3.

There is a lot with which Sally Gibson sees and for the most part it is jumbled. She sees it and for a long time she may not know how to make sense of it. One thing she has seen in a dream is a fire. It is not just any fire but one of consequence, just how much so she cannot be entirely sure. She feels as it is somewhere so far off in time and distance that even if she had all the details, she would not need to divulge them just yet.

There is time yet, plenty will come and go long before this fire hits and all that comes her way she will deal with as best she can. There is a boy or at least there will be a boy with whom she will have no initial worry for. He will face hardships and great difficulty though he will fight through and thrive.

She may meet him somewhere down the road, before then there will be others who will make themselves known to this boy long before she will get to do the same.

***

Hush little baby, don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird ...

A twelve-year-old boy runs through a dark wooded area all the while trying to watch out behind him. He has been running for some time and it has been dark for some time too. The ground is soft, uneven, and rising slightly though there is a trail path set out before him to follow. The moon is up ahead of him, full, large, and bright, shining such that it guides him forwards. It may be obvious too that if a trail is being shown to him then isn't it also being shown to anyone who may be giving chase?

This boy doesn't consider that fact, he has made an escape from where he came though how complete is this escape? Can it ever be truly complete? This is all new to him, the outside world and hell isn't it big. Escaping from one hell, he is heading straight into another. With what is coming, maybe the answers to whatever questions he may have, are not all too promising. Anything is better than what came before, right? Well maybe not. A chase may be underway however it would not be such a chase that this young boy might expect.

Thing is that he has no idea of what is coming his way. How could this twelve-year-old boy comprehend or even begin to understand what it is that really is out there when he himself has had little opportunity to be out there at all? A captive is all he has ever been and now he is free and running through that darkened wooded area. Surely, he is being followed and or tracked; his former captor must be coming for him. So far, the boy can see no evidence of this.

He is tired, weak, undernourished, and out alone in a very dangerous world. His run soon comes to a halt. He is stopped silent in his tracks, frozen still by the sight of an old, thin, grey haired, full bearded man who is just standing, frozen to a spot as if he were waiting in this small circular clearing for someone or for something to happen.

This old man has probably done more than his own fair share of running during his lifetime, and especially in recent times with how the world has come to be. And right now, this man has probably now come to a point in his life where he has given in, being no longer willing to flee, no longer able to flee from the ghosts that the world have become overrun by.

Having turned his head to the boy, who stands close by, almost fixated upon him, the old man speaks.

'Best not waste time boy. The dead are all around and they are coming. They can smell you, ya know. You do not want to stay anywhere near me. Better run boy, they are coming ... what are you waiting for? ... Run.'

He is frightened by this old man; in all honesty he is frightened by most everything. That voice that spoke to him, the tone, the anger, the acceptance ...

The old man looks forwards, drops to his knees then focuses once more on the boy. Speaking now more loudly, more forcefully, he simply repeats that last word '... run ...'

The boy only hesitates for a second or two more before he does indeed begin once again to run. What he does not see and cannot yet know of is that as he does run, the old man is consumed, destroyed by death, a living hungry death, a death that has come in numbers and soon this living death will be coming for the boy.

This escape of his has only just begun. If he is to survive any length of time, then escape is something he will need to become an expert at. Maybe trust will be something else he will need to become an expert at though he does not know what that is. He knows very little of anything. As it goes, need and ability are often two completely different things and ability can only go so far.

The roaring screams of pain which obviously belong to that man, have the boy briefly considering turning back towards where he had just been, but fear has him continuing forwards, moving now all the quicker. There are monsters in the woods, monsters nothing like the monster from which an escape had been made.

Indeed, that old man has given up, given in. He has willingly been caught by those ghosts, those demons, those members of the Living Dead. They are numerous; they have amassed upon a new and this time willing victim. They rip that old man open; they tear him apart piece by piece and consume him; they give him no chance of survival and give him the most hideous of horrible deaths. Survival had been forsaken by one and now it is a number one priority for another.

https://youtu.be/f_raDpgx_3M