Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 1

Three days ago...

Mariella da Silva sat up, eyes wide open, more awake than she had ever known in her short life - or at least, she hoped she was awake. What had come before... that had to be a nightmare, for if it wasn't, then that meant that she was dead...

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod...", she muttered, clutching at her chest. Her heart was still beating; a good sign. Air was rushing into her lungs every time she inhaled; another good sign, a sign of life.

The girl glanced around quickly, scanning her surroundings for anything familiar. She was in a large open area, cloaked in almost total darkness; a train station or bus terminal, if the rows of functional bench-like seating were anything to go by. It was night, but such places always had some lights on for late arrivals, some signs of life, yet this establishment appeared to be devoid of passengers, staff, and power, as though it had been deserted.

Oh great..., she thought, her heart turning to cold stone inside her. I am dead, and hell is an abandoned bus depot...

A torch-beam flashed into being, and immediately found Mariella where she sat. "Excuse me, miss, but you can't be here."

A man's voice called out, echoing around the darkened, empty area, and Mariella's first instinct was to flee, but she had no idea where to go. She had no escape plan - if escape was at all possible, or even desirable. She just hadn't got a clue what was going on, and for the present, the most she could do was cause as little trouble as she could, and hope that she wasn't recognised. She was already known to the authorities, and one more infraction would probably cost her her liberty. Unless I really am in hell, she thought, in which case it just won't matter.

"Where... where is here?", she mumbled, shielding her eyes from the glare of the torch. It was a bright, clean light - probably a six-cell "urban suppression" Maglight, which meant that the local security providers didn't cut corners. The man most likely had pepper-spray as well, maybe even a taser, or a gun - but he was certain to have a good strong pair of handcuffs...

"You don't know where you are?", asked the security man, incredulously, coming closer, so that the light of his torch pooled around Mariella, and revealed him to be a middle-aged black man, with sprinkles of grey in his moustache and the hair at his temples. "Not quite as crazy as it used to sound. You're in Vegas, miss... say, were you in hospital?"

Mariella examined herself in the light of the security guard's weighty, nightstick-like flashlight, and found that she was wearing a plain, knee-length gown, very much like the sort of thing a patient would wear in hospital. "Dunno", mumbled the girl. "I might have had an accident - it might've been a dream, but the last thing I remember was falling over..."

She didn't tell him about the very end of her dream, because that sounded too bizarre to contemplate. ... and someone or something stomped on my head...

"Can't have been in hospital for anything serious", said the security man - a badge clipped to his jacket pocket bore the name "Troy". "You look okay to me - but you clearly don't sound like you're okay..."

The significance of one of Troy's earlier words, the answer to a question she had already forgotten, suddenly reached the active centre of Mariella's mind. "V...Vegas?", she mumbled. "No - that can't be right..."

She was on the other side of the country.

Lowering her bare feet to the floor, she tried to get up, but her legs struggled to support her. They felt strange, almost as though they weren't properly part of her. "Hey, hey - take it easy now!", exclaimed Troy, reaching out to support her. "Don't wanna hurt yourself..."

Instinctively, Mariella recoiled from this figure of authority - security staff had thrown her out of more shops and shopping malls than she could possibly remember, and she'd had more run-ins with the police than most 'decent' folk had in a life-time - and in doing so, she caught her shaky legs by surprise, and almost fell, knocking over a trash can before Troy caught her, and sat her down again. "You can't be left wandering around here in your condition", said the security guard. "You relax, and I'll call someone..."

"You can't call the cops!", begged Mariella. "I... I have a record..."

"Don't worry about that", assured Troy, taking a cell-phone from a pouch on his belt. "The police have got more than enough to worry about as it is. They couldn't give a damn about some kid trespassing in a closed-down bus terminal."

"Closed down?", mumbled Mariella, her head spinning - nothing made any sense. "The cops... what's the problem...?"

The girl's eyes went to the fallen trash bin, and the contents that had spilled out. Drink cans, rotting banana peels and apple cores - a scrunched-up newspaper...

Still not quite trusting her own legs, she edged along the bench, then stretched out to pick up the newspaper. Smoothing it out enough to read, she started to read - but she couldn't get past the headline...

"You have got to be shittin' me...", she gasped. The movies were coming true...

Something moved in close to Mariella, and she let out a shriek of terror as someone touched her shoulder. "Sorry if I scared you", said Troy, kneeling next to her. "I've been talking to someone who's trying to help out people who've gotten separated from their families since this 'zombie' stuff started, and he'll be here soon. He's a good man. You're not the first person to come here looking for a way out, but Bert'll look after you..."

Mariella barely heard anything the kindly security man said. Her "dream", her current predicament, the headline - all of a sudden, the whole thing made such awful, terrible sense. "Ohmigod...!", she exclaimed, breathless in horror, words muffled as she clamped her hands over her mouth and nose. "I... I'm a zombie...???"

"Don't go reading that crap", Troy advised her. "They don't know what they're talking about! I still have friends on the force, and they tell me these... things aren't even people, and never were - you shoot them, they turn into puddles of goo..."

"That - that's not exactly reassuring", gasped Mariella, once again pressing her hand to her chest - there it was; a heart beat, now pounding a lot faster than before.

"If I had the slightest feeling you were one of them, I'd never have spoken to you in the first place", said the security man, sitting beside her. "You sure seem like a real person to me..."

Troy gave the girl's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then he went to a vending machine that stood against the nearest interior wall. Its front glass already broken, and some of its contents already pilfered, by man or animal, the guard helped himself to whatever he could safely reach, and came back with several packets of food. "You must be hungry", he said, depositing potato chips, chocolate and candy in Mariella's lap. "I bring my own water to work - the coffee shops're all closed 'round here, and you can't trust the water. You can have some of mine..."

"Sure", sighed Mariella, her heart now slowing. "Thanks..."

Troy left the big flashlight with her, and went into the bus terminal offices, shining a pocket torch ahead of him, and for a while, Mariella was alone again - and scared out of her mind. Her eyes kept straying to the windows, and even the slightest hint of movement, the vaguest change in the light became an advancing horde of zombies. She tried to look away, telling herself that Troy would soon be back, and hopefully it wouldn't be long before the security guard's friend "Bert" arrived to take her some place else - any place else, and anywhere that presented as little chance as possible of running into any "zombies".

Again, Mariella found herself looking at the newspaper, but this time not at the lurid headline. She was wondering just how long she'd been away from home, and it didn't take her long to get her answer. An answer that made her feel even more anxious and sick: "Two thousand and...? Oh, holy shit - ten months? It's been ten months since we... since..."

It had been almost a year since Mariella and her friends had been employed by "Kingdom Industries" to "show our client an... interesting time" - it was basically one of those crazy kidnap fantasy things, and if Mariella had been gone for so long, that rather suggested that things had gone wrong. So wrong that, perhaps, the client had returned the favour, abducting Mariella, and maybe the rest of her gang, too. "This is all some crazy, sick mind-fuck", the girl muttered to herself. "That woman - she's screwing with me. Some kinda sick pay-back..."

Suddenly, a chill raced through Mariella's head, from the rear to the front, and she felt compelled to look behind her, towards the glass wall between the seating area and the street. The chill leapt down into the core of her being, gripping her heart with icy talons, as she saw something at the window; a figure, looking in through the glass, the face concealed by the hood of one of those "sporty" sweatshirts, movements jerky, sluggish. It was just like that zombie movie where the people set up sanctuary in a shopping mall, and one scene in particular, where the heroes were in a department store, helping themselves to weapons and supplies, and the zombies were piling up at the door, pawing at the glass - this was the start of something just like that...

The security guard's name started to form in the girl's mind, but before she could utter it, Troy was there, dropping the cup of water he had brought for Mariella and reaching for his belt. Before he could draw a weapon, however, the security man relaxed, and placed a comforting hand on Mariella's shoulder. "It's okay", he told her. "It's okay - that's Bert...!"

Troy went to the nearest door, and punched an access code into the electronic lock, letting the hooded figure in. They exchanged greetings, then Troy brought his mysterious friend over to the seats, to meet Mariella, and it felt strange for the girl to speak her own name as she said hello - it almost sounded like someone else's name, which she felt somehow unqualified to utter.

"Bert" seemed like a nice, well-educated man, although there was something odd about his voice, a curious slurring of words that reminded Mariella of a deaf man, trying to speak. His face was constantly hidden under his hood, and Mariella couldn't help but wonder what he felt he had to hide - but she wasn't going to force the issue when he was trying so hard to be nice, and helpful. "It's nice to meet you, Mariella", he said. "Troy says you might be from out of town - where are you from, might I ask?"

"Miami", she replied, meekly. Bert sounded like a teacher, and although he was trying to be friendly, it seemed somewhat inappropriate to respond in kind.

"You're a long way from home", Bert told her. "You've no idea how you got here?"

"None", she answered. "I... I seem to have lost almost a year, as well."

Bert tried to laugh, but it sounded almost painful for him. "Then we have something in common", he gasped. "I appear to have lost track of some of my past, too. Annoying, isn't it?"

Mariella couldn't stop herself from laughing. It was a blessed relief from all the tension and anxiety she'd been through, a single bright moment in a sea of fear and loneliness that she fully intended to savour to its very end. She had no idea when then next one would come - if ever.

...to be continued...

Posted at 16:54 on 16.10.2009


~ o O o ~


Previously...
Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 6 - 28.10.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 5 - 25.10.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 4 - 23.10.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 3 - 21.10.2009
Mane-of-Night And The Wayward Child - Chapter 2 - 19.10.2009