Page 2 of The Pale Rider
“Look at that, kitten. It’s not pretty. See those teeth marks? The things that made them are swarming this building. I had to cut my way through them to find what I was after in this building. All I found was a girl without her memories in a hospital gown. Now, take the bat because you will need it to fight your way out of here. Even if you can’t remember a fucking thing when you touch it, you need protection to make it out of here alive.”
I might be confused, but I wasn’t stupid. I was looking at an entire hallway of decaying, mangled corpses. I looked him right in the eye and grabbed that bat from him. I didn’t know what was so important about that stupid, baby blue baseball bat, but when my hand wrapped around it, I felt this little surge, and I saw a flash.
I saw a crowd, and I felt a rush as they all cheered as I stepped up to the plate. I could see a field of women with tattoos like what I could see on my forearms, and they had colorful hair like the pink on my ends. I could hear a chant from the crowd.Speedy, Speedy.Was that me? The strange bat gifting man said people called me that. Why did people call me that? If I looked down, it was etched into the blue bat.
Just like the flash came into my mind, it was gone. I shook my head.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Did you remember anything?”
“A softball game.”
The man shook his head.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Rage Heads, and she remembers a fucking softball game.”
“Well, you could give me a little more fucking help than handing me a baseball bat. I don’t even know your name.”
I heard this unreal wail come from down the hall. It didn’t sound like it was alone, and it seemed like it was headed in my direction.
“Time to go, kitten, unless you want to get eaten.”
I didn’t know if I could trust this guy, and he was being pretty shifty about giving me information about myself and what he was doing in this hospital. I wasn’t stupid, though. He was my best chance of getting out of this hospital alive. He had one chance to explain himself when we got out of here, and then I would ditch him and seek answers on my own.
I heard the pounding of footsteps. How many of those things were in here, and how did they move so fast? The man grabbed my hand and yanked me down the hall. Don’t ask me where he got that fucking sword from.
“Aim for the head,” he yelled as we tore ass down hallways littered with half-eaten bodies.
Good to know. I wished he would have given me a few more helpful tips before we took off running in this corpse infested hospital. I saw a flash of a softball game, but did I actually know how to wield this thing? I didn’t even know my last name.
We almost made it out when the source of those wails popped out from behind a corner. There was no logical explanation for what was making those noises. They should have been dead and buried. Most of them had clothes that were hanging off their rotted frames. Their flesh was so nasty. It should have had maggots crawling out of it. The ones that still had eyes had this unnatural red tint to the whites of their eyes. I had no idea how they moved that fast, given the state of their decay.
There was way more of them than there were of us. There were worse things to have than a man with a sword who gifted you baseball bats and kept secrets when you were surrounded by walking corpses. I didn’t know how I knew, but I would need both hands on that bat if I were supposed to be hitting these things in the head.
He was the only one who knew where we were going, but my survival instincts kicked in. I wrenched my hand out of his and took the bat in both hands. As soon as one of those things came near me, I swung as hard as I could. I guess I did use to be a softball player at some point because when my bat connected with this thing’s head, it was like an overripe pumpkin. I was guessing it even sounded the same. I had to stop myself from vomiting.
I only had one goal here. Kill my way through these things. But was it any better outside? If the hospital was like this, what was the rest of the world like?
It seemed like endless swinging and squelching noises before that wailing and hissing noise stopped. The man and I were standing among a pile of bodies, and there was black blood pooled at our feet. He just grinned at me.
“Not bad, kitten. Let’s get as far away from here as possible.”
“Not so fast. What is your name, and do you have a car?”
“My name is Aeron, and no one has cars anymore. There’s no point. You can’t get gas anywhere. I’ve got something better.”
“Why should I trust you? You haven’t given me much to go on.”
“Because it’s not just the Rage Heads you need to worry about. Humanity has gone to shit. If you want to stay safe out there, you need friends and supplies. I’ve got both.”
“How do I know you’re not part of the humanity that has gone to shit?”
“You don’t. But you don’t remember shit, and I have answers. You’re just going to have to trust me, cupcake.”
“Are you actually going to give me more answers than what you have?”
“I can help you get your memories back, and I can explain to you what is going on. But not here. It’s not safe. I have a place we can go for the night, and there are separate beds in case you think I have any intention to rape you.”
