Chương 87: The Pure Line: Chosa pt.2

Chosa rushed up to the attic, where the sounds of gunfire were loudest. Harriet and the neighbors had found their way up there, too. Donny was firing shots from a machine gun at something out the window. While everyone was yelling at him to calm down, and he started yelling back something about his right to protect his land, Chosa found an angle to see what he was shooting at. She almost couldn't believe it. It was that prehistoric bird that attacked her car. Did it somehow follow her all the way here?

Before she could worry about it, a well-placed snipe from Donny dropped the thing right out of the sky.

"How's that for skeet shootin'?" Donny celebrated. The corpse fell on top of the barbed wire fence, crushing it. The others marveled at it.

"What is that thing?" For some reason, they looked at Chosa.

"I don't know. I'm just glad it's dead."

"Well, whatever it is, it had buddies," said Donny. Just like that, a score of them started emerging from the nearby forest, attracted by the rattling of gunfire. Immediately, everyone started to panic. Because that giant bird left a huge hole in their fortress's defense when it crushed the fence. Donny wasn't phased. He told them not to panic and not to go down without a fight. He ran them down to the gun cache and started handing out weapons. It was a strange sight. Chosa was the only one of proper fighting age.

Everyone else looked to be at least 50 years old, if not ancient. Yet they were armed anyway, even Harriet. He tried to hand Chosa a semi-automatic pistol about the size of her fist. But looking at everything else he had…

"No. I want the big one." She pointed at one of the long-barreled rifles in the corner. Donny almost laughed.

"Someone your size couldn't even begin to handle—""I've shot a rifle before." She snatched the thing off the wall and wrapped its strap over her shoulder. It was heavy, but he tried to give her the same thing he had handed the old ladies. Those things looked like they could barely take out a person, let alone a rabid mutant. With the strap, she could handle it.

"Just uh… teach me how to reload it." They only had time for a rushed lesson. From outside, it sounded like the demons were swarming.

"Donny, get here now, or we're in for a world of hurt!" One of the neighbors shouted upstairs. Everyone ran to separate windows with their weapons, and it was as bad outside as it sounded. Their problem had gone from one bird to nearly thirty creatures of all shapes and sizes. Too indescribable to try. She was on the base floor, at the front of the house, with only a mind to start firing. Her only determination was not to die here. She was a survivor after all.

Her choice of weapon turned out to be pretty effective. Using the window as a perch, she barely even had to lift it, just turn the barrel and pull the trigger. The demons started dropping, and she kept firing if only driven by adrenaline. The same couldn't be said for everyone else.

"We're all going to die."

"In God's name, what have we done to deserve this?" She tried to ignore them and focus only on not letting a beast touch a wall of the house, but that proved impossible when the man at the window next to her suddenly flew back, overtaken by some green acid. His screams were deafening as that substance started making his face sizzle and boil. In less than thirty seconds, he was dead, skin melted nearly to the bone. She wanted to vomit. She wasn't a soldier.

She wasn't built to see this kind of thing and keep fighting. So she dropped her gun and ran, trying to find at least somewhere to hide while the others around her were dropping. She found the bathroom, looking to lock herself in, but someone was already inside. Harriet. Eyes as big as chestnuts, holding her head, whispering to some entity to get her out of this alive. That's when Chosa knew that these people never stood a chance in the first place.

"What was I thinking coming all the way out here?" Before she could say anything, Donny burst in after them.

"They're in the house! We gotta get out!" He practically forced the women out into the hall. One of the beasts was out there, using one of ht eneighbors as a midday snack, gnawing at her bleeding, dead flesh in the living room. Of course, it noticed them running by. The grey, werewolf-looking beast suddenly stretched its arms like it was made of thin rubber. It stretched over ten feet, trying to take Chosa's head off. Its claw dug into her left eye, and she screamed.

Half of her sight immediately turned black, and she pulled back, feeling blood sliding down half her face. The beast stretched its other arm at them, but Donny reacted, blasting the beast into pieces with a shotgun. Chosa held onto her eye, unsure if it was still in the socket and unable to take the pain of it. Harriet screamed too, leaving Donny to check on her.

"Come on, girl. You're still alive. It's just an eye. Take it from me, you only need the one." He patted his eyepatch. And pushed the two women out the back door, sparing a moment to pick up Moki the cat on the way out. There was an underground shed in the back. It was Donny's plan to hide out there when things got rough. And with the fence all but useless on those beasts in the house, things were rough.

He opened the hatch, and the three of them filed down the stairs into a dark basement, gasping for air and relief from this madness. Donny locked the door behind him, and somehow things looked safe. But the shed was small and cramped, barely enough room for them to sit comfortably. Chosa struggled, dealing with the pain in her face, sure she was going to bleed out in this dark little shed. Donny switched on a light.

"Here, let me take a look." He made Chosa move her hand and grimaced at the sight. He was able to find a bottle of water and some used rags to attempt to clean the area. Even that hurt like hell.

"How bad is it?" Chosa said, holding the rag to it.

"Uhh… yeah. Not great. Good news is, the scratch marks on your face are surface-level. The thing mostly got your eyeball. But that thing's in heavy danger infection. Here." He took off his eyepatch. The eye underneath it was white and empty, likely made of glass.

"You could probably use this more than me." She wasn't hesitant to put it on.

"Nothing like a second-hand eyepatch." She sighed, using her good eye to gaze into Donny's bad one.

"Oh. I lost it in the war," Donny said.

"What war?"

"Yeah. That was a lie. But it's easier to say than my own son punched me in the eye, and suddenly it didn't work no more." Chosa chewed her tongue.

"More family drama…" Harriet was shaking in the corner, unable to get a hold of herself. But that was something that Chosa didn't have the fortitude to deal with. She wasn't the one missing an eye.

"Sounds like your folks don't get along well either," Donny said.

"No, not me… I don't… I never had any family."

"Oh… foster care?"

"No. Just me."

"That sounds rough."

"I made it work." She sighed and put the eye patch on, feeling as stupid as she felt she looked. That shed turned out to be their home for several hours after that. They could still hear the beasts stomping around on the ground above. It was like they were scouring, knowing the people were still somewhere on the property without a way to kill them. The only choice they had was to sit there and wait it out. The burning in Chosa's eye got worse, and her body felt like it was on fire.

"It looks like you're working up a fever." Donny felt her head.

"We need to fix that wound before there's no bringing you back." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"I don't see how we're going to do that. There's nothing in this shed."

"Well, it wasn't finished before all this mess started… so no. There's nothing in here. But there's some first aid stuff… It's inside the house. There's some stuff in there that'll get you cleaned up."

"It isn't useful in the house."

"That's right. So Imma go get it." He started racking his shotgun, checking the ammo he had on his person. It wasn't a lot.

"Don't be stupid. You'll only kill yourself for what, cleaning my eye? If you think that'll make me wanna screw you or something, you can forget it."

"What the hell? Damn, girl, you're younger than my kids." Chosa shrugged.

"I'm just saying."

"And I'm just saying, you're gonna die if I just leave you be."

"And what reason would you have to save me? I'm not your family."

"I brought you under my roof. Under my protection. There's some responsibility to that."

"Was that really all there was to it? That's stupid." Chosa got quiet.

"Wait, Donny. Don't go." It was Harriet's first words since coming into the shed. She looked like she'd been crying.

"What are we supposed to do if something happens to you?"

"What else? Survive." He turned but hesitated.

"And take care of Moky. Poor cat doesn't deserve all this." He listened to the door. There wasn't any sound coming from outside. So he waited a few more minutes to make sure. Then he gently slid the hatch open and stepped out. Chosa winced and covered her eye, but nothing happened.

"Alright, the coast is clear," Donny said.

"I'll be right back." But as soon as he turned around, something appeared behind. It apparated into reality, like a ghost hunting the dead. Except this thing was real flesh and blood, a giant creature with a mouth larger than its head. Orange, scaly skin, hunched over like an old crone. It was camouflaged, completely invisible to the eye. That's why none of them saw it. It snatched Donny's entire body, squeezing him free of his blood like a tube of paste. He cried out at first, but not in fear. Not in pain.

IN defiance.

"I'm ready. How about you?" Then they heard a click, and out of nowhere the beast's head exploded into a hundred scaly chunks. Some of those chunks were Donny. Chosa shut the hatch door and fell back into a corner of the basement, chest ready to pop.

"Dman it. Damn it." He must've had some sort of explosive in his pocket. He took the beast out with him, but what did that mean for them? Why did he die like that? Harriet was starstruck, murmuring something to herself, crossing over into the plane of insanity. Chosa hadn't a mind to listen to her. She was caught in her own insanity. That was it. They were stuck here in this shed for the rest of forever until they starved or something eventually found them. It was another hour before either of them.

It was just the two of them alone. No one was coming to save them. No way out but that deadly hatch. Chosa tried to think. Was there any way not to die here? There had to be something. Something.

"I bet T'Balt's doing fine." Harriet finally said.

"What?"

"If only I had a nice big house, completely paid for, that would protect me, hmm. Then maybe I wouldn't be dying out in some country backwater. But I don't have that. Because my own parents didn't love me, and now because of that, I'm gonna die. Well, at least my ungrateful son will enjoy the rest of his life. At least I have that."

"What the hell are you talking about? We're stuck in a fucking hole, and instead of thinking of something useful, you're thinking of that shit. Well, guess what? T'balt's dead. He died trying to protect me. So I could get away. So the least you can do as his mother is shut the hell up and help me figure out a way to make sure I don't die anyway!" Harriet went quiet. For a while. But that was fine. At least Chosa could think without her constant murmuring. She had to focus on living.

She could feel the scrapes around her eye getting worse. The eye itself she couldn't feel under the eyepatch. She had to figure out a way to get to that first aid kit. The first aid kit in the house, surrounded by demons that now didn't have to be visible to kill you. Between the pain, the fever, and her exhaustion, she couldn't think straight. She'd spent her life getting what she wanted out of other people. It was how she survived. Otherwise, she would've been on the street all alone and worthless.

Now she didn't have any more people to use. It was just her and Harriet. And for some reason, letting Harriet die felt like… too much. If she felt any responsibility to T'balt, not killing his mother was one of them. But the woman was geared to do that on her own. Without a word, she got up and started walking towards the hatch.

"What are you doing?" Chosa grabbed her arm, but the woman snatched it away and kept walking. Silently, she opened the hatch and stepped outside.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed!? Stop!" She didn't listen. She sat down on the ground in the middle of the muddied yard, right next to the exploded pieces of monster decorating the lawn. Chosa closed her eyes. But nothing appeared. Nothing attacked. Harriet just sat there in the middle of the lawn like she'd been possessed to do so. Chosa didn't trust it after what happened to Donny. So she waited for nearly ten minutes. Still, nothing happened. And she breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn't know what possessed Harriet, but the house was clear. She had an open path to the first aid kit. She scoured the house, eventually finding it and doing her best to disinfect the eye under the patch. She still felt like garbage, but at the very least, she didn't think she was going to get worse. The next order of business would be to leave this place that clearly wasn't safe anymore. She gathered what she could around the house, including her sling rifle, some food, and a few cases of ammo.

While she was doing that, she saw the strangest thing. Moki, the little Persian cat, was chasing a bug around the house. The cat had blood all over its fur, likely from outside, and it pounced on the little bug until it had it in its mouth. It brought it to the top of the dresser and mewed at it. But the closer Chosa looked, the more it resembled a strange coin. When the cat realized it couldn't eat it, it set it down and pawed at it.

Suddenly, the coin sprang legs and jumped on the back of the cat's neck, digging its way into its skin. It screeched and leaped around the house, knocking over any decoration that wasn't already destroyed. And then the cat disappeared. Chosa thought it was a trick of the light or a symptom of her missing an eye that she just lost track of it. Either way, she wasn't going to concern herself with the cat.

Sure, Donny died trying to help her, but that didn't mean his cat was going to be anything but a hindrance to her survival. She was already making herself accept a different hindrance. She stepped outside onto the back porch. Harriet was still sitting in the yard, staring up at the clouds.

"I'm not staying here," Chosa said to the woman. Harriet slowly turned her head to her.

"I bet that isn't the first time you've told someone that."

"When the other option is to wait to die, then I do what I have to. You don't have to die here, too."

"Don't pretend like you care.

"Shut the hell up and help me figure out a way to make sure I don't die anyway, huh." You knew he was gone when you got here. You didn't tell me because you left my son to die… Just like I did."

"You want me to apologize? I didn't tell him to be the way he was. It wasn't my job to protect him." Harriet scoffed.

"Maybe one day, you'll have your own children. I doubt it, but it's possible. Then you'll know what responsibility is and what it feels like to fail that responsibility."

"Maybe."

"Well, don't let me stop you. You just keep on surviving, little girl. And leave the rest of us be." Chosa sighed, not wishing to spend any more time here than she needed to, but there was one more thing she felt like she should say.

"T'balt didn't hate you. He didn't come around because he thought you hated him. And he never wanted to cause anybody any problems. He was a pushover like that… But even if you really did hate him," She paused.

"He was a good guy." She turned to leave.

"Wait." Harriet had stood up.

"Maybe I could come with you. I'm not superstitious or anything. But maybe there's a reason the world's brought us together now." Chosa could feel herself cracking a smile.

"Alright." Then Harriet took a step forward, not knowing it would be the last of her life. A stray dog had made its way over to the yard, scavenging all the decaying meat lying on the ground. Something jumped onto its back, and it found itself infected with wings and bloodlust. It flew over the house and pounced on Harriet, wildly ripping at her neck, taking the life from her in moments. Chosa whipped the gun from around her waist and shot it dead. But the noise.

The loud gunshot reverberated through the ears of any beast in the area. They closed in on her quickly, too quickly for her to think or even check if Harriet had a chance at living. Another wolf-like creature leaped clear over the back fence, right on top of the shed. Chosa took another shot at it, but this one was quick. Too quick. It jumped on her, trying to take her other eye. She reached for her waist, where she'd stowed one of Donny's combat knives, and stabbed it right in the neck with a feral yell.

When she did that, something strange crawled from the beast's neck. She didn't have time to process it. More were coming. She shoved the thing off her and ran to the house as they started ramming through the back fence. She tried to run out the front, but they were there too. A whole swarm of them. Enough to know she wasn't going to accomplish anything with a direct confrontation. All she could do was hide. But with the monsters surrounding the house, all she could do was find a room and barricade the door.

She ran to the attic, but the beasts were pouncing on the door, and no matter how many things she threw in front of it, the snarls were getting louder. More were coming. Stronger ones. She had to figure out something. She just couldn't catch a break. But this time, she didn't panic. She was morose.

"This is just what life will be like from now on? Constantly running. Never being able to feel safe." She stared at her gun, her one protection from the monsters outside. And she picked it up… and aimed. Moki appeared. It apparated out of the air, licking the fur on its paw without a care in the world. And then the shot was fired. The next morning was brisk and windy. One should have an appreciation for silence. Listening to nature, at its most calm, was a serene and beautiful feeling.

When chaos was abroad and the world was constantly changing, there needed to be places where one could find peace. Chosa walked down the long, open road, eyepatch on her face and rifle slung around her back, feeling a strange sense of freedom. There was dried blood all over her body. Some her own, some other people's, some belonging to the demons. She didn't care to differentiate which was which. She just took in the sun as it slowly rose and watched her hand fade in and out of visibility.

She looked ahead, which was all that she could do, and sighed.

"Well, Chosa. You're a survivor. Time to survive." And kept walking.