Chapter 4
Pandora woke up sweating, and with an elbow in her face. Barty’s elbow.
Pandora shoved it out of her face, and Barty groaned in protest. He turned in the small sleeping bag. “Pandora? For fuck’s sake…” he muttered, turning around again.
“You’ve been kicking me all fucking night, asshole,” Pandora grumbled, whacking the back of Barty’s head with her hand.
The night was dark, pitch black. When Barty and Pandora had ventured into the tent to go bed, Pandora saw that Regulus and Evan were already both in Evan’s sleeping bag. Pandora had looked to her own small sleeping bag, and shrugged, deciding it couldn’t be too bad to share with Barty.
Pandora had been wrong.
All night, she was continuously woken up by Barty’s flailing limbs, her kicks, and her repeatedly elbowing Pandora in the face and chest. They’d woken up hitting each other and fighting multiple times, and at this point Pandora was sick of it.
Pandora sat up, frustrated beyond measure. “Evan! Regulus!” she yelled loudly, and everyone was sitting up, rubbing their eyes and glaring at Pandora.
Pandora pulled Barty out of the sleeping bag and into the cool air, where he began to shiver.
“Evan, we’re switching. You get this dipshit,” she declared, pushing Barty towards Evan’s sleeping bag. “I get that one,” Pandora demanded, referring to Regulus.
“Seriously, Pandora?” Evan complained dryly. “You woke me up for this shit?”
There was a silent tension crackling between Evan and Pandora. Pandora had a nasty look on her face, while Evan’s face was completely neutral except for the carefully contained anger in his eyes.
Regulus and Barty looked to each other, and then at the twins. “Y’know, Reg and I could just share—“ Barty started, but was interrupted by Evan grabbing him and pulling him close.
“Fine,” Evan fumed to Pandora, and Pandora giggled, excitedly clapping her hands. Evan glared at Barty even as he unzipped his sleeping bag for her.
Regulus made his way over to Pandora’s, and the two of them calmly lied down. Much less kicking than there had been with Barty, Pandora found. Regulus was more quiet, kept to himself more.
Pandora decided to give Barty and Evan one quick glance, and saw that Evan was turned away from Barty, and Barty was stiff as a board, obviously scared shitless as they stared at the top of the tent. Pandora giggled to herself at the sight, but then settled back into the sleeping bag.
She murmured a goodnight, and then she was out cold.
***
Pandora woke up just a few minutes after Evan, as she always did. He was already outside, taking time to sort through the weapons he’d taken from Barty.
He seemed to have two piles; one was filled with sledgehammers and the pole, and also the knife set. The other pile had normal hammers, screws, and wire. Pandora had no idea what the different piles were meant for, but she didn’t exactly want to ask a stupid question that didn’t really matter. She’d learnt to just let Evan do what he liked, and then she had the freedom to do what she wanted.
Speaking of, she was walking out of the clearing, her knife in hand. She was going to both explore and to look for other survivors, and if necessary, kill a few zombies.
Pandora’s boots sunk into the snow, which was dangerously close to actually flooding into her shoes.
She left the clearing behind, touching different trees as she walked through the forest.
Pandora had always liked forests, no matter what state they were in. To her it didn’t matter if they were dark, painted in greys, browns, and accents of black. If you could just see things dancing in the darkness a few feet away from you. Or, if they were covered in sunlight, and you could hear songbirds chirping in the distance.
Right now, the forest was neither. There were areas of darkness and shadow thanks to the tall branches of Oak trees, but most of the area was bright thanks to the rising sun.
Pandora spun the knife around her fingers, mentally preparing. If a zombie came at her, she’d go for the throat. If she saw a human, she’d ask for the name and then take any weapons they had on them, and then maybe bring them back to camp. If she was attacked by a human, she’d go for the throat.
She liked knowing what to do, how to be prepared. She liked knowing that there were people waiting back at camp for her.
Normally, she’d have been concerned for Evan. While she knew he could hold his own in a fight, there were two people back at camp with him who were close friends with each other. They could very easily attack Evan. Pandora didn’t think they would for two reasons: one, Barty was very obviously scared shitless of Evan. Two, neither of them had weapons, except for Barty’s minuscule knife.
Pandora laughed to herself at the memory, but her laughter was cut off by a crunch behind her.
The laughter died in her throat, and she turned on her heels to see a girl with red hair crawling towards her on the snow. Pandora raised her knife, at first thinking she was a zombie.
“Wait!” the girl cried, putting her hands on the ground. She sunk into the snow. “Please, please,” she whispered, her words turning to tears. “Please don’t kill me! I need help, please…”
Pandora took a hesitant step towards the girl, knife far out towards her. “Why do you need help? What’s your name?” Pandora demanded.
“Help me, please…” the girl sobbed into the snow. Pandora took another hesitant step forward.
“Tell me, how can I help you? What do you need?”
The girl lurched forward, and grabbed Pandora by the ankle. Pandora gasped as she was pulled to the ground.
“Emma!” the girl yelled, and the last thing Pandora saw was the bottom of a boot.
***
“Only a knife? Seems like that was an unnecessary ambush.”
“Shut the hell up, Malfoy. We need whatever we can get. Also, you weren’t the one who had to crawl around in the snow, so you don’t need to be complaining about anything!”
“Can you guys please shut the heck up? I’m trying to focus, here.”
Pandora woke up with her head ringing, she tried to blink away the pain in her head to no avail.
She was on her side, staring at a wallpaper covered in bluebells. She was on the ground, unrestrained as far as she could tell. Though, she couldn’t feel the familiar weight of her knife in her pocket.
She heard people arguing all around her. She tried to pinpoint exactly where they were coming from, but too many people were talking at once.
“She’s awake,” said a warm voice from a few feet away, further than the other voices were. All of them quieted down quickly.
She was yanked up into a sitting position by someone behind her. She could now clearly see many people in front of her, and where she actually was.
It looked like a big house from what she could tell, and the entire living room was covered in that bluebell wallpaper. Past the living room, all the walls were white. Every window was boarded up, but there were so many lamps on you could hardly tell.
The floor was hardwood, and there was a brown couch in front of her. The red headed girl from before was lounging on it, still covered in a bit of snow. Her hair was tied back and away from her pretty face. A face Pandora was very tempted to punch in.
Beside her on the couch was an older girl, probably eighteen or nineteen. Her hair and eyes were frenzied, her nails digging into the couch on either side of her. Her eyes flew around the room, and despite sitting down, her breathing was frantic. Her and the red head were both wearing all black, and combat boots.
There was someone leaning on the couch from behind. They had faded blue hair tied back into a ponytail, and a loose blouse on. They seemed far more relaxed than the two girls on the couch.
Standing beside the couch, near the red head, was a boy with long white hair who looked to be about the same age as the girl with black hair. He was wearing the whole ‘black clothes and combat boots’ outfit too. Pandora could see one more boy, further away and behind the couch. He was nailing a board to the wall.
“What do you suggest we do with her?” Asked the person who was holding her up from behind.
The one with long white hair waved his hand in a careless gesture. “Let her take another careless stroll into the forest. Perhaps we throw her out back?”
“You know the Ins will get her, Lucius. That’s fucking murder, and we haven’t stooped that low yet,” the red head growled, sneering at Lucius. Lucius rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Ins?” Pandora echoed, cringing at how weak her voice sounded. She coughed once, tensing in the arms of the person behind her.
The red head’s gaze softened as she looked at Pandora. “Ins. Short for Insurrections. The zombies.”
“Where has she been?” The boy nailing the board scoffed.
Insurrections? That was a shittier name than ‘Walkers,’ and Walkers was from a shitty Netflix show. Pandora coughed once more, annoyed by the boy’s question.
“Surviving,” she rasped. “I’ve been ready for the world to go to shit.”
The room went quiet. There were uncomfortable glances between the people on the couch. Pandora coughed again, and the red head sat up straight.
“Xenophilius!” she shouted across the house. “Bring me some water.”
There was a bunch of clattering from behind Pandora, and then a scrawny kid with curly white hair appeared, handing the red head a glass of water. The girl nodded appreciatively, and then stood from the couch. She crouched down low to Pandora, and tipped the glass into her mouth.
Pandora drank, but she glared at her all the while.
The girl’s eyes were soft and gentle as she watched Pandora drink. “I’m Lily,” she mumbled. Once Pandora drained the glass, Lily stood. “Em, drop her.”
Pandora fell against the floor, barely catching herself in time. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, and she watched the girl who had been previously holding her up walk around to stand beside Lily.
“This is Emma,” Lily said, nudging the girl’s elbow. Emma nodded once. “That over there is Benjy,” Lily informed her, pointing to the boy who was busy hammering into a nail. He glanced up at the mention of his name, and then yelped as he accidentally hammered his finger. Pandora scoffed, while Lily rolled her eyes. Lily waved her hand towards the blue-haired blouse wearer, “their name is Caradoc. And you already know Xeno and Lucius.” Lily then glanced warily at the frenzied girl sitting on the couch. “And that would be Bellatrix.”
“And the Bones twins and Lestranges, too,” Caradoc added from behind the couch.
“Yeah, and those guys,” Lily muttered.
“And remind me why we’re telling her all of this, please?” Lucius snapped.
Lucius’s question went unanswered.
“What is this place?” Pandora asked from the ground, pushing herself to her feet. Lily looked at her warily.
“Caradoc’s grandparent’s place…” Lily glanced apologetically at Caradoc, who ducked their head sadly. “It was empty when we got here.”
“Well, that’s nice,” Pandora said dismissively. She had been playing far too nice with her kidnappers so far. “Now, give my fucking knife back. I’m going, or killing every last one of you.”