Michael Castellanos's Story

A heavy rainfall had started whilst Robin and Pruella were en route to the city docks, shrouding the sky in grey and driving most survivors to seek shelter. The harbor area itself was a maze of storage crates, warehouses and rusting scrap metal leftover from boats that had been torn apart for their materials. The abandoned skeletons of lifting cranes and other machinery towered like giants over the thrashing waters.

Some distance away from the water's edge itself, the pair were making their way onto the site. Robin was hunched, her hands shoved into the pockets of the waterproof coat she wore with its hood pulled up as far over as it would go. They walked along one of the dock's makeshift streets between two stacks of storage containers. Robin cast a glance across at Pruella, "You said something about there being specific containers we were looking for?"

The teenager looked around at what seemed to be a neverending metropolis of shipping container towers. "... I hope you have an idea of where they are, or we might be looking for a while."

Pruella's eyes shifted to Robin, and a small smirk of contempt hid what might've been fear for the cruelty they were going to endure when they did find whatever was hidden in those storage crates. "'Tey have special marks on 'tem. The graffiti tags."

Her hand, adorned in rings, lifted to gesture at the side of one of the rather large crates. It had a name on it - Husen G. The color had since faded from when it was originally crafted, but still, the curves upon curves remained. "If it is not a gang name and 'tey got native writing in the signing piece then it's probably one of the traffic crates."

The hand that pointed fell. There were no odd symbols, just art in a place where there it hadn't quite belonged anymore, there.

"So these used to be part of some slave trade, right?" Robin approached the crate apprehensively, examining the graffiti that seemed absurd in its normality, given what it apparent represented. "How come you know about it?" the teenager gave Pruella a searching glance, "If it was common knowledge it'd be a pretty shitty tagging system."

The other girl barely reciprocated a glance to Robin, but with a moment later and a release of her breath, she gave. "Everyone's got to get to the place 'tey want to be somehow."

Robin grunted in acknowledgement of Pruella's dodging the question as she made her way around to where the crate's door was located, not pursuing the subject further. She gave the door itself a quick look up and down. A security lock was in place over the gap between the two sides, but it was broken - forced open, by the looks of it. Maybe by a scavenger. She gave the door a nudge of her foot and it swung open. Inside was dark, and the gloomy cloud-filled sky hardly lit it at all. She couldn't quite see all the way to the end of it.

"If I turn this on," Robin began as she pulled a wind-up torch from her bag, "And half a dozen zombies turn around to stare at me... Well, I'm kind of expecting that to happen, is what I'm getting at."

The light of the torch slowly kicked in as Robin wound it a few times, revealling that to the untrained eye the container was entirely empty aside from a few stains and broken bits of wood here and there. Whoever had broken into the crate the first time had evidently cleared it out.

"We're looking for a ... hidden door, right?" Robin questioned, glancing back at Pruella, "This is all very Scooby-Doo."

"I don't 'tink it'd be appropriate for daytime viewing," Pruella said, stepping in the crate. She cringed as she looked at the bits of broken glass, wood, metal. It was only a second before the young lady had stepped directly over all of the debris, and walked to the back.

She stopped just shy of it, and crouched to pick up a piece of stray metal. Her other hand came up to swipe clean the bits of stray rust that'd fallen on her, but soon she'd forgotten about aesthetics and got on par to the grim task ahead. She shoved it into the back corner of the storage unit, with a bit more force than she'd ever bothered to show to her company before.

And when it was in there - there seemed to be a hole for it to fit through - she pulled it against the wall, like a crowbar. The back moved, perhaps an inch, and a smell permeated the room. Where the wall moved and space shone inside the crate, there were hinges, much like a door. They had been previously jammed shut.

"Only one side opens, the side I was on, so ... You can do the honors."

Pruella paced for the light.

Robin wrinkled her nose at the smell emanating from whatever was behind the makeshift door. "I'm so glad." she remarked dryly, walking across to where the other girl had indicated and bracing herself for whatever waited on the other side.

With a heave and a grating of metal on metal, she pulled the panel open, and immediately what had been a waft of odour became a wall. Robin gagged, staggering back in horror as she caught a glimpse of the source - a pair of decayed corpses, no doubt slaves left abandoned in the wake of the spores to die a lonely, slow death in the dark.

"Fucking christ!" Robin swore, "That is grim. Uhg!" The teenager shuddered, clamping a hand over her nose and mouth. "I've seen people die in all sorts of ways since this started, but that has got to be the most unpleasant pandora's box I've come across yet."

"The smell -" Pruella started, nasally, as she'd clamped a hand over her nose as soon as Robin opened the panel, "Is strong - so, we might want to dump the bodies at sea or move 'tem to a place where the vampires won't swarm us."

Her figure was gone from Robin's vision. She wanted no part in seeing the decaying bodies, free from spore but ripe with death and decay, that she'd kept in the back of her conscious for quite some time.

"By we," Robin remarked, turning around to see that Pruella had cleared out from the container, "I'm guessing you mean me." She grimaced. "This was your damn idea. I didn't sign up for corpse hauling."

Something brushing against her cheek brought Robin's hand snapping up to bat at it, "Aw hell, there are flies! I bet this thing is fucking swarming with them and I just can't see it for the light. And you think it's a good idea to leave our stuff here?"

She turned with that, and made her way out into the rain again. "Uhg, I'm not touching those things without a fucking Hazmat suit. I say we just find a container someplace high up that doesn't have decaying corpses in."

"If you want to, but 'tey won't be hidden." Pruella said, her voice growing louder to combat the rain. She took the opportunity to wipe the gruel from her hands. "A little spring cleaning and home decor and 'tis place would hold a lot of your 'tings."

She turned her head, eyes setting on the dock house, not far from where they were. It hadn't been destroyed, which was enough of a surprise, considering the houses near the bay were mostly built out of wood to give them that homely feel.

"As much as I like tropical weather and shouting at eachother..." Pruella started.

Robin followed Pruella's gaze before grudgingly nodding her head in agreement. "Let's wait this rain out in there then. Hopefully it's not occupied."

She started forwards towards the building, keeping a wary eye on the gaps between the containers as they made their way towards the water's edge and the waiting shelter. One of the old cranes hung forlornly overhead beside the dock house, rust coating its skeletal frame. A set of slippery wooden steps led them up to the door of the house, and the door was unlocked, swinging loosely on its hinges in the wind.

The inside was dark and littered with trash and mould, evidently unlived in. However, there were signs that the debris on the ground had been disturbed - a rough path had been hewn through by footsteps from the doorway further into the house. Robin frowned. "See that?" she said, keeping her voice low as she gestured to the brushed-aside clutter.

Her hand went to the pistol she'd confiscated off of the man in the freezer room not long before. The sound of voices was faintly audible further inside.

Pruella looked to Robin, tapping her ear and giving her a questioning look.

"People are here, I tink," she said, through a barely audible breath that sounded much like the wind, "We should leave. We can wait it out in one of the clean crates."

As if on cue, one of the doors off the entrance hallway that they'd found themselves in swung open at that very moment. A dark haired man with tan-brown skin emerged out, doing up the button of his fly - evidently on the return from a bathroom break, or whatever qualified as a bathroom in this place since the plumbing had gone. For a brief moment his eyes locked on them, frozen in surprise, and his jaw dropped.

"What the fuck?" he exclaimed with a thick spanish accent, "Who the fuck are you? Didn't you see the tag? This is Dispersa territory, amigos, and you'd better have a fucking good reason for barging in like this." the man angled his head back to yell into the house, "Ey! We have trespassers here!"

"It was just a mistake. We didn't see the tag and we wanted to get out of the rain. So we'll leave." Pruella said, sidling back for the door. Her fingers instinctively wrapped around Robin's wrist, giving the other young woman a pull in her direction.

"Michael?" Robin cut through Pruella's attempt to guide her out, her free hand going to tug her hood down and leave her face more visible. "What the hell are you doing out here?"

A spark of recognition dawned in the spaniard's eye as Robin lowered her hood, and he whistled out in bemused surprise. "Well I'll be damned, if it isn't the lady herself." The man - apparently named Michael - held up a hand as footsteps sounded further down the hall, a number of men and women bearing firearms approaching from a doorway to the dock house's reception room. "Hold the phone, compadres, it looks like chance really does have a sense of humour. Aiden, Marie, you remember Robin?"

Robin shook her head, "I'm not here to play catch-up, Michael. I had no idea w... you were spread out this far. I thought we were well clear of your territory."

"Ahh, but things have changed since you abandoned ship, cariño. We keep getting bigger and better. I think that the same cannot be said for you, no? Hauling around that heavy pack in..." Michael gave Pruella a glance "...questionable company, smelling like a dead body? Things would be better for you if you had stayed, you know."

Scoffing, Robin shook her head. "I'll take my chances, if it's all the same. You know why I ditched your sorry club of bastards. A little discomfort is a lot better than what you people do."

"And what you did, mi niña." Michael smirked, "Or are you so quick to forget how much it took to flick your little moral switch? Don't play high and mighty with me, we both know you're as careless about life as I am. These are trying times, are they not? Those who are strong deserve to live, those who are not... well, they will get left at the wayside. That is the way of the world."

Pruella's eyes flickered with recognition when Michael had finished, and she had given a quick but questioning glance to Robin.

"And those who smell like dead bodies attract the dead bodies, do 'tey not? Would it not be best for us just to leave?" she interjected, quickly. "Agree to disagree, and maybe have a seminar to talk about it all when we all smell betta. Or memorize the tag on the way out and stay outta your way, huh?"

She drew a sharp breath in, and looked into Michael's eyes with an irritated eyebrow quirked for an answer.

Michael laughed at that, a sharp and short burst tinged with derision. "Ah, she has wit, your new friend. I hope for her sake she has more, too, or perhaps she will find you not so loyal a companion as you seem, mi cariño." The Spaniard waved a hand, "Fine, you go free this time, for old time's sake. Get out of here."

Without another word, Robin turned for the door and barged out. Before Pruella could to the same, however, Michael caught her eye and spoke again. "Don't slow her down too much, witty girl. I speak from experience when I tell you that she won't wait."

"Yeah, well. Tat for tat. We opened up a body crate not far from here, so unless you want to be eaten by the vampires, don't be slow either." she said in reply.

Her hand shot up to adjust the strap of her bag, before she went to follow Robin out just as well. When she met the smell of ocean water, her head turned and her eye caught the tag of Dispersa on the doorway.

"Robin -" she started.

"Don't make a big deal out of this," Robin interrupted from the bottom of the steps grimacing through a curtain of wet hair, having forgotten to put her hood back up. "Yeah, I used to be with Dispersa. I'm not any more. That's all you need to know."

"Just wanted to make sure you were still 'ter." Pruella said, nodding slowly. She took down the steps, looking back once, and then twice.

"We'll find a crate to sleep in, then."