Chapter 2 - Jungle to Jungle

A low roar of thunder wakes her from her broken sleep and she sits bolt upright. With her mind still coming to she looks judiciously through the trees in all directions for any sign of movement, seeing none she picks up a large twig and haunches over the small fire she’d built for herself and pokes at the dying embers to coax slight flares of heat from it. A thin smile appears across her cracked lips as she envisions herself years ago sitting by a fireplace with a boy, older than she, and an elderly man sitting in an armchair behind them reading to them both. She cannot remember the words but the softly spoken voice soothes her and she longs for that moment once again.

Another roar of thunder shakes the stars overhead and as she looks to the sky a single drop of rain lands on her face and rolls softly down her cheek, an angels’ tear for her dying memories. She rolls her blanket of crudely stitched together jumpers and tucks it between the straps of her backpack and mounts it on her back as she rises to her feet. The light is beginning to rise over the city and she needs to find something to eat soon, she hates venturing into the city and always tries to gather what she can from shops and rest stops on the outskirts but she is running out of options after weeks of living in the forest she has already scavenged as much as she can from the places she knows are there.

It’s about two miles to the highway leading into the city but heading downhill as she is she should make it in under half an hour. The rain torrents from above and continues to get heavier and heavier and each drop carves tiny craters in the mud catapulting earth over her legs and the small of her back. Her dirty blonde hair clings to her face and she has to keep running her finger from the bridge of nose to the corner of her mouth to clear it.

Eventually she comes to the top of a hill overlooking the road where she stops and takes shelter under a large pine tree marked with yellow spray-paint in the form of a large X, she wipes the palms of her hands on the back of her beige khakis and loosens the drawstring on the pack and takes out a pair of binoculars. She sits on a large root protruding from the tree with her legs outstretched crossed one over the other holding the binoculars in her right hand patiently observing the road the full way to the city limits whilst she picks flakes of bark from the tree with her left.

She rises to her feet after fifteen minutes and starts down the hill, the hill is steep and if she’s not careful she will reach the bottom much sooner than she’d like. She puts her left foot forward and wraps her arm around the thin pine beside her, she leans back to counter the slope and digs her right foot into the marshy ground facing out. She releases her hold on the tree and edges forward almost losing her balance with each step before finding a rhythm of taking a few steps and then sliding for a few feet.

At the bottom she steps over the corrugated tin road barrier onto the less treacherous tarmac and looks behind her to see her alligator trail leading up the hill. She is standing on the deserted road heading into town and makes her way across another two barriers to the West road where she climbs onto the roof of a rusted old car taking care not slip but also careful not to meet the empty gaze of the hollow eyes in the car. Looking back down the road there is an immense sea of traffic almost stacked on top of one another extending to the Horizon, looking forward she is only a mile from the colossal stone and glass landscape, the buildings more compact the trees she just emerged from. She feels uneasy. A warm sensation spreads through her stomach up her body to the back of her throat as a simultaneous cold shiver runs down her spine causing the muscles in her neck to spasm.

She places her hand on the roof of the car and hops off scattering shavings of rust across her clothes and makes her way down the third lane of cars peering into the back window of each one as she passes. A quarter mile down the road she comes to a green SUV with three of the doors flung open, she closes the passenger door and pokes her head in the back, seeing the child’s seat she wonders how far they would've made it, she’s never seen a baby before and honestly hopes never to, this is a harsh world and to bring a child into it is cruel.  Looking past the back seat she sees a thick woven tartan blanket covering a taped cardboard box, she reaches back to a netted side pocket in her bag and grabs a can of spray-paint, shaking it vigorously she crouches at the front of the car and sprays a diagonal yellow line on the bumper just below the grill as she has done so many times before so that she ransack it later, she puts the can back in the side pocket and carries  forward. 

She passes just beyond  the slip road that runs off the highway and meets with another road bordering the city; there is an old billboard that towers above her which long ago advised people to "travel with care", more appropriate now than ever. She climbs the ladder to side and passes between the two huge boards giving herself a brief respite from the rain before sitting down on the cold steel grate with her legs hanging over the end. She grabs her binoculars again and prudently scans the front of every building, every alleyway and every street that she can see. She takes the binoculars away from her eyes for a moment to wipe the rain from the lenses as she does she catches a glimpse of a figure darting away from the buildings across the main road to her right. She immediately lies prone on the grate and her heart starts to race, again looking through the binoculars she can see an old Diner by the road cast in shadow from the buildings across the way. There is movement inside, the shadow of a figure passing by windows quickly but silently. The grates are hurting her knees and elbows and she slowly tries to reposition herself, army crawling forward. As she does the can in the side pocket slips out and falls onto the grate, in a panic she reaches back for it a little too zealously and her fingertips knock it over the edge sending it clattering down to the ground with a clang. Her heart is beating faster than ever now. It wouldn’t have heard it, she tells herself, the rain is falling too heavily, it would’ve muffled the sound. As she says it the figure runs out into the street trying to source the disturbance, she lies… Watching… Waiting. It turns to head back inside when the nozzle of the can pops off and air comes screaming out sending a flurry of colour into the air as the can rifles off of nearby cars. Her heart stops.

Without looking she can feel the creatures piercing gaze upon her. She looks down onto the street and the creature looks up at her, it’s breathing heavily like a bull in a rage, and for a moment they both just stare at each other before it suddenly throws its arms and head back and lets out a blood curdling scream into the air and looks back at her. Within seconds the streets are flooded with a mass of bodies sprinting towards her in search of their prize.

In an instant she scrambles to her feet and makes for the ladder leaving her backpack behind. As she descends each slippery rung tries desperately to loosen her grip. She drops the last meter or so to the ground and makes a split second  decision to make for the city. Loose them in the buildings, she tells herself. They've already made it to the off ramp but she catches the monster that alerted the rest in the corner of her eye, still standing in the same spot... watching her and breathing as heavily as before.

She runs down the middle lane of cars as fast as she dare as the city grows larger and larger still before her. She's almost there. She sharply looks back and can see shadow after shadow behind her, throwing themselves violently in to one another and ricocheting off cars to be the front of the pack. Her hip clips the side mirror of a car causing her to lose balance and slam her other side into the rear of the next car. Her scream seems to fuel them, they can sense her pain. The predators are closing in.

The rain has stopped now and the morning sun is rising over the city, beams of light shine through the buildings like bars in a jail cell. As she tries to reclaim her breath she cant help but notice those hollow eyes peering out from broken windows. She can't outrun them from up here any longer. She makes her way to the edge of the motorway, clutching her ribs where she thumped into the car. She looks for a way down to the street below, a truck, a car, anything to brake her fall, but to her dismay the street is derelict. To her left is a street light, its a couple of metres below but its her only chance as the encroaching shadows grow nearer and louder. Its almost a straight shot down and she climbs over the railing and sits on the ledge to lessen her fall. As she tries to let go fear grips her and she hesitates but they're still coming. she pushes off the ledge and outstretches her arms to grasp the overhanging street light but she has misjudged the distance and instead the pole slams into her midriff with an agonizing crunch.

She tries to scream but instead air shoots from her body and for a while she hangs there taking sharp breaths to get some back into her lungs. She looks up the street and almost begins to weep. There it is, standing there still watching, its breath lingers in the air like smoke making it all the more menacing. She quickly collects herself and shimmies to the vertical pole, just as she is about to slide down the creature once again lets out a scream, even more piercing than the last. Like a bugle player it summons forth its army and they begin to mass in the street. Bodies start falling from above smashing into the concrete and writhing on the ground as though they mean to get up. She takes grip of the pole and slides to ground, and her feet touch down pain courses through her body and she struggles to breathe.

She starts down an alleyway beside her, she's sluggish from exhaustion and the pain in her side.

Reviews

[♔ CrownedDevil &#..]

Just like in the first chapter, you kept the intensity going throughout the second chapter. The reader can really picture what's going on in their minds. The description in both chapters are amazing. Your a very talented writer. Can't wait to read the next chapter when you post it.

Kaze~

[olla]

good job developing the scene.. a post apocalyptic landscape comes to mind.. I am intrigued.. almost everyone who tackles a full on story does it in bits and pieces..

[olla]

I am not very good at reviews.. I generally irritate young authors when I really want to encourage.. you have a solid beginning of a story line.. and you have some really good descriptive passages.. but you have some work to do when it comes to sentence structure.. don't be discouraged.. and don't try to change anything yet.. write your story.. and then.. you can go back and restructure where needed.. you have captured my attention and I want more..

[Stephen Bell]

Hi Olla, Thanks very much, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I agree with you on my sentence structure, they seem to drag on a bit. I'll definitely keep working on it and hopefully I'll get it to the standard I want to be at.

[olla]

You will.. but first just get it out of your head and on paper... then you can go back and edit it.. many good stories are lost while we try to be true to grammar... just tell the story for now...