Analise Gordan (crazyonyou) wrote in the_colony, @ 2011-03-19 22:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 35, analise gordan, holland sharpe, | bridget and holly, ~ series: raids |
Week 35 - Wednesday
Characters: Ana Kirke, Holly Sharpe - plus NPCs
Setting: Sporting goods store in Grants Pass
Summary: A simple raid turns unexpectedly dangerous
Rating: PG-13 for just a little bit of language
The first store Ana and Holly tried didn’t have a radio and the jury was still out on the second. Holly was checking for it. Funny enough, this would have been a good project for Drew but he was sticking to what he said last week and was staying home. Ana went instead. It was fine; she liked Holly’s company - and also his fashion sense. While he searched, Ana picked her way through the various debris in the store and looked for anything useful they could take back with them.
“How you doin’, Holl?” she called out.
“Pretty damn good, even if we don’t find the radio,” Holly answered, popping up from behind a low display case. “It’s good to get out and not be in some huge rush.” The solar panel trip had been a little too structured for his taste.
“That’s what I like to hear: a positive attitude,” she answered. “There’s no weapons here but I think there’s some stuff we can use. Fishin’ gear or somethin’.”
“That’s a good idea.” A quick glance around the large, fully-stocked and dusty store gave him an idea of where to start wandering, and soon Holly was calling Ana over to a rack that balanced an assortment of fishing rods, lures, hooks, and other stuff Holly could only imagine would be useful for the sport. “Now no one can say this was a purely selfish outing,” he said.
Ana rolled her eyes. “Oh please. This ain’t nothin’ like that time we went out for hair dye.” Holly laughed lightly at the memory. “Speakin’ of...we still got extra boxes stashed, right? Can you see my roots?” She’d survive when the hair dye ran out or rotted or whatever it was hair dye did when you couldn’t use it anymore because Ana only dyed her hair from blond to lighter blond but she liked the shade.
“Maybe a little?” Holly’s eyes were squinted as he looked at Ana. “It’s hard to tell with you, but yeah, we’ve got a bunch still.” A thoughtful silence passed over him. “But it might be a good idea to see if we can find some more. Knowing the universe’s shit sense of humor, we’ll run out of it at the worst possible time.”
She laughed. “Honey, I don’t think they have any here but can I interest you in anythin’ plaid?”
“I didn’t mean here,” Holly said, joining in on Ana’s laughter. “Can you imagine? Their hair care section: a bunch of those horrible wide-brimmed hats with, if we’re lucky, those stylish adjustable cords you can pull tight under your chin.”
Ana burst into giggles. “Oh! Oh or maybe with ear flaps like moose hunters wear.”
“Ooh, ooh!” Holly grabbed a lure off of a nearby rack, showing Ana what looked like a sparkly neon green fly. “And don’t forget to accessorize!”
Ana threw up her hands. “Ew! Don’t even come near me with that thing!”
That sounded like an invitation to Holly, who immediately darted toward Ana with it in his outstretched hand. “Bzzzz!”
She swatted at him and tried to duck at the same time. “Get away from me! That’s disgustin’.”
“Not what the fish are telling me.” The lure was unceremoniously dropped to the ground as Holly turned back to the display, still grinning. “Do you think fishermen are picky about their rods?” He’d almost said men instead of ‘fishermen,’ but caught himself in time. Something about being with Ana made him feel like he had before the plague - like one of the girls, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Ana caught the innuendo anyway and her eyebrows went up. “About their rods? Aren’t all men?”
Holly laughed. “Putting it that way … yes, but I think the better scenario is to let a woman pick her favorite.” He stepped aside, motioning to the fishing rods. “Which one do you think suits Drew?”
She nearly snorted. “Am I allowed to talk about my husband’s rod?” Nope, she still wasn’t over getting to use the word husband yet.
“I think it’s a requirement of marriage,” Holly joked. “Besides, this is serious! This rod is the embodiment of his manhood - or, you know, the one he can show off without offending everyone at the farm. The other men will be looking and he has to have something to show for it!”
Ana grinned wickedly. “Sugar, I’m what he has to show for it.”
Holly snorted. “Touché.” At random, he pulled a rod from the stand and held it out for Ana. “I’m gonna load you up and we can take turns making trips to the car, okay?”
“Sure.”
Ana let Holly load her up with fishing gear and then staggered out to the car with her arms full of rods and a couple tackle boxes held by the smallest fingertip. Of course there was something she hadn’t considered. How to get the car open without having put everything down. She juggled everything she was carrying and tried to get a hand free. The rods were slipping. “Shit.”
The rods fell when an arm hooked roughly around Ana’s neck from seemingly out of nowhere, and then the world went black. There was something over her eyes and a gag in her mouth. Ana’s ears were suddenly full of an indistinct rushing noise. She could feel her heartbeat pounding in her skull. Hands descended upon her, holding her arms, trying to limit her struggling.
“Hold her better, damn it,” someone said, clearly gritting their teeth.
“I’m sorry, she’s stronger than she looks!”
She seized hard against whoever was holding her. If she could get her hands free her gun and radio were at her waist - but not for long, as they were taken as soon as someone had hands free to do it. Ana’s hands were forced behind her back and bound with minimal communication between her attackers after that, and she was dragged into a vehicle that had driven up to them sometime during the struggle.
“All right, get out of sight,” the first voice said, calmer than before, but still tense. “Remember, we need to see the car for when the other girl comes out.”
***
In the time Ana was gone, Holly had gotten a few other things in order for the trip back to the farmstead, like lanterns and fuel for them, and eventually wandered away from the camping section to look for radios once more. It took him a while, because there were many types of radios stacked together in once place, but he felt the thrill of victory once his hands closed around the perfect shortwave radio. The store probably had something he could rig as an antenna, too - if not an actual antenna - so he was satisfied. They’d come out with intentions to get a certain thing and would come back with even more, so Holly could safely say he felt useful.
“Where the hell is she?” he muttered, after looking up from his radio. Holly waited around a bit longer, locating the antenna he wanted, wondering if maybe his perception of time was skewed and it only felt like Ana had been gone a while, but after ten more minutes passed, Holly was sure he wasn’t imagining the wait.
A cold chill ran through him. It had been a long time since he’d had to feel that kind of paranoia in order to stay alive in the big city, but the instinct to jump to the worst conclusion hadn’t died in him yet. They carried guns on them for a reason, and Holly set his things down with the other pile before he took his gun out of its holster and slowly moved toward the front of the store. He could easily see the car from the front door, and peering through the glass it was clear that Ana was nowhere near it. The things she’d been carrying were all over the ground.
Panic began rising in him, welling up in his chest and threatening to cloud his mind. But Holly tried his best not to let it, forcing air through his nose and into his lungs to fight against the shallow breaths that wanted to come out. “Shit,” he said, voice breaking. What the fuck was he supposed to do?
It was another several minutes before Holly felt brave enough to leave the store, and he ran right to the car to search around it, in it, even under it, for Ana. He called out to her, screaming her name at the top of his lungs before he gave up. There was no one; she wouldn’t play that kind of trick on him, but there were no real signs of a struggle despite her things all over the ground. There was no blood or body. He hadn’t heard anything either, but he’d been in the back of the store looking at fucking fishing lures, not paying attention. Holly knew he should have never let her go outside alone. What was he going to tell the others? Drew?
The sun began to set before Holly decided to leave. Several hours had passed, and despite turning the whole store upside-down and doing a search of the stores surrounding the parking lot, he could find no sign of his raiding partner. All he could do was load the things he’d set aside into the car, plus the things Ana had dropped, and get behind the wheel. He had to go back home, though he had the sinking feeling it might not be his home for much longer after this fuck-up.
Halfway home, Holly’s hands were shaking around the steering wheel, and salty tears kept finding their ways between his trembling lips. All he really wanted to do was run, or go back and look for Ana again, wondering over and over if she was back there, trapped or hurt just out of range, but what he ended up doing was reaching for his radio. They had to be told. They had a right to know.
“Holly here.”
Someone answered on the other end, but Holly barely heard over the sound of his conscience. Holly, not Holly and Ana. She’s another person you’ve left for dead. Penny. Jared. Ana. And you know that’s the shortened version.
“Holly here,” he said again, but that time his voice was thick with a fresh wave of tears.