Salvation – #Writephoto

Susan sat slumped against the wall. Her stringy blonde hair fell down around her face and was matted with blood and dirt. Her old blue sweater was filthy and torn, and like her hair, flecked with blood. Her arms hugged her knees and in her right hand, she kept a death grip on a blood-stained knife. 

Rick’s sneaker lay a few feet from her. She couldn’t stop staring at it. Better to stare at the blood spattered sneaker than the bodies. Rick himself was sprawled on the dusty ground a good distance from the sneaker. His head lay face down in the corner, his dark hair covering his face; the only small blessing of the nightmarish night. Susan didn’t have to see his deformed features and white, sightless eyes. 

Not so with Becky. Her body hung, impaled on a pitchfork and still wracked with the odd twitch. If Susan looked over at Becky she knew her white orbs would roll in her face and her black lips would pull back in a snarl. Susan knew from hours of experience that the only thing that would ‘kill’ Becky would be to lop off her head. But Susan no longer had the heart or the strength to take off Becky’ head. 

So she sat and waited for the only other possible form of salvation.

Alice suddenly growled from the cellar where she was imprisoned and Susan’s gaze slid across to the two-inch gap beneath the trapdoor where she could see Alice’s eyes peering at her. Alice’s milky eyes narrowed and she hissed at Susan. Susan shuddered and forced her gaze away. She glanced at the course wooden boards of the old windmill and gazed up to the peaked roof. Susan frowned into the darkness that clung to the corners of the roof. She lowered her head and squeezed her fingers tight around the knife. 

Alice moaned in the cellar. Becky twitched on the pitchfork. Rick made no sound or movement.

Susan gazed at the knife and frowned as a slight glimmer reflected off the blood-covered blade. She raised her head and looked at the broken window. The first golden beam of early dawn sunlight stabbed through the shattered glass. 

Tears slid down Susan’s cheeks as she blinked against the morning light. In the cellar, Alice hissed and sank down below the trapdoor. As sunlight crept inside the windmill Becky breathed out a sigh and stopped twitching on the pitchfork. 

Susan lowered her head, exhausted, and wept. Salvation had arrived. 

 

My take on Sue’s Thursday #Writephoto challenge – Sails https://scvincent.com/2017/07/27/thursday-photo-prompt-sails-writephoto/#like-47055