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Memoirs
From the End of the World
Entry
#26
The house looked less menacing in full
daylight without predatory thugs with weapons milling about. Nevertheless, the three of them approached
with caution. If it hadn’t been for Isabel,
RC and Alyx may never have made it out of there. RC
understood this fact all too well. Who
knew what may have happened the following morning, or what may have happened
when their captors realized Alyx had no intention of leading them where they
wanted to go?
Ollie, on the other hand, never had to
see this place before that moment. He
looked at it with fresh eyes, more focused on tactics because he wasn’t being
crushed by the memories. “I don’t see
any footprints in the snow. That means
they probably haven’t been here for a little while.”
“That, or they’re carefully covering
their tracks like we are,” RC pointed out.
“Maybe,” Alyx conceded, “but I doubt
it. These guys didn’t seem like the type
to tiptoe around when we met them. They
operated through fear and intimidation.
Hiding their tracks would work against that.”
RC nodded, relieved by this analysis. The plan was for them to get in, get what
they needed, and get out again as quickly as possible. Ollie had agreed to cover the second floor to
see what supplies he could find up there, Alyx would cover the main floor, and
RC would check out the basement.
According to Isabel, provisions had been hidden all over the house. Spiked Club always squirreled away food and
things in his room.
Before Isabel slashed his throat, anyway.
Stepping through the front door set RC on
edge. She remembered the numbness of
marching through the blizzard, the sting of the fresh wound on her collarbone, the
hopeless feeling of being forced in the closet.
She glanced over and saw the closet.
“Memories,” she muttered.
Alyx nodded. “Definitely.”
The house met them with the eerie creak
of floorboards as they fanned out, peering around every corner. RC’s heart slowly returned to a more moderate
pace as she saw more reassurance that they were the only ones in the house. That’s when she took the journey down the
rickety wooden steps into the basement.
While Ollie and Alyx would search without turning on any lights, she
didn’t have that luxury. She’d never be
able to find anything in that dark pit if she didn’t flip the light switch.
The damp scent, which closely mirrored
the smells RC recalled from other basements, lingered with another smell that
she couldn’t quite identify. This other
smell wasn’t overpowering, but it lingered in her nostrils, driving her to
discover the source. Anything remaining
unidentified was something that could possibly harm her.
The lone, bare light bulb hung from the
center of the low ceiling, casting shadows everywhere. Piles of boxes lined the walls. And these boxes looked new, wearing only the
lightest coating of dust. This meant
they couldn’t have been there long.
RC was about to pull back the flaps of
the nearest box when she heard shuffling.
She paused in her movements, straining to hear any sound that might
follow.
It’s
probably a mouse or a snake,
she told herself. Odds are it’s nothing.
A moment later, more shuffling. Then a low groan.
She briefly considered flying back up the
stairs without investigating further.
She heard the comforting sounds of Alyx’s feet crossing above her head,
reminding her that she wouldn’t have to go far for backup. Yet such an action seemed cowardly, and in
this world, the last thing she could afford was cowardice.
Slowly, with knife drawn, RC tiptoed away
from the safety of the stairs and deeper into the room. She crept past a rack packed with winter
wear, snow boots and shoes lined up underneath.
She noted the snow shoes in particular.
They would make it easier to traverse the deep snow, as well as making
their path through the streets less visible from a distance.
If
Gas Can and the others are using them now that the snow is this deep, would we
have noticed any footprints outside? Paranoia began to creep up on her, but RC
pushed it back down. Of course we would have. We were thorough about our check before we
came inside. We aren’t idiots.
RC came upon the hot water heater. Right beside that was a pole that ran from
the floor to the ceiling. A human figure
huddled at the bottom. Covered in
bruises and blood, hair matted. Hands
chained to the pole, feet chained to a hook buried in the floor.
A startled yelp escaped RC’s throat, and
then figure’s head jerked up. The face
looked male, but was deathly thin and covered with dirt. Wide green eyes bulged out of his eye sockets
as he stared at her. “Who are you?” His voice wavered slightly, and his tone was untrusting.
“My friends and I came here to loot
supplies,” RC replied. “We won’t hurt
you.”
A hint of relief brightened his
expression. “My sister is tied up over
there.” He gestured with a nod of his
head. “You need to let us go. We’ve been down here for weeks. They’ll kill us if you leave us here!”
“Why are you down here in the first
place?”
“There’s a resistance movement,” he
replied. “We’re a small group, but we’re
determined. My sister and I were
captured when we came here to sabotage equipment. They’ve been torturing us for information,
and we have to go days without food and water when no one is here.”
One look at the sister, who must have
been a few years older than him, told RC that they’d been much harder on
her. Even if she let them loose, she had
no idea how they’d fend for themselves.
These two would slow them down significantly. And yet . . . she couldn’t bring herself to
turn away.
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