Lily awoke with the most prevalent feeling being every single one of her muscles doing their best impression of solid concrete. It took several seconds after she woke up to actually bring herself to sit up. The first thing she noticed was that Handy was in fact missing from his little ledge, however his rucksack remained. She debated jumping across the gap to scavenge something to eat but the shaking in her legs quickly dissuaded that prospect.
After a little bit of stretching her senses had begun fully waking up and a distant holler could be heard from the distance. It was in the direction of Handy's ledge; a low rising howl like a beast clawing up from Hell, guttural and erratic. As quickly as the shouting began however it would quickly be cut off mid screech, meaning Handy was most likely cleaning out the area.
Lily still had on a pink hoodie she was wearing from the day before, slipping it off she attempted to wrap it around the column of the support beam she had camped on in order to create a safe way to slide down. In principle this would have worked however Lily lost her footing on the second step, slipped, hit her head on the wall, and then landed directly on her butt. She stood shakily slightly discombobulated brushing herself off and slipping her hoodie back on.
She began walking towards the howls. The archway was over a road that lead to a residential housing area, two story family homes were dotted around with windows broken and doors left ajar. Most houses were broken into before the Outbreak had reached this state, the Diseased were once completely avoidant of people waiting until the cover of darkness in order to break in and steal food. It was only once the government began allocating specific feeding areas for the Diseased, and then when that food quickly ran out that they resorted to cannibalism.
The howls had stopped altogether now, as Lily wandered a sense of edge creeped into her conscious. Before her eyes could pinpoint a sensible threat her ears picked up a horrid noise, cascading her mind into fright. She didn't know what it was, but it sounded horrible. Terribly wet with audibly solid crunches of hard material succumbing to pressure. She had unwittingly froze in place due to fear, as she slowly realized she wasn't in immediate danger she began to look around.
Lily felt as if she were at a crossroads. She wanted to find Handy in order to get to know him better over a nice meal, which would both satiate her social and literal appetite. And in order to do that she would have to find him amongst the maze of houses surrounding her. She had no idea where she was but she had two options as she saw it, move away from the noise where it was likely safer and prod around for Handy, or go towards it. The noise was most definitely suspicious, but she figured suspicious would be where Handy would want to go. She felt confident in her rational and didn't bother to put any more thought into her decision, so toward the noise she walked.
It was coming from an alley between two sizable residential homes. Both two stories with seemingly rough modifications on the outside to serve as protection. They were most definitely of higher quality compared to the town she came from but it wasn't drastically better, wood nailed to windows and doors with heavy looking objects stacked in their entry way. Something odd however was that on the house to Lily's left there was a wall on the second floor completely torn out, it's remnants likely refurbished for the defenses, that wall was facing and connected to a window on the second floor of the house to her right. This turned the two buildings into, to her, a makeshift castle of sorts combined for a greater defense. It was under this rudimentary bridge the noises came from, down the alley and around a corner she could not see.
She stepped softly, creeping steadily hugging the walls for perceived safety. As she edged closer her vision began to tunnel and senses sharpen in on what was soon to be revealed to her, until she was shocked by a strong hand grabbing her mouth sealing it shut.
"Don't scream," the voice whispered. She recognized the voice as Handy, an easy deduction seeing as how she could taste his tan and black work gloves.
"You slapped my mout-," Lily whined before Handy once again covered her mouth.
"Quiet. Follow silently or don't follow at all."
She held back a grumbling complaint and crept behind him following at his heel. He turned the corner first out of sight causing Lily to run straight into his back as she couldn't see him stopping in place. She rubbed her forehead and peered around his massive frame to the sight in front of them.
Three Diseased were ravaging a carcass. It was a mess of scarlet and white, nearly all the flesh and muscle had been consumed and yet still they gnawed to scrape every ounce they could from the bones. Several stripped-clean skeletons were dotted around the alley of varying sizes, a smell stagnant and nauseating violated the senses. Her eyes watered, it took every ounce of willpower not to violently gag.
Handy sauntered up casually readying his axe, Lily braced for the violence about to instill, however as he lopped off the closest ones head none of the other ones moved. They didn't even flinch they simply continued to ravage the corpse. He walked around to the other one and then the next with ease to dispatch them.
"Why are you here?" Handy questioned.
"What? Oh um, have you found any food?"
"Am I holding food?"
"No but I don't know how long you've been out here for maybe you put it away already."
"Dawn."
"So no food?"
"No food."
"Well maybe I can help you?"
Handy had been prodding and looking around the skeletons before turning and looking her over a few times, "Why?"
"Well we're going to be traveling together for a while, I might as well help a little."
"You cannot, don't try."
"I can! I can search houses or carry stuff; I'm capable!"
"What's that mark on your forehead from?"
Lily instinctually poked her forehead and immediately recoiled from the pain of a bruise forming right where she hit her head.
"Who's to say."
"Who's to say what?"
"Where the mark is from."
"Did you hit your head?"
"Who's to say."
If helmets could roll their eye's Handy's would have. He walked back out of the alley towards the direction of the overpass.
"Are you done for today?"
"Here? Yes."
"Going somewhere else?"
"I wish you'd stop speaking."
"Why? Don't you wanna make small talk?
"No."
"Not a social butterfly?"
He didn't answer.
"Maybe you just need to spread your wings and fly."
"Stop speaking."
They walked together until they reached the overpass where Handy looped the joint of the femur handle of his axe into his belt line and backed up facing his side. After a decent run up he jumped stepping off of the pillar giving himself a boost and grabbing his ledge where he pulled himself up.
"I can't get back up there."
"Then why'd you come down?"
"Well did you really expect me to stay up there all day?"
Handy threw his rucksack onto the ground and jumped to Lily's ledge, grabbing her backpack before leaping from the ledge back onto the ground.
"Is that a human femur?"
Handy took several seconds to answer while he handed her her backpack and slung his rucksack over his shoulder until he hesitantly said, "Yes."
"That's pretty metal."
"It's not a fashion choice."
"You know how you said I'm useless?"
"Not what I said."
"Well, like I'm useless in scavenging and in general being a Tarzan-handyman you're useless at conversation."
"We don't need to talk."
"You don't think that's weird? Me just hanging around? Silently?"
"No."
"Well I do. So, you know, get with the program."
They had reached the neighborhood on the other side of the overpass, a similar neighborhood however this one seemed much more heavily fortified. Sandbags were stacked at the entrance of the street making the only access points through the sidewalks or breaking into the two end houses facing the overpass, however those houses had sloppily joined metal bars over the windows.
"I think people might be here, why didn't you go here first?"
"Because there might be people here."
He turned to the right walking down the street toward the on ramp that leads up to the overpass, he walked under revealing a triangular shaped corner that became more narrow as the ramp declined.
"We'll camp here."
"We couldn't camp here to begin with?"
"Not with the potential for the Diseased to show up."
"I feel like you just wanted to leave me stranded on that ledge."
"It wasn't that high."
"Maybe for you."
"If you're going to keep complaining you can camp somewhere else."
"Sorry sir won't happen again."