Scavengers

It was dry, and the sun was stealing her breath.

She would never ride a bike, and had never got her driver's license. She managed to make do on scooters, and quad bikes, and sometimes (it was very rare, rarer then water and rarer then cigarettes) even skateboards.

Riding a push bike was risky, the last time she had properly ridden one was when she was nine, her younger brother's Ben Ten bike.

It was late, the sun still hot creeping beneath the horizon. She almost cried, almost shed nonexistent tears, when she saw the service station.

The war had been good to her, but never like this. Never just giving her something that good, it was almost a gift.

She knew already that it was most likely empty, infested with zombies, and would probably get her killed.

She lived for death, for the sweet release she hoped awaited her. God forbid she die when she actually wants. No, let her live through a whole goddamn war, then the aftermath, and not once get the thing she wanted most.

She snickered, pulling her cap further down on her head, walking over to the bland Seven-Eleven.

She had left the bike long ago, both tiers busted and more likely to kill her if she got caught by zombies. She may as well just run, it would give her more chance to live.

She hated living, even in makeshift death.

When she tried the handle, she checked the knives in her belt. The windows and doors where covered in newspapers, but she had been in this world long enough to know how to get into the backways, to know where the backways were.

When she managed to open it, her breath was pushing against her lips, the dirty yellow bandana sticking against her face.

The door squeaked, and the noise made her flinch. Other lifetimes, lifelines, and lifestyles should haved prepared her. Should have hardened her skin, and strengthened her will to live.

But her mother's violence, and her father's ticking timebomb anger had never done anything but cause her to jump. To shake. To want them to shut up.

She cracked the door open, and was faced with a gun. She smiled, crooked with a tooth poking out from her top lip.

Rookie move.

She slowly raised her hands and placed her them on the back of her head, not getting a good look at the face, only enough features to piece together that the person was male.

But she was alright. The hands holding the gun were shaking, and the boy (it could only ever be a boy, not a man, stupid enough to think he could use a gun) was breathing heavier then what one would think possible.

He sounded like he was having a panic attack.

"Okay, okay. I'm chill, now put your gun down. Don't wanna alert the zombies, now do we?" The gun lowered slightly but she didn't remove her hands from her head.

She knew better then to trust strangers.

They stayed like that for perhaps ten minutes, her arms aching and her breath getting warmer and warmer. She was sweating in the January night heat.

A voice, low and toneless, called out from behind the boy. She didn't catch a thing they had said, but from the shuffling, and the person moving back away from the door, this could be dinner and someplace to sleep tonight.

After more shuffling, and a gun pushing between her shoulder blades to move through the shop, she (not used to the deep darkness, for the goggles she wore blocked out the sun) made out the outline of a slushie machine.

"Turn around, and sit on your ass. We have some talkin' to do." The voice, low and toneless, was now slightly feminine. It was funny, she supposed. It reminded her of a girl she used to know.

The lights, candles, and solar-powered lanterns were covering shelves and the ground around her. She turned around, and sat promptly on her bum, not looking up or letting her hands rest in her lap.

They could easily just shoot her if she did so, could put it down as her being defiant. Not following the orders that were given to her.

"Look at us, and tell us why you are here." When she looked up she giggled, staring into the light while smiling from behind the clothe.

"Honestly, Beckett. Don't you know all the scavengers go to the servo's?" She smiled at the group of faces, the one in front paling, a face she hadn't seen for six years.

"Who are you? T-take your mask and hat off!" She took her hands off her head, finally, and started to remove everything. First, she removed her cap, a dirty and frayed black hat that once belonged to her father.

She ran her hand over her buzzcut, laying the hat beside her legs. She didn't break eye-contact with Beckett, smiling still as she pulled the black-out goggles off her head, placking that beside her also.

She smiled, his eyes widening all the more when she finally removed her bandana, a smirk changing her face ugly.

"What," she taunted, leaning back against the machine. Both Beckett and the boy and girl behind him were frozen, the girl shaking slightly, "you don't recognise me?" Beckett trembled slightly, raising a hand to his mouth.

"M-Malorie? Malorie Rogers?" Malorie, because that was in fact her title, scoffed at Beckett. She hadn't heard that name in so long, she forgot it sometimes.

"As if you would forget, we were great friends back in the day. Hi, Beth and Freddie. It's been a while, huh?" Malorie scratched the back of her head, watching Beth and Beckett glance over at each other, Freddie shaking his head as he walked away.

"What are you doing here? In the outskirts of the city?" Mallory giggled, pulling off her worker jacket and placing it in her lap.

"I could ask you guys the same. It's a long way from the country." Beth came forward, sitting down in front of her. She brought her gauze-wrapped hands to her hair, bushy and knotted and filled with leaves.

"You've changed, May. You've changed a whole lot." Rolling her eyes, Malorie played with her ear, staring at Beth with all the unsaid words glazing her eyes.

"And you guys haven't changed a speck," she spat, smiling all cruel and thin, leaning forward to catch Beth's eyes.

Beckett shuddered, walking away from Beth and Malorie, perhaps to go talk with Freddie.

Beth and Malorie always had been friends, back when they still talked. They never had been close, had they?

"Why are you here? This is a dangerous city, isn't the country the best place to hide when things like this happen?" Beth hiccups, sitting on her bum also. Malorie had always thought Beth was the smartest.

"We got lost. There was meant to be shelter in the heart. There was none..." Malorie rolls are eyes and clenches her teeth. She hates people, and the devastation supplied her with some alone time.

"Honestly, I am surprised you're still alive. You weren't the smartest." Malorie scoffed, pulling her shoulders back as her face reddened. Beth was right, though. Getting nine out of fifty on a test isn't very impressive.

"Well, do you have anything I could nibble on? I have a few knives I can trade you." Beth rolled her eyes and got up, Malorie following, limping slightly from old aches after picking up her stuff.

She pulled her jacket on, and her cap afterwards. She pulled her goggles over her head to wrest around the next, tying her bandana below the goggles also.

"So, May. What happened to your hair?" Beth slouched, trudging forward in boots that looked too big, and a waterproof pancho covering a long sleeved shirt.

It was best to be covered at all times, incase of a run in with a zombie.

"I never was the kept type, do you know how hard it is to be clean and beautiful during an apocalypse?" She stared at her converse clad shoes, pulling her jeans to rest more highly on her hips.

Beth laughed, sounding more dead then Malorie felt.

They walked to the counter, windows and door blacked out with paint. Beth knocked and waited, seconds flowing into minutes. No sound came from within the booth, and Malorie wondered if they had managed to soundproof it.

Freddie ended up unlocking the door, standing tall and thin and exactly the same as Malorie
remembered.
"We're keeping her for a bit, for old times sake." Suddenly he was gone, and Beckett was standing where Freddie once stood. He didn't look happy, and was staring Malorie down.

"Oh yeah? And how are we sure she hasn't been infected? Or that she won't go nuts and kill us in our sleep?" Beckett sneered at her now, and Malorie stared into his ice cold eyes, a red painting along her face.

"Look into my eyes, Beckett," they stared at each other, Beth breathing heavily, Freddie watching as he sat more into the booth.

"Do you honesly think I'm lying?" Beckett bit into his thumb for a split second, shaking his head hesitantly.

Malorie snickered, cockiness written in her eyes and on the seam of her lips.

Beckett humorously laughed, moving out of the doorway to let the two girls in. The booth was smaller then they could all sit comfortably in, all average hight, but Mallory being the shortest.

When they had all sat down, Freddie's knees overlapping with Beth's and Beckett's knees, Beth grabbed a little black bag and took out two packets of chips.

They were sitting in awkward chatter, Malorie eating as if she had been here with them since the start, while the group all had downcast eyes. Except for Beckett, he glared Malorie as sharp and hard as he pleased.

Suddenly Malorie sat up high, brushing crumbs off her hands and face, wiping at the corner of her lips with a grin.

"Do they still have the cigarettes here?" The minimal talking stopped, and everyone froze with food halfway up to their mouths. Malorie realised she must have said something wrong, but couldn't figure out what.

"Yeah, behind Beckett..." Malorie smiled at Beth, standing up and checking the built in cabinet. True to Beth's word, it was almost full.

It was when she was going to sit back down, that everyone started back up again.

She was pulling a lighter out of a jacket pocket, feeling slightly uneasy when she made eye-contact with Beckett, who had stopped talking, and moved to ask Malorie a quiet strange question.

"So, what? You're smoking now?" Malorie lit her smoke, taking in a drag, and took it away from her mouth, she was trying desperately to not gag on the smoke and cough. Malorie sat forward and giggled.

Perhaps it was too long of a laugh, or they didn't understand the joke. Beckett pushed her roughly, anger written over his face.

That caused her to laugh harder.

"I told you she was a nutter!" They were trying to shush her, and she dropped her cigarette she was laughing that hard.

She hadn't had a cigarette in two years.

It got so bad that Beth grapped her smoke and dropped it in a puddle of water, slapping Malorie across the face, knocking her hat off.

She tried to stop her giggles, she really did. Malorie leaned back against the wall, not bothering to pick her cap back up.

"It's been a while, I think I'm getting the spin of the head." Malorie snorted then, shaking and trembling while her eyes watered.

She hadn't laughed this hard in years.

"How can you be laughing, at a time like this? With your family dead?" Malorie didn't stop laughing for another minute after that, little giggles leaving her lips when she tried to pull a straight face.

"W-well, I didn't care," oh she had cared, alright, "I didn't love my family, I was detached from them. I would have killed them, if I had the chance."

She did love them, had loved them. She had cried and screamed, dragging all the members of her family that had been infected (which were all) into the basement, setting the house on fire after grabbing everything she could.

Pictures, presents, people.

All left to burn, all she wish she could have brought with her. Baggage to heavy for a seventeen year-old's shoulders. In her own, sometimes detached way, Malorie had loved them as much as possible for her.

Looking up and lighting a new smoke, Malorie smiled at Beckett, knowing he didn't like her answer. He tried to hold in a cough, and Malorie remembered Beth had asthma.

Beth, Freddie and Beckett didn't look her way, or talk to her again that night. There was barely enough room for three to lay, a person always on watch in the main part of the service station.

They didn't let Malorie go on watch, not trusting her enough. She had slept like a baby, dreaming of school classes and boring lessons.

Those were her favorite dreams.