Chapter Sixteen
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“OKAY, VIC, YOU’RE OVER halfway there now,” Victoria said, giving herself a much-needed peptalk.
She still felt tired and worn out even with the amount of food she’d been eating.
The wrestler’s physique had become so lean that she was worried she would get sick soon.
“Everyone needs bodyfat,” she said. “Even a creature like me.”
Seeing actual aliens descend from the sky with a trail of red light in their wake had opened her eyes.
There was no point in denying that she wasn’t fully human anymore.
Other beings walked among ordinary people.
She’d seen ninety-seven men with red-tinted eyes herself.
The dude she kept sensing during her journey was another one.
It was hard to tell if he was one of the men she’d seen at the East River.
Her peptalk hadn’t done much to motivate her to get back on her feet. “I’ll hopefully reach the mountains in two more days,” she figured, still intending to run for another twenty miles today.
Groaning in pain, she rose to her feet and tossed the empty cans of food into the trash.
She’d already loaded up her duffle bag with provisions and water.
Everyone had bottled water stored somewhere in their houses.
A lot of people had stocked up when all the devastating storms and natural disasters had really ramped up.
Thankfully, they seemed to have ended now.
“It’s time to hit the road,” she told herself and headed for the back door.
The front door had a deadlock and she couldn’t find the key to open it.
It was lucky she was so strong and could easily break into most places.
She just preferred not to leave an obvious trail of where she’d been and where she was going.
A stray cat was sitting on the road when she left the property. The orange feline stared at her through narrowed green eyes.
“Hey, there, kitty,” she crooned. It hissed and growled at her before streaking over to the closest fence and leaping to safety. “Fudge you, too,” Victoria muttered. “That’s what I get for trying to make friends.”
She had a long stretch of open road ahead before she would reach the next town, or so the map had shown her. Setting off, she found a ramp leading to the freeway. It could be dangerous to be out in the open, but it would be far faster if she used it.
Crows feasted on bodies that lay near empty vehicles here and there. Fat from their recent bounty, they ignored her as if she didn’t exist.
“Ew, the corpses are starting to look all dry and gross,” she complained. It was steadily growing colder and it hadn’t rained much. There was still enough sunlight to bake what was left of the dead. It was hard to tell exactly how they’d died.
It wasn’t easy to ignore the stench, but she held her breath until she’d left the unsightly dead behind.
Her feet pounded on the freeway and she fell into a rhythm.
Without music to listen to, she replayed her favorite fights in her mind.
Her manager had been upset when she’d refused to lose any of the choreographed battles.
She’d told him someone with a stage name of Victory couldn’t lose.
He’d eventually seen things her way. The gimmick had worked and they’d both raked in the money.
“I was a star,” she said wistfully, mourning the loss of her career.
It had upset the other wrestlers who had seniority when they had to lose to a young upstart like her.
Her archnemesis hated her guts. “Glory fudging Gold,” Victoria said with a smirk.
“I beat that biarch’s azz three times, even when she tried to cheat. ”
She mentally replayed their final fight as she jogged along the currently empty stretch of freeway.
Glory Gold, or GG as she preferred, was a veteran wrestler with fifteen years behind her.
At thirty-six, she was on the edge of burnout.
She’d protested vehemently at having to lose to a much younger new talent the first two times.
The third time, she’d been suspiciously silent.
The knowing look on her smug face had tipped Victoria off that something was up during their battle.
They’d choreographed their fight as always, but when it came to the actual event, GG changed tactics. Dressed in her usual skimpy gold bra and panties, with her hair sporting a fresh coat of gold hairspray, GG had been wearing a different pair of gold boots than usual.
Victoria’s ability to pick up on what people were going to do had saved her azz that night.
Instead of falling onto her side during their fight after being knocked down, GG fell onto her back.
She lifted both feet to kick her in the stomach.
Victoria’s reflexes had kicked in and she’d summersaulted over her opponent.
She’d spied needles embedded in the souls of the boots during her flip. They were set into the arch beneath the heel. Some kind of fluid had been dripping from them. She suspected they’d been drugs of some kind. They would have pierced her flesh for sure if she’d been kicked hard enough.
GG had cursed when her foe landed behind her rather than falling onto her boots.
Victoria had snatched her up by her fake gold hair and slammed her into the mat, being careful not to break any of her bones.
“Nice try, grandma,” she’d whispered, wrapping her arm around GG’s throat.
“I’m not falling for your stupid trick.”
“I’m going to kill you one day, you low-rent turd,” GG had spat with genuine loathing in her tone.
“You’re on the way out and I’m going to be the queen of the ring,” Victoria gloated, tightening her arm until her opponent’s face turned red.
“Victory wins again!” the referee shouted, hauling her to her feet. The crowd had gone wild, but GG had refused to work with her again.
“Good times,” Victoria said, feeling even more nostalgic now.
“I wonder what happened to that crazy shizbag.” They’d both lived in Manhattan, but had rarely run into each other.
GG lived on the Upper East Side and Victoria lived on the West Side.
Her rival hung out with the obscenely wealthy.
Victoria hung out with her work friends, who all hated GG.
Reminiscing about the past had kept her so occupied that she almost missed the turnoff. It was late in the afternoon and she needed to find somewhere to rest for the night.
Jogging down the exit, Victoria followed it to a gas station. The small town with tidy houses and big yards offered her plenty of choices. It wasn’t until she reached the first house that she sensed something was wrong.
A shot rang out and Victoria ducked. The bullet whizzed past her ear from behind.
Casting a look over her shoulder, she saw a man standing on the bed of a pickup truck.
The vehicle was hidden behind a clump of trees.
She hadn’t even noticed it when she’d jogged past. His rifle was resting on the roof of the truck.
He sighted again and she began zigging and zagging as other guns began to fire.
“Mother fudgers!” she shouted, sprinting for cover. She smashed through the front door of the closest house, then saw someone rushing at her with a cleaver lifted up high. The middle-aged woman snarled as she slashed at the intruder.
Victoria caught her wrist and twisted her hand, snapping her bones. She wrapped her arm around the lunatic’s neck and broke it by squeezing her bicep hard.
Her senses picked up humans coming from all directions, flooding towards the house she’d taken refuge in.
“I’m up shiz creek this time,” she realized, dread making her stomach sink to her sneakers. The entire town was full of crazies and they were all intent on murdering her.