Wulfric's Progeny

Ruth moved slowly down the side of the road dodging rusted out cars on flat tires, using the ample shade and plant life that had been slowly overtaking the city street as concealment whenever possible. As quiet as she was, she could hear her shadow close behind her. The kid was almost as quiet as her, she thought proudly. She’d picked up her survival skills much faster than Ruth had thought possible. They had been out for two days scouting for supplies and marking their locations on a map for larger crews to scoop up later. She had let the kid direct their efforts for most of the time, sort of a hands-on exercise to test her skillset so far.

This area of the city was safe…ish. But it was good practice for them both. Rule number one: never let your guard down. Two streets up they stopped for lunch at what used to be a town square. They sat in a gazebo at the far end nestled amid now wild shrubbery at least ten feet high and faced each other so they could watch each other’s backs. Ruth pulled their lunch out of her backpack, deer jerky, homemade bread, and a few carrots. Annie, now eight, scanned her surroundings while she ate, a habit drilled into her by Ruth.

Ruth looked at her ‘daughter’, “remember when you asked me about your real parents?”

Annie nodded. She had done so a few years ago when she realized that their completely different skin colors meant something. Ruth had promised to tell her later when she had a better answer than the truth. In the end she decided there was no better answer.

“Well, I was going through your old stuff back at the enclave and I found this locket I had forgotten I put in your diaper bag when I found you as a baby”, Ruth said, pulling it out of her pocket by the chain. She handed it to Annie and showed her how to open it. Inside was a picture of a man and a woman who clearly shared features with the little girl. “Those are your parents.”

Annie stared at the locket for a long time, lunch forgotten. Soon enough, tears started to roll down her cheeks. Lips quivered. “What were their names?”

“I don’t know honey. They were both gone when I found the three of you.” The images came to mind immediately. The parking lot outside a grocery store, Annie, around twelve months, laying in a two-day old diaper in a wagon covered with a thin blanket, whimpering quietly having cried it all out hours ago. Her mother, dead, covered in flies, skirt pushed up, gunshot wound in her chest. Her father ten feet away, his own steak knife embedded in his head, under his chin, through his mouth, and into his brain. One of his sandaled feet under his body where he fell back onto it. Ruth knew it was his knife because his hand was still wrapped around the handle.

Ruth had always been a fiercely independent woman, raised by parents who believed the more independent a child was, the more successful they would be in life. They, plus four years in the Marines, unwittingly prepared her to survive and thrive after the shit hit the fan. Annie’s parents were anything but prepared. Her dad was wearing Birkenstocks and carrying a steak knife for Christ’s sake.

She would never admit it out loud…ever, but her first impulse was to smother the child and put her out of her misery. Ruth was alone then. A baby would have complicated everything and possibly gotten them both killed. There were plenty of truly evil people about, as evidenced by her murdered parents. The ability to be quiet at a moment’s notice was a necessity, and an ability babies do not have. She couldn’t bring herself to do it though and thus inherited another mouth to feed. Those first few days of carrying around a baby, a diaper bag, an assault weapon, and a bunch of ammo were surreal at best. Her plan was to pass the kid off to the first stable, decent group of people willing to take her. Annie wormed her way into Ruth’s heart and stayed there instead.

It was hard. The learning curve was near vertical. But she figured it out. Baby supplies were everywhere for taking if you knew where to look. They became a tight knit family of two though they soon found other decent people to share the load. Safety in numbers and all that. Ruth began to teach the kid early, where to find food, what not to eat, how to look for threats, more importantly how to hide from them. Now Annie carried her own small pistol and knew how to safely use it. She could trap, skin and cook small game. She could use a compass, read a map, all the stuff her parents didn’t know.

“Momma?”, Annie said, getting Ruth’s attention again. “Can you tell me about them?”

She nodded, gathering her thoughts while scanning their surroundings. How did you tell a little survivor that her parents weren’t capable of even keeping themselves alive for more than a couple of weeks, let alone her. It was safe to assume that whatever food and supplies Annie’s parents had managed to get out of the store they were murdered in front of was taken by the same slimeballs that had taken their lives, (after assaulting her mother). “Your mom tried to make sure you had everything you needed. She must have loved you very much. Your daddy died protecting you and your mom. He was very brave, but the bad men who got them were just too strong. Your mom gave me that locket to give to you when you were old enough.” Sort of. Really, after searching their bodies for anything useful and finding nothing, she had pulled the locket off the neck of Annie’s mother after opening it, (ignoring the flies and smell). She threw it in the diaper bag with the intent of passing it on to whoever ended up taking care of her and forgot about it. Ruth didn’t even know the baby’s name, so with her curly red hair, she became Annie, Annie Kroger, from the name of the store she was found in front of.

Annie was still staring at the pictures, lunch forgotten, eyes drifting from one to other, sniffing occasionally. Soon she remembered where they were and looked up to do a quick scan of the area before going back to the locket. Ruth gave her a few more minutes before prompting her to finish eating so they could continue on to New Hope, the enclave they spent most of their time in. They had a kind of family there of sorts, formed of disparate random strangers thrown together by extreme circumstance. There were even a few other kids for Annie to play with. A tiny bit of normalcy in a world far from normal.

Once they were packed up, Ruth tied the locket around Annie’s neck. As they continued down the road Annie said, just loud enough for quiet conversation, “Maybe we could make up names for them. Mom could be Killer Kelly Kroger and dad could be Wulfric the Barbarian Kroger.”

Ruth laughed. Wulfric was a character from a pulp fantasy paperback that she used to read to Annie for bedtime stories, larger than life and deadly with a blade. “I like it,” she responded, “Your dad did fight the bad men with a big knife after all.”

Annie beamed a smile at her at this tidbit. “I bet my mom could do kung fu too. Those bastards must have outnumbered them ten to one!” She continued to make wild speculations about them as they made their way, each one painting them as ten feet tall and bullet proof.

In a few hours they would be back home. Ruth, after tucking her in for the night, after they both cleared and cleaned their guns of course, watched as the kid fell asleep staring at the locket. Tomorrow would be another day.