Everyone Dies in the End #35

Cindy

2

Cindy woke with a cuff on her ankle. Not the kind that farmers, fifties-era rebels, or Madonna put on the bottom of jeans, but rather one of white plastic. More an anklet than a cuff, she thought. The cuff-anklet thing lay flat against her skin, and sported two small, green lights. One blinked rhythmically, the other steadily. It was fastened just above her boot, and was only visible because she was sitting on a cool, concrete floor, knees raised, her back against an equally cool wall, the position tugging the edge of her jeans above the anklet.

Her eyes traced a line from the anklet to the cool concrete beside it, to a threadbare rung, and then the entire room. It was a basement. A candle fluttered from atop a pair of boxes stacked in the center of the basement, and a man sat on either side of the boxes. One was reading a The Gunslinger in the fluttering light that the candle provided. The other was staring at her, an assault rifle across his knees. This she saw, but at first her mind registered little more than the images, not the meaning behind them. And then the memories returned. The memories of the soldiers she had fought beside, the memories of those unmet but still living in Charlotte, the memories of Zack Dixon, and the last, terminal memory of the white flash. She had run, left them to their fate. Then came the guilt, tears hot on its heels.

A hand on her shoulder. “There was nothing you could do.”

The voice was matter-of-fact, without sympathy. She jumped. Not much, but enough to elicit a laugh from the voice. She wiped the tears roughly with the palm of her hand and looked. Stared in disbelief might have been a better phrase, at least if Cindy really had the capability of disbelief. Rather than disbelief, surprise, or fear, the first emotion that rose within her breast, the first thought that came to her grief-stricken mind, was Perfect.

Just freaking perfect.

It was the vampire from before. Three days before. The vampire called Ramzke.