Page 41 of Camriel
Victoria carried everything inside.Glad she’d stolen a battery-operated lamp, she switched it on and put it on the table.She stored her food in the cupboards above and below the sink along the wall to the right of the fireplace.The bedroom had a small closet and dresser.The bed was a single and the mattress squeaked when she sat down on it.More dust motes wafted up and she sighed.“My first order of business will be to clean this thing,” she decided.
A broom was tucked into a corner of the room.She grabbed it and carried the mattress outside.It didn’t take long to beat the dust out of it.She left it propped against the wall outside and swept the entire cabin, including the ceiling and walls.
“That’s better,” she said in satisfaction once she’d swept the mess outside.“Now I can fudging breathe without inhaling a lungful of dust.”
She put the mattress back on the bed, then began hauling wood inside.Logs were piled up against one wall of the cabin outside.They were ancient, but caught quickly when she used some matches she’d taken from a convenience store.She’d also been smart enough to bring some newspapers and lighter fluid to get the fire started in the bedroom.
Thunder rumbled, then rain and hail began to pummel the cabin.“I got that job done in the nick of time,” she said with a snicker.
Too tired to stay up for long, Victoria heated a can of potted meat over the fire.It was nice to eat a hot meal straight from the can for once.She ate some canned fruit for dessert, then headed to the outdoor toilet with her lamp in hand.It was just around the corner and the overhanging roof shielded her from the weather.
“This is so mother fudging gross,” she said, cleaning the seat before gingerly sitting down.“I miss indoor plumbing the most,” she muttered when she was done.She’d been using hand sanitizers and wet wipes to clean herself.
She headed back inside and placed the empty cans in a plastic bag for now, then took stock.“I need to find clean water so I can wash my clothes,” she said.She’d grabbed washing detergent from a convenience store.“You didn’t think to take a shizzing basket, though did you, dummy?”she berated herself.
There were a lot of things she was going to need.A pillow and bed linens were at the top of her list.For now, she was warm enough in her thermal clothes with the fire going.Yawning widely, she removed her sneakers, turned the lamp off and lay down on the squeaky bed.She used one of her jackets for a pillow and curled up on her side.Sleep came and she gladly succumbed to it, knowing her new life was about to start in the morning.
Victoria’s dream started out ordinary enough.It was before the world had turned to shiz and she was on her way to her day job.Wrestling paid the bills, but it didn’t feed her soul.She had a lot of spare time on her hands and she filled it with the vocation she’d always dreamed of.
Whistling as she walked along the sidewalk, she enjoyed the sheer normalcy of watching the traffic go by.Cab drivers honked at each other in annoyance, grifters begged for spare change and tourists gawped at the sights and sounds of Manhattan.
Everything changed with her next step.The traffic was now at a standstill and people were in a panic.Victoria jerked to a stop when she saw a corpse ahead.The body was so fresh that blood still trickled from the gash in his throat.
The door to her day job was just a few steps away.Victoria shook her head, knowing what was waiting for her inside the foyer.“Nope,” she denied.“No fudging way am I going in there and putting myself through that again.”
Turning away, she found herself facing in the other direction, now even closer to the door.She tried to run across the street, but ended up directly in front of the door.It was like her subconscious was trying to punish her and she knew why.That didn’t mean she was about to let this continue.Her hand went to the doorknob of its own volition, twisting the handle and pushing the door open.
Victoria woke herself up before the dream could continue.She was sweating and it wasn’t from the heat of the fire.She wasn’t going to replay her first kill in her dreams.It would haunt her for the rest of her waking life, but at least she had control over what her mind did at night.
“Most of the time,” she corrected herself, turning her back to the fire.It wasn’t easy to drift off again, but her dreams were far more pleasant when she succumbed to sleep again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
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“WHO’S TURN IS IT TOwash our clothes?”Grace asked when Amaros joined the girls for breakfast in the morning.She hated the job and wished they’d get power up and running soon.She had her eye on the industrial sized washing machines and dryers in the resort.
