The Locket

THE LOCKET

By

J.R. Winton

The emotions were always the same when she looked at it: Loss. Loneliness. And.... well, it would have surprised most anyone, but Hope also.

The locket had belonged to her mother, and she'd managed to hang onto it even as the world had been falling apart around her. Not much to look at, really; just a small, golden locket forged into a heart shape, without much in the way of ornamentation. But, the picture inside was of her parents, taken early in their marriage, and that was the treasure it represented to her.

Her mother was radiant, smiling broadly, her hair set just so. Her father, sporting the carefully trimmed moustache he'd sported ever since he'd gotten out of the military, with the same wry, crooked smile he tended to wear when he was happy.

Strange, that they would look so happy; since the photo had been taken at a time of great struggle for them. A fire had destroyed their home, and cost them the life of their first child, her older sister. They were living with her father's parents, and her father was out of work. Their life was a never-ending struggle... but they were happy. They had each other, and they faced the future feeling they could face anything so long as they knew their loving spouse was there for them.

They had gone on to build a new life. Her father had found a good career, and they'd rebuilt and had more children. They'd crawled out of a pit of bad luck and hard times and created prosperity and happiness for themselves... and they'd done it with grit, and determination… and hope.

A quick burst of gunfire in the distance made her shove herself down a little deeper in the shadows, snapping the locket shut and slipping it back under her shirt. She lifted her rifle out of her lap and checked it to make sure it was loaded and a round chambered.

This was supposed to be a hunting foray; she was searching for something along the lines of a deer to harvest, though she wouldn't turn away from a rabbit if that was all she could find. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot to find anymore. Not in a long time. When every living person is starving, it doesn’t take long for areas to be stripped of anything and everything edible.

The crisis had come out of nowhere. One day life was normal and the next cities were in flames, the authorities had disappeared, and people were fighting to survive. What had caused it all was a mystery. All she knew was that she'd gone from being a mildly successful sales rep for a pharmaceutical company to a woman fighting for every scrap of food she could manage to scavenge or harvest. Everyone was doing the same... and the fights between people struggling to do little more than survive just one more day were sometimes bloody, brutal, and final.

She couldn't help herself; she reached up and felt the locket against her skin. It was still in place. Her parents had survived rock bottom and built their way back up again. Maybe she could get through this and do the same. Hope.

Movement...

She leaned forward, squinting, and felt a thrill. A young deer, apparently moving away from the gunfire she'd heard earlier, was cautiously working its way around the corner a short distance away, experimentally nibbling at some grass growing there.

She gave a quick glance around, then shouldered her rifle, cautiously drawing the hammer back to full cock with her thumb. She took a deep breath, then let it out halfway and held it as she pressed the trigger.

The rifle shoved against her shoulder – Perfect let off, went through her thoughts - and the deer dropped in its tracks; the sound of the bullet impact following a moment later. She worked the lever to eject the fired shell casing and chamber a new one before she collected the fired case and slid it into her pocket.

She remained still, watching the surrounding area for a few minutes before she pulled a new cartridge from the cuff on the stock to top off the magazine, sliding it through the loading port on the right side of the rifle. She eased herself out of her hiding place and moved towards the deer's motionless body cautiously. She squatted down as she reached it and nodded in satisfaction.

She'd hit the animal right where she'd needed to; the animal had died instantly, without pain, and she mentally congratulated herself on her marksmanship. She scanned around herself again before she carefully unsheathed her knife and made the proper cuts to open the deer up and remove its entrails and offal to prevent them from souring the meat. She tied its feet together and slung the deer over her shoulders as she straightened up, making sure the burden was properly distributed on her back.

That done, she turned and made her way down the debris-laden street, being careful to keep to the shadows and keeping her movements as quiet as possible. It was a relief to find the door she’d discovered earlier in the day, and she let herself through, pulling it tight behind her. She wedged a chunk of masonry to the lower corner; it wouldn’t prevent someone from shoving the door open with a concerted effort from outside, but it might prevent someone giving the door a casual push from realizing it wasn’t locked.

She made her way up the darkened steps by feel and pushed open the door at the top.

Illuminated by candles that gave the room a tepid glow, the muzzle of the revolver leveled at her, held in the steady hand of the man waiting for her, looked like the entrance of a cave; massive, round, and full of the darkness of looming Death.

“Real easy,” he said, his voice deep and resonant, “rifle down.”

She didn’t move, frozen in place.

“Let’s try this again,” the man growled. He was tall, and well-built; with strong shoulders. His eyes, visible beneath the brim of the wool fedora he wore, were coldly ruthless. “I said: ‘rifle down’. Grab it by the sling, and put it on the ground. Right now. Or I’ll blow your head off.”

She let her left hand move to her right shoulder, taking hold of the sling and easing it out from under the feet of the dead deer. Slowly, she eased the rifle towards the ground until she felt the stock touch the floor, then carefully lowered it until it was flat on the ground.

“Good,” the man said, and she saw some of the tension leave his shoulders. He gestured with the revolver. “Put the meat down.” At her expression, he quirked an eyebrow at her. “Really? What did you think was going to happen?”

“Frankly,” she said, “I figured you’d shoot me to take it, instead of leaving me alive to starve.”

He shrugged. “Well, I don’t like to kill people if I can avoid it. And I’m not leaving you to starve.”

“You’re taking my meat.”

He smiled, and it was surprisingly disarming. “I’m taking half. You can have the rest.”

She squatted down, letting the deer slide off her and onto the ground before stepping back away from it. “Why would you do that?”

“I can live with it,” he told her. “Like I said: I don’t like to kill people… and leaving you with nothing would be the same as killing you myself.” He gestured again with his revolver. “Back against the wall, darlin’.”

“My name is Sasha,” she retorted, “not ‘darlin’.”

His smile got wider. “Nice to meet you, Sasha. I’m Devin.” He raised the revolver. “Against the wall, Sasha. I won’t tell you again.”

Grudgingly, she retreated until she felt her back touch the bricks.

“Thank you,” Devin told her. He stepped forward to the deer and slipped a very large, very sharp-looking knife out of a sheath on his belt. She watched him bend down and make a confident and precise series of cuts that expertly separated the deer into two equal portions, then he wiped his knife on the leg of his pants and turned to direct the knife back into its sheath.

It was only a moment of distraction, but exactly what Sasha had been waiting and hoping for. She stepped forward, drawing the .22 derringer from its hiding place at her appendix and placing the muzzle to Devin’s skull just behind his right ear.

His muscles went tight in reaction in that half-second before she pressed the trigger. There was a relatively insignificant pop, and he dropped bonelessly on top of the remains of the deer without so much as a single subsequent twitch.

Sasha let out her breath in a single whoosh, then nodded to herself in satisfaction. She picked up his revolver, noting that it was a Smith & Wesson; better than some of the pot-metal junk guns she’d picked up off of some of the other bodies she’d encountered. It would make a good addition to her kit. A quick inspection of his pack revealed extra ammunition, fire-starting equipment, and a couple of good water filters. He’d been very well equipped.

She turned back to his body with a smile, drawing her knife and trying not to drool at the thought of how well she was going to eat tonight. If she dressed everything correctly, she’d have enough meat for a good long time as well. What was it the cannibals of Fiji called it? “Long pork”?

As she knelt and began cutting Evan’s clothing from his body she put one hand to the locket between her breasts and felt her smile widen even more.

Hope…