don’t like to think about it. We should just go.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Lands. “Let’s stop jawing and find that young lady.”

Jack did not say anything in return. She simply marched across the lot toward the Dalbers’ front entrance.

Helen followed her with Mr. Lands close behind. The old man was spritely for his age, so he did not have trouble keeping up.

They walked through the front entrance as they had earlier in the day, but nothing had really changed, and in truth, Helen had no idea where to look.

“Should we split up?” asked Mr. Lands.

Helen was going to protest this plan, but Jack would not let her. Such a plan was incredibly stupid in her mind, but apparently, the tall woman in grey soldier’s armor disagreed with her on this notion.

“Yes,” grunted Jack. “Check the back of the store. It’s darkest back there.”

“Right,” said Mr. Lands. “If she’s in here, we’ll find her.”

And Helen suddenly found herself alone. Her two companions wandered off in opposing directions, and that left her there by herself. Their lack of presence, however, gave her the sensibility to puzzle out where Hien may have gone. It was a good bet the grieving young woman had gone off by herself to be alone, so that only left two possibilities:  Either Hien was in a dressing room, or she was in the lady’s restroom.

She decided to try the restroom first. She needed to pee, and though it was doubtful the restroom had running water, it was better than going out in the street, so it was killing two birds with one stone. Nevertheless, Helen was cautious. She did not want to end up as food for something, so she traveled quietly while looking out for any sudden movements.

The first thing she did was head to a corner of the store where they had sold flashlights. Dalbers was at heart a clothing chain, but like all stores that wanted to stay competitive, they had sold other things as well. The community had already taken its share of flashlights and batteries, but because a singular person could only carry so much, there was still plenty of stock for anyone who needed it.

They traveled lightly, nomads though they were.

Helen quickly took out her pocket knife and cut open a package that contained a large, blue, plastic flashlight. It was a cheap piece of junk, but it would do in a pinch. She found some D-sized batteries, cut open that package, and got her flashlight working. She then made her way to the back of the store, and specifically, to the lady’s restroom.

She opened the door and shone the light around, but no one was there. She swung forth the first stall door to step in, and that’s when the smell hit her. It was that same smell of moldy, rotten death. It wafted up from a large hole in the floor, a pit just like the one in the abandoned brick building from the day before. Helen had stepped forward into the stall out of habit, so she found herself pitching forward into the pit before she had the sense to catch onto anything.

She fell several feet onto hard, wet concrete. She landed on her feet and fell over onto her right arm with a loud “HOOMPH!,” but she kept ahold of her flashlight, because without it, she was done in this pitch darkness.

The smell was overpowering down here. It took her a moment to realize that this was part of the sewers that ran underneath Spring Ridge, but what she smelled was not raw sewage. It was wet decay, a rotting, nauseating smell of old, moldy flesh, and it attacked her to the point that she almost could not breathe.

Helen stood on shaky legs and shone her light toward a wet smacking noise in the distance. All things considered, this moment was one that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. It was a scene set before her that she would never tell anyone, for it was that horrifying, that terribly endemic to her psyche, a corrosion of spirit that would remain with her forever.

Before her, pursed in the round and soft glow of her light, perhaps no more than ten feet away, was the naked body of Hien. The young Vietnamese-American woman lay stretched out upon her back, but her chest was a savaged red splatter of gore, for the thing on top of her was eating her as it defiled her, thrusting into her as it tore out a large strip of flesh from her ruined chest cavity.

It turned toward the light and hissed at Helen, its mouth opening like a yawning hole, and she screamed. Her cry rang about the sewer tunnel to bounce off and ricochet around wet brick and mortar, and then the creature leapt toward her, naked and hairless and white, covered in the gore of the murdered young woman it had been eating mere seconds before.

Helen fell backwards onto her bottom, the back of her head struck cement as she pitched further backwards, and she raised her hands to her face in shallow protection, her right hand still gripping her flashlight, even as the creature leapt upon her.

Helen squeezed her eyes shut in preparation for the agony and terror that was about to ensue, but that suffering never came. She opened her eyes to see the creature floating in midair, tendrils of nightmarish black wrapped around its naked albino body, tendrils so dark they were nearly invisible against the backdrop of underground darkness. The ghoul strained at her, its naked albino body twitching, its male organ stiff and invasive in her vision, and then the foul, unholy creature was flung backwards by those inky-black tendrils of pure shadow pitch.

Helen sat up and shone her flashlight back upon the creature, this “ghoul,” but it was struggling in the grip of the tall and slender woman named Jack. The female soldier in black held the creature by the neck in her right hand while clutching its naked groin in her left.

The naked albino thing screeched as it reached up to grip Jack’s head and facemask with its clawing, alabaster hands.

Jack slammed the unholy thing into the brick wall of the sewer tunnel, she pulled as a confectionery artist would pull taffy, and the ghoul came apart in two pieces, torn in half like a sheet of paper. The air swarmed with roaches a second later; they burst from the ivory creature’s body like hornets from a nest, and then the vile insects flew off in various directions, uninterested in Helen or Jack.

Jack dropped the creature’s castrated male parts to the ground, ripped off from its crotch, and Helen could do nothing but stupidly stare at the torn pieces centered within the glow of her blue plastic flashlight. The absurdity and horror of it all did not register for her; her brain simply would not function at that moment, and it was not until Jack had grabbed her around the waist and had leapt upwards did she come around.

Bright flame erupted from the dark soldier’s boots for a brief second as they flew through the air, and then Helen found herself back upon the solid tile of the Dalbers’ lady’s restroom.

*****

Helen sat down within her makeshift shelter, sitting down on her bedroll as she looked over toward the curious cherub face that belonged to little Maria. The little girl studied her with a strange intensity, a questing spirit within her dark-blue eyes.

“Your hair is white,” said Maria in a matter-of-fact tone.

“What?” asked Helen in a daze.

For she was in a daze. The last hour had been trauma she never wished to repeat, and it was trauma she could barely comprehend. The only comfort she held was that the community was safe…for now. Jack had rid them of their infestation problem, though they had lost two more members before the dark soldier had done so. Even so, Helen’s brain was locked in a fog, a shock of some sort, and she could not seem to function because of it.

But it was Maria who pulled her from that horrified daze. The little girl acted as a medium to pull her back, back from…wherever her mind had gone.

“You have white in your hair,” said Maria. “That happens sometimes to people. Do you know what that means?”

The little girl pointed up at Helen’s right temple. Helen reached up and looked at a strand of her hair, gripped it between her fingers so that she could inspect it, and it was indeed white, as white as processed sugar, and somehow this did not surprise her.

“It means you’ve seen bad things,” continued Maria. “Do you understand?”

It was strange to hear the little girl speak thusly, to bring upon Helen the same questioning that Helen had given her not two days prior, and it was poetic in its justice somehow, because the older woman felt she deserved as such, deserved that little punishment due to her ignorance of the real world and the horrors within it.

She heard a pattering a moment later, a familiar sound to her ears, the falling and splattering of raindrops on old sail-cloth, so she stood and exited their little shelter to stand in the summer rain.

Helen stood there in the rain along with some of the others, for it was soothing in the stark summer heat. The sky was dark for late day, though the sun had not yet fallen, but there was a peace in it, a feeling of relief that was difficult to describe. It was like taking a long pull from a cold drink after working all day in a sweltering heat, only that pull was for her beleaguered and battered soul, breathing in the moisture of the rain in a summer storm.

She felt little Maria clutch her left hand a moment later, and the small child placed an object into her hand, the pocket watch Helen valued so much. She looked down at the little girl and felt tears reach her own eyes, though those tears were hidden somewhat by the falling rain.

Thunder rolled overhead, and she and her new little guest looked out into the distance from where they had been, where they had come from.

“I see him,” said little Maria in a barely audible voice.

“See who, dear?” asked Helen.

The little girl pointed out toward the distance. Helen squinted to see what it was Maria was pointing at, but she saw nothing at first. Lightning struck a moment later, striking far off beyond the city limits, and that’s when she saw him on the roof of a distant building, a black cloak flowing about him, a huge black scythe clutched between the bony fingers of his skeletal right hand.

She stared down at her pocket watch, its face frozen, the hands stopped at exactly 6:08.

The words came to Helen, though she had no idea where such words had originated, perhaps in some primeval corner of her mind, but they came to her, nonetheless.

“And behold a pale horse, and he that sat upon him, his name was Death, and hell followed him,” intoned Helen. “And power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with sword, with famine, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

She said nothing else as she turned and led Maria back into their makeshift shelter.

There was nothing more to say.

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South Spring Ridge Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott

South Spring Ridge Copyright © 2019 Jack Be Nimble Matthew L. Marlott

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Note: the image of “Helen and the Ghoul” was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of OpenAI and modified courtesy of Canva.com. The image of “South Spring Ridge Jack (female)” was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of SendFame.com and modified courtesy of OpenAI and Canva.com.

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