“Come on, M, we know you’re here.” The man’s coarse voice booms through the forest. “Let’s be honest, you’re always here. No need to be shy.”
M swears under her breath and looks down at the mid-level scavenging group of men from her colony. She watches their heads swing back and forth, their sunburnt necks craning to see where she is hiding. The man who called out to her meets her gaze and smiles. His patchy skin wrinkles around the edges of his deep blue eyes as he winks.
“You know you’re more than welcome to join us if you want to,” the man taunts, walking closer to the tree. M feels the rigid bark begin to bruise her back. “You’d have to gather useful things, though, not the mysterious shit you always bring back to camp. We’re not a fan of the smell.”
“Dude, leave her alone. We don’t want her with us,” a man wielding a hatchet chimes in, warily looking up at M as he fiddles with the straps of his back pack. “I’ve heard she’s bad luck. She’ll probably kill us if we get in her way.”
“Let me talk,” the first man demands, his square jaw clenched together. “I know M better than everyone else does. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
M tries to block out his words but she feels the intended bitterness in his tone. He’s not necessarily lying. They were together before the Fall and arrived at the colony long before it pledged its allegiance to the government. He knew her before people they loved started to die in front of their eyes. He tried consoling her as the world fell apart, accusing everyone else for their newfound problems. It was within those moments when M realized she was above siphoning the blame to others for what the world has become.
“We’re ditching you, Trevor,” a teenage-aged boy interrupts, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his dirty white shirt. “We’ll see you at the base if you make it back.” The boy looks up and gives M a sympathetic grin. “Sorry to bother you, M. If we knew how to make him fall out of love with you, we would have tried it already.”
Trevor scowls in the boy’s direction and throws a punch. The boy blocks it and laughs, throwing a fabric sack of supplies over his shoulder and waving the others away. Trevor still stands below M, waiting for her to come down.
“Silent treatment, eh?” he asks, leaning against the tree and taking out his own set of binoculars. He tilts his head back until the large lenses reflect the sun’s rays into M’s eyes.
M grabs her belongings and jumps out of the tree, landing forcefully next to Trevor. He’s still looking up at the sky when she grabs his bag and starts running.
“What the- Come on, M!” Trevor says, his voice full of anguish and annoyance. “Learn to take a joke!”
M scurries through the trees and pillages Trevor’s knapsack quickly. She throws a dusty, glass bottle of brown liquor against an evergreen tree and feels the explosive blast upon impact. She snickers when she hears Trevor curse irately behind her. The group ahead of her stops walking and guards their items defensively, waiting for her to ambush them as well.
Stealing a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka, she dispenses the rest of his loot to the white-shirted boy who had apologized for Trevor’s behavior and runs passed them, hiding a smile as the group howls in laughter at Trevor’s misfortune. She’s a hundred feet away from the group when she feels the sharp sting of a fist-sized rock collide against her calf. She loses her balance and falls face first into the leaves, immediately regretting her decision to mess with Trevor’s haul.
“Shit, Trevor. Did you have to do that?” the white-shirted boy asks, trying his best to transfer his newly acquired belongings into his bag before Trevor notices. He’s too slow and Trevor steals most of his items back, his cracked knuckles whiten as he clutches his belongings.
M brushes off the leaves clinging to her clothes and braces her steel rod between her hands. “I’m the one who can’t take a joke?” she grunts, rubbing the back of her leg with her foot. “I thought you had better taste in alcohol anyway.”
“We’re in the God damn apocalypse, M!” Trevor yells, his booming voice ringing in their ears. “Can’t you see that? We don’t get the luxury of buying nice things anymore. We need to learn to settle with what we’re able to find, like the bottle of stank bourbon you pulverized just to spite me.”
“Trev, you’re being loud. I don’t want to have to clean my equipment today,” a boy says, grasping his crossbow tightly as he stares apprehensively around the area, waiting for nearby zombies to congregate.
“Look, we can all agree what she did wasn’t fair or nice, but it made us laugh,” the white-shirted boy says, handing him an ornate bottle with a golden seal along the top. “Take mine and we’ll call it even. Next time we’re in the forest, leave her alone and she won’t destroy your shit. No need to get your panties in a bunch.”
“That’s not the point,” Trevor says, his voice a low growl. “She gets away with this type of shit all the time. She sneaks around by herself, unsupervised, and manages to get rewarded every time. I’ve never her seen her at tower duty and God forbid she attends a scavenging trip. She goes on her little mini missions and takes week long vacations away from the colony.” He breathes in and out, his lungs wheeze as he exhales. “It’s about time she gets punished like everyone else for acting out of line.”
“Woah, come on now, Trevor. Don’t go saying that,” the hatchet-wielding man says, his eyes darting between the rest of the group and M. “Let’s head back to base and cool off.” When he looks more closely he realizes M is no longer paying attention to their squabbling and has a zombie restrained against a tree, its eyes bulging from the pressure of the rope around its neck. She quickly slices its side and watches the dark red blood spill on the zombie’s yellow shirt.
“Thanks, Trevor.” M says, finding a piece of cloth and a large, head-sized zip tie in her back pack. “I usually take the grum route, but your voice always manages to do the trick.”
Taking a deep breath, she stuffs the cloth into the zombie’s chomping mouth quickly, wraps the zip tie around its head, and secures the cloth tightly in its mouth. The zombie gags on the fabric and tries to chew through it unsuccessfully. Throaty cough-like grunts echo through the forest as M ties her rope around its arms and starts leading it back to the colony.
“That’s what she does?” the crossbow boy asks incredulously, securing his weapon around his back. “I thought it was more interesting than that.”
“Why’d you stab it, M?” the white-shirted boy asks, yelling after her. “What’s the point?” Trevor pushes passed the group, but hesitates when he sees M’s knife twirling in her hand.
“You still like bourbon?” M yells, quickly glancing behind her. Her gray, dull eyes manage to have a sliver of bemused emotion behind them. “I’ll let you know how the good stuff tastes when I buy some.”