Alice Munroe (ex_barebones985) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-05-16 00:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 08, alice munroe, bridget mackenzie, | alice and bridget, ~ series: nv meetups |
Week Eight: Tuesday
Characters: Bridget Mackenzie and Alice Munroe, featuring a rogue survivor.
Location: Nevada State Museum.
Summary: Alice and Bridget wait out another boring day at the museum. Or at least, that's what they think until another survivor shows up.
Rating: R
So far, Bridget's latest meetup was turning out to be a lot like the others: a whole lot of nothing but sitting around and waiting for something to happen. She wasn't regretting her decision to volunteer for the meetups, exactly, it was good to try and contribute to the group, but it was still a bit boring.
The young woman studied her cards, glanced over at her opponent, then went ahead and selected her discard to place on the pile.
Alice checked her wrist watch, then her cards. "I suck at this game."
"It's helping pass the time isn't it?" Bridget replied, and drew a card from the deck. It went down on the table in front of her along with two more Nines, leaving her with only three cards left in her hand. "Another half hour and we can call it a day."
There was soft knock at the door before it opened slowly. "Hello?" The man's thin and tense voice preceded his thin and tense body into the space. His large eyes darted between the two of them and he stayed by the door.
Alice put down her hand almost immediately, giving a polite smile and a wave. "Hiya. Come on in." She hadn't been expecting anybody to show up, as they rarely did all things considered, so the enthusiasm wasn't at all faked.
Bridget perked up at the sight of an unfamiliar face. This was the whole reason they were here, after all, and the man looked like he could use some friends. She stood up as well. "Come in, come in. We don't bite, honest."
"Is it just you?" he asked, his voice a rasp. His eyes didn't seem capable of staying still, darting around the room now and only lingering on the hallway and the bathroom door.
Alice stared at him for a moment. The question alone made her a bit nervous, and the fact that he seemed so anxious made it doubly so.
"We have friends who are available by walkie-talkie," she said slowly. "And not far from here. Why do you ask?"
Bridget's smile faded somewhat, but she made a point of trying to appear friendly even if he was giving serious vibes that something wasn't right. "It's all right, you're safe here."
That seemed to quiet the man some, and he took a couple cautious steps forward. "Can't be too careful, these days. Didn't want anyone surprising me." His eyes finally settled on the bottles on the table. "You got water?"
It was taking a lot of effort for Alice to keep from frowning. They brought the water because Alice knew how important it was, and how most people didn't understand how important it was to treat the water from the taps first. She filled them daily with filtered and boiled water, never expecting anyone to thank her, but offering it freely to anyone who came to the meetups. The fact that she'd had two people now ask for it instead of waiting to get it put her on edge in the worse way.
"Yeah, sure. Come get one," she replied in that same slow tone.
The man made his way forward, still slow like he might be jumped at any moment, until he grabbed a bottle and twisted it open. After a long drink, he glanced between them. "You a new kind of Red Cross or what?"
Bridget glanced over to Alice before answering. Something wasn't quite right about this man, but maybe he'd just had to see and do too much on the road. "Just a group trying to help other survivors," She told him. "What's your name?" The young woman consciously suppressed the urge to finger her pistol and tried to keep a polite smile on her face.
"Why? You with the government or something? You trying to keep track of people?" he said this very quickly, his body tensing up again.
Alice stared at him, incredulous. "What government?" she asked, her tone heavily bemused. "D'you think if there was a government that they'd just sit around in a museum? It's hotter than a camel driver's balls outside."
"You're organizing," he said, pointing sharply at her. "Other people, with more power and means, could be organizing, too. If they aren't, they will. Someone's going to try to grab all the pieces that're left."
"And remake government? Even if they tried, it wouldn't work," Alice countered. "We're too scattered, and there's no way to communicate anymore except for short range. It'd be a waste of time and supplies. The only thing we can do is band together and work with what we got."
"That world is dead and it isn't coming back, not in our lifetimes and not in our grandchildren's." Bridget said firmly, and now her hand did come down to rest on the pistol holstered on her hip. There was something just not right about this guy and she wasn't about to take chances. "We're just trying to start over and have a chance of surviving to build a future for ourselves. If you're interested, why don't we all sit down and talk?"
The man hesitated, then glared between them. "That's how it starts. You offer stuff, want to talk, and that's how you get 'em. I'm not falling for it. Who gives away water?" He threw down his bottle as if it had burned him.
Alice's looked down at the water in surprise, then scowled, crouching down on her knees to pick it up. All the time and energy to make it was wasted in a few short seconds. "I think you should leave," she said. "Since you're so adamant against acting like a civil person."
"You'd better listen to my friend," Bridget watched the man through narrowed eyes, making sure to stay out of arm's reach as she pulled the pistol out of its holster. She kept it pointed down, but was ready to bring it up and fire at the man if needed. "Time for you to go, and don't come back."
The man froze, just for a moment, and then he dove for Alice as she stood. One arm went around her neck, causing her to yelp, while the other pulled a gun from his wide pants pocket, holding it to Alice's ribs. "You're not getting me that way, you're not," he snarled. "I'm in charge, I make the orders, not you!"
Alice went rigid in his grip instantly, her mind immediately taking her back to her mugging. Her heartbeat rushed up into her ears, and she could easily feel herself starting to hyperventilate.
Bridget's weapon went from pointed at the ground to pointed between the man's eyes. "You shoot her, I kill you. If you want to live you'll let her go." Her voice was surprisingly firm and her grip steady, masking the fear and anger that ran inside her. "To quote Dirty Harry: Do you feel lucky, punk?" There was no way she was letting him kill her friend.
"You started it!" the man shouted, unconsciously backing up but his grip staying firm. Alice stumbled in a drag before tripping backwards after him. "With your questions and your water! But now I'm in charge! Gimme your keys!"
He was trying to steal the truck? Alice stared at Bridget, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Do what he says," she told her, trying to keep the urge to struggle pushed down inside her. If the gun was loaded, he could easily kill her.
Bridget didn't want to give him her keys. Leave them stranded here? They might as well turn the guns on themselves, thanks. But she wasn't going to tell Alice that she valued the truck over her life. "You let her go and I'll give you my keys," she told the man reluctantly. "Until then? This gun stays pointed at your head."
The man laughed, loud and right next to Alice's ear. There wasn't any humor in it. He backed up more deliberately now, towards the door. "You think I'm stupid. I let her go, you shoot me, you take my things, because that's what you really want. I'm just playing your game." His smile twisted, and he jammed the gun hard at Alice's ribs, once again causing her to wince. "Give me the keys, now!"
"You really think I want anything you've got?" Bridget hissed, taking one hand off the pistol grip and reaching into her pocket for the keys without letting her eyes stray from the crazy person with the gun pointed at Alice's ribs. "You can take the damn truck for all I care, there's thousands out there just like them. I see you again, I'll shoot you without thinking about it. You blew your chance at community." She meant it, too. The man was a threat to her, her unborn child, and her friends. She wanted any threats to her child eliminated.
The man's hands twitched, his eyes going from Bridget's pocket, to her gun, to her face. "Don't--don't think you can threaten me!" he yelled, pointing his gun at her. It was all the window Alice needed. Putting all her strength in it, she grabbed the arm around her neck and brought her elbow back sharply into his solar plexus.
The man gasped, or at least tried, his grip loosening. He grasped desperately to Alice's shirt as she pulled out from his grip, while trying to to keep his gun trained on Bridget.
Bridget watched desperately as Alice struggled with the man, waiting for her to get clear so she could shoot the bastard. Her hand closed around the keys and pulled them out of her pocket, tossing them toward the man but not close enough for him to grab without moving. She saw Alice grab him roughly at the shoulders and her knee go up sharply between his legs, and waited for an opening she could use to shoot the bastard. The man buckled but swung his gun around at Alice.
"Stop or I'll shoot!" he wheezed.
"THEN DO IT!" Alice screamed at him, grabbing at the barrel of the gun and bringing it up to her head. "DO IT!"
"ALICE!" Bridget screamed, horrified at what her friend had just done.
The man stared and then jerked away, stumbling backward. Bridget wasted no time as her field of fire cleared, and swiftly adjusted her aim to center mass before pulling the trigger. The man twitched once, then twice, his expression freezing in one of shock. Two blooms of red were already starting to spread along his shirt before he collapsed, gasping through a punctured lung. Alice stared in shock, the sound of the gunshot ringing in her ears and making everything else go rushing quiet. Her own rapid breathing was lost in the loud emptiness. Without even looking back at Bridget, she pulled her own gun out of the holster, walked up to the slowly-dying man, and shot him between the brows. Even if they had managed to get him back to the doctor, there would have been no way to save him from such a fatal injury.
Bridget felt like she was going to be sick, the bile rising up in the back of her throat as she made her way to her friend and the bloody mess that a few moments before had been a man. She stared down at the corpse, then kicked it savagely. "FUCK YOU! MOTHERFUCKER! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THAT?!" She turned away from the body and fell to her knees before throwing up the contents of her stomach.
Alice looked on silently, with a slightly concerned frown, before turning her attention to the man bleeding out on the floor. Moving around to his front, she grabbed hold of both of his arms and gave a grunt in effort as she dragged him out through the doors. Once he was far enough away from the building she went to the truck, got the gas can from it, and poured enough on his shirt so that he could catch flame. A piece of litter and a flick of her lighter quickly brought fire to him. Alice waited long enough to make sure the fire spread on to the rest of him before turning to go back inside. There was a long trail of blood and matter leading out, and Bridget's sick all over the floor where she'd been. Cleaning up was going to be a chore, but Alice began it cold and unfeelingly, going to the janitor's closet to get the cleaning supplies.
Bridget had taken a water bottle and retreated into the bathroom in the interim. It took her some time to stop shaking and crying and calm down enough to try and pull herself back together. She'd killed before, but she still hated it, hated what this world had forced her to become. Eventually she rinsed her mouth out with the water bottle and made her way back out into the lobby where Alice was finishing the cleanup.
Alice heard Bridget's shoes as they tapped out the staccato of her steps, but ignored her long enough to empty the murky water down the janitor drain. That done she turned around, going to the abandoned gun on the floor. She picked it up, hefted the weight of it in her hand, then checked the magazine. It was empty. Bridget had stared at the gun in her friend's hand but didn't ask whether it had been loaded or not. She didn't want to know.
Looking up, Alice saw Bridget's expression, the drained look on her face, and it was enough to keep her silent about it. She slid the gun easily into the back of her jeans behind her shirt. She knew that Bridget wasn't all right, so asking her that question seemed redundant.
"We need to stay long enough to make sure the body's burned," she said quietly. Her jaw tightened slightly. "If you don't want to come to meetups anymore, I'll understand. I won't force you."
Bridget shook her head wordlessly in refusal of the offer. She wasn't going to let this break her commitment to help out, but the thought occurred to her whether it was a good idea for them to keep doing the meetups at all.
"How long?"
"A few hours," Alice said, assuming she meant the body needing burned. "Unless we can bring the heat up real fast. Two to three, tops." She paused again. "I can take you home."
Home was more than two thousand miles away back in what had been Pennsylvania, but Bridget knew Alice meant the Suites. She considered the offer for a moment, then nodded. "I think I want to go lay down, so yeah." Her arms were wrapped around her thickening midsection and her eyes stared off toward a nearby wall rather than look at her friend. Alice nodded even tough she knew that the other woman wasn't looking directly at her. She moved up to her, slid an arm around her waist, and lead out through the double doors.
"Don't look," Alice warned her before they were completely through the archway. The smell of smoke and roasting meat met them immediately, but Alice was quick to lead her off to the truck. She would have to come back alone to finish cleaning up and make double sure the body was fully burned to ashes.
The warning was superfluous, as Bridget didn't need any urging to keep her eyes averted. She nevertheless choked at the smell, but managed to keep from throwing up as they quickly went to the truck and got in. She slumped back in the seat after fastening her seatbelt and closed her eyes. "You should get someone to come back with you," she said quietly without opening her eyes. "It isn't safe to be here by yourself." The events of the past hour had made that abundantly clear.
"Don't worry about me," Alice replied, resting her hand atop the other woman's once the truck was started. She backed up without looking behind her, driving on muscle memory. The radio remained off, leaving silence between them. "Just... let's keep this between us, okay? I don't wanna get anyone concerned. This is the first time anything like this has happened."
"Do you really think that's a good idea, Alice?" Bridget opened her eyes and looked over at the other brunette. It was hard to believe that the other woman had just asked what she had. "You should at least tell Jed. I don't know what he did to piss you off, but this is important."
Alice scowled instantly, withdrawing her hand and putting it on the steering wheel. "Jed is a chauvinist. The moment I tell him a guy came in with a gun, he'll do everything he can to keep either of us from showing up to one ever again. Fuck, he'll try and stop them altogether. No way."
"Someone has to watch your back," Bridget insisted, though privately she thought stopping the meetups wasn't such a bad idea. People seemed to be able to find them at the Suites easily enough after all. "Get Cassidy or ZoƩ to come back with you then, if you don't want Jed."
Alice shook her head again. She wasn't going to tell Bridget she would do so and then not; that would be lying, and she refused to lie to anyone. The only safe bet would be to remain quiet.
"Turn around." Bridget ordered. "If you're just going to come back here by yourself then there's no point in taking me back to the Suites." Even though she really wanted to lie down after a long shower and try to forget this ever happened. "Didn't the last hour teach you anything? Dammit Alice, do you want to die?!"
"The gun wasn't loaded, Bridget," Alice said in a low voice. Bridget's complexion turned chalk white, and she turned to stare silently out the window. Alice instantly felt horrible at having to have told her as much. Like she'd told Bridget days before, her paranoia would save her life, but sometimes mistakes would be made. That was the way of things now. Her hand moved back over to hers again, taking it and holding it firmly.
"It's gonna be okay," she murmured. "Everything's gonna be okay."
"How was I supposed to know?" Bridget whispered. "You didn't know either, when you told him to pull the trigger."
Alice stared ahead of her, silent. Truthfully, she hadn't known. Part of her thought that maybe he would back off; he hadn't been aggressive in the same way her attacker had. The adrenaline had been pumping at full blast, and she knew she had to do something to give Bridget the chance to act, be it to get away or to shoot.
Bridget kept her face to the window, her hand still in Alice's, and began to quietly cry. They didn't say another word the rest of the trip.