Where the hell is she?

  It was probably safe to take a breather. Gaunt hadn’t heard anything pursuing for a good few minutes, but of course making some extra distance was never a bad thing. Or it would be, if only she knew…

  Gaunt eased out a breath and slid down the face of a nearby dirt formation. God, what the hell was she thinking? That half-formed text message could hardly qualify as a note, let alone any accurate indicator of what Kiki was doing, why, when she’d be back, anything reasonable. Just enough information to know she’d done something very stupid and decided to rope Gaunt into it too. Of course she’d be responsible for some fucking teenager in the apocalypse, god forbid she have a moment’s respite.

  She shook her head, trying to make her better thoughts that much more real. It probably wasn’t her fault. Kiki lasted this long for a reason. Just stick to the plan for now – meet at the lake – and they’d work it out from there.

  Work everything out, fingers crossed, though it was a lot to hope for. Gaunt kept Kiki’s words rolling around in her immediate consciousness, clinging to that fine lifeline. It’s probably safe. It hasn’t done anything bad yet. This is a later issue.

  And it’s true! But that didn’t make it any less… present, of course.

  She didn’t want to look. She wasn’t going to look. It was probably nothing, actually, but you never know, and she’d been bleeding out mere days ago. She could be fine. She could be wracked with internal damage and have hours left to live. It would be stupid to sit here on the ruined cobbles and pretend everything was okay even when there was clearly nothing sane about any of it.

  It was silver. Shiny, like burns.

  Gaunt’s breath hitched. Absently, she saw her fingers trace over the skin on her arms. The backs of those were the same tone, same texture, but some blush and opacity was creeping in at the edges. There were no bumps or ridges, no wrinkles, no follicles. Smooth all the way through.

  What the hell am I?

  It was fuzzy, now. Not her arms, but her vision. It was enough to block out the image of her not-quite-human arms, enough to draw her attention back to the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Too fast, she was hyperventilating. She held her next breath, counted one, two, three, four seconds, and let it out for just as long. Four more seconds. Think about what Kiki said.

  This is a later issue.

  As for a now issue, you’ve got a teenager to find.

  Averting her gaze, Gaunt looked around as she brought her feet underneath her. Grey clouds, with fine dark spots peppering the dirt around her. It was more than starting to rain, more of a drizzle at this point. Or it looked that way. She felt dry as ever.

  It’s just rain. Keep moving.

  There was always the question of whether she left because of something that was going to happen, or if there was somewhere to be. Or if she left at all; Gaunt couldn’t discount the idea of her being taken, unlikely as it was to permit the time to write a note, even a hasty one. Naturally the best course of action would be to follow the current plan, but who was to say Kiki would even show up at the lake in the first place?

  It was possible the arrows were pointing her in the area of a new meeting location, but it was certainly a roundabout way to do it. Or it could be a blatant trap. After the whole incident with the sinkhole, Gaunt was seriously reconsidering blindly following whatever sign she happened to stumble across. Forget those, she had a map, and it would do some good to use it.

  She pulled it from her backpack by a corner and unfolded it just the slightest bit, trying her best to place herself between it and the rain. Still impossible to pin an exact location, but assuming she was going in the right direction, the lake was only a day or so away. Squinting at the hovering sun, she lined herself up vaguely west, and started folding the map back up. It got a mere two drops of rain before returning to the safety of her bag.

  Gaunt took a solid five steps before there was the screaming.

  Not quite human, not quite animal, and nothing she even remotely cared to deal with. Fuck that. Thankfully, it was just far enough to be described as distant. As she spun around to face exactly opposite to where it came from, there came another, on her left. Then in front, from the right. And more started up to create a whole chorus of droning wails.

  Forgetting the surrounding noise, Gaunt swiveled to locate any building yet to collapse. Just one, but well within running distance. Five or so minutes away. Shoving the aching in her calves to the back of her mind, Gaunt broke into a sprint.

  Everything was soaked through, by now. Though it still couldn’t touch her for reasons she was not thinking about right now, the density of the rain made it that much harder to make out the path ahead. Enough had fallen to pool in her boots as she splashed through the rough terrain; she didn’t feel wet, per se, but there was the unusual feeling of something she couldn’t feel sloshing around.

  Though, the downpour wasn’t enough to wash away another one of those arrows. Messy and careless, it appeared to be pointing towards the building. Hopefully that meant it was a safe place, but really Gaunt wasn’t ready to be optimistic about anything given the circumstances.

  Then was the screaming again, close enough to make her ears ring. Something lunged from behind a low pile of junk, so far off target it barely fell within Gaunt’s field of view. It didn’t look like it was planning on getting back up. She didn’t bother to stay and check.

  Steeling herself, Gaunt put on another burst of speed and ignored the growing stitch in her side, now pulling free her crowbar. Shapes tore free from the approaching rooftop. Most plummeted to the ground, but a couple here and there swooped low, stabilized, and soared roughly in her direction. One got pelted with a projectile coming from the building, and another flinched so hard it tumbled and stayed down, leaving only one figure to intercept her.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Would she rather take her chances in the open? The building was much more appealing when she pictured a barricade between herself and the many horrors roaming outside, rather than said barricade trapping her in with them. But there was that arrow. And so far, either it was Kiki, and Gaunt really did not want more blood on her hands, or it was someone else intelligent enough to point her in a direction and write messages, which had proven rare nowadays.

  Either way, Gaunt was not about to let someone get eaten by monsters. That, and they hadn’t exactly proven as dangerous as some of the other shit she’d had to deal with. The apocalypse wasn’t exactly the best time for overconfidence, but you couldn’t just hide from everything to breathe in your direction, either.

  She had a few more seconds before the flying thing reached her. Its skin was stretched taut over frail bony limbs, sailing more like a kite than a bird. Much of it was pocked with holes, scattered evenly across its wing flaps, causing it to flail in midair. It screamed some more, uncannily like a gull, baring its thousands of miniscule pinprick fangs. As it swooped low, Gaunt swung her crowbar forward. She was early, but it smacked into the thing as she ran past after the follow-through, causing it to tumble.

  With nothing immediately following, she slipped through the door and slammed it shut. Taking the nearest chair, she began to set it against the frame before a voice made her whip around and brandish it instead.

  “How long were you in the rain? Are you hurt badly?”

  …It was just Kiki. Completely naked, as it seemed she’d never bothered to replace the clothes she’d dropped at camp, for some fucking reason. A couple new rashes were scattered around her shoulders and on the nape of her neck.

  “No? Not long, just a few minutes. Uh, is that… okay, what the fuck is going on. You just ran off!? While I was sleeping!”

  Kiki looked down and away. “Yeah, something happened. It was unpredictable and unavoidable, trust me, I tried. It should be resolved now.” She winced. “I’m sorry, but… I don’t think I can give many more details.”

  Gaunt slowly lowered the chair back to the ground, crushing it a little into the shattered tiles as she did so. “Okay, but like, you know you can’t just do that, right? It is very literally the end of the world. You could’ve… I don’t know! Died, or something!”

  “It’s not like I left. I was still around. Just out of sight. Honestly… you were in more danger than I was. That subway worm nearly killed you.”

  Gaunt shoved the chair against the door. It splintered, and she stalked over to the next closest to provide some needed support. “Okay, that’s, not actually the fucking point, though? I did not know where you were, you just vanished, right? It’s, um, you need to communicate with me. At least tell me if you’ll be gone for a bit. I didn’t even know if you were alive, let alone nearby.”

  “I’m sorry. By the time I realized what happened, it was… it was very difficult to communicate. You saw my shitty text message and my arrows. I would have warned you in advance if I’d known.” She sighed. “I know that wasn’t fair to you. But I didn’t really have a choice.”

  Gaunt pulled the chair the rest of the way over, and approached a third, this time to sit, head in one hand. “Okay, but, maybe figure something out for next time? Or, I dunno, have a contingency plan. You’d still be at the lake…?”

  “I’d still be at the lake. And,” she smiled slightly, “I don’t think this will ever happen again. I’ve been having issues since I woke up here related to what happened. It’s all fixed now.”

  Gaunt started unzipping her bag. “Well, that’s good then, I guess. Anyway,” She shoved an arm through the opening and pulled free a few rumpled garments. “I got your clothes. Not even gonna ask. Where’d… are those rashes anything to worry about?”

  Kiki reflexively brought a hand to her shoulder. “I’m a little worried. It’s from the rain. I rinsed the spots off with some water, and it doesn’t seem to be getting worse, but you never know.” She reached out, grabbing the clothes, and started putting them on. “Thanks for bringing these over.”

  Gaunt shrugged. “It’s nothing. So the rain… huh, yeah. I didn’t really… notice anything up with it.” As much as Kiki seemed accepting of whatever the hell Gaunt had going on, leaving that detail to the side was more for Gaunt’s own sanity than anything at the moment.

  Kiki blinked, pausing for a moment, then shrugged too. “Well, I’m glad we both made it out mostly okay. Uh, we should check this building. I just f- ran into the first one I saw so I don’t really know what’s in here with us.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. “We’re not splitting up, though.”

  “Oh heck no, not after all this. Pass me the axe?”

  “Yeah.” Gaunt unhooked it from her hip and passed it over, keeping her crowbar out and ready for herself. Kiki took it, tugged her shirt into place, then turned her gaze to the doors at the back of the room.

  “Left or right?”

  Gaunt tossed her head. “Let’s go right.” She took the lead, glancing to ensure Kiki followed behind.

  The door opened into an unlit mailroom, papers scattered across the floor. Plenty of holey cardboard boxes and very, very little anything else. Gaunt absently flicked at the flap on one of the boxes while Kiki appeared… completely zoned out, for no discernable reason. Gaunt wasn’t going to be the one to lecture her directly after finishing her other lecture, that seemed excessive, so she opted to let it rest.

  Gaunt started to turn mid-sentence as she said, “It doesn’t seem like there–”

  She did not manage to finish the sentence as turning around revealed Kiki being mauled by some gangly, clawed creature that was just barely too large to fit in any of the boxes and very much not there before. Before it could do more than tear through her shirt, though, she swung her axe into its side, sending it scrabbling across the dusty floor, sending old envelopes into the air.

  Before it could recover, Gaunt put her crowbar straight through its brain. She hardly had time to bring it back to position before three more leapt out right in front of her. She managed to barely correct one’s course away from her face, sending two of them into a tangle on the ground, while the other missed her completely.

  Gaunt heard a whimper and a thump from behind. More for Kiki to deal with, it seemed. Gritting her teeth, she aimed to swing from the side, bashing all her opponents at once. It caught the first two in its path, crumpling them into a broken heap, and didn’t quite reach the third. A long creaking sounded as she held her crowbar to block its next lunge, only for something to come crashing down from above.

  Immediately, Gaunt was buried in a writhing mass. Bones and flesh and claws aimlessly kicked and spun into her, away from her, past her. She was soon to join, as the sheer weight of it crushed her ribs, limiting her breaths to brief wheezes. Flexing her arm, she tried to shift her weight to no avail. The throng of bodies was all-encompassing.

  Some were beginning to strike, now, only just deep enough to draw blood. Something was tugging from above. Nothing to do but try again. This time, she managed to shove something a little further away, twisting something, snapping something, sending a shrill cry into the air. Air rushed back into her lungs, foul though it was. With the struggling subsiding around her a touch, Gaunt took a minute to regain her senses. Took another breath, tried not to choke. Judging that enough of her strength had returned, she lashed out one more time.

  Light flooded back into her vision as it threw the bulk of the bodies off of her. Gaunt inched her way to freedom, with whatever pulling the bodies up and away wholly welcomed. Now free, Gaunt found herself missing her crowbar. Her boots made an alright substitute as she stomped the skull of the closest creature into a thin pulp.

  None of them bothered to try running away from either her or Kiki, who was also naked again, somehow, for reasons beyond Gaunt’s understanding. Less than a minute later, it was just the two of them, coated in viscera, in a room full of corpses.

  Kiki poked one with her toe, then reached into the mass, fishing out a bloodstained pair of pants. Her face fell at its condition, ripped and dripping with viscera. Frankly, it was none of Gaunt’s business what was going on with that, and perhaps granting a bit of leniency would make Kiki that much less interested in her own quirks, so she did her very best to comment on something unrelated to Kiki or her current predicament.

  Which left the only other potential topic of conversation. Gaunt picked up the arm of the nearest creature. It was incredibly bony, thin enough to snap like a twig, and the flesh around was knobby and misshapen. “These are just a bit… you think they’d even fit in one of the boxes?”

  Kiki frowned, picking up a corpse and rotating it. “They’re a little too… stiff. They can’t fold up enough for that, I think. I… did they come in through the doorway behind us?” She dropped it, reaching back into the pile and fishing out her shirt, which was in even worse condition.

  Gaunt winced. “A couple were from right in front. But we would’ve seen them…”

  Kiki was staring at her. Her eyes flicked away from Gaunt’s shoulders to her face, then briefly up to the ceiling. It took her a few seconds to respond. “...Camouflage?”

  Gaunt threw the forearm back to the ground, where it audibly snapped. “I hate that.”

  “Yup.” Kiki paused, lost in thought for a moment, then started digging the rest of her clothes out from the corpse pile. “Maybe we should close the door and… just stay in here until the rain stops. If there’s more in the building I really don’t want to meet them.”

  Gaunt nodded. “Not a terrible idea.”

  And though they were sitting in a dark room with almost enough space for two people and a fuckton of dead monsters, with a silent promise not to ask whatever the hell is going on with the other, Gaunt still found herself content. Kiki was weird, but at least she was here, this time.

  At least they were still here.