Emeralda THE WALK

All of the People    by Panama wedding  

Emeralda drove faster and easier on the major thoroughfares.  Down at the lower, western end of the ugly city, she encountered something she had never before seen.  It was a mass exodus of folks who appeared to be heading off for extended vacations, or else they were moving, relocating.  Rooftops loaded with luggage, chairs, mattresses, garbage bags.  Windows stuffed with silverware drawers, pets, and kids with bed head.

In the opposite direction, streaming into the city, were fancy automobiles of every make, with gleaming paint jobs and large rims, carrying men who flashed large jewelry and guns.  They were heading into the mean, dispirited city of Fuckno.  Rape, pillage and plunder.

A new surge of adrenaline entered her bloodstream, and this time, it cleared her eyes, opened her mind up from her own peril.  This was a shared escape, and although she had witnessed the reason for such a mass exodus at every turn, only now did she begin to understand. 

You see, a cocoon will protect, but it blinds you from the outside world.

She swung off the interstate freeway and onto the side street connection towards her little girl.  A new thought immediately entered her head.  It was this: What if the home was empty?

She tried to push the thought away.  Of course they had not left.  They would have…

…have done what?

Call her on the telephone at the Lilac Estate?  Alert them that she was not there anymore?

What if they’d decided to head there for protection?

What, what, what if… if what?

Did they leave the city?  Or worse?  What if they were indeed home, but they would never answer anything at all, ever again?

Emeralda kept her head. She did not slam down the accelerator, although she could feel panic sharpening its claws, preparing to rend her brain.  She hammered that feeling down.  She would not panic.  Do not panic.

She drove up from the major artery that connected the megatropolis to the coast, and within the smaller capillaries, she found more of what she’d witnessed earlier, outside the smashed rear wall of the Lilac Estate.  Some bodies were half-eaten, others were scattered bones.  All about them she saw regurgitated remnants from many huge feasts.  Eat and puke, lather and rinse, repeat as needed.

What the hell was going on?

She pulled up to the curb the opposite way, with her driver door facing the home.  The place was constructed in the style of the 1950’s mill worker, with walls painted purple, of course.  Armedmenian.  

The house had been fortified for war, but only the construction contractor and his subs would know.   They hired only their own.  The walls had heavy steel plating inside, and the windows were made from bullet-resistant Plexiglas. All of the homes of them Purple Robes were likewise reinforced, but more of the wealthy Armedmenians did not live so close to the curb.  They chose to reside in estates and compounds.

This was the reason that Emeralda had found connection to the couple who lived here, at this modest home.  They were from a previous era of the Purple Robes; they still held tenet to the laws and religion of the old country. They were less and less like the family, the rulers of the new, of her husband.  As this new nobility progressed, her friends were left further and further in the dust.

That meant that she could trust them. 

But would they answer her knock?

She looked around and saw that the whole street was still.  Nothing moved.  The air itself seemed to hold its breath.  Where were the birds?  Where were the dogs?

Telepathy   by Crosses  

She stuffed her car keys into her pocket and locked the door to the big vehicle.  Yes, she left the baby inside, but her instinct told her to do both of these things.  Always trust your instincts, when your nerves are flayed and they lay raw.  If you are heading off to a hair appointment or into the workplace, then fuck you.

*ahem*

She could hear the sound her shoes made as they connected with the concrete walkway.  She’d never noticed this before.  Always running in them, sweating and striving to run even further each day.  Unprotected, free, running and making herself stronger. 

She was born into a world of ancient history, and the language she knew from her first utterance contained words that always led back to the base of their knowledge.  All lines of thought kept mind of the Prophesies.  All words in Armedmenia hinted at the things to come.  The dark times.

She made herself strong because it was in her DNA. 

A superhero?

NO.

A mother.

All of this weight pressed down on her shoulders as she walked to the front door.  She held panic at bay and the thoughts that scratched at the door, wanting to be opened, clawing to intrude.  But here was indicated focus.  It mattered the most.

Her skin crawled.  She listened for any intrusion into the silence of the neighborhood and watched for any movement in the periphery of her eyeline.  (Keep your body soft, act like you are supposed to be there, do not panic.)

She reached the steps that led up, and paused, considering to look back and check on her baby.

Her mother’s instinct told her to do it, but her DNA told her to not.

She did not hear a thing, and as she took the first step up, she was aware that the silence appeared to be growing.  Was she deaf?  Had she lost the ability to sense?  Was she heading into an ambush?  Was someone right behind her?

Do

Not

Panic.

The door in front of her swung inward when she was halfway up the steps and a voice whispered.  It said, “Come in quick!”

She froze, yes she froze. 

Nothing here was correct.  She never spoke English to them, nor they to her.  She would knock a special knock, and then a response, and then her second knock, to declare safe.

No one was there anymore.  Her little girl was not there.  Someone else was there now. Something else was there, and it wanted her to come in.

She should not have frozen. 

She should have turn tail and then run directly for her vehicle.  Fumble with the keys, unlock the door, climb in, lock the door, ignite the combustion, race off with the monsters chasing after her down the street, in a vehicle with the back end all smashed open.

All of her life, she’d known that there would be a moment in time when she would face impending doom, and it would come down to a split second decision.  This was that precise moment.

And she had frozen.

Her teachings, her DNA, her training all spoke two things, which were these:

1       Do not run to the vehicle.  (Do not put your baby in harm’s way.)

2      Make a split second decision between fight or flight.

What would you do?

See you tomorrow for the next part.

---willies out.

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