Snippet #2381334

Rather than him leading her through the dark, she led him. Esmond was even more surprised at her supposed comfort around him than he had been before. But, desperate times led to desperate measures. When she'd taken his hand, of course he noticed the dirt, the blood, the broken nails. And yet she still seemed delicate. Clean, in a strange way. But she was pulling him along through the debris of the street before he had much time to contemplate further on her qualities, instead his mind and eyes focused on the ruinous scenery around him.

His ears perked to pick up any hint of danger, and with every breath he took a new scan of his surroundings. For the most part though, everything was still except for the two of them. Only the light breeze occasionally disturbed bits of trash in the street, disrupting the sound of the girls' heart beating. Trying not to let it distract him, he kept up his guard while she led him along.

There was a smell of old, burnt flesh, and it wasn't long before he saw why. In front of a formerly tall building, there was a crater of large proportion. He'd seen the bombs fall one night, but had been well away from the city at that time. He'd known it would come to that sooner or later, so Esmond captured a human, left with him, and kept as far from all others as possible. In time, the plague would die out with it's last victims. But the time hadn't come soon enough. Fire rained down on cities all through the United States, as far as he knew, in a final attempt to save what little life remained.

The evidence was here before him. Hidden behind some overgrown weeds and brush, Esmond could smell the bodies. They were far enough away to be faint, if at all noticeable, to Abigail. But to him, they were practically still screaming. He could only imagine what it had been like to die that way. He'd seen people burn alive, vampire or human, but fortunately he'd always managed to avoid the torch, and the sun.

To his relief, Abigail didn't seem to notice the nearby corpses. She let go of his hand, then let herself slide down the side of the crater, and shortly after he saw her propel up and over the other side. He smirked at her, again finding himself in some form of awe of her ability to adapt.

"Your turn." She said with a smile, and he took it as a challenge.

Straight faced, Esmond took one long stride towards the edge of the crater, until his foot was half over the edge. And then jumped. His body flew through the air, clothing whipping around him, clear over the crater. And just like that, he was on the other side, looking down on the little human girl. He took her small, dirty hand in his own, and then proceeded towards the motel. Without hesitation, he barreled his leg through the door, breaking it off the hinges, chain and all. He turned, looking into Abigail's eyes, "If you'll please, just stay close."

He then loosed his grip on her hand, as a sign that she had free reign within the building. But only as long as she was nearby. He went on into the dark, in no need of light, towards another smell. This place had been largely abandoned, and then locked from inside, judging by the chains. Windows on the lower level had been barricaded, also from within. But judging from this pungent stench, whoever had taken all of these precautions was now dead.

He'd smelled it before, many times in his life, but he considered Abigail. "You may not want to come this way." He turned to glance back at her, only giving her a look and no explanation. Of course, she was free to choose for herself, but somewhere further on down this dark hall was a dead man. By what means, Esmond couldn't yet discern, but he could tell that, as bad as the stench was now, it would be worse once he opened the room the man was in.

He pressed on, keeping an ear on Abigail and the front door to ensure that no one was trying to sneak up on them, and shortly came to the door he'd been looking for. It too, was barricaded from within, but not with just a chain. It was a steel door, to a kitchen or a freezer maybe, and padlocked from the other side. Undaunted, Esmond pressed his hand against it, then pressed on it against its hinges. With a crack and a screech, steel broke and then slid apart, and Esmond pushed the door over to the side, making it topple over and fall on its face.

The smell was pungent. It swarmed around him and out of the room. The source was sitting in a corner of the room, propped against an open cabinet with his head hanging and chin resting on his chest. He was badly decomposed, features completely unrecognizable, bone showing through flesh here and there. There was a journal sitting on top of a metal table on the right side of the room, several empty water bottles scattered all about, and medical gauze unfurled across the left side of the room, close to where the dead man was.

The cabinets were stuffed with preserved goods. Esmond wasted no time in striding over to the nearest and beginning to unload it of it's precious contents. "Abigail!" He shouted, continuing to grab food and setting it on top of a stove.