Chapter 2
Chapter two
Isla
Big, strong hands wrap around my waist, stroking my naked flesh as they roam appreciatively around my curves.
‘You’re beautiful,’ the masked man whispers into my neck.
Although his lips are not accessible, hidden behind a white skull mask with an obnoxious crown incorporated on top, I can feel his touch as if there was nothing between us.
I moan as he palms my ass, the callouses on his hands causing a fluttering feeling to overtake me.
A kick at the sole of my shoe has me pausing.
That’s odd.
My feet are on the ground how would—
Another kick at my boot has my eyes shooting open on an instant and Luna’s joking voice meets my ears.
‘Isla, you’re having another one of your sex dreams.’
Giggles fill the room and I groan, covering my eyes with my forearm.
Where some people might be embarrassed by this exact situation, I am not.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that this has happened, nor is it the second.
In fact, with the increasing number of times these sex dreams have plagued me, I’d hazard a guess that they won't be stopping anytime soon.
‘Pregnancy has you horny, girl,’ Luna continues, not phased at all. ‘We need to find you a friend or something before you combust.’
‘Shut up, Luna.’ Elizabeth scolds from beside me.
Liz is sitting upright against the classroom wall. Equations scattered around her fiery auburn hair and twin bushy red brows arched into her signature scowl.
‘Alright, Liz,’ Luna drawls. ‘No need to be so uptight. We all know Isla’s got a naughty side because… well,’ she motions to my stomach.
‘You’re hardly the Virgin Mary, Luna.’ Amelia points out from the doorway, wispy strands of her dark hair escaping from her plait.
‘Exactly why I’m not judging. I’m pointing out the obvious so that we can help.’
‘And how are you going to help, Luna?’ I ask, amused by this whole situation.
‘Well…’ she shuffles on her feet. ‘I hadn’t got that far in my thinking.’ Her wide, cheeky grin is enough to have us all laughing at her.
‘Nice one, Loons. Really the brain box,’ I call out.
She holds her hands up in mock surrender. ‘Hey, I never said I was the solutions gal, that’s all Fauna.’
I feel my wide grin drop and Luna’s does in return as she takes in my expression.
‘She’ll be fine, Isla. Fauna is a badass and she’s just scoping out the area for any supplies.’
‘Supplies for me,’ I grumble, still feeling uneasy and irritated about my best friend doing this alone.
Before we realised I was pregnant Fauna and I used to do all of the runs together. Something I am now starting to regret because it has made the rest of the group out of practice.
I look around at the woman with me, noting which ones are missing for the watch shift.
A shift that they have become all too comfortable with doing, and so have lost the confidence to go out on any supply runs.
I don’t blame them; I understand that this life isn’t one they chose, nor is it one they were happy to accept roles in.
So when the opportunity came around for them to do the easier jobs, they happily took them.
But now Fauna absolutely refuses to let me come with her on any new scouting missions, stating she does not know the level of risk she is putting me in, and so my frustration with the others' inaction has started to rise.
Liz had wanted to go with Fauna, but she refused that offer as well, claiming that she trusts Liz most with my life and knows that if anything were to happen, if any danger was to come to the door, Liz would be the most experienced to get me to safety.
So Fauna is out there, alone in a new city with one of the most notorious groups roaming around skinning and nailing people to walls. All whilst I sit here waiting like a spare part.
I begin to ruminate on when I’d first heard of the notorious gang of masked men who inhabit Glasgow.
It was that crazy psycho bitch who had dropped that bomb on us as we had slowly made our way north.
When she’d ranted and raved to us about “the horror of The Skulls”, I’d almost vomited.
Not from fear of a bunch of jumped-up wannabe gangsters, but because I already knew them.
I had slept with one. Not only that but I was fucking pregnant with one of those psycho’s babies.
I was freaked the fuck out and hardly spoke to the girls for the rest of the journey to Glasgow.
Even now, I mentally shy away at the implications of what it could mean for our group if I am spotted by him whilst we work our way through Glasgow.
Would he come after me? Would he take my baby from me? Would he kill me… Kill us?
But… he hadn’t seemed like the type of man to do that.
He even seemed sweet. Well, as sweet as a masked man in the apocalypse can be.
Ugh! I shouldn’t be thinking about him; it’s not good for me, and it’s certainly not good for the baby.
But being in this city, knowing who it belongs to makes that night a constant, screaming echo in my mind.
It certainly has me agreeing with Fauna’s assertion that I was safer on the sidelines despite my guilt.
The Skulls are Glasgow’s most violent group.
Their reputation is insane and according to the stories we have been told, everyone is scared of them — anyone sane that is.
They get off on torturing people, mutilating them until they are unrecognisable.
It’s as if they’ve made it into a sport the way they have bodies hanging around the city, a sight that made my stomach churn and my mind spiral with possibilities of what it would mean to come across them.
To come across him. And the worst bit? I don’t know if I’d recognise him if I did see him again.
The Skulls wear masks, each one slightly different but the message behind them is the same. No one knows their faces, just like I don’t know the father of my child's.
God, why did I have to be so stupid and think with my vagina rather than my head?
‘She’ll be back,’ Liz nudges me out of my spiralling thoughts. ‘She might look innocent, but we all know her appearance is as deceiving as her name.’
I laugh.
Fauna is not such a sweet, innocent Faun like we all call her. She’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing and she is mainly to thank for us all still being alive and here
With nothing much to do but wait on our unappointed leaders' return, I take a walk around the school, slowly scoping out each classroom and the memories of the old world we left behind.
It’s dark again and Fauna is still not back.
She should be back by now.
And deep down, I know something is wrong.
Something is always wrong. It’s like trouble is obsessed with making my life a misery.
First, it was my anxiety as a kid; it's next hit was the virus that murdered my parents, then the fire that tore me apart from the remainder of my loved ones — my brother and our childhood friend. I was taken by those soldiers and forced into that camp where I was humiliated. Now it’s thrown pregnancy at men and this…
It’s too much, I’m near breaking point. I can’t take another strike
I need Fauna to come back. She and Liz are my rocks, and I need them both more than I have ever needed anything. I need help because as much as I’m trying to hide it from the others, I am terrified of the future.
As a young girl, you're always taught that when you have a family it will be built on the foundations of love and happiness. A healthy relationship where trust and comfort are in abundance and you will all live happily ever after skipping through fields of daisies.
That was a load of shite back then and it's an even bigger one now.
How exactly do you even form a relationship like that when all anyone is bothered about is the body's basic carnal urges? Eat, sleep, drink, fuck.
I haven’t trusted someone new in years. Sometimes I even question the trust I have with the girls as it is — something I feel immense guilt for.
With how I was betrayed by Stephanie at the army camp, how I’d blindly trusted her, desperate to fill the aching hole that being abandoned in this world left me with, I’d allowed my trust in her to be obliterated and it's no wonder that from time to time I can’t stop myself from spiralling into paranoia.
I hadn’t truly loved Steph — I don’t think.
It was something different, like infatuation.
I’d felt so alone in the world, and she had seen that.
She took advantage of me, of my alienation.
She used me to satisfy her need for companionship and I, like a fool, let her.
I gladly gave her every piece of myself, and we had fun, until we didn’t. Turns out I was insignificant.
The masked man made me feel alive like I did with her, maybe that’s what drew me to him. He made me laugh right from the get-go and any anxiety fizzled away. I allowed myself to live in that moment with him and it was glorious.
One thing the apocalypse has taught me is that happiness cannot last forever. This world consumes it, plucking it savagely from our lives like a bird does a worm from the soil. I just need to make sure this world does not take my child's happiness the way it has taken mine.
With my thoughts as dark and gloomy as the abyss of night around me, I decide that I’ve wallowed enough in self-pity. If I’m not going to sleep, I might as well do something useful like go keep Liz company on watch.
Elizabeth isn’t impressed with Fauna’s disappearance either, not that she’s said as much.
Liz doesn’t talk, at least not very often.
So, I’ve had to learn her expressions. It's a skill I’ve slowly refined.
At first, it was harder to understand her inner thoughts when she literally never spoke.
Trying to ascertain what went on behind her blank expressions was like flipping a coin for Fauna and me.
A total gamble. But then she started opening up to us, Fauna first, then eventually me.
Now, it's slightly easier to figure out what she's thinking.
Today though, when Fauna still didn’t turn up, not even when the sun began to set and night time fell once again Liz’s expression was blatantly obvious. She was furious with worry.
And so was I.
So am I.
But worry isn’t anything new to us and it’s not the first time any of us have faced times like this. We’re not the only survivors out there, which means sometimes we get into trouble. After all, trouble loves to find us, or maybe we find it. Fauna’s particularly good at that.
I chuckle to myself thinking of all the fucked up sorts of bother she's found herself in over the years and consequently dragged me and the girls into it after her.
Now is probably no different. She’s probably out there giving whatever idiot she has come across some mouthy insults and likely driving them crazy. Either that or she’s killed them for not being a good sport.
My best friend, and the closest thing our group has to a leader, is not a fool nor is she someone to mess with. I know this but it doesn’t ease the anxiety of not being out there covering her back.
Come morning, I will demand that Liz and I go scouting for her, nothing big or strenuous, so the others don’t get too freaked out, but we need to do something, and I know we are the only two that are capable of doing so.
Fauna has been gone for far too long and if something horrible has happened then we need to know.
I just need to be discreet so that The Skull doesn’t notice me and the girls don’t have a meltdown.
It's not the others fault… but it also kind of is. I can’t imagine myself ever getting so comfortable in the role of sentry as they have.
But that’s unfair of me to say. Not everyone is like Fauna, Liz and me.
Not everyone gets excited when they feel frightened and not everyone is willing to risk their life on supply runs, especially when someone who is more capable always offers to do it for them.
I may be pregnant, and the girls are overly protective of me because of it, but I’m not useless and I’ll have to remind them of that.
After all, I have survived all of these years in this hellhole of a world.
Just because I’m growing another being inside of me does not mean I’ve turned into a useless pile of mush that can be excluded from everything I used to do.
If anything, I feel more fierce than ever despite what my sometimes spiralling thoughts.
I’m not them. I’m not like the others and I certainly will not be sitting back and letting my best friend disappear for days without going out to check on her.
The extra line on the pregnancy test scared the shit out of me, but it also formed a layer of steel around me, and I'm not going to be defeated.
Mind made up, I run my thumb up and down the machete at my hip, making my way through the last set of double doors. Relying heavily on my other senses, I feel my way down the dark hallway, the only sound the echo of each step I take on the hard-tiled floor.
When I make it to the back of the building, I hear Fauna’s teasing voice drifting through the back door that leads to the playground.
My heart and lungs relax as I’m finally able to take a full breath in since she left.
Fauna is alive. She and Liz are still here to help me survive this torment.
I rush forward and push the door to the outside open, taking in my best friend and seeing the heartbreak deep in those watery brown eyes.
Although she looks the best she has for years on the outside — somehow freshly showered and dressed in a clean set of clothing — she seems like she is ready to break on the inside. My heart sinks at the sight.