(Switching to third person past tense. Present is too hard to remember to keep up.)
Episode 18 - Promises To Keep
Catina held her weeping daughter, Jen, and looked up at Lisa who hung lifeless from the tight telephone cable that dug into her wrists. Catina's heart feels like two dark claws of despair had ripped a gaping hole of nothing into her breast. Jen was all she had now.
"I'm sorry, Lisa," Catina breathed into Jen's hair. She clutched her remaining daughter fiercely and let the warm tears bleed the emptiness out of her. Jen sobbed into her breast, and for a long moment, they held each other.
"Mom," a shuddering sob came from her youngest, "Is she going to turn...? Is she going to become...?" Jen couldn't finish the sentence.
"Shhhh," Catina said, holding her more tightly. "I'll take care of it honey. Then we can have a funeral."
She released Jen and ushered her and the other women outside the garage. Then she cut down Lisa's corpse and let it down slowly, reverently. There, in the garage on a hay-covered floor, she knelt and held the mortal frame of her eldest daughter. She savored the memories she had, and more tears came. She remembered the shared joys. The light and life those moments had brought to her. A memory of a hand print her daughter made for her in kindergarten came to her, her daughter's smiling radiant face holding the gift for mommy. She felt a near-physical punch to her heart and deep in her gut from the memory.
She almost couldn't go on.
When the virus took hold and twitching began, she gently set down the body and covered it with a blanket. Then she rested the barrel of the rifle against her daughter's head, bowed her head heavily, and with a silent scream to the cold heavens above, she pulled the trigger.
When it was done, she stood breathing hard and then yanked open the door and walked outside, breathing great heaving lungful's of cold crisp air.
"Mom," Jen whispered looking past her at the wet blanket covering her sister. Then she swallowed and looked away out across the fields. "Is Jodi okay?"
"What?" Catina asked, swallowing down the blackness inside of her.
"Jodi?"
Catina blinked and slowly shakes her head. "What did you say honey?"
"What about Jodi? The man said she ran into something. Said he left--that explosion? Was that...Jodi?"
Jodi...
Catina cursed stared about the women standing in the cold. Some stared at her sadly. Others had started moving toward the house, scarcely believing their captors were dead. She called after them, "If anyone has any medical experience. And I mean any--follow me!"
How many women / girls are in the group?
10 = 5[d10]+5
Do any of them have medical experience etc?
(Somewhat Likely | 3[d10]) No +Event: Divide / Opulance
Catina hobbled around the house, as quickly as she could, feeling knives in her thigh with every half-running jolting step.
She saw Jodi. Saw the debris from the explosion. Saw her friend lying in the white snow, the red and black providing contrast in the snow-bright evening.
Has the snow finally stopped?
(Somewhat Likely | 7[d10]) Yes
About time!
A wind bit into her, cold and keening, but at least the wet flakes of snow had stopped falling, stopped adding their white pall over the world.
Jen ran up to her and knelt in the snow. "Is she okay?"
Catina shook her head and half knelt, half fell next to Jodi. She put pressure on the wound in her neck. Her pulse was was low and rapid, but she was still alive. Catina looked at her daughter and then at the ruined porch and front door. "Honey, look inside for any bandages, sheets, cloth...anything!"
She lifted Jodi under her arms and half dragged, half fell under the pain in her leg from the weight as she bore the other woman indoors. With her ammo and body armor, she was heavy, and her legs dragged furrows in the snow. She placed her on a couch, and covered her with a blanket that Jen has found.
Is it enough? (+1 skillz, +1 environment and supplies, +1 help from Jen)
(Very Likely | 8[d10]) Yes
---
Some time later, Jodi awakens. She feels stiff, her head feels like someone was using it as a percussion instrument. She lay on a sofa. She shoved off the blanket and stared up at a dark unfamiliar ceiling and could make out the interior of a posh living room, with thick carpet, deep leather seats.
She turned her head and looked out at the white landscape beyond the large bay window that dominated this side of the house. Light eked in from the winter wonderland outside where wind had finally shoved the clouds away and moonlight had cast a softening enchanting glow on everything. The door was missing, and a blanket and some plastic were nailed up in the doorway in its stead. Occasionally, the blanket billowed toward her as if an angry spirit wanted to enter. A keening breeze tried to claw its way inside.
She shivered when some of the breeze penetrated indoors. She wore only her tank top, bare shoulders exposed to the wind. She touched a bandage on her neck, and memory returned. An explosion. The sky with white flakes dusting over her, blood on her hand, sound ringing in her ears, then darkness.
Someone stirred next to her. In the darkness, she made out the dim form of Catina.
"How are you feeling?" Catina asked in a leaden voice. The other woman looked over at her with a yawn.
"Thirsty," Jodi said. "Where are we?"
"In Tanner's Lodge," Catina answered. She handed Jodi a water bottle. "It's ours now."
"We did it then? We stopped them?" Jodi unscrewed the water bottle and took some long gulps. "Your girls?"
Catina's eyes met hers, and held the gaze for a moment, then she shook her head and looked away.
Jodi felt a wave of sorrow and panic. "They're dead?"
"Not both," Catina said and Jodi followed her gaze, resting on the Jen's still form in a nearby sofa. The young girls breast rose and fell in a shallow sleep and she tossed and turned.
"No..." Jodi sat up. "Catina, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she hammered a whispered curse. "That man? He killed her then? I wish--" She reached out a hand and touched Catina on her shoulder.
"Save your breath," Catina mumbled and brushed off her hand. She steepled her hands under her chin and looked at Jen. Then with an awful solemnity, she added, "He didn't kill her. I did."
"What?"
"I killed her. It was an accident. He was running. I wanted so hard to save my girls. I wanted so hard to stop the threat! He moved behind Lisa. The bullet meant for him, took her instead."
Jodi felt like she'd been struck in the heart with a bullet herself. The pain of loss felt real as if it were one of her own. Lisa dead. The strong teenage girl who she had come to care for and love was dead.
"No... No Catina. No..." She moaned.
"This is the world we're in now, Jodi," The flatness if Catina's voice was a heavy anvil that pressed on Jodi's heart. "A world where our girls are sheep to wolves and have to take bullets to be saved from a worse fate. I killed her."
"No," Jodi shook her head. "No Catina. That was an accident, Catina. An accident. You can't blame yourself! If you want to blame anyone, blame that man. You may have pulled the trigger, but he forced you to take that shot! It's his fault not yours! If he hadn't been kidnapping girls, you wouldn't--"
"But he was. And I did kill her. And what's more, I was ready to kill Jen later if I had to," Catina clenched her hand to her knee. "I wasn't going to let him touch her. I wasn't going to have my own daughters live in that kind of hell."
Jodi didn't know what to say. She leaned back against the couch. Would she have done the same? Back before the disease had come and the nightmarish world became reality, you'd hear of news stories where girls were abused for days on end. Some of them recovered with the help of God and professionals and... Surely, there had to be some hope?
Hope? her own voice came back to her, snide and dark, nearly scoffing. Such a fool! There was no hope, the voice said. God was dead and mankind was doomed. What hope was there in a world without civilization that died this slow sad death, bleeding out the lives of the young girls to the whims of criminals and fate?
She pushed the voice away, clawed herself away from the dark brink of hopelessness.
"What about the others in the garage?" Jodi asked.
Catina shrugged, glancing at Jodi and then back at Jen. "They're sleeping two-to-a-bed in the rooms upstairs. Some are really messed up, you know. Still trying to survive in their private hells, I guess, even if their devils are dead." She stood and hobbled over to her daughter, wincing from stabs of pain at every step. She adjusted a blanket over Jen's form.
"You know, she wanted to sleep by you," Catina said with a soft smile for her girl. She stroked her daughters head. "She even said she would look after you."
"After me?" Jodi said.
"That's what she said. Get some rest." Catina started to hobble away, using furniture to keep her upright.
"Your leg," Jodi said. "That bullet. It needs to come out. We have to try and operate. Tonight."
Catina took a few more steps toward the kitchen and looked down at her leg, at the bandage that was we with blood at the belt still tight around her upper thigh. "It hurts, but not as bad as here," she touched her breast and leaned back against the couch staring out the window. "It can wait. Besides, no one has the skills."
Jodi sat up. The dizziness returned, but not as badly. The water had helped. She needed food though. Her stomach growled loudly as if in response to the thought.
"It can't wait. We're going to have to try, or it'll get infected, and you'll die."
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing," Catina muttered, facing away from her. "Then all of this would be over."
"You can't believe that," Jodi said.
"Why not? You want to keep living through this?"
"We have to keep trying."
"Why? So I can shoot my other daughter and want to die even more later?"
"Catina, listen to yourself! You're hurting. I get that. I'm hurting. We're all hurting over Lisa's death! But it wasn't your fault and..." her voice trailed off. Wasn't her fault. How many times had Jodi blamed herself for the loss of Amy, her own daughter? Her lovable blonde-haired angel. Her coy smile. Her effervescent spontaneous energy. If only she had taken her car in to get fixed the day before, she could have made it to kindergarten. Could have saved her girl. Could have...
She swallowed and blinked back the tears that threatened. "You have to keep trying. For Jen."
Catina sighed. "You might be right. Tell you what? I found some vodka and wine in the kitchen. I'm going to make myself a stiff cocktail. For the pain."
Jodi wasn't sure if Catina meant the pain in her leg, or emotional pain. She suspected the latter.
Regardless, it was a good plan. "I'd join you, but I'm dizzy, and besides, surgeons shouldn't drink."
Is food or water the militia members running low?
(50/50 | 2[d10]) No
"Eat something," Catina nodded to a nondescript box that said "Peanut Butter and Crackers" in blocky black letters. Military food. "That's just a small sampling. They have a bunch of these and more in the basement.
"Apparently, these sadistic militaristic prepper types had stocked-piled a good supply of MREs and other dry goods. They have stacks of bottled water, 50 gallon containers."
Jodi nodded. "While you're in the kitchen, put some some water on to boil. A man had a cook stove. Come back when that's done, and I'll do what I can."
Catina nodded and left.
Jodi leaned back on the pillow and stared after the retreating Catina, who hobbled into the kitchen. She could hear the clink of glasses and bottles and the sound of a pot being filled from a portable water jug. Jodi's eyes moved over to Jen's young form. She felt gratitude at Jen's goodness mixing oddly with sorrow at Lisa's death.
Jodi saw a gleam of moonlight on something metal in the young woman's hand. A pistol? Jen had it cradled against her breast, like it was some silly stuffed bear she couldn't let go of.
She swore, and moved quietly and somewhat dizzily over to the sleeping Jen and took away the pistol. The girl clung to it for a moment, "No..." escaped her lips before sleep took greater hold.
She knelt by the girl and put the gun on a scratched coffee table. "And I'll look after you," she whispered in the dark and smoothed back Jen's blond hair from her face. She gave the young teenager a simple kiss on the forehead. She rested her cheek on the girl's head. "I'll look after both of you."
Jen murmured something unintelligible, and a sleep-filled response and easy breathing took over.
Jodi eventually moved and sat down on Jen's couch and stared out into the dark. She couldn't rewind time. Jodi looked down at the pistol. A part of her wanted to give it back to the girl. What if Jodi couldn't keep her promise to keep Jen safe? She clenched her teeth. She had to. She couldn't erase the guilt in her own heart. But she would do whatever she had to to help this girl stay alive. She drew a line mentally in the sand. She would help Jen find a place where civilization continued, where the innocent and the young could grow up safely.
Jodi continued to stare out over the snowy landscape into the darkness, caressing the pistol's trigger guard.
Episode 18 - Promises To Keep
Catina held her weeping daughter, Jen, and looked up at Lisa who hung lifeless from the tight telephone cable that dug into her wrists. Catina's heart feels like two dark claws of despair had ripped a gaping hole of nothing into her breast. Jen was all she had now.
"I'm sorry, Lisa," Catina breathed into Jen's hair. She clutched her remaining daughter fiercely and let the warm tears bleed the emptiness out of her. Jen sobbed into her breast, and for a long moment, they held each other.
"Mom," a shuddering sob came from her youngest, "Is she going to turn...? Is she going to become...?" Jen couldn't finish the sentence.
"Shhhh," Catina said, holding her more tightly. "I'll take care of it honey. Then we can have a funeral."
She released Jen and ushered her and the other women outside the garage. Then she cut down Lisa's corpse and let it down slowly, reverently. There, in the garage on a hay-covered floor, she knelt and held the mortal frame of her eldest daughter. She savored the memories she had, and more tears came. She remembered the shared joys. The light and life those moments had brought to her. A memory of a hand print her daughter made for her in kindergarten came to her, her daughter's smiling radiant face holding the gift for mommy. She felt a near-physical punch to her heart and deep in her gut from the memory.
She almost couldn't go on.
When the virus took hold and twitching began, she gently set down the body and covered it with a blanket. Then she rested the barrel of the rifle against her daughter's head, bowed her head heavily, and with a silent scream to the cold heavens above, she pulled the trigger.
When it was done, she stood breathing hard and then yanked open the door and walked outside, breathing great heaving lungful's of cold crisp air.
"Mom," Jen whispered looking past her at the wet blanket covering her sister. Then she swallowed and looked away out across the fields. "Is Jodi okay?"
"What?" Catina asked, swallowing down the blackness inside of her.
"Jodi?"
Catina blinked and slowly shakes her head. "What did you say honey?"
"What about Jodi? The man said she ran into something. Said he left--that explosion? Was that...Jodi?"
Jodi...
Catina cursed stared about the women standing in the cold. Some stared at her sadly. Others had started moving toward the house, scarcely believing their captors were dead. She called after them, "If anyone has any medical experience. And I mean any--follow me!"
How many women / girls are in the group?
10 = 5[d10]+5
Do any of them have medical experience etc?
(Somewhat Likely | 3[d10]) No +Event: Divide / Opulance
Catina hobbled around the house, as quickly as she could, feeling knives in her thigh with every half-running jolting step.
She saw Jodi. Saw the debris from the explosion. Saw her friend lying in the white snow, the red and black providing contrast in the snow-bright evening.
Has the snow finally stopped?
(Somewhat Likely | 7[d10]) Yes
About time!
A wind bit into her, cold and keening, but at least the wet flakes of snow had stopped falling, stopped adding their white pall over the world.
Jen ran up to her and knelt in the snow. "Is she okay?"
Catina shook her head and half knelt, half fell next to Jodi. She put pressure on the wound in her neck. Her pulse was was low and rapid, but she was still alive. Catina looked at her daughter and then at the ruined porch and front door. "Honey, look inside for any bandages, sheets, cloth...anything!"
She lifted Jodi under her arms and half dragged, half fell under the pain in her leg from the weight as she bore the other woman indoors. With her ammo and body armor, she was heavy, and her legs dragged furrows in the snow. She placed her on a couch, and covered her with a blanket that Jen has found.
Is it enough? (+1 skillz, +1 environment and supplies, +1 help from Jen)
(Very Likely | 8[d10]) Yes
---
Some time later, Jodi awakens. She feels stiff, her head feels like someone was using it as a percussion instrument. She lay on a sofa. She shoved off the blanket and stared up at a dark unfamiliar ceiling and could make out the interior of a posh living room, with thick carpet, deep leather seats.
She turned her head and looked out at the white landscape beyond the large bay window that dominated this side of the house. Light eked in from the winter wonderland outside where wind had finally shoved the clouds away and moonlight had cast a softening enchanting glow on everything. The door was missing, and a blanket and some plastic were nailed up in the doorway in its stead. Occasionally, the blanket billowed toward her as if an angry spirit wanted to enter. A keening breeze tried to claw its way inside.
She shivered when some of the breeze penetrated indoors. She wore only her tank top, bare shoulders exposed to the wind. She touched a bandage on her neck, and memory returned. An explosion. The sky with white flakes dusting over her, blood on her hand, sound ringing in her ears, then darkness.
Someone stirred next to her. In the darkness, she made out the dim form of Catina.
"How are you feeling?" Catina asked in a leaden voice. The other woman looked over at her with a yawn.
"Thirsty," Jodi said. "Where are we?"
"In Tanner's Lodge," Catina answered. She handed Jodi a water bottle. "It's ours now."
"We did it then? We stopped them?" Jodi unscrewed the water bottle and took some long gulps. "Your girls?"
Catina's eyes met hers, and held the gaze for a moment, then she shook her head and looked away.
Jodi felt a wave of sorrow and panic. "They're dead?"
"Not both," Catina said and Jodi followed her gaze, resting on the Jen's still form in a nearby sofa. The young girls breast rose and fell in a shallow sleep and she tossed and turned.
"No..." Jodi sat up. "Catina, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she hammered a whispered curse. "That man? He killed her then? I wish--" She reached out a hand and touched Catina on her shoulder.
"Save your breath," Catina mumbled and brushed off her hand. She steepled her hands under her chin and looked at Jen. Then with an awful solemnity, she added, "He didn't kill her. I did."
"What?"
"I killed her. It was an accident. He was running. I wanted so hard to save my girls. I wanted so hard to stop the threat! He moved behind Lisa. The bullet meant for him, took her instead."
Jodi felt like she'd been struck in the heart with a bullet herself. The pain of loss felt real as if it were one of her own. Lisa dead. The strong teenage girl who she had come to care for and love was dead.
"No... No Catina. No..." She moaned.
"This is the world we're in now, Jodi," The flatness if Catina's voice was a heavy anvil that pressed on Jodi's heart. "A world where our girls are sheep to wolves and have to take bullets to be saved from a worse fate. I killed her."
"No," Jodi shook her head. "No Catina. That was an accident, Catina. An accident. You can't blame yourself! If you want to blame anyone, blame that man. You may have pulled the trigger, but he forced you to take that shot! It's his fault not yours! If he hadn't been kidnapping girls, you wouldn't--"
"But he was. And I did kill her. And what's more, I was ready to kill Jen later if I had to," Catina clenched her hand to her knee. "I wasn't going to let him touch her. I wasn't going to have my own daughters live in that kind of hell."
Jodi didn't know what to say. She leaned back against the couch. Would she have done the same? Back before the disease had come and the nightmarish world became reality, you'd hear of news stories where girls were abused for days on end. Some of them recovered with the help of God and professionals and... Surely, there had to be some hope?
Hope? her own voice came back to her, snide and dark, nearly scoffing. Such a fool! There was no hope, the voice said. God was dead and mankind was doomed. What hope was there in a world without civilization that died this slow sad death, bleeding out the lives of the young girls to the whims of criminals and fate?
She pushed the voice away, clawed herself away from the dark brink of hopelessness.
"What about the others in the garage?" Jodi asked.
Catina shrugged, glancing at Jodi and then back at Jen. "They're sleeping two-to-a-bed in the rooms upstairs. Some are really messed up, you know. Still trying to survive in their private hells, I guess, even if their devils are dead." She stood and hobbled over to her daughter, wincing from stabs of pain at every step. She adjusted a blanket over Jen's form.
"You know, she wanted to sleep by you," Catina said with a soft smile for her girl. She stroked her daughters head. "She even said she would look after you."
"After me?" Jodi said.
"That's what she said. Get some rest." Catina started to hobble away, using furniture to keep her upright.
"Your leg," Jodi said. "That bullet. It needs to come out. We have to try and operate. Tonight."
Catina took a few more steps toward the kitchen and looked down at her leg, at the bandage that was we with blood at the belt still tight around her upper thigh. "It hurts, but not as bad as here," she touched her breast and leaned back against the couch staring out the window. "It can wait. Besides, no one has the skills."
Jodi sat up. The dizziness returned, but not as badly. The water had helped. She needed food though. Her stomach growled loudly as if in response to the thought.
"It can't wait. We're going to have to try, or it'll get infected, and you'll die."
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing," Catina muttered, facing away from her. "Then all of this would be over."
"You can't believe that," Jodi said.
"Why not? You want to keep living through this?"
"We have to keep trying."
"Why? So I can shoot my other daughter and want to die even more later?"
"Catina, listen to yourself! You're hurting. I get that. I'm hurting. We're all hurting over Lisa's death! But it wasn't your fault and..." her voice trailed off. Wasn't her fault. How many times had Jodi blamed herself for the loss of Amy, her own daughter? Her lovable blonde-haired angel. Her coy smile. Her effervescent spontaneous energy. If only she had taken her car in to get fixed the day before, she could have made it to kindergarten. Could have saved her girl. Could have...
She swallowed and blinked back the tears that threatened. "You have to keep trying. For Jen."
Catina sighed. "You might be right. Tell you what? I found some vodka and wine in the kitchen. I'm going to make myself a stiff cocktail. For the pain."
Jodi wasn't sure if Catina meant the pain in her leg, or emotional pain. She suspected the latter.
Regardless, it was a good plan. "I'd join you, but I'm dizzy, and besides, surgeons shouldn't drink."
Is food or water the militia members running low?
(50/50 | 2[d10]) No
"Eat something," Catina nodded to a nondescript box that said "Peanut Butter and Crackers" in blocky black letters. Military food. "That's just a small sampling. They have a bunch of these and more in the basement.
"Apparently, these sadistic militaristic prepper types had stocked-piled a good supply of MREs and other dry goods. They have stacks of bottled water, 50 gallon containers."
Jodi nodded. "While you're in the kitchen, put some some water on to boil. A man had a cook stove. Come back when that's done, and I'll do what I can."
Catina nodded and left.
Jodi leaned back on the pillow and stared after the retreating Catina, who hobbled into the kitchen. She could hear the clink of glasses and bottles and the sound of a pot being filled from a portable water jug. Jodi's eyes moved over to Jen's young form. She felt gratitude at Jen's goodness mixing oddly with sorrow at Lisa's death.
Jodi saw a gleam of moonlight on something metal in the young woman's hand. A pistol? Jen had it cradled against her breast, like it was some silly stuffed bear she couldn't let go of.
She swore, and moved quietly and somewhat dizzily over to the sleeping Jen and took away the pistol. The girl clung to it for a moment, "No..." escaped her lips before sleep took greater hold.
She knelt by the girl and put the gun on a scratched coffee table. "And I'll look after you," she whispered in the dark and smoothed back Jen's blond hair from her face. She gave the young teenager a simple kiss on the forehead. She rested her cheek on the girl's head. "I'll look after both of you."
Jen murmured something unintelligible, and a sleep-filled response and easy breathing took over.
Jodi eventually moved and sat down on Jen's couch and stared out into the dark. She couldn't rewind time. Jodi looked down at the pistol. A part of her wanted to give it back to the girl. What if Jodi couldn't keep her promise to keep Jen safe? She clenched her teeth. She had to. She couldn't erase the guilt in her own heart. But she would do whatever she had to to help this girl stay alive. She drew a line mentally in the sand. She would help Jen find a place where civilization continued, where the innocent and the young could grow up safely.
Jodi continued to stare out over the snowy landscape into the darkness, caressing the pistol's trigger guard.
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