Revenence: Dead Silence, A Zombie Novel (21 page)

"Daphne."

"Well, Daphne," Shari said, "at least that's a start." 

They had been riding for a couple of minutes when Shari saw rapid movement out of the corner of her eye.  It was on the edge of the woods, to her left. 

"Take out one of those sticks you have--" she started to tell Daphne. 

"No need," Daphne said, cutting her off.  She pointed.  "I think it's your horse."  Shari glanced over.

"Eva!" she exclaimed.  She felt as if a load were lifted from her shoulders.  She hadn't been proud of the fact that she had lost Fauna's beloved horse less than a day after she had ventured out.  She stopped the vehicle.  "I'll take the horse, you drive this thing."  Daphne nodded.

Shari started toward the horse, then stopped.  She looked back at Daphne.  "Where are we going, anyway?"

"I know a safe place," Daphne said, "if you don't mind being outdoors."

Shari shrugged.  "Whatever you say."  She mounted Eva and followed Daphne down the road.  Kandi appeared, as always, at Shari's side.  She was riding sidesaddle, facing Shari as she spoke.

"So tell me, princess...what do you think of our new friend?"

"I don't know," Shari responded after a moment.  "I don't know why she's being so secretive.  Maybe this is some kind of trap, maybe she's just weird...I'm leaning more toward the latter."

Daphne stopped the ATV up ahead. 
Uh-oh,
Shari thought. 
She couldn't have heard me, right?
  Kandi shrugged.

"Alright, listen..." Daphne began, closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose.  "You should know I can hear you...at least, the you that's actually you, and not...whoever the hell it is you're talking to.  I respect you enough to tell you that, just to avoid any more embarrassing situations like this.  And no offense, but it's a little ironic for the lady talking to herself to call another person weird.  I'm just sayin'."  She got back onto the ATV and drove onward.

Shari frowned, not sure what to make of what Daphne had said. 

Kandi giggled.  "Sure, she called you weird.  But she also said she respected you.  That counts for something, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Shari whispered.  "But
why
does she respect me?  I don't know who the hell she is.  To be honest, I'm a littlie creeped out."

"You go ahead and be creeped out, but I like her," Kandi said.

"Maybe I'll like her more once I know what the hell she's up to."

Up ahead, Daphne gazed at Shari in her side mirror.  She saw her facing to her left, lips moving. 
Still at it,
she thought. 
This chick is cracked.

"That looks like an impressive knife," Shari said.

"Yeah," Daphne agreed, "it is."  She pointed to the engraving.  "
Talon of the Titans.
  I don't know who those Titans are, but they have some good taste in weapons."  Shari grinned, suppressing a chuckle.  She was becoming captivated by Daphne's lack of pretension. 
She reminds me of a Titan, herself,
she thought.

"Definitely," Kandi concurred.  "Like a charmingly simple-minded, knife-wielding goddess.  I mean that in a good way, of course."

"How did you learn to use that thing so well?" Shari asked.

Daphne shrugged.  "Practice," she said.  "I found it in the woods, and...."  She paused, remembering her first night with the knife.  "I've been practicing with it ever since, just drills mostly, and hunting and stuff.  I never really had friends or hobbies or anything, so I've had a lot of time to just mess around with it.  Now it just feels like part of me.  It feels like a living extension of my hand."  She slashed the air, pleased with herself.  "I've gotten pretty fast!"

"I noticed," Shari said.  She snuffed out her hand-rolled smoke.  "So Daphne...I think it's time for you to explain exactly how it is that you know me."  Daphne looked over at her, regarding her with hesitant eyes. 

"I guess I can see how you'd feel that way," she said after a moment.  "Well...I've been watching you for awhile."

Shari's eyes widened, and her brow furrowed.  She couldn't help but feel a little violated.  "Why?" she asked.

"I could tell you were a good person, and I like to watch over good people," Daphne replied. 

"O...kay...." Shari said.  "But...why in secret?"

"I don't know," Daphne said.  "It's just the way I've always been...at least, for a long time.  When I was a kid, I had to sneak around a lot."  She related to Shari the tragic story of her childhood...the death of her biological parents, the bizarre and abusive foster family she had been sentenced to spend the remainder of her childhood with.  She stopped short, however, of telling Shari how she had murdered them that night more than six years ago.

Shari had listened with a somber silence until Daphne finished her story.  "I'm sorry, kid," she said when Daphne finished. 

"Wow, what a lame response that is!" Kandi teased.

Shut up, Kandi Cane. 
Kandi gave her a look of utter indignance, rolling her eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry," Daphne said.  "It's over now.  The only reason I brought it up is...I don't know, I just wanted you to have some explanation of why...why I am the way I am, I guess.  I don't know, I'm not very good with psychological stuff."

"No, it makes sense," Shari assured her.  "You reacted to your environment in order to survive.  They gave you no choice but to sneak around, so you got to be good at it.  But hey--"  She looked at Daphne pointedly.  "At least you can say something good came of it.  I mean, being able to sneak is quite an asset in a world like this."

Daphne snickered.  "You got that right."

"So...you were watching me the whole time, then?" Shai asked.  "I mean, since the world went to shit?"

Daphne shook her head.  "No, not the whole time.  Since just before you guys went to pick up Jon and them."

Shari nodded slowly.  A light of apprehension appeared in her eyes.  "So then...you were the one who killed those guys that day?  The ones who were fucking with Fauna and me?"

"Yeah, that was me," Daphne said, a coy smile appearing on her face.  She sighed.  "I never did like killing people.  I wish I didn't have to."  She gazed off into the distance, at the disappearing light of the setting sun.  "But I just can't stand the thought of bad people making life hell for good people...innocent people who didn't ask for it, who didn't do anything wrong."

"Well then," Shari said, "I'm glad to see that you and I see eye to eye on that."  She shifted awkwardly.  "I'm sorry I called you weird earlier.  Considering what you've been through, you're really pretty stable.  I think you turned out a lot better than most people would've under the same circumstances.  Probably better than I would've."  She laughed, glancing at Kandi who sat, as always, at her left side.  "And you're right.  I've got this imaginary friend here--"  She pointed, gesturing at the invisible woman.  "So for me to call anyone else weird is...well, it's a little like the pot calling the kettle black."

Daphne shook her head.  "Hey, chick, if it helps you get through these tough times, then more power to you.  It's not hurting anyone.  Not like those guys back there."

"Those sadists," Shari said. 

Daphne nodded in agreement.  She looked up, surveying the skies as the last light of day escaped beyond the western horizon. 

"It looks like it'll be pretty clear tonight," she said.  "Good news for me.  I spent the last couple nights out in the rain."

"You always sleep outside?" Shari asked.

"Yeah, most of the time, anyway" Daphne replied.  "I guess it's another one of those things that I just had to get used to.  I spent a lot of nights outside as a kid...outside in the rain, the cold, the snow.  Sometimes, if it got really bad and I was afraid I'd freeze to death, I'd go sleep in one of the sheds in the backyard.  But most nights, I would rather be outside.  It just feels...."  She paused.  "It just feels right.  Like it's where I belong.  Sometimes if I'm indoors for too long...it kind of freaks me out."

Because most of the time you were growing up, if you were indoors, it meant you were in a basement being starved and raped,
Shari thought ruefully.  Her heart ached for Daphne, who had endured so much and still managed to have a conscience.
  She deserved better.

"Well," came Kandi's voice from her left, "that's the ironic beauty of the apocalypse.  People like you and Daphne can thrive and flourish.  Remake the world for the better.  Make a world that won't tolerate injustice."

"Good morning," she said.

"Morning," Shari mumbled. 

"You want some breakfast?" Daphne asked, offering her a protein bar.

"Yeah, sure," Shari said, lifting herself up out of the sleeping bag.  She kneaded her face, attempting to kick-start her circulation.  "Man, I slept hard.  I'm glad none of those walking pus-bags came to fuck with us, because I might not have woken up if they had."

Daphne pointed to a lifeless figure lying outside the fence, about 75 feet away.  A stick protruded from its ruined, rotten face.  "Just that one," she said.  "Luckily, I'm a very light sleeper, and I have night vision like a cat."  She smiled proudly, flashing small, straight white teeth and flicked her long, straight red hair behind her.  "Besides, I doubt they'd get into the fence.  This thing was built pretty solidly, so I doubt they'd get under it.  They'd have to climb it, and look at that thing."  She pointed again at the nearly disintegrated pile of bone and flesh.  "I doubt it'd be able to climb a stair, let alone a ten-foot-tall fence."

"Yeah," Shari conceded, "but that one's pretty rotted.  Granted, most of them are the same way, but every now and then there's a fresh one.  One that hasn't had a chance to rot yet, or even to destroy its tendons and joints.  And those are the ones to be afraid of."

"I'll hear 'em coming, either way," Daphne said.  "And I sleep with one eye open."  Shari saw that she was sorting through a pile of sticks, scrutinizing each one. 

"I'm gonna go pee in the woods over there," Shari said, pointing.  "I'll be right back."

"Okay, be careful," Daphne replied without looking up from her work.

Shari looked out toward the road as she walked downhill toward the treeline.  She could see for miles in either direction.  There were a few undead figures out in the distance, stumbling slowly in her direction.  She palmed the .357 in her jacket pocket, reassured by its presence.  She figured she would leave the zombies alone until they got closer.  From their current distance, she would need her sniper rifle. 
They're not really a threat, anyway,
she thought as she squatted down to relieve herself.

Kandi appeared, squatting beside her.  "No, those rotted ones are only a threat in large numbers."  She held up her imaginary skirt to protect it from her imaginary urine stream. 

Shari looked at her, perplexed.  "Why are you peeing?" she asked, shaking her head.  "Is your pretend bladder full?"

"I don't know, princess, you tell me," Kandi retorted.  "You're the one who's imagining me doing this."  She smiled, pleased with how thrown-off Shari was by her response.  "I may have some kind of will of my own, but everything you think you see and hear--my visage, my voice, my horse, my physical actions--those are all products of your overactive imagination."

Whatever you say, Kandi Cane,
Shari thought.

"Stop calling me that!  You've just got a bruised ego because I pointed out your lack of insight, you know."  She pouted at Shari's side as they walked back to the radio tower.

Shari saw that Daphne had chosen two sticks from the assortment, and was now etching out marks in the middle of each stick.  She put the sticks together in a cross shape and began to bind them together.  Shari stepped forward to look closer, knitting her brows.

"What is that you're tying those with?" she asked.

"Intestine," Daphne replied non-chalantly.  She paused for a moment, looking up at Shari.  "Don't worry, it's not people." 

Shari nodded slowly.  "Okay." 
Ew,
she thought. 
She really is one with the forest, isn't she?

"Indeed," Kandi agreed.

"There," Daphne said, pleased with her work.  "Now I just have to wait for the intestines to dry."  She set the wooden throwing star down and turned to Shari.  "You mind if I ask why you decided to come out?  I mean, you were safe where you were at."

"Well...." Shari began.  She sat down on the ground near Daphne.  "The fact that I was safe...I don't know, it made me feel a little guilty.  I mean, I didn't know--
still
don't know--what happened to my family.  And after all I learned from Fauna, I just thought that coming out into the world to help in whatever way I can...it's the least I can do, you know?  Besides...."  She sighed heavily, rolling her eyes.  "It felt a little awkward being there, especially after Fauna died.  It was Jon and his wife, their kid, and...me.  I was the odd one out."