Page 17 of Condemned

Chapter Eight

Avalon had rememberedto wriggle as they piled the dirt on her. Not too much though. She also remembered someone might be watching. Of course, the assholes had left her hands tied. Anything to make life difficult.

Something had been chewing at the rope, shifting the turns of rope, and she prayed it was Nibbles. If not, she might think about screaming any second now. How did he even get there? Definitely Nibbles was not an organic, oxygen-breathing mouse.

Panicking in fits and starts, she nevertheless waited to the count of fifty breaths before attempting to worm her way upward.

The time might not be enough for whoever might be out there to have departed, but the air was growing stale, or it felt so to her muddled head, and moving her chest was becoming harder and harder to do.

The cold earth hugged her, pushed her down, and even raising her arm was nearly impossible. The grave seemed determined to keep her with it, forever. She put her back into it, dragged her legs closer, up to her body, huddling under a blanket of solid dirt.

The bonds on her wrists snapped. Fuck, yes.

She wriggled some more, whimpering when the basket over her head leaked dirt onto her face. Heart thudding loud enough to wake the worms that counted this place as home, she went into full-on panic mode and thrust with every muscle, only to find soil spilling into her mouth.

Cold, heavy, bitter, flesh-rotting, plant-feeding soil. She was not a plant.

She spat and the earth in her mouth moistened.

If she stayed where she was, this was her fate. To be swallowed by the ground.

She clamped her mouth shut and tried again; her shoulders seemed to shift what held her down. Mouth tight, holding onto what little air she had left in her lungs, bursting to breathe, she thrust and rammed through the dirt, and surfaced into glaring sunlight and a riffling cool breeze.

The world of dirt was once again under her palms, where it should be.

The sound of her gasping overwhelmed her ears, but she spat and let her body recover, shaking, snorting out dirt, brushing more dirt from her hair and mouth.

Avalon lay down, splayed half out of the grave, with her lower half still covered. This grave she’d come close to remaining inside to the end of time.

“Almost got me, but you didn’t. Fuck you.” She extended a finger at everything in general. At the world, and at those mauleons.

Protect her? Hah. She’d protect herself, thank you very much.

Naked though. She crawled fully out, grimacing at the frayed ropes on her wrists. Nibbles scampered up and sat on a small mound. His pink spots were pretty in the light, despite the dirt on his coat. She’d swear he was smiling back.

“Thank you, my small friend.” Her voice was croaky.

She frowned. If he was a mouse-bot, which he seemed to be, unless he was some genetically superior supermouse, then he would be hundreds of years old? No one could make anything like this, not since the Quarantine. The technology had been crushed, had rusted into only a ghost of its old self.

“You are an enigma, Nibbles.”

He squeaked back then ran off into the grass.

Maybe this was his payback? She might never see him again, which actually saddened her. She’d dug him out from under some rubble when she’d glimpsed movement. Pulled on a tail, found a mouse-bot. Find of the century.

Avalon looked around. Clothes would be nice but escaping into the forest was better. She’d head south to the mountains she’d traversed on the way in, backtrack to Montague. But before she could go over the mountain range, she’d need some clothes.

Stealing was her forte. Easy.

She climbed to her feet and found the world spinning again. The drink they’d given her was still in her blood. Which reminded her... she looked down. Her legs were covered in the red stuff, as well as dirt. That would draw wild animals. A flush of greener foliage showed on some trees peaking above the nearby forest. That seemed to promise water. She should wash, drink, get her bearings.

“Let’s go,” she muttered to her legs, and took the first step, staggered sideways, readjusted her sense of up and down. She could do this.

The trees took a while to reach via her zigzag path, but the morning was fresh and already she’d saved herself from being buried forever and lost those mauleon idiots. Go me.

She plunged into the forest and soon lost sight of sky and sun, except for tiny patches shimmering between the leaves far above. Twigs cracked underfoot and she swore quietly at the discomfort as roots and rocks assaulted her bare soles. It was bearable though. Her calluses were thick from days on the road and her love of climbing—trees, buildings, rock walls, all those had succumbed to her.

Dappled in muted light, shielded from the wind, for the first time in many days, she felt safe. Well, safer. There’d be beasts in here. She’d have to be careful.