11

The remaining light fades into the depth behind the city's sundry, silhouette crenellations. The air smokes from the flames and from the gas explosions in the city. Breathing tastes like ashes. The ashes taste like death.

The alley she's escaped into is close to the street of a four level parking garage and a ten story, partially burnt, skeletal hotel. Sidewalks and perron of the building are black in spots that are just the size of bodies, like people have been set ablaze at the entrance. Their ashes have blown away in the apocalyptic winds.

She peeks at the road before the two structures and finds that it circles back toward the complex and the barrier of the zoo. Every route she witnesses are the same except for one, which raises on a slight slant. It's a long, two way ramp with balustrades that exit onto the upper highway.

Old Sol flickers below the horizon and she notices something move down the ramp in the darkness, like traces of indistinct shadows. Watches from the alley and recognizes the thing moving as not one, but two. Armed men. Body armour. Holding rifles, like they mean to pull triggers. Their guns point toward her vicinity.

It just has to be two of them. Not fair. Oh, well. They must've heard the door slam and need to investigate. How many more are on the other side of that ramp? How many more are at the highway? Would they kill me if I said, hi?

She blinks numerous times, due to the fading light. Crouches and peers again. Finds a better watching point while crawling partially into the street. Her breathing stops for a moment as an eternal suspicion becomes certainty. Her heart quakes for a moment, but she calms herself and normalizes the situation in her mind. Crawls backward into the alley.

I recognize the one guy. That piece of shit's probably hunting me. He fucking survived. That one. The one in the lead. He lived. That piece of shit. David Cain. That murderer. I'd recognize him anywhere. I'll kill him again. I'm going to kill him. But how? Oh, his eyes. There's nothing behind them. Nothing. He's not conscious behind his eyes. Oh, they're coming this way. What am I going to do? Hecate fuckate heck.

She thinks she can pass for what might've been at this point, with her wounds and ankle and battered body, but not with her fresh attire. She forms a plan to thoroughly destroy the two men who are her real enemy. It's a risk, but she wants full vengeance.

The time's fed girl kicks her flip flops away and drops her backpack. Strips her clothing. Pulls the bandages from her ass and dry heaves at the smell of its festering ooze. Rips the smile wound open with her nails. She sits on the rough concrete and harshly rubs the wound into the filth until it forces her to scream like what might've been. Time's fed stands and lumbers and limps into the street hiding the buck knife behind her.

She hopes they won't waste a bullet on a single what might've been.

The cafeteria door in the alley crashes open. What might've been follow after her, screaming as she did. Raging and chewing on their own wrenched, torn exposures of meat and marrow. She screams again like a tortured pied piper.

The two men spot her and stop walking. They point rifles at her stumbling, limping body. She's not entirely convincing. They don't shoot.

"Hey, I'm not sure about this one."

"What's not to be sure about? You know what she is."

"I've seen this before, those that hide with what might've been. She's too whole to be one of them. She still looks female."

"Suicidal bitch."

"Hey, are you..."

She screams like what might've been and dry heaves as the smell of herself curses her senses.

But they don't shoot her. They just watch.

Go ahead. Kill me. Kill me you fucks. Do it. Save me from this body and this place.

They seem to notice what's following her and point their rifles toward what might've been, which are filling the street. She calculates that their moral chauvinism won't allow them to witness her as a real threat. With their attention elsewhere, she ducks behind a crater dent, driver side, white 2500 Chevy Express. Watches. Hates them.

The two men open fire on the coming horde. The blasts deafen into an unending ringing. They seem to forget about time's fed as they shoot into what might've been. Many pour like naked gray and crimson black upon concrete from the darkness of the alley into the tenebrous street.

The rifles are powerful and the bullets more so. Heads explode and bodies fall and try to stand back up and fall again as more bullets pierce thighs and abdomens. Shoulders and knees. Exploding dismemberments cause dead body piles like the beginnings of unlit funeral pyres.

She silently manoeuvres around the men. Behind the shadows. Stalks them as they continue shooting. She witnesses perception from behind them. What might've been explode into pulp with each trigger pull.

She creeps behind the one she doesn't recognize and raises her buck knife. Slits his throat in one motion. Time's fed holds him as he bleeds out and falls to the ground, soundlessly behind the blasting gunfire of the leader.

She steps over the dead man and tiptoes behind the one she truly hates. Smiles and sticks him once in the back with the buck knife. He instantly collapses, dropping the rifle and twisting his right leg unnaturally as he crumples. She's severed his spine. He's a quadriplegic now. But he's still alive and he begins screaming.

She cackles like a hyena for a moment and spits on him. Leaves him in the street. Walks away, barefoot silently.

She finds the sidewalk and the refuge of a dumpster. Watches the remainder of what might've been collapse onto his body. They tear him apart, limb from torso. He doesn't scream anymore. He cries while he dies. She can hear his sobs.

She watches his face through little openings of what might've been. Her eyes widen. He looks like a kid, a teenager. It dawns on her that the man...the kid she just fed to what might've been isn't who she thought.

As what might've been chew his cheeks from his sobbing face, time's fed realizes she's made a horrible mistake. Why did she think this kid was the leader who destroyed her family? They look nothing alike.

The time's fed girl looks away and spits and slides down the side of the dumpster. She hugs herself hard.

What have I done? What's wrong with me now? Why am I seeing things that aren't really there? He was just a kid. The other guy. He didn't deserve what I did to him, either.  I wonder if there're others waiting for them, relying on them. I wonder who I just took them away from. Am I no better than David Cain?

What might've been devour the other body. The remainder of the horde continue moving in the direction of the ramp. Slowly. Up the ramp.

Time's fed doesn't cry. She doesn't seem to know how anymore.