Morbid

Leon had followed the young woman for the better part of an hour, watching as she bounced the boy on her hip once in a while and listening to the stories she told him. They were about the old days, before the virus took hold of the world. Long before, actually. The stories she told were of the fantastic; Robin Hood and his merry men, King Arthur and the round table of loyal knights, mermaids, fairies, dragons, damsels in distress and their brave rescuers. All of this the boy absorbed, imagining it in his mind's eye as something more beautiful than the hell he lived in every day of his life.

The hunter shifted his glasses up his nose, sniffing slightly.

He didn't want to alarm the boy in all of this. The young woman was his only in this world, it seemed, and it was sad that he had to take that from him. But it had to be done. That's just how it was. Leon looked over at the rubble piled up in a giant heap on the other side of the road, wondering what buildings the different chunks belonged to. It was sad to see so many people living in such conditions. Even the people back home had fresh water and at least a little food to eat.

"Food!" He heard the little boy say, and when he returned his gaze to the pair "Kitty" was pointing a finger at him and repeating the same word over and over.

"Shit…"

"What are you talking about? There's no food here." But the boy wouldn't give up, and just as his care taker turned around to see what he was chiming on about, Leon dove behind an overturned truck. He was grumbling to himself, wondering why he didn't just attack the girl and steal her away just like every other immune he ever found. Why was this one so different? She wasn't extraordinary. She was blonde, petite, maybe only sixteen or seventeen. She seemed like a bitch, actually.

He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed with both himself and the situation. A moment later he leaned over the end of the rusting vehicle to glance out on the street.

She was gone.

"Mother fucking…" Leon picked himself up off the ground, brushing the dust from his overcoat, and started making his way back to the side walk.

"Watch your god damn language around children," Someone snarled from the other side of the truck, and as he spun around, gun drawn as always, he saw that the girl was standing there glaring at him again. The boy wasn't in her arms, and she didn't look a bit afraid of the barrel pointed at her chest. "Go ahead and shoot me. I'll die sooner or later, anyway, so why don't you just get it over with now?"

"I don't want to hurt you," Leon began, but she cut him off by taking three terribly long strides forward until she stood in front of him. He towered over her, but she didn't look even slightly intimidated.

"Of course you don't. You just want to follow me to where I live so you can do whatever you want with us or whatever the hell it is you're here for. I don't give a shit if you're fancy enough to carry a government issue saber or a handgun, you have no right to stalk us for your own pleasure, you fucking pig!"

"Hold on, you little whelp," He started again, but she wasn't having any of it. She stuck a finger into his face accusingly, poking him in the chest for emphasis.

"How dare you think you can just waltz into this city and terrorize the first person you see! Don't you think we have enough to worry about? Don't you think we've suffered enough without sick bastards like you coming in to make our lives even more terrifying?"

Leon stared at her for a few second before he reached down and grabbed the collar of her dirty green tank top, pulling her up off of the ground easily with one hand. Her bare feet dangled no less than a foot from the ground.

"I killed the last woman who spoke to me like that," He growled.

"Then I guess that proves my point, doesn't it."

"…"

"Let her go you big ugly meanie face!" Leon felt tiny fists on his thigh, pounding with what force they had with absolutely no effect. He glanced down at the boy, and laughed.

"I'm thoroughly amused by your brother."

"Put me down before you rip my shirt. This is the only one I got that doesn't look like rats live in it." Leon set her down again, taking his hand from her shirt and sliding it into his coat pocket. She checked her shirt before jacking her holed and torn pants up onto her hips better.

"So is your name really Bunny?" She looked up at him with cold blue eyes before reaching down and picking up the now on the brink of tears child.

"Who wants to know?"

"Leon Lockhart."

"Nice name."

"I hope you will return the favor?"

"Food," Kitty said again, and pointed to the pack that hung from Leon's belt.

"Why does he keep doing that?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. The hunter opened up the bag and dug around before pulling out a hunk of half nibbled bread.

"I promised him food before when he was crying. Here." He handed it to the boy, who took it greedily and began tearing into it. "Hungry little guy, isn't he?"

"We all are."

"You're particularly foul for one so young." She looked up at the sky, squinting at the clouded light that filtered down into the city. With a slight shrug she turned and started walking, looking at him over her free shoulder.

"You have to be these days. If you're not tough and imposing, you get taken advantage of, and might end up as someone else's meal. If I hadn't picked up Kitty here he probably would be in someone's stomach by now." Leon blinked before replacing his glasses on his face, trying to resist the revulsion he felt all of a sudden. He followed after her at a polite distance.

"So he's not related to you?"

"Not really."

"Then why are you taking care of him?"

"Can we not talk about this right now? He's not crying for once, I'd like to keep it that way for as long as I can." She kissed Kitty's cheek, and he offered her a piece of bread which she ate thankfully. Again she looked back at her follower. "So do you need a place to stay? It's not safe to be out on the streets at night anymore."

"You mean…?"

"Everywhere."

"Shit… I mean, crap," He corrected himself when she shot him a chastising glare. With a slight smile she turned a corner and took another bite of bread.

"Our home really isn't much. There isn't any electricity or running water, but it's close to a small park where there's a creek, that's why I chose it."

"Isn't the water contaminated?"

"Not that I know of. It runs pretty clean, and it's not like anything worse can happen to us if we drink it."

"True…" Leon watched her in silence after that, examining her further. Her feet were black with dirt, but only that, and he could tell that she felt it when she stepped on a particularly large rock or shard of glass. The bottoms of them were cracked and cut up, freshly so, so that every once in a while when she took her foot off the pavement it left a splotch of blood behind. He also noticed that the boy's feet were bare, but not nearly as dirty or wounded as his care taker's. Tied to her belt was a piece of cloth wound up into the shape of a bag, and it swung with obvious weight inside of it.

Again she glanced back at him, and he gave her a half-hearted smile.

--

"I thought you said that it was a park." Leon was standing at the rusted closed gates of an old cemetery, looking in at the creepy tomb stones that were so crusted with dust and dirt that you couldn't see the names of any of them. Bunny walked past him, giggling delightedly.

"What, scared of the dead, are you?" She put her free hand against the bars of the gate and pushed with some effort. A small door built into it swung open just enough for her to squeeze through and wait on the other side for the hunter. He shivered at the thought of living in the same place as the dead and went to the gate, shoving it open easily enough for him to walk through.

"No, it's just I don't particularly like being around corpses." He side glanced at one end of the cemetery as he closed the gate. The plagued body of a long dead cat lay in front of a tombstone that was ornamented with wilted flowers.

"That's funny, seeing as you're a bounty hunter. Don't you kill people a lot?" The young woman fished around in her pocket before producing a small key from it and walking to the door of an old grave keeper's house. She shoved the key in and turned it until the door popped open. "Coming?"

Leon glanced around once more as Bunny set her charge down and followed him inside. The hunter was distracted, it seemed, and he found himself approaching an angel sculpture laden with crispy dead vines. The face of the figure was almost featureless, worn away by years of climate change and animals defecating in her win-swept hair. Her hollow eyes stared blankly down at him from her pedestal, her arms outstretched as if to accept him into an embrace.

A few rows down some curious flies buzzed raround the cat.

"Sad, isn't it," Bunny said softly from behind, and her hand slowly reached out to touched the animated fabric of the angel's robe. Leon turned his head to look at her.

"What do you mean?" He asked, leaving his voice close to hers. The girl's strangely long fingers ran up along the folds in the robe, gripping near the angel's waist as if she wished to cling to her.

"Look at this stone. It's been here since before I was born, but ten years ago it didn't look as old as this."

"Why is that sad?" Leon took a step away from the sculpture, watching as Bunny hoisted herself up and onto the bent knee of the figure.. She laid her head against the angel's chest, and to the hunter it looked as if a mother were holding her child.

"Because…," She started, looking up at the stone's face. "It's been forgotten." She reached up and touched her fingers gently to the angel's cheek where a chunk of stone had long since broken free. "… just like us."

"Where's the boy?" Bunny hopped down off of the kneeling sculpture, looking up at Leon with eyes that looked too old and knowing for a girl her age.

"Why are you here?" She asked. "If you had no business with me or Reece then you would have been on your way by now."

"This is very true."

"Then what do you want with us?"

Leon said nothing for a while, just string into the all too mature eyes of his quarry. She knew this was about her somehow. She knew that he was there to harm her, and yet, instead of running, she was confronting him.

He shook his head clear of the thoughts that clouded his reason.

"What's in your bag?" He nodded at the makeshift sack strapped to her side, knowing full well it was full of things she most likely stole. "You have no money with which to buy things."

"You're avoiding the question, Leon."

"And what if I am?"

"I hate you," She snarled, pushing past him rudely. Without turning to look at him she said, "Do what you want with me, but leave the boy out of whatever it is."

Leon reached forward and touched the angel's cheek, a thoughtful look on his face as his fingers almost caressed the cold stone. A shadow shifted and caught his eye. Moments later he shut the house door and chained it closed. He leaned on the wood, panting slightly as his left hand rested on the hilt of his saber. As his breathing calmed a soft voice echoed in the hallway, a sad lullaby filling his ears. Slowly he turned and made his way across the rotting floorboards.

"Shadows all around you as you surface in the dark. Magic from a gentle breeze alights to pull thee on. Darkness, darkness, all around; you feel it pressing in. The silence perfect, blackness hurts like the heavy weight of stone…"

It was Bunny's voice, of course, loving and smooth, coming from a room a few doors down. The light of a fire cast shadows on the walls, and he could see her form rocking the boy to sleep in her arms.

"But you don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear. It lights the skies and burns the darkness like a chandelier. All this life that you possess, smeared by innocence. The silence perfect, the darkness hurts like the heavy weight of stone…"

Leon took his shades from his face, folding them into his breast pocket as he stood just beside the doorway. Bunny hummed the melody as she removed blackened cloth wraps from the sleeping child's head, putting them aside with the others. After they were all gone and he was undressed down to his too-big boxers, she laid him on an old mattress on the floor and pulled tattered blankets up to his chin. After he'd fallen asleep she perched on the edge of it and hugged her knees, staring into the dancing flames alive in the crumbling fireplace.

The hunter tapped a knuckle on the door frame three times.

"Nothing's stopping you," She murmured finally after a few moments, and Leon entered in silence. The dirty blonde girl had de-robed and replaced her street clothes with an off white night gown. It was ever so slightly see through and a few sizes too big for her thin frame. Leon looked away from her out of respect. Instead his eyes wandered the dimly lit room; dusty paintings clung to stained and cracking plaster. Furniture that was pushed against the walls, moth holes visible under old plastic sheets. Cobwebs swayed from the warm rising air in every corner.

A black centipede scurried across the carpet and disappeared beneath the mattress.

"You saw them, didn't you," She said softly. "The shadows, I mean."

"Who hasn't these days." She turned her head to look down at the boy, reaching over and petting his greasy hair. He coughed a bit and rolled over.

"… His mother took me in a few years ago. Said she saw something special in me, taught me things like sewing and how to read palms and tarot cards. Reece was barely two at the time, barely a spot of A on him."

"And his mother?" Leon glanced over at her, feeling sorry for her despite the almost annoyingly familiar story.

Her eyes suddenly met his, and they were almost too intense.

"She died less than a month later. A shadow sliced her head clean off before I watched it drag her bleeding body away to its ravenous friends to feed."

"Does he know?" Leon shifted uneasily, trying to remember the first time he witnessed someone he knew gored out in front of him.

"That his mother was murdered by a monster? No. He doesn't know much about the A Virus, either."

"Ignorance is bliss."

"Supposedly."

"And what about you?" He stood and shrugged out of his jacket, laying it on the chair's arm. "What happened to your family?" There was silence, accented by clicking and clanging as he un-strapped his pack and gun.

"… I don't really remember. I was too young when it appeared… Five, maybe six… I'm surprised I'm not dead yet."

"Don't be too surprised…," Leon mumbled, rummaging around in his pack and pulling out a bag of jerky.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Jerky?" He walked over and offered her the bag. She reached in and took one, chewing on it numbly. Leon sat down next to her and nearly ripped one to shreds. She watched him and raised an eyebrow. "… What?"

"Meat-a-saurus much?" She chuckled.