Walking Dead TK: Oceanside

Walking Dead TK: Oceanside

Of all the huts in Oceanside, Enid must have been taken to the worst, ugliest one. There was the faint odour of human waste, the ground was dirt, and there was little in the way of furnishings aside from a stool, a large red toolbox, and an old, rusted, patchy recliner.

Perhaps, Enid should have felt touched that the more comfortable looking of the chairs had been offered to her, but she could feel that the recliner had been repurposed for more sinister purposes. Belts and straps that went around her ankles, waist, shoulders kept her secured to the chair, and there were even binds around her wrists that kept them pinned to the armrests like an enraptured television viewer. It was also impossible not to notice that much of the stuffing around the armrest had been torn out and scratched. Had the previous occupant of this chair been in such suffering that he or she had fought so hard to escape? Or was it an old chair that had been worn by time and use? It was impossible to know.

When one took all this into account, it was hard to relax despite the soft plushness of the chair. Enid would have much preferred to be sit in the stool. She blew away a stringy lock of her dark brown hair that had fallen in front of her face, wishing she could free a hand to push it back or better yet, free a hand so she could get out of here. She was still cursing herself for being captured, but perhaps the others were having more success. If they got Oceanside’s weapons, that could make all the difference in their conflict with the dreaded Saviours. And she would be willing to give up her life if that meant her beloved Carl would survive and lead their friends to a brighter tomorrow. That being said, notions of selfless sacrifice aside, Enid would very much like to get out of this with her alive intact if she could…

Interrupting her from such morbid thoughts was the arrival of a pair of women into the hut. At a glance, they could not have been more unalike. One was a Caucasian woman of about fifty to sixty years with greying blonde hair and a chunky physique, though she had a no-nonsense glint to her pale eyes that suggested she could hold her own and then some. This was probably the Oceanside leader that Enid had heard about, Natania. The young woman following behind was a young African-American girl with curling dark hair. This was probably Cyndie, who was reputed to be Natania’s right hand. Both had firearms at their hips, pistols in snug leather holsters that their fingers never strayed far from. After a brutal confrontation with the Saviours, every man close to fighting age had been rounded and killed, so as a result, Oceanside was ruled by women.

Natalia cleared her throat and sat on the stool as Enid chewed on her lower lip. “What brings you to Oceanside, miss?” When Enid did not deign to reply, the older woman sighed. “We saw you skulking around near our weapon depot, so you can’t plead innocence. Who sent you here?”

After the ugly silence stretched for a few more beats, Cyndie spoke up in a soft and conciliatory voice. “Come on, just tell us. We don’t want to hurt you.”

Enid shook her head.

“Ah, I see the way of it,” Natania said, smiling, but it was not a friendly look. “You think us soft-hearted women that wouldn’t want to hurt our own sex.” She paused and scratched her chin. “Well, you’re not entirely wrong. We’d rather not hurt you too badly. But you’re gonna need to tell us why you were trying to sneak in. Or you’re going to learn why we call that recliner the happy chair.”

“Look at her,” Cyndie spoke up as Enid remained stolid and unyielding. “She’s made her mind up.”

“I can see that. You’ll have to change it for her, won’t you? I’ll check back in an hour. See how long she can keep quiet with that stiff upper lip of hers. A soft-looking chick like her? I’m betting less than a minute.”

Natania left, her soft footsteps quickly disappearing as Enid was alone with the young girl. Maybe, this would be her opportunity?

“Can you let me go?” Enid said in a low whisper. “I’ll leave, I swear.”

“Ah, she talks. I’m afraid not. If I did, it would probably be me in the happy chair instead of you. Speaking of which, have you worked out the name yet?” Cyndie walked over and began unlacing Enid’s grubby boots.

“Wha-what are you doing?”

“Helping you out. Your feet must be overheating from being cooped in those shoes all day.”

That was true, and Enid was aware of a faint layer of sweat that had formed at her soles as a result of her peregrination. But she did not trust this girl’s motives. There was no way that she was being nice for the sake of it. What was she planning on doing?

As both boots were slipped off and tossed to the floor, Enid pictured being caned or whipped on the soles of her feet. But her dark, pessimistic thoughts were interrupted when Cyndie spoke again.

“Have you worked it out yet? Why we call it the happy chair?”

“No. And I don’t care. Come on, just let me go!”

Cyndie began toying with Enid’s grey wool socks, a faint smile playing on the lips of the dark-skinned girl. “The happy chair is for when our people act out of line—arguments, fights, bad attitude, taking more than your share, that kind of thing. I guess you could call it our version of corporeal punishment. It’s less savage than whipping, but I don’t know if it’s less torturous for all that.”

“Torturous?” Enid repeated, the word sending shivers down her spine. Had she not been that wrong after all about expecting mercy from these women?

Cyndie’s young face hardened. Her dark eyes were steely. “Enough. You know why you’re here, and I’m tired of this innocent act of yours. Talk. Stop beating around the bush and let’s get down to business. Exactly what are you doing trespassing in our territory?”

Enid swallowed and looked away, but her head snapped back when a sudden sensation along her right foot made her gasp. She looked at Cyndie with wide, confused eyes as the black woman lowered her hands and touched Enid’s socked feet again. While the first contact had been more of a pat than anything else, the second was unmistakably a scratch, and Enid groaned as she felt the other girl put her nails into it. The hand clawed from the ball of the foot down to the heel then back up again before pulling away.

Already, Enid found herself shuddering and breathing hard. She looked up at Cyndie with fresh fear.

“Was that bad?” Cyndie’s dark, gimlet eyes did not flicker. “It’s going to get a lot worse than that.” She reached down and yanked away the thick woollen socks to strip Enid’s feet bare. Enid’s feet were pale, short, and slender, with a plethora of wrinkles around the arches and the centre of the sole from being stuck in her damp, sweaty shoes for hours. Despite a bit of dry skin around the heel, it seemed Enid’s skin still boasted strong sensitivity on account of the tingle felt when Cyndie flicked away some residual fuzz. Was it possible that such receptivity had been retained from back when Enid was a pampered high schooler who indulged in frequent pedicures? What her feet currently lacked in polish they cleared made up in a legacy of ticklishness.

The third item of furniture in the room was the large red toolbox, and Cyndie strode towards it, whistling. She rummaged about it for a few moments, the rattling of torture implements doing little to abate Enid’s beating heart and fraying nerves. Just how many devices could be used for tickling? She had a feeling that she would learn the answer to that question sooner rather than later if she did not betray her friends to this interrogator.

The object that Cyndie pulled from the toolbox as her first toy for the day did little to ameliorate the direness of Enid’s circumstances. It was a small white toothbrush with a stained, plastic handle. It had evidently seen frequent and vigorous use, as many of the bristles were bent out of position, the way old toothbrushes got. That being said, the long white bristles on its head still looked very capable of inflicting all kinds of ticklish mayhem on vulnerable soles.

Enid swallowed and sucked in her breath as the toothbrush wandered closer and closer. Her small feet were all nervous, energetic animation. Her slender and short toes curled and flexed, and her feet twisted and flapped. One would constantly hide behind the other, as if the exposed foot were a hero making a noble sacrifice of defence, though the stress and responsibility of such a role was too much to bear for long, and the feet would swap places after a few seconds of frantic anticipation. All of this would happen in a sequence, a pattern of feeble defence that did little good.

And once Cyndie saw how nervous Enid was, she kept the toothbrush lingering in the vicinity as an implicit threat, but she did nothing more. Damn that vile tease, Enid thought, her lower lip starting to hurt from all the chewing and biting she was doing as she wanted for the first strike to hit. How bad would those bristly, bristly bristles be? All these thoughts that swarmed her mind seemed to making even the cool air in the hut tickle her sweaty soles. Oh, it was so unbearable to be kept waiting like this!

“What’s wrong?” Cyndie said with a smug half-smile. “You scared? Scared of my little toothbrush?”

Right when Enid was about to shout at Cyndie that no, she wasn’t, and to just get on with it, the first strike hit. It struck just as her defences were starting to slacken, as her muscles relaxed and her defiant feet started to sag, and the quick swipe from heel to the base of the arch provoked a squeal and more wiggling that was in utter disproportion to the tickle itself.

“Looks like you are,” Cyndie said, smirking, and she set to prove herself right.

Enid gnashed her teeth together to try to prevent herself from screaming as the toothbrush weaved around her soles with a stroke here and a stroke there. It was never more than a second of sustained contact, as it was more just darting around, but the bite of those bristles had her jumpy soles tingling all over. Every time the brush went anywhere near her toes, those rosy digits would fly open before clamping shut, as if scandalised by the sudden impact. Already, Enid could feel her feet starting to tire from all this reacting, and when she didn’t have the energy to flee from all these hit-and-run guerrilla attacks, what would happen then?

“Wahahahaha!” Enid couldn’t catch the wail that burst from her dry lips as the soft, stiff bristles slipped under her mental shield to flick under her toes. The toothbrush slithered from one toe to the other, taking its sweet time, to probe every inch but paying particular attention to the soft pads of each stubby digit. For a while, Cyndie was content to chase Enid’s slow, tired toes, but after chasing her big toe for a few seconds and failing to make contact, the dark-skinned woman reached out with a strong hand to hold Enid’s defeated feet in place. Those pale petite soles were too weak to resist as the slow, maddening scrubbing at her toes continued. When the foot was finally released, the toes sprang shut at once, but it was too little too late, as Cyndie’s cruel toothbrushes had migrated to the wrinkly arch of her other foot. Wide arcs around her arches soon drew out hearty giggles and more desperate tugging against the belts and straps that had Enid pinned to the recliner.

“Nohohoho! Stahahahap thahahat!” Enid shook her head, shocked that something like tickling could have this effect on her. She had faced on man-eating zombies and survived, but to be so close to breaking by something like this? As the toothbrush circled the balls of her feet, she shook her head, unable to deny that fact that her predicament would have been absurd had it not been so awful.

“If you want me to stop, you know what you have to do. Until then, laugh for me.” And laugh Enid did, especially when Cyndie changed from the meandering, teasing strokes to quick, sharp swipes. The toothbrush slid up and down Enid’s arches, occasionally stopping in this vertical movement to indulge in some speedy tracing of the wrinkles and subtle lines of those pale soles, which were getting pinker by the minute. Shouting laughter echoed across the small hut as Enid understood how unhappy it was being stuck in the happy chair.

Soon, Enid’s feet were too tired to move, and they had resigned to twitching lightly even when the toothbrush took to the gaps between her toes or brushing the very centre of those wrinkly arches. As sweat trickled down her small nose, Cyndie put her weapon down.

“Have you had enough? Or do we need to keep going?”

Enid panted for breath, made a face like she wanted to spit, and looked away from the dark-skinned girl.

Cyndie shrugged and began rummaging in her toolbox. “Suit yourself.” The African-American woman hmmmed and aahed for a few more suspenseful moments before pulling out a strange device that Enid wasn’t sure she recognised. This tool was about the same size as the toothbrush, only it was made of silver and speckled with rust. Instead of the white bristles along the head of the brush, there was a wheel of short metallic spikes, a bit like what you might see on the spurs of a cowboy’s boot.

The confusion must have been plain on Enid’s face, for Cyndie went up close to let the young woman examine the strange item. “Never seen a pinwheel before?” Cyndie asked, brandishing the metal tool. “Don’t blame you. They fell out of general practice a few years back due to sanitation purposes. They’re used for testing reflexes and reactions. You’ll really feel them when they’re used on your feet.” Cyndie laughed.

“Oh, I’m so looking forward to it,” Enid murmured, staring at the prickly tines of the pinwheels with trepidatious loathing.

“Glad to hear it,” Cyndie said, either ignoring or missing the sarcasm in Enid’s words. “We thought it was junk when we came across a box of these in the storeroom of an abandoned clinic, but when we found they could be repurposed for alternative use, oh, we were over the moon.” She gave a final spin of the metal tines for emphasis.

And before the sound of that high-pitched metal whine and even died away, Enid was shuddering and shrieking as the metal wheel bit into her right sole. A few trips along the soft, pale sole was all it took to get her squirming toes to flare up again, though they were too fatigued from earlier for extensive evasive manoeuvres. The pinwheel rolled up and down one foot and then the other, dimpling the white skin with tiny pink points. In contrast to the itchy, scratchy scrubbing of the toothbrush, this was new weapon against her ticklish soles was almost like being tickled by some expert masseuse who knew how to reach deep into the pressure points and nerve clusters all over her feet. Another added element was the cool kiss of the metal against the warm, flustered, overstimulated soles, which increased the skin-crawling sensations.

Out of the corner of her eye and over the sound of her own wretched laughter, there was something buzzing around Enid, possibly a mosquito. It flew towards her, and her neck started to itch and tingle. Not unlike when a spot on your foot grew itchy while you were walking, it was mighty annoying. A hand free to scratch or to escape would have been divine, though once the pinwheel starting frolicking around, she soon found herself too distracted to be preoccupied by something like that. Tickling was like the worst itch in the world magnified by a million, after all.

Cyndie took care not to put too much arm in her wheeling strokes so there was little risk of actually piercing the skin, but the pins still ran all over the place to sink into the soft, supple flesh of Enid’s feet. With an expert balance of velocity and force, the pinwheel travailed across the wrinkly arches of both feet, which was where the sloping meanders of this particular item proved most effective. They spun up and down the lengths of her arches, running over the ridges of her wrinkles as if they were speedbumps, occasionally stopping to direct the pinwheel horizontally instead of vertically to mix things up.

The poke-poke-poke style of the pinwheel continued till both arches, from the heel to the balls of the feet, had been thoroughly trampled under its ruthless metal wheels. The devilish tool was less effective across her toepads due to the lack of surface area to pull off a complete roll, but after securing Enid’s digits together in a firm grip, the pinwheel proved adept at rumbling back and forth over them to hit that spot with its pointy, prickly attack as well. It wasn’t quite as effective as making Enid scream as when its sharp tines terrorised her long, curved arches, but it still succeeded in making her squeal nonetheless.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened to emit a croaky laugh, and her dry lips formed a shocked O. It was the shocked, scandalised expression of someone who couldn't comprehend how awful her situation was. It was unreal how much those little tines tickled. Perhaps, it was due to the pinprick, pointed nature of the pinwheel, but the laughter that came out of her was harsher, harder, and more painful. Enid had only ever once laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes, and that had been at some kind of comedy show, but despite the abject misery of her situation, she felt the wetness appear in the corners of her eyes and begin to trickle down. If she’d had a hand free, she would have ground those tears away with a strong knuckle before the other woman could see, but her bonds remained stolid and impossible to budge. Her wrists were red from the constant tugging attempts at escape, and they were starting to really hurt, which dissuaded further attempts at earnest flight. Besides, she needed all her energy just to keep herself from going insane from the brutality inflicted upon her bare soles—just keeping a clammy grip on consciousness was difficult enough. Enid shook her head, her long dark hair slapping against her shoulders and cheeks as if doing so could deny the reality that was her own acute sensitivity. God, it was beyond belief, absolutely unfathomable—how could she still be so ticklish? And ticklish somewhere like on her bare feet? Had not all the walking and running she did on a daily basis driven such weaknesses out of her? But it was not unlike being cursed for whatever genetic trait like eye colour you had got from your parents—it was a lot of bellyaching that didn’t lead anywhere, as nothing could be changed. Enid was still a weak, ticklish little girl.

And ticklish girls placed under such duress did nothing but beg. When the first whinge escaped her lips, Enid wanted to slap herself for making such a pathetic sound. But was begging all that different from the involuntary twitching of feet or reluctant peals of laughter? It was a reflex as innate as human nature. It was all an autonomous reaction to an overwhelming attack on her most sensitive of spots. It was submission, it was kowtowing, and it was her body’s surrender to an offense that she struggled to comprehend, let alone defend against.

With each panicked movement that resulted from a change in targets, Enid became more aware of how she was soaked with perspiration. There were sweat patches under her arms and knees, as well as on her stomach and back. Who would have thought that sitting there and being tormented would be such sweaty work? Her entire body felt as if she had been running from the Walkers for half a day straight. Her stomach hurt from all the forced laughter, especially along her abs, like the worst stitch she had ever got when running. Her heart was beating like a ferocious jackhammer in her chest, so hard that it hurt with each shuddering chortle. It was so strange to think that even with every terrifying, adrenaline-filled encounter with Walkers, she had never felt such a heart-pounding sensation in her chest.

Enid’s frantic, frenetic twisting had won her little but marks mainly around her wrists as she struggled to get an arm free. It was hard to recognise the sounds that came out of her mouth as laughter—much of the time, they were more like guttural grunts. In fact, Enid’s voice had become warped in the indeterminate amount of time she had spent in the hellish happy chair. When she spoke to beg or plea with her captors, it was like someone else was talking. Who was that weak, pathetic person speaking in that dry, rasping croak? And with each plea that passed Enid’s dry lips, her torturer had a little mocking comment to make, and her brown fingers never ceased in their prowling of those pale, helpless soles.

“Please, stop!”

“Let's see. How about no.”

“I can’t take it anymore!”

“You’ll have to.”

“It tickles so much! Sohohohoho much!”

“Good. That’s the point.”

“You’re horrible! You’re pure evil!”

“It’s not that bad, is it? Look, you’re smiling. You must be enjoying yourself at least a bit.”

“Ah, my feet, my toes! Let them go, please! I beg of you!”

“Stop complaining. You be whining even if I was working on your armpits or something.”

“Oh, God! Goddamnit! Fucking stop that shit!”

“If you’re going to be such a sacrilegious little potty-mouth, I might bring out the toothbrush again and give your feet a proper cleaning.”

“Oh, come on, no, no, no!”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes.”

“This is torture! Torture, torture, torture!”

“What did you expect it to be? Fun and games?”

“Stop it. Stop it! I’ll do anything!”

“Then tell me what I want to know.”

“Anything but that?”

“Alright, then I want you to laugh for me.”

On and on it went, as dangerous thoughts plagued her thinking. Would Carl forgive her if she confessed? Could she forgive herself? Sometimes, the thinking was less treasonous and more random. How did tickling work? Why couldn’t you tickle yourself? Why was it that human’s response to surprised touching by laughing? Was there something funny about the situation? Was it the sarcastic, sardonic laugh of allowing someone to slip through your guard? These were the kinds of scattered thoughts that wandered into your brain when you were injected a massive dose of brutal tickle torture. And Enid couldn’t even vocalise these questions without interjections of screaming hysteria, let alone conjure up the brainpower to answer them.

As sweat and tears dripped down her face and onto her shirt, Enid saw something out of the corner of her eye. There was a ruffling by the flap of cloth that served as entrance to the hut. Her heart leapt at the thought of rescue, of heroic Carl coming to spring her from her binds. Cyndie was so preoccupied with torturing Enid’s pale feet that a sneak attack would surely have succeeded.

But when the chunky figure came closer, Enid’s heart sank.

“How’s our guest doing?” Natania said in a casual drawl. “She still holding up?”

“Just about.”

Natania leaned close and gave Enid a motherly pat on the head. “Have you reconsidered your decision, young lady?” Her tone was matronly and lacking in malice. “This only has to go on for as long as you want it to. Tell us the truth about what you’re doing here, and we’ll let you go.”

Enid shook her head. “I can’t betray my friends.”

The large white woman’s blue eyes narrowed. “Who said anything about your friends? Are they getting up to some kind of mischief on my territory?”

Enid grit her teeth, wishing she could lasso those words back in. The worst thing would be to alert her captor’s suspicions.

Natania sighed. “I guess we do this the hard way, then. I’ll relieve you, Cyndie. Take a pit stop, have a drink, and get some food. I’ll sub in for you.”

Exhaling deeply, Enid cringed as the big woman sat down on the stool and stared at Enid’s bare feet as if she could see through all their vulnerabilities as if she were reading a map. As bad as Cyndie’s plying of torturous tools had been, Enid felt she had been developing a resistance to it, an understanding of the rhythms and pace that the black-skinned young woman preferred. It was not unlike how neighbours became accustomed to quirks and habits due to sustained interaction.

After Natania flexed her large, gnarly hands, Enid soon found herself missing the impersonal touch of Cyndie’s tools. For all their cruel capability of doling out ticklish punishment, they had at least been somewhat small in size. Natania’s big, callused hands were able to cover almost Enid’s entire sole when they scrabbled across them, and those big, tough, callused hands flew from spot to spot.

They were willing to chase Enid’s wiggling feet wherever they went, which was not far in their tickled-out state, and hot on the trails of soft spots, they would attack with a ferocious tenacity till every drop of laughter had been uncorked from her. It didn’t take long before every nugget of agony had been wrought from Enid’s wrinkly arches.

“That’s one of your spots, huh?” Natania’s voice wasn’t smug or mocking, but matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing the weather. “Let’s see how much we can get from there before plumbing other depths. Unless you’ve decided to change your mind, of course.”

It should have been a cause for celebrations when Natania’s warm hands started to see diminishing returns from their insistent scribbling at the very centre of the sole, but the chunky woman was far from daunted. Her rough nails were rapid in discovery that reservoirs of laughing misery were located around the fleshy balls of Enid’s white feet, and that scratching circles around them were the optimum tool to make hysterical giggles shoot out of the poor girl. The next spot to mine for mirth were the toes, and every one of them was probed all over by the Natana’s expert, inquisitive touch. They picked at those spots again and again, striking the base and the webbing in particular.

When Natania finally pulled away, Enid’s entire foot felt warm and flushed. The whole sole was tingling and hot, the way feet sometimes got after they had been trapped in sports shoes for hours and then suddenly released. Enid was sure her pale soles were a healthy shade of pink by now after all this savage scratching.

Despite this, she knew she had won something invaluable for all her efforts—a resistance. She panted and panted as her flaming-hot feet hung there, tingling, and when Natania attempted an experimental swipe down her soles, Enid smiled, but for the first time in what felt like hours, it was not a reaction borne out of ticklishness. It was a smile of victory, a victory caused by a foe’s folly. It didn’t tickle anymore. IT DIDN’T TICKLE ANYMORE!

Natania’s face was a mask of cool confusion as she tried again, using all ten fingers to plough into Enid’s soles in the same fashion that had made the younger girl shriek mere minutes ago. But now, it didn’t affect her enough to even make her crack a grin.

“You overdid it,” Enid said, smiling as a sweaty lock of her brown hair fell across her forehead. ”I’m all tickled out. I can’t barely feel anything down there.”

“I can see that. And? Is there a reason you look so pleased with yourself? Do you think you’ve won?”

Enid did actually think that, but she kept her mouth shut. The crabby old woman’s tone was not that of dismay or defeat. Had this been part of some kind of plan?

Natania rooted into the toolbox that Cyndie had left behind and pulled out a brown feather, which made Enid’s eyebrow quirk in confusion. What was the older woman expecting to do with that? Well, that was a bit of stupid question—tickling was surely the motive, as ever. But would something so soft and wispy even do anything? Even at the peak of her sensitivity, back in the days of frequent pedicures and barefoot walks on the beach, she didn’t think something as gentle as a feather would have got more than a smile from her.

Twirling the feather between her callused fingers, Natania began wafting the fluffy end across Enid's soles. Thankfully, the sensations were much more manageable, as her soft feet weren't responsive to such an extent. It seemed she still needed a firm touch to get her giggling. But Natania came to this revelation quickly as well. She turned the feather around and used the stiff end to slash down her soles. The quill end of the feather would trace from heel to toe, slowing as the narrow point ran through those pale, wrinkly arches.

This had the dark-haired captive gasping and squeaking before long, with the mounting horror that her sensitivity was being reset. It only took a dozen or so of these firm swipes to get the blood circulation going in her feet once more, and just like that, Enid's abundant ticklishness had been rebooted like a glitchy computer. It would have not occurred to Enid that such a thing would have been possible, for her receptivity to be chased away and then shepherded back on account of a feathery teasing.

Natania cracked her knuckles and tore into her soles yet again, and Enid was very soon wailing tears of laughter for the umpteenth time. Damnit, how could this happen? What sorcery had Natania done with the power of that common brown feather?

This time, Natania paced herself far better—for the most part, the torturous tickling took on a trickling, gradual effect. There were two slow, cheeky fingers, one for each foot, teasing circles in the dense network of wrinkles around the centre of the sole. Four energetic fingers skipping and hopping up the pale soles over and over again. Six bestial fingers forming tri-pronged claws to slash and scythe along the balls of the feet and under the slender toes. Eight perilous fingers worming between the gaps of each toe to traumatise the delicate undersides and flick the sides of all the digits at once. Ten thunderous fingers going all out to zap Enid’s nervous system and send her soles wiggling into a tired flee that could never be kept up for more than a few seconds. The grand finale was the shortest, and it was always followed by a blessed break before the fingers starting building up once more, and the heinous cycle repeated itself with minor and cruel alterations, like all ten fingers assaulting one imperilled foot while leaving the other alone and perplexed.

Why had Natania’s altered her approach from the ‘scratch everywhere as quickly as you could’ method when it had proved so effective prior? Was it because the trick with the feather only worked once? But that was little consolation for the poor young brunette as she hiccupped with wild laughter. Enid felt she weren’t close from coughing blood on account of the way all the laughter had rubbed her throat raw and sore. It was starting to really hurt to breathe and swallow, the way your throat sometimes got when you’d been talking far too much and eating all manner of fried and spicy food. More and more coughs began to get peppered in with the harsh giggles, and the only sign of relent Natania exhibited was when she would stop to allow Enid to finish her ragged exhalations before going all out once more.

After the pattern of increasing fingers had been repeated a few times, the sound of a nearby gunshot cut through Enid’s weary, wizened laughter.

“What was that?” Natania said as voices clamoured and shouted outside, those speakers evidently asking the same question.

Moments later, Cyndie burst through the tent. Her long black hair was streaked with sweat, and her face was pale with panic. “We’ve got intruders! They’re trying to steal our guns.”

“This is why you came, isn’t it?” Natania said, glaring at Enid. The old woman’s eyes were chips of flinty ice. “And I guess that was your plan too, to distract us while your buddies robbed our stores.”

That hadn’t quite been the plan, but Enid wasn’t about to dissuade her, not when the assumption made the young girl sound like some kind of brave, bold tactical mastermind. “This doesn’t have to end in blood. Talk to our leader—Rick Grimes. I’m sure we can come to some kind of agreement.”

“An agreement?” Natania scoffed, shaking her head. “An agreement founded on treachery? Hard to have negotiations when one side has guns and the other doesn’t.”

“Just join our resistance!” Enid said in between dry coughs. “We don’t have to be enemies here. We all want the same thing—to survive, survive the Walkers and the Saviours.”

“Maybe, we should think about it,” Cyndie piped up. “I mean, we are kinda outgunned here. Can’t we see if we can work together?”

“The innocence of youth,” Natania said in a voice that was equal parts scorn and kindness. “Think about why there’s no men in this camp, only women and boys. Putting faith in the goodness of strangers is an easy way to get yourself killed or enslaved.”

“Or to find salvation.”

Natania’s wrinkle-laden face twisted into an ugly scowl. “You sound like a Saviour.”

“I don’t!” Enid exclaimed, shaking her head. “And I hate those guys just as much as you do. Why do you think we want your guns in the first place? To take them out.” She gave a deep sigh. “I’m just saying that there’s no reason why we can’t work out a peace between our two groups. Let me speak on your behalf. They’ll see that you haven’t harmed me, even though you had me at your mercy.” For sake of argument, Enid decided to omit the fact that the tickle torture had been merciless to say the least. Maybe, she was being silly, ‘the innocence of youth’ as Natania had put it, but she didn’t think these two women deserved to die for trying to protect their community.

“What should we do?” Cyndie in a low, carrying whisper.

There was more shouting now, more angry, barking voices, and they sounded to Enid as if they were coming from very close by. “Carl!” Enid shouted. “I’m in here! Two with me, and they’ve got guns!”

“That’s enough of you!” Natania reached out with a hand to stifle Enid’s shouts. The large, callused hand smelled of grease and herbs. She added in a low mutter, “For a good hour, you didn’t want to say anything, and now you’re so damn chatty…”

More shouts and cries came from outside the tent as well as gunshots.

A woman whom Enid didn’t recognise staggered into the hut. Her forehead was bleeding, and her eyes were wild with panic. “Natania, we have to go! We’re being overrun. They, they got our guns.”

Natania screamed a wordless cry of fury and pointed a fat finger at Enid. “This isn’t over.” Huffing, she pushed her way out of the ten, unholstering her weapon. Her two minions followed behind her, with Cyndie giving Enid a final, searching look before departing.

The next few minutes were tense waiting. And when Carl Grimes poked his head into the hut with a rifle under his arm, she could have fainted with relief.

“Enid! Are you okay?” He went over and ripped the binds of the recliner away.



“I am now,” she said as she stepped out on shaky feet and fell into his arms. “Get that toolbox before you go, would you? I’ll have to tell you about this idea I had later…”