As promised, for last parts content warning -

Summary of Chapter 19 - Part 1: A young Ashley wakes in a facility. Doctor Jason Specht, a researcher, helps her escape amidst alarms and pursuit by armed guards. Despite reaching the parking garage, shots are fired and hit young Ashley as her present-day self wakes from the nightmare/memory. There, she speaks briefly with Reid about her condition and muses on the predicament she's put herself in.

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A single scream cut through the rain, followed by silence. Everyone stopped. It was a girl's voice and from the exchanged glances between the kids, they knew who it was.

“Wendy,” Shane mouthed and Cally shivered. Cooper looked to Shannon who didn't seem to be able to meet the kid’s eyes. Reid stared off to where the sound came from.

Shane peered up to Ashley. It was there again but he wasn't the face she expected to find it in. The fear that grips the wizened, the sadness of knowing what's to come and that you have no control in stopping it. The young Doctor Jason Specht had the eyes of a wise man. Shane had those same eyes.

Ashley gripped the hatchet handle and checked the hunting knife at her belt. She swung from her branch down to Shane and passed him her pack.

“Don't leave until I come back.” She smiled before turning to Shannon and Reid.“Just keep them alive. I will come back.”

“You're insane,” Reid exhaled, “you don't even know where she is!”

“Don't run unless you have to.” She didn’t engage Reid’s protest and Shannon only nodded.

Reid followed her down to the next branch. “You can't leave them.”

Her fingers tightened around the hatchet. He leaned into her but she couldn’t look to him. He wasn’t wrong. If she died they’d all be at risk. This was what she signed up for, in coming back, in jumping in to save Shane. Responsibility and obligation. Are a handful of strangers worth the risk?

A second scream shattered her doubt.

“You're not wrong.” A wry grin tugged at her lips.

Her feet hit the ground. It wasn't much of a fall but she felt it surge through her body and her knee touching down as she braced herself with both hands. After that, it was gathering her surroundings and running towards what she was sure to be a bad situation. Her joints ached from her stiff sleep and her one leg felt a little sluggish but she moved through the trees and into the low brush with speed. This was her habitat; this world of hiding and sneaking was what she was made for.

It wasn't for another ten minutes of running that she realized someone was following.

Coming to a clearing near the river she stopped and bent down. Her fingers dug into the muddy footprints. Two sets, smallish feet. A teen and a kid. Neither injured. Walking, not running.

She followed the tracks a little further. Slipping into the brush, she bent low and disappeared from view and waited.

Reid stumbled out from the tree line, quiet enough but still easy to see. When he stopped, finally figuring out he’d lost track of her, she let out a chirping bird call.

“Get down,” she whispered. He knelt and she made her way to him in the brush. “Keep low and quiet.”

“You have to come back.” He huffed between breaths. She guessed Reid didn't like authority but didn’t have the drive to lead. And like hell was he going to follow Shannon. Or he doesn’t want to lose sight of the prize. Her thoughts grew grim and she tried to push it aside. At least for now.

Slowly she raised her finger and pointed beyond the tall grass and weeds. A pile of rubble crumbled from a large bridge with nearly two dozen wendigos swarming at its base. Just a few paces above them two shapes climbed. But not fast enough.

When Reid spied them his body language changed. The way he crouched, how he braced his body. His shoulders tensed with that conflicting need to move in fear and the desire to strike. Was that why he came out here? Did he leave whatever safe camp he was in for revenge? Or blood lust?

He went to move but she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close. Eyes wide, his mouth parted to protest, but she shook her head.

He could be handsome if he didn't frown so much.

“I'll draw them away. You get the kids to come down and go back to Shannon. Wait until they're all following me.”

“No.” His voice was solid and strong. “You can’t keep this up.”

“I’m not asking permission.”

He pressed his hand to her forehead and Ashley pushed him back.

“You have a fucking fever. An open wound. You’re still recovering. I don’t care how strong you think you are, eventually you’ll fuck up.”

“Then you'll have an even better distraction.”

“This isn't funny.” His concern was almost touching if it hadn't been born of self-preservation. Or so she told herself. Ashley pulled the hunting knife from her belt and pressed it into his hand.

“Just be quick.” She stood but no longer whispered. “Get the kids.”

It was a cold stream of water and she lumbered into it loudly, splashing and kicking up little waves. In seconds, a few of the creatures turned. Though she knew children were easy prey, wendigos weren’t smart. They didn’t think or plan or strategize. Make a little noise, ring the dinner bell, have ‘em come over for supper.

Her face went under and the world turned grey and dirty. The cold cut through her sweater and invaded her wounded shoulder, a sobering reminder that maybe Reid was right. She wasn’t invincible. On emerging the cool air was almost warm and sparked a much-needed dip into that fight or flight adrenaline.

She crawled up the bank, her dark hair slick as the mud washed clear.

Ashely swung and the hatchet sung in the air. The sharpened edge hammered into the chest of a one-legged, limping wendigo that was clearly the lamest of the pack. It howled out but not in pain. It was an alarm, a triumphant buffet call that beaconed more groans from the mass. Slowly, in small numbers at first, the wendigos surged towards her. She walked calmly to the weakest, stepped on its chest and pulled her hatchet clear. With another swift strike, she hacked off its head.

“Who's next?” she yelled and all dead-heads turned.

With her back to the river they swarmed. The water was a last-ditch salvation should her tentative plan fail.

I always find my way back here.

Two wendigos attacked from the horde. They were faster than the last but still decaying and slow. Her first stroke took off an arm while the up slice ripped into the rib cage of the next. The hatchet caught on the jaw until she wrenched the metal blade, and the creature’s skull, free from its body.

The one benefit for the hungriest of wendigos was their desire for any flesh. Including the dead. At least five of the creatures piled onto their fallen and hungrily gnawed for any meat left. The sitting ducks formed a queue and she swung. An arm here, a leg there.

When she looked up, Reid had crossed the river closer to the rubble pile. He even managed to kill a wendigo or two before reaching the kids. The girl over his shoulder, an arm offered to the boy, Reid turned back to her and the horde. Were he closer she’d have known the look.

Just the kids, you fool. Don't be any more of a hero.

She couldn’t waste any more time watching him. Turning to the horde, what was ten was now twenty and her last-ditch escape proved less likely. But she kept up the rouse and drew the creatures underneath the bridge, further from Reid and the kids.

What am I willing to do for these people? That silly little question had constantly come up since the outbreak. What was she willing to do for the families at the beach? For the people on the DVP? For a couple of kids trapped on a hill?

For all the infected souls.

With precise swings, she severed three more heads with a strength her size disguised. No one was watching as she wrecked the bodies with more than rage. Each swing began to hurt, each lunge took down one more body, and each blow exhausted her strength.

It's all my fault.

Her own voice whispered in her head and drowned out their moans. There was no one to protect now. Just herself.

I did this. I made them. The ruined faces of people clamoured into her fury, one after the other.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered with each strike. No more did she waste effort on maiming. Her attacks tore at necks and sunk into skulls. More of them fell not just to her weapon but to each other until a few of the weak staggered behind. There was no hope that they could catch her but still, they lumbered on. Blood stained her skin and clothes and the coagulating mess of them seeped into scratches stinging her skin.

I’ll heal. I always heal.

One last dismembered and disembowelled wendigo crawled towards her. A girl, a teen with red hair. It had come out in patches, chunks of scalp missing. Her flesh had greyed and turned blue under the ripped t-shirt. Her teeth were chipped and her face sagged from decay. But her eyes shone a vibrant green.

Ashley swung high and brought the hatchet down onto the back of her neck. The first blow broke it but the body still wriggled. She brought the hatchet down again and again until there was nothing but blood and bones in the grass between the head and body that had stilled.

Never linger. Jason's voice cooed in her head. Always keep moving. It's the only way to stay safe. It's the only way they'll never find you.

The guilt of a dead world swallowed her whole when she stepped off the bank into the over-flowing river. The wendigos left were too busy with the dead that, by the time she swam a few hundred feet, they wouldn't be able to follow. Her shoulder ached for her to stop but she pushed on through the pain.

It'll be okay. She remembered the words and spoke them back with each breath above the cold murky water. “I always heal.”

 

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As always, thank you for reading and I'm sorry for the delays the serial has been experiencing. Heat waves, work, and a forest getting chopped down behind my house have made it hard to get all that much writing done. But things are coming around again!