FicWad

Rachel fiddled with her iPod as her car thundered down the silent roads, avoiding the rubble and cars that littered the road. She flew through a half destroyed roundabout into a road full of pot-holes and cracks where weeds were pushing through the bitumen. She traveled this road a lot and the cracks had gotten ten times worse in the last couple of weeks. ‘Great another thing that needs fixing.’ Rachel made a mental note to write the task down on the ‘To-Do-List’ at home. She turned around a corner and put the pedal to the floor as their ‘safe zone’ came into view.
Rachel lived with 5 other people, all women, in what they called ‘The Headland.’ It was a compound set up by one of the groups of Adeladiens, that the other girls were part of during the attack or ‘dark days’. Caroline had chosen that name. Rachel didn’t quite like it. She thought it summed it up well in two words but as far as she was concerned, they were still living in them.
As Rachel approached the boundary she slowed and her heart unclenched. It may still be daytime but crossing that line still made her feel safer. That and her gun. The boundary was basically Lonsdale Road that created a semi circle around the border of the suburbs Hallett Cove and Lonsdale. It enclosed a large number of homes and several warehouses. She drove to the side of the road that was furthest from the edge of the outside world and turned off her car. She began walking towards an overturned bus and a pile of burnt out cars. Behind that was a shed enclosed in cyclone fencing and toped with lots of barbed wire. She froze as she heard a faint sound, like a bomb going off.

“Mama, we all go to hell,
Mama, we all go to hell,
I’m writing …”

Her body moved again and she dug into one of her left leg pockets. It had been a while since her phone had last gone off. She had almost forgotten she had it.
“Hello,” she asked.
“Rachel! Where are you?! Are you ok?! We’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours?! Where are you?!” On the other end of the line Caroline was letting her panic get to her again. Rachel sighed, she loved the girl but her panicking would kill her before THEY did.
“I’m ok Caroline. I’m on the border. Just checking generator box um … 3. Kelsey was supposed to do it yesterday.” Rachel heard her relaying the information to someone in the background. It was probably Kim or it could be Kelsey. Lindsay and Naomi were out on duties like her.
“Good, but why didn’t you answer us when we tried your radio?” Caroline’s voice had settled but Rachel could tell there was something that she wasn’t looking forward to telling her.
“Sorry the batteries are dead. I forgot to put it on charge.”
“Damn it Rachel,” there was that voice again.
“Look, I know I’m sorry it was a stupid mistake. But come on, how often do I forget to charge it? One out of a million.” Rachel replied.
“That’s why we were worried. Look its ok …” great, here comes the punchline, Rachel thought. “But you’re going to have to tell Naomi that. I sent her out looking for you.” There it was, the punchline. Now Rachel was going to have a pounding headache and would be deaf by the end of the day. Rachel was known as the loud domineering one, but if anyone could outdo her it was Naomi.
“Great, ok can you radio her and tell her I’m fine and I’ll see her back at home?”
“Yeah. How long will you be?”
“About an hour. I still have to check the box and light bulbs.”
“Ok bye.”
“See ya.” Rachel felt enlightened as she hung up. Getting a phone call like that, out of the blue, instead of timed and scheduled, made her feel like there was still civilization. It soon vanished when she looked at the overturned bus and burnt cars. Turning back to the shed she saw large rocks and pebbles on the floor. THEY were intelligent creatures just like her, but it was at times like this that made her doubt that they had a brain under their thick skulls. THEY tried throwing rocks and stones to try to disable the generator, she’d seen it before. Number one the rocks couldn’t do anything to even dent the shed let alone damage the generator. Number two they still didn’t realize that this was the back-up generator. ‘Stupid bastards’. Rachel knew what compelled the select few to attack like this. They were outcasts like the homeless people you used to see in the city. They had been cast out from their clans so they attacked like this. Because of their hunger.
Ten minutes later she relocked the gate and turned to face the slowly lowering sun. She got back in her car and went for a drive along the border, checking the hundreds of floodlights that lined the road.
‘The Headland’ was a unique sanctuary. Most fortresses would be enclosed by a fence or wall but ‘The Headland’ was different. There were no walls in the place or around it (excluding the walls of the homes). It was instead protected by light. The only use for walls in this part of the world was to trap you in. open spaces or good hiding spots were your best chance. That or a fully loaded P-90. Light was very useful, but only if you had enough of it. The group that built it consisted of academics and strong laborers. A good combination in times like those. They made plans for the whole thing well before the plague reached us. When it was about two days out they started building it. It was about three quarters of the way finished when they were attacked. Most were killed but some of them, like the girls, were captured. It was left untouched by THEM as they thought no-one would be around to use it. They obviously didn’t consider a lot of things.
The sun was getting lower now. ‘Time to face the music.’ Rachel turned off of the border towards the heart of ‘The Headland.’ Towards home, towards the home that saved her when she was eleven and the home that saved her now…