Filas knew that kind of apparel. Rifle festival. An old German habit, where many people met to have a bunch of drinks, and few people shot at a wooden bird, and the one person who shot down the last part was crowned king. That is, he got to wear a fine uniform for several other festivals of that kind in the same year, and got to pick a woman by his side as his queen. Sounds weird, and it was, but the main purpose of it all was just getting drunk anyway.

She had hated that habit all her life. And having five guys in front of her wearing uniforms that were common for that kind of event and pointing guns at her did not exactly help her like it any more.

“Put your weapon away and take your hands up!” one of the men without a gun shouted at her. “Now!”

“All right,” she replied. She took her spear from her bike and slowly put it on the road, all of that in a very slow manner in order not to rise any suspicion in them. She always kept an eye on one of the guns that still pointed at her, and slowly put her hands in the air.

“Don’t move or we will shoot you!”

Filas obliged. She was outnumbered and those guys had guns. Of course, she would not move. She probably couldn’t even. She felt like a mouse facing a snake about to attack her. One of the men approached her slowly. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Hesitantly she looked at him. He seemed about as nervous as she was.

“My name is Filas”, she replied, and cleared her throat immediately after. She felt and heard that her throat was quite hoarse.

The man frowned. “What kind of a name is that?”

She shrugged but remained silent. Who cared too much about names these days anyway?

“Where are you coming from?” the questioning continued.

Ok, let’s do it right this time, she thought to herself. “Umm, I’m coming from Paderborn”, she replied, and was glad her voice was working better now. Paderborn was maybe not the most correct answer, but it was no utter lie. After all, that was where she had lived before it all had started. And she didn’t think that Minden was that well-known in most regions.

“Are you on your own or are there other people with you?”

“I’m alone.” The man in front of her seemed to relax a little bit. Filas had noticed earlier that some villages were very careful, not wanting to let in more than one or two people. Probably a group was considered a threat, eating away too many provisions and maybe they could even take over a place. She could understand people being careful on that matter. She still wasn’t sure if the zombies were the real plague here. However, she did not have to lie about not being a member of a group.

“And where do you want to go?”

“I’m heading south. Looking for a safe place in that direction.”

The men looked at each other and remained silent for a moment.

“Before we let you into our village, I need to look through your bag”, the man in front of Filas told her.

She shuddered. It was not like she had anything dangerous or illegal in her backpack, but she did not want to explain why she had… some things in there to these utter strangers.

“What’s in it for me after you’ve look at my stuff?”

“You may find shelter here for this night. We keep watch all day and night, so you’d be safe here. But you’ll have to leave tomorrow again. We don’t have the supplies to keep people here for a long time. And you’d have to leave on the way you came here. The other ways aren’t safe, the villages around are overrun by… those things.”

“What about my weapons”, Filas asked.

“You won’t need them here You will get them back when you leave tomorrow.”

Filas hesitated. She did not like the idea of being separated from her weapons. On the other hand, she had not slept in a proper bed for some time now. And it was getting too late to find another place for the night anyway. And if anyone dared to touch her… Well, she knew how to defend herself, even without weapons. She nodded.

“Ok,” she said hesitantly, “go ahead.” She took a step away from her bike and took off her backpack, putting her hands back up in the air afterwards, since the guns still aimed at her.

The man stepped towards her bike and skipped through her luggage. She pointedly looked away from that, because she did not want to watch how her privacy got shattered, waiting for the inevitable. Until…

“What are these?”

Filas looked at him. Of course, he was holding her little bag containing her meds. The one thing she did not want to be forced to explain. Better just tell something…

“Pills”, she said. “I’ve got this condition with my… glands, you know, and these make it… bearable.”

The man looked at the bag again. “Uh huh”, he responded slowly, apparently not knowing what they really were. “Looks like you better get some more then soon”, he added while putting it back into her backpack.

Filas swallowed. She knew that. She had realized some days ago that she needed more, rather sooner than later. She could not bear the thought of being without those meds for even just one day. She had already lost too much as it was. Maybe she could find some the next day after leaving this village again in the nearest town with a pharmacy.

After some more minutes the man handed her back her backpack. “Looks like everything is in order”, he said. “Welcome to Roehrenspring, young lady.”

***

Filas stepped out of the shower, feeling really refreshed. After the men at the entrance to the village had allowed her to stay there, they had discussed where she was to spend the rest of the day and the night. One of the men, who had introduced himself as Peter Hanse, and his family had been chosen to be her hosts, and he had taken her to his home. He was a large man, around 1.90 meters high, but also quite old. He was almost completely bald, only little grey hair was growing around the back of his head. She assumed he was around 60 years old. He was one of the men without a gun, but the others had given him one. “Just in case”, they had said. She had understood that she shouldn’t try anything stupid, but she hadn’t intended anything anyway.

Roehrenspring itself was a very small village. While she had been led to Hanse’s house, they had gone right at the only crossroad around, and passed two houses. After those, they had been going some more meters before arriving at Hanse’s house. She had been welcomed by Hanse’s wife Charlotte and their son Marcus, who was maybe a few years older than Filas. Maybe even more than a few years… Like his father, he was already running short of hair at his crown.

When seeing Filas, Mrs Hanse had insisted to send her directly to the bathroom and had told her to take a good warm shower. She had put Filas’s luggage into the guestroom on the top floor, and Filas herself was most happy to oblige. She hadn’t had a proper shower in weeks and agreed that she could really use one. It was nice to get clean again, to have some time where all she could hear and feel was the warm water running down her body, while the scent of the shampoo pleased her nose. She had also noticed the razor that was placed at the wall in the shower, and the shaving foam next to it. She had no idea when the next opportunity to give her legs some good shaving might occur, so she used this very opportunity for that. It went almost smoothly, apart from the one scratch she had at her ankle now. It was probably too much to ask for a good, sharp razor in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, especially in a small village in the middle of nowhere. But the wound was no big deal, and the rest of the shaving process went on without any further accidents. Now Filas’s legs were just as smooth and clean as she could wish for.

After stepping out of the shower, Filas dried herself with the towel she had been given, wrapped it around her body when she was dry and wrapped another around her hair, because she couldn’t see a blow-dryer anywhere around. Finally, she left the bathroom and quickly made it into the room she had been given. Once inside, she quickly turned around and locked the door. The last thing she needed ever was anyone peeking on her, especially in a house full of strangers. She hadn’t had much time to have a closer look at the room before the shower, so she looked around closer now.

It was quite a small room. Left to the door, there was a wardrobe, in front of which her luggage was put. On the wall next to it, there were several windows through which she could see the roof of the house and a bit of the neighbours’ garden. A calendar was attached to the wall between the windows as well. Filas looked at it a bit closer. It said “August”, which might very well be true, but she couldn’t be sure, since she had lost count of days. The calendar showed a young woman standing next to a young man, both smiling into the camera. The part of the sky that could be seen was blue, and it didn’t seem like the photo was taken in Germany, but in a more southern place. Spain maybe? The young man though… There was a certain resemblance to Marcus, the son of Mr and Mrs Hanse. Were they brothers? The calendar didn’t look like it was produced by any company, but hand-made. From the young woman on those pictures, maybe? Was this the young man’s former bedroom, maybe, before he had moved out? What might have happened to him and the young woman? Filas had a bad feeling and remembered the car in the valley she had seen on her way up. It was too easy to die these days. She went on looking through the room.
At the wall opposite the door there was the bed, and it was quite large in her opinion. She shouldn’t have space issues later tonight when she was going to sleep. A blanket and a pillow were already on the bed as well. At the last side of the room, opposite the windows, there was an empty desk, and, next to it, a small chest of drawers, on which a small lamp was placed, which might have been used back in time for reading when in bed.

After inspecting her room for the night, Filas got to her luggage and skimmed it through for an appropriate outfit. She didn’t exactly want to put on the clothes she had worn before, and before was some days, maybe even weeks – she didn’t have much occasion or reason to change her outfit in the wilderness which was quite often also overrun with zombies. The dress or the skirt might be too much for this evening… She had no real idea why she had packed them into her backpack anyway, but they were pieces she just couldn’t part with. And maybe, just maybe, she’d find a better occasion for some more femininity one day.

She decided for the darkest jeans she had taken with her and a plain black shirt. When looking down she was quite happy with the effect her meds had had on her body so far. She touched her face and checked. She was pleased not to feel any stubbles. She didn’t exactly want to apply make-up in a zombie apocalypse situation, but she also knew from experience how narrow-headed people might be, especially those living in small villages like this one. But her face felt perfectly smooth - she was glad she didn’t need to rely on make-up anymore. She took off the towels and put them on the bed for the time being before getting dressed. After that she took her hairbrush out of her backpack and spent much time on her hair. In the last weeks, she had had hardly any time to spend much attention to that, so she was happy to do that now, getting her fringe done properly and brushing out her hair until it was so soft like silk, apart from the fact that it wasn’t dry yet. Filas didn’t feel like going downstairs yet, because she knew that her hair tended to get messed up while drying, and she decided to wait for it to get dry in this room.

She went to the windows and had a look out of it. It was quite disappointing a view though: to the left, she could see the roof of the house, and that of the neighbours too. The neighbours’ garden was in plain view as well. It had a pavilion with view on the neatly treated flowerbeds. Filas was surprised that there were still people tending to those flowers. When she looked down, she could also see the Hanses’ garden, which wasn’t too special though: a bit of a paved way next to the house, with a table standing outside as well, and four chairs grouped around it. More to her right, there was a quite large meadow, slowly ascending with the mountain at which the village was located, until a forest, barely in sight from the window without opening it, came into sight. The place seemed quite peaceful, and especially looking at the neighbours’ garden, it was tempting to forget that the world outside the village was overrun by the dead.

Filas took her eyes from that view. She couldn’t just forget what was going on in the world, partly because she was to leave the place by tomorrow again. Since her hair was still a bit damp, she had a closer look at the room. She was a bit hesitant, but opened the cupboard. She was a bit disappointed that it was empty, just like the chest of drawers. The room really didn’t seem to have any other purpose than having guests there. This seemed to be quite a boring time in this room, which she really didn’t want to leave before her hair was really dry and in shape…

But then she remembered that she had a few books in her backpack. Granted, those were smaller books, not the 900-pages-books she’d have loved to take with her, if they hadn’t the disadvantage of taking too much space. But reading some Hobbit was something at least. Filas got to her backpack, rummaged for her books (which were at the bottom of the backpack of course), and picked her copy of The Hobbit. It had been a while since she had read it the last time… After all, reading during an apocalypse situation wasn’t exactly the way to spend your time… And even before that, she hadn’t read that book too recently. She had had plenty of others, and it had broken her heart to leave them all behind, but she’d had to be reasonable when packing her bags of course. Ever since, she hadn’t even been able to read one page though.

But for now, she was glad she finally had some time for that and dropped herself onto the bed. The mat was harder than any she had had so far, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Actually, she felt like it was a very nice mat on which she would sleep fine later. But sleeping wasn’t what she was going to do now. Instead she opened the book: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Soon enough, Filas got lost in the story, reading about Bilbo meeting Gandalf and the dwarves… It wasn’t before finishing the chapter on Bilbo’s adventure with the trolls that Filas registered that some time had passed now. She touched her hair as an indicator, and it had dried by now in fact. Filas took her brush which she had put on the desk earlier and straightened her hair up a bit. She knew that it usually got quite fizzy after drying without having to look in a mirror. After some more minutes she was done with that as well. She put her brush back on the desk and bit her lower lip. She knew she had not much excuse left to delay leaving the room. After all, she was only a guest her and in fact she would like to learn some things about this place.

She got to the door, slowly turned the key and opened the door. She peeked into the corridor which was empty before leaving the room. The floor was wooden and so were the stairs. Therefore, Filas had to be quite careful with her steps – she was only wearing socks and she felt like it could get really slippery if she was going too fast. There was also a glass cabinet at the landing, where the stairs made a turn and led further down, and it wouldn’t be too much fun if she slipped and crashed into that one. But Filas made her way downstairs without any problems, and now she could hear the sounds from the kitchen which indicated that some cooking was going on there. Filas slowly approached the kitchen door on her right-hand side. It was slightly open, and now she could also smell the scent coming out. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t had properly cooked food since leaving Extertal. If she was lucky, she got to make a small campfire at night on the road, but only if she found a place that allowed for it and didn’t attract attention from zombies. That was barely ever the case though, so she had lived from cold food out of cans for the most part, and the thought of having some proper food soon was just amazing.

She knocked at the door and entered the kitchen. She was surprised by how large it was. It appeared larger to her than the kitchen at her parents’ house, and also seemed to have been renovated not too long ago. The table was right in front of her, with four chairs being placed around it. A sideboard separated that part of the kitchen from the cooking area, with a stove, oven, and a sink next to them, and some cupboards on the other side. Opposite the door, there was the glass façade which allowed for some view over part of the village and over lots of green landscape. Net curtains covered some part of the windows though. Filas could hardly believe that a place like this still existed. Net curtains belonged to a past long ago for her, when she believed her parents were good people who’d care for her no matter what, when she lived in a quiet and boring neighbourhood, and when she thought she was just a proper kid as everyone else.

A lot had changed ever since though. And she hadn’t lived in a place with net curtains since she moved out of her parents’ house.

Mrs Hanse was in front of the stove and did some cooking. She turned after Filas had entered the kitchen though. “Ah, Filas, is it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did you enjoy that shower?”

“Yeah, I really did. I think I really needed it…” Filas smirked.

“Heh, you bet”, Mrs Hanse grinned. “I’m sorry the water doesn’t really turn hot. But we have to ration things here, and that means no hot showers at all, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It was perfectly ok, and I’m glad to feel clean for a change, so, thanks a lot for that.”

“Well, you’re welcome. You are the first guest we’ve had in this house since… since it all started. It may be for one night only, but please make yourself comfortable here.”

“Oh, thanks, I will try.”

During their talk, Mrs Hanse turned to the stove and tended to the food.

“So, where are you from, Filas?”

“Oh, I’m from… Paderborn. I used to live there for my studies and was around that area for some time after things started to turn bad. In the countryside around there, that is. But it wasn’t safe for too long.”

“I see… So, where are you going now?”

“Just south, for starters. See if I can make it to the Alps. I think it might be easier up there.”

“All by yourself? And only with that bike of yours?”

Filas shrugged. Mrs Hanse seemed perfectly nice, but she didn’t really want to share her anxieties with a woman she’d only just got to know. Point was, she didn’t have anyone living close to her whom she’d trust enough to travel with. And with a car she imagined she’d be more vulnerable actually, having to rely on the roads and on gas stations. She could only imagine that there might be groups of people who used them to ambush people who’d need some gasoline, take the car and maybe even kill the people in it. That was what happened in all those zombie movies and games at least, and she really didn’t want to get in that kind of situation, which she could easily end up in without anyone having her back.

“Well”, Filas started to change the topic, “how come that you have made this safe place here?”

“Oh”, Mrs Hanse replied, “I think we’ve been just lucky. The next villages are closer to some small towns, so I think those… deads just went there looking for… whatever, instead of walking up here for us. There are only few of them who are getting here at all, maybe two or three in a week, and our men take care of them. We have this building outside of the village where we have some guns for rifle festival. When things in the world started to get serious, we took them out of there, so we are quite provided for taking off some of those.

“Also, there are some farmers in the village, so we get some milk, eggs, vegetables, potatoes, sometimes even some meat. As long as that lasts, we don’t need to leave the village. And we have some generators up here as well. Some years ago, a massive storm hit the place and destroyed the electric cables. Ever since we’ve had those generators for emergency cases. As I said though, we mustn’t use too much energy to keep those generators going for a while.”

Filas nodded. It appeared like the people here had it running for themselves for the moment, but she didn’t dare to ask what’d happen if one day there were more zombies getting to the village, or the food running out, or the fuel for the generator running out. It didn’t seem like these people were actually planning for that, but rather avoiding the thought at all, from how she interpreted Mrs Hanse’s tone of voice.

“Filas, could you be a sweetheart and put the dishes on the table? The plates are in this cupboard here, and the cutlery is in the sideboard, in the upper drawer.”

“Sure”, Filas replied, and got to the cupboard. “For how many people?”

“Oh, we’ll only be four. Just Marcus, Peter, you and me.”

Filas nodded and took four plates to the table. After that, she took four knives and forks from the sideboard and placed the dishes on the table due to the position of the chairs. In the meantime, Mrs Hanse had taken some bowels from the cupboard and had started to put the food into them. The kitchen door opened, and Mr Hanse and Marcus entered the kitchen. They greeted Filas by nodding and went straight to the table and sat down.

Filas helped Mrs Hanse with the bowels though. She was mildly annoyed that those guys just apparently didn’t seem to care about helping their mother or wife respectively. However, they put the bowels on the table. There were just some potatoes and some carrots for each person, coming with some cream sauce. Filas had already guessed from Mrs Hanse’s words that meat was very rare to come by these days, even in this village, and not as easy to grow as some vegetables. The thought of having some warm proper food in a few moments was very comforting to her though. And those vegetables would be good for her body as well. So, when everyone had put the food onto their tables, she automatically took the fork and knife next to her plate and approached the food with them.

Mrs Hanse cleared her throat. Filas looked at her first, then at the others. All of them were folding their hands.

“We’re praying before we start eating”, Mrs Hanse stated matter-of-factly.

“Oh my… I’m so sorry”, Filas replied, blushing. She wasn’t religious herself at all. She may have been raised to be catholic, but that had left her even way before her coming out. And even so, she couldn’t recall having had any graces in her childhood even. She didn’t even know that was still a thing…

She put back her fork and knife and quickly folded her hands.

Mrs Hanse closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her folded hands. Her husband and son did the same, and so did Filas after hesitating for a second.

Mr Hanse then started to speak: “Our Father, who art in heaven, thank you for the food you’ve given to us. Thank you for the guest you have led to our door. Thank you also that you have chosen us to survive your cleansing of the world…”

Filas was quite brutally torn out of her comfort-zone. Cleansing?

“… And thank you for punishing people for their immoral, sinful lives…”

Here we go, Filas thought, her eyes rolling mentally.

“… men lying with other men…”

Someone please shoot me…

“… or even those men pretending to be women.”

I’ve got to get the hell out of here!!!

“We are sure you will see fit that the new world you have created will not face those threats.”

“Amen”, Marcus said.

“Amen”, Mr Hanse said.

“Amen”, Filas whispered non-convincingly after a few seconds, because she didn’t want to arouse any suspicions.

She opened her eyes, as did anyone else and they started to eat, although Filas’s appetite was all gone by now. Why was she constantly ending up with bigots? And not just moderate bigots, but the kind who always know the complete bible by heart, but also always seem to ignore the part about love thy neighbour. She would have preferred to face ten zombies out there now instead of having dinner with that kind of family.

Filas tried not to let it show though. If they noticed anything, she might be in some real danger in this house pretty soon. It served her well that none of the other people talked at all but focused on eating. So, did she try to as well now, but she couldn’t suppress her fear, a fear she had almost forgotten since the country got overrun by zombies. Fear of being attacked by zombies and being killed by them was the one thing. But the fear of being attacked by people just for being herself and of who knew what they might be doing to her if they found out, that was something completely different. Her heart had noticed that as well, it was beating so fast that she was surprised none of the others heard it.
Dinner was over soon without anyone saying any other word. Filas cleared her throat and looked at Mrs Hanse: “Do you need some help with doing the dishes?” She was glad that her voice was still working.

“Thank you, sweetheart”, Mrs Hanse replied.

If you only knew…, Filas thought.

“… but you already helped me with preparing the table, I’ll have Marcus help me.”

Marcus sighed.

“Come on, Marcus, we have a guest and you haven’t done much today. Just be a gentleman.”

Yeah, hell of a gentleman he’d be, Filas thought ironically, if he knew who I was…

“Filas, you go straight to bed…”

Heh, straight, I don’t think so.

“… you’ve got to leave in the morning after all, and you should be well recovered for that.”

Filas nodded. That part was true at least.

“Might I have one glass of water, please? For the night?”, she asked.

“Yes, of course, you just take some water from the sink, I propose. It’s the best we have, and it’s perfectly fine. The glasses are in the other cupboard there”

Filas nodded, took a glass and filled it with some water. “Thank you and goodnight”, she said while all of her innards screamed at her, telling her to run away.

“Goodnight, Filas.”

She went upstairs and put the glass on the chest of drawers next to the bed. She then went into the bathroom, rinsed her mouth out and washed her face quickly. She then went back into the guestroom and locked the door behind her. She turned on the small lamp on that chest of drawers, before getting to her luggage. She rummaged through it a bit, until she found what she was looking for: the bag with her meds. She took one of the white pills out of it. The blockers. They had tiredness as a side-effect, which was why she took them in the evening. She put it in her mouth, had a sip of water, and swallowed it.

She knew that technically it was insane to transition medically in a zombie apocalypse. The pills turned down her muscles and her physical fitness in general. This could very well lead to her death eventually, when she had to run away from zombies or something like that. And being trans was still not safe in this world, dinner had showed her that. And who knew how many bigots like this family or even worse ones were still out there, with society falling apart and no rules left? Still, she knew that this was the right thing to do. She would rather die being who she really was than live as someone she was not.

Hey everyone,
I'm very sorry for the long delay of this chapter. The past months have been quite rough, going from love-sickness over to some depressive phase, then uni hitting in, and all of that adding up to quite some writer's block.

I hope I can write the next chapter soon enough though and keep this story running.

Thanks for reading and I hope you're doing fine :)

Kind regards,
Filas