Apocalypse - 8. Chapter 8: Hello Stranger

Ashi and I both ran down those ancient stairs and out into the street without thinking.

“Human! Human!” we yelled, as the girl began to swing her sword.

“This way,” I pointed off to the right, to a road the led to a more rural part of town. We ran for about ten minutes, all the time our already weary legs beginning to stumble beneath us and our hearts feeling as though they were on the verge of eruption. We kept running though because behind us trailed several shadowy figures, although I couldn't get a good look for fear I would trip.

Eventually we had run far enough that we reached a small motel to our right. It was built as one long rectangular building, with ten identical doors and a picture-window next to each door, complete with a nice flimsy white plastic chair on the concrete slab that served as the foundation of the structure and as a walkway. The entire front of the building had an extended roof in front of the doors that served as a nice overhang and the exterior of the building was covered in cheap white paneling, and the doors painted thickly in red. Overall it was a pretty standard motel, complete with non-offensive evergreen bushes dotting the edges of the concrete slab, but to me it looked like a damn good shelter, or at least for the moment.

I put my right hand on the girl's shoulder and pushed her over to one of the doors and grabbing Ashi with my left hand. We ended up at the second to last door on the left and thankfully found it to be unlocked. The three of us rushed inside, and I was surprised when Ashi pushed me in before him and then entered.

After the door was locked and the blinds were tightly drawn on the window, we all collapsed onto the cheap motel couch, panting. Once I caught my breath, I peer out of the corner of the window, while the girl and Ashi continued to attempt to restrain their heartbeats. From outside I saw the figures swirling around in the streets. They were tall figures, roughly six-feet by my estimation, and they were slightly transparent with a silvery-blue tint that seemed to sparkle like crystals or freshly fallen snow. They did not appear in the form of humans, but a more ravenous look. They had two legs, two arms, and a head, but their bodies seemed slightly wider than a human's and their fingers came to sharp looking points at the ends. Their heads had ears like a cat and where they're eyes should have been were just darker spots in the swirling transparent mass. Although they had legs, they didn't seem to use them, and instead hovered effortlessly across the vacant street. After watching them twirl and circles, seemingly confused or maybe just waiting for us to emerge. I shivered and then closed the curtain again.

When I turned around, the girl had risen and was standing next to me. She looked up at me with dark brown eyes and then hit me hard on the side of my upper arm, right below my shoulder.

“Dammit! What was that for?” I asked as I saw Ashi beginning to smile in the corner.

“No touch!” she said, and after a few seconds of thinking, I realized she was talking about me steering her towards the door.

“Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Panah and that's Ashi,” I gestured over to him, and held out my hand to shake hers. She just stared at it though.

“I Ling of Japan,” she said, smiling proudly and then bowed slightly to me, which I returned, not wanting to offend her.

“Where is your house?” I asked, but as I said it she tilted her head to the side, looking confused.

“Japan,” she said, clearly misunderstanding me.

“No.. I mean where is your house here?” I spoke a little more slowly.

She slapped my arm again causing Ashi to laugh, “Pay attention! Japan!” I let out a small sigh, but luckily she didn't notice.

“So.. where is your family?” I asked, deciding to try a new topic altogether.

“Specter. They kill mother and father. So I run with sword. Family wealthy so trained to defend self.” She never even blinked when she said this, but oddly didn't seem upset. I also noticed that she had named those creatures Specters, and I really couldn't argue with that.

“I'm sorry,” I said, “Are you okay?”

Her eyes widened, “Why sorry? Parent die honorable death defending selves. I proud. They bring pride to family, no sorry at all.”

Her response amazed me. I couldn't believe that she had just witnessed the deaths of her parents and yet seemed so.. undamaged. I continued to make conversation with her for about an hour while Ashi went to the back of the motel and took a shower (luckily the power still worked). I found that gathering information from her was a painful process as what little English she spoke either hindered her understanding of what I asked or my understanding in her responses.

From my hour of talking to her, I pieced together this: She had grown up in Japan with her mother and father, and after her father had become a successful business owner (still not sure what the business was), they moved here. Her father and family must have been targeted due to their wealth because it seemed like she spent a majority of her time at home, practicing self defense with Japanese bodyguards (which explained her expertise with the swords and poor English). From what I understood, she had not really left her house much in the twelve years they lived here, so I was surprised that after being surrounded by the Japanese language her entire life she was about to speak any English at all.

As for recent events from her I learned that her family had been attacked by the Specters. They had overcome her father and mother, whom had become surrounded after drawing the Specters' attentions away from Ling. She then fled her house, putting on her current outfit (she had used it in close-combat training and it was designed to provide very few handholds for an attacker to grab to) and grabbing her Katana as she fled. The swords itself was actually stunning. The blade was flawless and reflected light more brilliantly than the clearest mirror, and the edge was sharp enough to slice a strand of hair if it were dropped on the sword from just three inches away, and, like my razors, the handle was a silver mass of interwoven metallic vines. When she first pulled out her Katana to show me, I noticed that the edge was covered with a thick gray-blue liquid.

“From Specter,” she said, noticing me staring at it, “Silver make them bleed.” My curiosity getting the better of me, I reached out and touched the substance.

“Shit!” I yelped, pulling my hand back. It was so cold that it seemed to burn my hand instantly. The 'blood' itself felt gelatinous and when I returned my hand to hover over it, I could feel it radiating cold, like a frosty block of ice.

“No swear!” she said, slapping me again, and from the sound of giggling behind us, I could tell that Ashi had finished his shower. He came walking down the small corridor looking truly refreshed. His blackened hair hung jaggedly to his shoulders and I could have sworn it was getting lighter, but it must have been the water clinging to it. His blue eyes still twinkled brightly although his pale face gave off signs of wariness and I could see a dark purple bruise clinging to his jaw. He still had on the dark blue jeans, black shirt, and gray pocketed jacket he had worn this morning before this all began, and they clung snugly to his slim frame.

“You wash now,” Ling said, then pointed to my cheek, “After I fix that.”

I smiled at her, “You can go Ling, I will wait.”

She slapped me, “I say you!” and so laughing, I put my backpack on the faded flower-print couch, next to Ashi. The couch was located next to one of two beds, both with dark-blue comforters and a cheap wooden nightstand between them, containing a remote, Bible, and flashlight. The gray carpeting was laid in a thin layer on the solid floor, allowing me to feel the concrete underneath when I stood. The walls were painted an off-white color that bordered on a sky-blue, at least in my mind, and standard pictures of potted flowers were screwed into the wall (Really? Who would steal motel art?). Across from the two beds, and in front of the door was a cheap wooden bureau, empty of course, and next to that was a heavy television on another cheap wooden stand. At the end of the line of furniture, and across from the door was a small hallway that led down to the bathroom door on the left. The bathroom itself was small, but had the necessities, and thankfully a shower.

I turned on the bathroom light, listening to it hum steadily as it cast a yellow glow over the room gently close the door, hearing Ashi and Ling's muffled voices from around the corner and then the click of the tumblers in the lock. I sighed and let my shoulders fall. Finally I could relax, I could be weak for a moment and not have to check over my shoulder constantly. I slowly bent down and took off my shoes and socks, noticing how tight the muscles in my back seemed and letting out another sigh as my burning feet came in contact with the refreshingly cold gray tiles. I had to put my hand on the light-green counter to stand up straight again, because I truly had no energy left.

Finally I did what I was dreading to do. I looked into the mirror. At first I was a startled and thought I was staring at the green-eyed vampire again. Normally my hair was straight and jagged like Ashi's, but brown. We almost had identical haircuts, with one of our eyes being covered (I covered my left), the only difference was my hair is slightly shorter than his, ending below my cheekbone, about halfway between my eyes and mouth, but with long choppy sides that ended at my jawline. Ashi's on the other hand is almost touching his shoulders on the sides (also choppy), and in the front his bangs went slightly longer, ending right above his lips.

I think what surprised me the most is that Ashi never said anything about my appearance and how.. well shitty I looked. Underneath the black bowler-hat my hair was tangled in dirt, grease, and sweat, and gave off the illusion that I had slightly curly and unkempt hair. The gash on my cheek looked worse than it felt, as it was about three inches long and ran diagonally, the lowest point near my nose, and the highest point about an inch from my eye. The cut was spread open fairly wide, about as thick as a pencil eraser would be, so it definitely needed stitching. The entire area around it was bright red and swollen, and when I placed my hand over the seeping red gash I could feel heat radiating from it.

My neck was kind of the same story too. Those two little dots on the bottom right side of my neck had become inflamed and red, radiating off heat and leaking a slightly milky looking fluid.. gross. Next to the bite my neck was also turning purple from Terku's undead hands; a purple which matched the dark shadows forming under my eyes from all of this stress. Taking off the hat, I stared deeply into my eyes, as if trying to see my own soul. All I saw was black. Always black. There was no way of telling where my pupils ended and irises began, it was all the same shade of black.

Looking at my clothing, I saw that it was fairly dirty, especially from rolling around with the vampire, but overall it was in decent shape. Like Ashi I wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and a jacket. I reached into my jacket's pocket and pulled out my final pencil, a bit of bandage, the box-cutter, and the lighter. I just turned the bit of bandage over in my hand several times, thinking of being back in that classroom. I couldn't believe it had only been about four hours ago that Terku was playfully poking me, and now-

“Ugh!” I jumped as suddenly the bite on my neck started pulsing. When I brought my hand to it, the heat radiating off of it almost burned my fingers. It just felt like a burning and pulsating marble was under my skin..most likely because it was swollen. I decided not to linger any longer and wash myself before any infection set in; however removing my clothing proved to be a harder task than I thought.

Every muscle and every inch of my body ached, from my ligaments, to my skin, to my very bone-marrow. I eventually succeeded though (not without some pathetic whimpering), and turning around in the mirror I let out another groan as I saw bruises dotting my pale skin. I had a lot on my chest in front of my ribs, because like Ashi and Ling, I didn't have any fat to protect me. It looked as though all my ribs where showing darkly though my skin, as if the light were cutting through my back and shining their shadows on the other side, but upon closer examination I saw that they were just several annoying bruises aligned right about my ribs.. great.

Sighing to myself, I stumbled over to the shower and turned the handle until the water was so hot that it threatened to burn my skin. I slowly worked the dirt from my hair, eventually getting it to fall into it's natural straight and silky state. I then gently scrubbed the dried blood and dirt from the gash on my cheek, watching as little rivers of red flowed down my chest when I had cleaned out the wound. After I washed the rest of my body, my neck began to pulse again, and this time with the aching of my neck came a splitting headache. My vision suddenly became blurred and I started swaying. My hand shot out and grabbed to the curtain of the shower to steady myself. I let out a shaky breath and shut my eyes as tightly as I could. I felt myself being pulled more and more into the depths of unconsciousness, and my last memories were the burning of the water on my chest and the more severe burning of my neck as my knees folded underneath me.