Safe Haven - Let Me Tell You About My Day

[...Posted by Ted H]

2011 ends...I have nothing profound to say. 2012 starts tomorrow and I'm prolly gonna start the year out with something a little different besides a constant stream of Safe Haven...I still have a lot of backlogged entries, but I'll change things up for my sake. My little December break is over and I'm itchin to write some new stuff, including the final Our Town 2 act and some more elaboration on my anti-LotD run.
I resolve to write more next year...no problem...other authors? Who knows... See you on the other side and happy apocalypse!

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[Safe Haven - Let Me Tell You About My Day]

Kate descended the rock slope into the basement of a collapsing building. From there she entered a hallway and forced open a door into another room. She was home. It wasn’t quite safe, and it was far from illustrious, but it was far enough away from the rest of the world for her to find some much needed solitude.

“Amber? I’m home!” she called out as she fished out a lighter and lit an oil lantern, illuminating the entire room. She wasn’t expecting Amber to answer her back, what with Amber being dead and all. Amber sat in the far corner with her head back and a bullet hole between the eyes. She was long dead, skin discoloration and decomposition had taken most of her features, one eye had rolled back into her skull and much of her hair had fallen off. She was frozen in a slack jawed, open eyed expression that made it look like she had the utmost interest in whatever someone was saying to her.

No sane person would ever live with such a sight, but Kate could never make herself part with her old friend. Everyone else she knew was either dead, John or Laura. There was also Patrick, but the two of them had a falling out and Kate never felt the need to reconcile. Amber died shortly after they had arrived in Safe Haven, managing to hide her infection from the ResEs. When she died for good, Kate didn’t know quite how to deal with removing the body, and when all her other friends were done either dying or hating her, she realized that she couldn’t bear to part with Amber.

The room was seldom entered anymore, Kate had since set up a different room in the basement to sleep in since this one tended to flood whenever it rained. The purpose of “Amber’s room”, besides secretly containing its one resident, was it was a good place to hide anything illegal, especially when Jezus stopped by. She didn’t need Jezus seeing any weapons or alcohol or bodies.

“Just here to grab a quick drink,” Kate said to the corpse as she went to the back of the room and relocated some rocks, granting her access to a stash of glass bottles, all but one of which were empty. “Hmm, not much left,” she said as she eyed the clear liquor, not sure what it was once. She downed it in several gulps, noting to herself very bitterly that it was pure vodka, then tossed the empty bottle with the others before adding her gun and John’s map to the stash. Then she replaced the rocks and made for the exit.

“Remind me to tell you about the day I had today,” she said as she slipped back out of the room, leaving Amber in darkness once again. She then made for the end of the hall where her current room was and entered. She killed the light and laid down on her bed, which was just a mattress on top of a couple pieces of particleboard propped off the ground by cinderblocks. She wrapped a thin blanket around herself and thought again about what had happened that day. She hoped John had gotten away, but she also needed to be ready to carry on without him.

She stayed awake as long as she could, hoping Jezus would show up and at least give her day a happy ending, but she eventually slipped into sleep. Kate would dream that night, and unfortunately for her, her dreams always turned into the same nightmare.

*******

“If I don’t get my beauty sleep, Imma murder someone,” Nick said as he threw open the door and dropped all his weapons and equipment onto the floor as made for the couch. “Long day?” Brad asked from a corner of the room next to an open window, blunt in hand. “Lemme hit that!” Nick said as he stumbled over and took the blunt from Brad before he could even answer.

Kyle was tired, but he decided to indulge Brad in some conversation. Nick walked away with the blunt as he retrieved a beer for himself. “Thought you were tired?” Brad asked as Nick ignored him and proceeded to chug. “Why are you pantsless?” Kyle asked when he realized Brad was only sporting heart-patterned boxers below the waist. “I don’t kiss and tell,” Brad said with a smile “Just understand this: chicks dig the eye patch.”

Nick tossed Brad back the blunt, noticeably smaller than before as he made a strait path for the couch before collapsing onto it. The apartment style living quarters for the ResEs only had two small bedrooms each. The trio had drawn straws and Nick lost, meaning he didn’t get his own bed, but no one ever sat on the couch with him around, mainly because of the numerous and varied styles of stains.

“Some nut shot at us today,” Kyle said as he pulled a chair over and walked over to get a couple beers. “Rogues don’t like you,” Brad said as Kyle handed him a beer. “Wasn’t a Rogue,” Kyle said as he sat down “Civilian with a dead ResE’s rifle.”

“What’s the world coming to when just any nut can run around with a gun.”

“Very funny.”

“Actually I heard about that earlier. You guys chased him into a whore house?”

“Yeah…unless there were two civis running around with guns today.”

“Must have been nice.”

“Not really, no one got a good look at him and he gave us the slip.”

“Are you serious? You guys really suck.”

“Fuck you, cyclops. We rounded up everyone inside and none of them looked familiar.”

“Shit. At least you got a bunch of impromptu tit, right?”

“None, fully clothed the lot of them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“They knew we were making the rounds and dressed beforehand.”

“Gay.”

“Only nude was some fat loser with a tiny cock.”

“Bwaha! Only you guy could walk into a whore house and only find cock.”

“How bout I shoot out that other eye of yours?”

“So why was the naked guy naked? You not want to let him dress?”

“He was so scared he couldn’t find his pants fast enough. It was the last room we checked and I was impatient.”

“That means he was the guy you were looking for.”

“Huh?”

“Guy runs into a whore house, strips anything incriminating off his body and runs to the farthest away room he can find? Definitely.”

“Alright, Sherlock, whatever you say.”

“And if his cock was as tiny as you say, then he wasn’t there for sex, that’s for sure.”

“Whatever.”

“Seriously dude, hear me out. A cock as small as you say knows better than to embarrass himself in front of a grown ass woman, though I’m only assuming he was with a woman, please don’t correct me if I’m wrong. But if he were, say, running away for his life and needed to blend in in a hurry, he may not have had enough time to get his “engines” fired up.”

“I stopped caring about this conversation when you said “cock”.”

“Well-wait, which time when I said “cock”?”

“Dunno, but clearly it’s all you talked about.”

“Ha ha, I’m only helping you do your job better, fuck-nut.”

“I’d appreciate help beyond wild speculation.”

“What are you doing to catch this guy?”

“Naked man or the real culprit?”

“Seriously. What are you gonna do?”

“I really don’t wanna do anything about it. All I plan on is interviewing all the people who were there again. We got their numbers. Not much hope in that plan though, so when it fizzles out, I can go back to doing nothing.”

“Why do anything?”

“Cuz The General is leaning down hard for someone to do something about it. Figure I’ll do it until he loses interest and drop it first chance I get.”

“You’re a man of action when it comes to not acting.”

“I do my best.”

“You got the naked dude’s number?”

“I don’t like how you worded that, but yeah, he’s on the list of people I need to find again.”

“Start with him, and maybe he won’t get away twice.”

“Whatever, I’m going to bed.”

“Don’t you wanna hear details about my day?”

“Not particularly,” Kyle said as he got up and tossed his empty beer can into a corner. “Well while you two were looking at cocks, I was having sex!” Brad called as Kyle ignored him and went to his room. “Nick, do you wanna hear details?” Brad asked as Nick turned over on the couch. “While I’m glad you finally lost your virginity, if you wake me up again, I’ll fucking kill you,” he said then turned back over. “You guys suck,” Brad said as he started to roll himself another blunt.