Chương 73: Extra: The Looter's Paradise Tease #1 : Morning starts at noon

It had been a long night, she remembered. Marred with paperwork, annoying emails, and way-too-late work calls. And the cherry on top was that she slept as well as a mafia snitch, her body full of unnecessary adrenaline. She'd woken up so many times that it could hardly have been sleep at all.

"Nnnghh…" she groaned from her bed. Her maid popped into the room, in that assuming way people do when they knock without actually asking for permission.

"It's unlike you to sleep in this late, <REDACTED>." The powdery-faced, old woman crept into the room.

"It's nearly noon. It's time to get up, now. Otherwise, your stepfather will have a fit at us for not getting you out of bed." <REDACTED> sank deeper into her covers, turning herself into a turtle. The maid rubbed the part where she assumed the shoulders would be, but ended up rubbing <REDACTED>'s forehead.

"I'm not a child. I can sleep however long I like." <REDACTED> moaned. After a brief silence, "Ugh… just a little longer, Maimy." The woman wasn't taking no for an answer. However, she wasn't combative. With her sweet little old voice, she peeked under the blanket and whispered, "We've got a fresh tub of cookies and cream downstairs. I can't make you go to work, but at least come downstairs." That always worked, even after the millionth time. <REDACTED> sat up, sneezed, and then wrapped her arms around her nanny.

"I love you, Maimy. I'll be down in a few." The kindly woman was surprised by the hug, but only showed it by smiling and bowing her way out of the room. <REDACTED> gathered what little bit of herself she could, not bothering to change out of her pajamas and failing to rub the sleep out of her eyes. By the time she actually got down the stairs, it was thirty minutes past noon. She yawned, stretched, and swayed around the cracks and fallen debris that blocked her way to her kitchen.

It was a mansion of a house, but it seemed bigger with everything on the floor and expensive glass shattered everywhere. It made a short walk into a choreographed dance that <REDACTED> performed perfectly. On the kitchen island sat her prize. A large, slightly melted bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. Two scoops of vanilla with sprinkles of chocolate chip cookie crumbles slowly drifting down the side of ice cream mountain. Her eyes sparkled, and her mouth turned to water.

With a golden spoon in hand, she leapt over the collapsed chandelier and fell deep into the living room's big leather couch. She then spent the better part of an hour gorging herself on the entire pantry. Tortilla chips, mini doughnuts, cereal, she even made room in her gullet for a piece of peanut butter toast just for the sake of it. Someone had to eat before it went bad. By the end of her movie, she was absolutely stuffed. It felt like a good time for a cigarette.

<REDACTED> slid her hand down the cushion of the couch, drawing a half-empty pack of cigs. It was where Maimy hid them. Her stepfather didn't like the staff smoking, and subjected them to routine body searches to minimize theft so…

"I'm sure you won't mind, right, Maimy?" Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. She dug around in her pants for her lighter but realized she'd left them in her jacket all the way upstairs. She moaned lazily. Then she noticed the spot of blood on her socks.

"Maimy, you got a light on you?" Without an answer, <REDACTED> made her way to the corpse of the woman, bludgeoned by the fallen chandelier. Blood turned her hair and uniform a deep red, and the maid's neck was twisted the wrong way. <REDACTED> did her best not to get any more blood on herself, but the lighter was in Maimy's breast pocket, and she was facedown. You win some, you lose some. With blood on her fingers, she lit the light and broke Daddy's rule of no smoking in the house.

It wasn't long after that when the bandits came, because of course, bandits would come.

"The apocalypse happens, they see a shiny big house on the hill, and they think that's where we'll set up shop. If someone lives there, kill them. It's us or them. Us or them. Or whatever. But really, they're some assholes my stepdad fired. They think this whole thing is a purge, so they want to get back at the man who ruined their lives. But they're victim yawns… bored and uninterested." <REDACTED> stretched and yawned in her bright pink pajamas.

The bandits looked incredulous at each other before one of them spoke up.

"You know who we are, so what? That doesn't change a thing. We're taking everything Corlander has… including you." She spoke monotonously, like she was reading from a boring children's book.

"They think she's helpless. But little did they know, she was armed the whole time. For in her hand, she holds… a spoon. I'd think twice if I were you, she says. The men flash worry on their faces, but when they see that she really had nothing but a spoon, they step closer. They laugh when she aims the spoon at the one in front." The men were laughing, more confused, nervous laughing, than an evil cackle. But it still fit her story.

"They laugh and laugh and laugh. They stop laughing when his head explodes into a hundred pieces."

"What?" The one in front stopped. His head burst open, splattering skull and brain matter all over her stepdad's formerly pristine floors.

"Then the others run away. But they would never escape her deadly spoon." She pointed her spoon again.

"The second man is flung towards her with an apple-sized hole in his chest." His corpse fell next to her.

"The last drops to his knees and started begging for his life."

"Please. I'm sorry. We were never going to hurt you. Let me go…"

"She tries to tell the last one to calm down, but it goes in one ear and out the other."

"What are you talking about?"

"The bullet." A red spray erupted from the man's eardrum before he slumped over dead. <REDACTED> blew on the tip of the spoon, got bored, and sat to resume her movie.

"And then <REDACTED> comes in from her perch on the watch tower," she said aloud.

"Lady <REDACTED>, are you hurt?" the emerging woman said, rifle slung around her back.

"I have a plane prepared for us to leave. At your leave, we should be out of this city as soon as possible, she says." The woman's face didn't change. Not even a hint of surprise.

"That's right."

"I'm not feeling it. How about we sit down for a movie instead?"

"A movie, ma'am?"

"<REDACTED> pats the couch next to her, and <REDACTED> reluctantly sits, never one to disobey a command. And for the rest of the day, they watch movies, ignoring the smell of corpses around them."