A silence hung in the air, as if the winter chill had frozen the very oxygen she breathed. She couldn’t hear the crunch of her footsteps on the hard snow, or the sickening crunch of steel against brittle, rotting bone. She simply moved her body like it was in a dance, and carried out her task as easily as doing household chores.

She loved the thrill that came from using daggers.

It forced the wielder to get in close, and to be precise. Mistakes meant wounds, and when facing the Stricken, wounds often meant something far worse than death. She found it thrilling to escape death on a daily basis. She felt
alive
.

A gust of cold air blew through her long flowing hair, and she found herself scowling for a second. Based on the lack of substance, there was no doubt that it had been a breeze, and not one of the dead as she had immediately thought, but even so, if she were ever in a state of panic, a breeze could be mistaken for one of them, and she might make a wrong move.

She would cut her hair as soon as she got home, and her daughter’s as well. The girl had grown far too fond of her—

1.)
Her daughter!

Her head swiveled to the right
, her hair slapping her across the eyes from the sudden turn, and as her strands fell from her vision, the scene played out before her, as if in slow motion.

Her daughter was handling herself well, but not well enough. Because of her short stature, she had forgotten that she would often have to jump
up
in order to subdue her predator efficiently. A crucial thing to remember.

Samantha’s eyes widened as her daughter missed the tall man’s right temple and instead hit the nape of his neck. It was enough to gain the Stricken’s express attention. He reeled under the sudden weight plunged into the side of his neck, but it stopped him only momentarily. Once the dagger was removed, the Stricken grabbed Alex by the hair and yanked her toward his wet, dripping jaws. Startled and afraid, it was as if Alex had forgot about the dagger in her hand. Samantha—

1. Grabbed and ripped her daughter away, leaving a chunk of her hair behind.

2. Sliced through Samantha’s hair with her dagger, freeing her.

3. Turned and walked away.

Alex screamed and clutched her hair, mixing the Stricken’s flesh into her hair.
Samantha instinctively swatted her daughter’s hands away with the butt of her daggers and then turned to the dead man before her. She hadn’t wanted to make it personal. It was supposed to be a training session and nothing more. Take out a few of the lingering dead and then go back home to make breakfast.

But it
was
personal now. She could no longer feel the icy chill brushing up against her skin. It was just the fire that surged through her veins.

She slammed the daggers into the sides of the Stricken’s head and then ripped them from his temples quickly. The Stricken’s body quivered and then crumpled into the snow, where the other six laid.

Samantha glared back at her daughter, wiped the tainted blood off her blades in the snow, and then began walking home. Alex ran her fingers through her hair, feeling pieces of the Stricken strewn throughout the strands. She took a deep breath and looked at the back of her mother’s head.

1. “I might be infected,” she said quickly.

2. She said nothing

Alex immediately pivoted her feet and leapt up into the air
, slamming her dagger’s blade into the side of the Stricken’s temple. The Stricken shuddered and crumpled to the floor, falling down next to the other six they had slain earlier. Breathing heavily, Alex glared at her mother.

“If I had two daggers, I could have gotten the job done,” Alex said. Samantha’s eyes smiled.

“If you didn’t lose my best one, you
would
have two,” her mother said flatly.

“We could get or make another one,” Alex said, but it was apparent from the way her mother’s shoulders relaxed that she was done with the conversation. Her mind was probably on the next training session.

“Let’s head home.”

“Fine,” Alex replied. She looked back at the dead they had left behind. As she watched the bodies stain the ivory white snow, she felt a deep sorrow well up within her. Whenever she saw a thing of beauty, it never lasted long. And perhaps that was what her mother had been trying to teach her all along.

To appreciate the beauty…but prepare for the ugly.

Was that it?

Alex glanced at her mother. Silent and thin, but using an excessive amount of clothing to make herself appear bigger, Samantha walked with a fake limp along their lightly snow-covered footsteps, giving off the illusion of weakness.

Alex ran her fingers through her hair and felt pieces of the Stricken strewn among the strands. Grimacing, she walked behind her mother, thinking about how easily she could now be exposed. Her lips parted.

“I might be infected,” she said.
But she said nothing.

“Mom!” her daughter screamed, dropping her dagger and grabbing the Stricken’s decomposing face in a panic.
As she applied pressure to her attacker’s jaw, flesh began to fall off and onto her fingers, making her grip slippery. She felt the jaw bone underneath and clutched it with all her might. Feeling as if she could keep it back for a moment, she turned her head and screamed once more.

“MOM!”

She couldn’t see her mother, but she heard the loud crunches in the snow cease. She turned back to the creature, now only a few inches from her nose, and she screamed for her mother again. Samantha turned around and sighed loudly, watching her daughter struggle for a moment.

“If I save you, you will come to expect it,” she said.

“I won’t expect it if I’m dead!” Alex shrieked, so furious that she shoved the Stricken backwards, taking its jaw from him. A mix of fluids and unidentifiable flesh fell from the gaping hole in his face and he stumbled in front of her, trying to gain his footing. But Alex had already taken advantage of him. She picked up her fallen dagger, leapt a foot into the air, and plunged it into the Stricken’s head, ripping it out from the right side and taking chunks of its brain with the motion.

Samantha’s face was void of emotion when her daughter turned to face her. She knew she had to say something, but she was unsure of what…

“You did well,” she said finally.
“Now you are stronger,” she said.
She decided to say nothing

Samantha stopped in her tracks.
And all Alex could see were her mother’s steady breaths. She couldn’t be tired, for her mother’s stamina was nearly god-like in her eyes, and so there could only be one other reason she was breathing so heavily.

She was upset.

Alex swallowed hard and waited. She refused to speak again.

Samantha turned to look at her daughter with a distant gaze. Her face—expressionless.

It was her mother’s face. She found some comfort in the granite rock staring back at her, for it was preferable to anger. Still, Alex didn’t know what she wanted, and the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, making the cold less bearable and therefore stealing away more and more of her attention. They couldn’t stand there forever.

“I might be infected,” she said again. Her mother nodded and parted her chapped and callous lips.

“Good,” she said with the voice of God behind her declaration. “Now what do you do?”

Alex’s eyes darted away from her mother’s, searching for the answer.

“I’m not sure.”
“Bandage the area?”
“Wash my hair.”

Her mother’s chest swelled as her jaw clenched shut, as if an invisible muzzle were attempting to keep her reply imprisoned, but there was no point in fighting her.

There never was.

“You’re not sure?” she snapped, spitting the words back in her face. “We’ve talked about this many times.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex pleaded. “I—”

“—you wash your hair,” Samantha relayed to her once again. “You want to make sure the virus is as far away from you as possible
at all times.
It matters little that you don’t have wounds now. They
will come
, and when they do, it is best that you are clean and at optimal health. Do all you can to keep yourself safe.”

“I forgot,” Alex mumbled, but her mother shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes closed, as if to shield herself from the travesty before her.

“You worry me,” she said softly. “You lost your knife…and now you are forgetting basic hygiene. There is nothing more to say.”

“Mother—”

“GO WASH YOUR HAIR!” Samantha roared, her voice echoing across the valley.

Law had been declared.

They headed back to the cabin in silence
, and Alex was barely aware of the wildlife around her: the redwoods and cedars shaking off their pines whenever a squirrel jumped from one branch to the next, or a bird descended to drop off another essential for its nest. Life—as it often did—stopped when her mother was cross with her. And it was like she didn’t even notice. It was like Samantha didn’t even have an inkling as to what her daughter was feeling.

It’s funny,
Alex thought to herself.
She knows everything, except how to be a human being.

As soon as they entered the cabin, they went their separate ways—Samantha to the cypress table top, and Alex to the ancient, aluminum basin.

Samantha sat down hard in her chair, wood scraping against wood at her feet. She glanced over at her daughter for a moment, just to confirm that she was cleaning herself properly, and then she cast her eyes to the grooves in the finely sanded wood at her fingertips.

She was boiling on the inside. To the point that the cabin itself surely had to fight in order to retain the heat. A part of her wished it would all go up in flames. Then she wouldn’t feel…like a complete
jackass
.

Her daughter didn’t need to be snapped at like that. Not the one person she loved in this godforsaken world. Alexandra didn’t deserve it. She was still a child.

But Samantha knew she couldn’t apologize either. Call it pride. Call it foolish. But it was fact. She had never had to apologize in the past for all the atrocities she had committed. Why did she have to now? Why did she have to now…

She knew that in a few minutes she would have to leave the cabin—to take out her frustrations on someone she could justify the anger with. The Stricken didn’t feel a thing when she ripped them apart anyways, so that made her feel a little better at least.

And so she left, without another word to her daughter. She couldn’t think on Alex now for the pressure on her heart was too great.

There were only the dead now, waiting for her in the snow.

Samantha and Alex’s story continues in

Stricken

Now available for Preorder:
HERE

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