[u][b]Mary Hawthorne - Her House - Dawn[/b][/u]


Awakened to the sound of a rooster crowing, Mary opened her eyes and began to stir. A slight breeze was moving the threadbare curtains on her open bedroom windows, the dawn of a new day beginning to be visible through them. It had only been a few days, but the absence of the aches and pains she had felt for so long was gratifying....not to mention her now clear vision and improved hearing. A ghoul's extended lifespan carried a heavy price indeed...a burden Mary did not care to re-assume unless she had to. She climbed out of bed and put on the tan dress she had laid out on the dresser the night before. The musty smell and accumulated dust of the long vacant house irritated her...not to mention offended her reacquired sense of smell....she had spent most of the day yesterday cleaning the house, and there was still much to be done. 

Making her way downstairs, she lit a fire in the fireplace then grabbed a pail and went to the kitchen sink. Turning on the tap, she waited until the brackish water cleared up then thrust the pail under it and let it fill. Obediah had been good enough to include a small purifier with the items she had brought from Point Lookout...and showed her how to use it...but it only produced a couple gallons a day, and she needed that for cooking and cleaning so the brahmin would have to make do with tap water, not that it would hurt the mutated creature any. Once the first pail was full, she swapped it out for another and placed the first one outside her front door. Once the second was full, she shut off the tap and went outside, picking up the other pail and heading for the brahmin enclosure next to her house. As she walked, she noticed that there were more people moving about than there was yesterday. She entered the pen, and emptied the pails into the old bathtub she was using to water her brahmin. The thirsty creature mooed contentedly and began to drink. Exiting the pen, and closing it behind her, she looked around....noticing two things right off the bat. 

On the roof of the Diner, a sign had appeared. 

                        [b]Looking for some entertainment after your meal?
                        Head around the corner to the Pleasure Den!
                        BOOZE! DRUGS! AND GIRLS!
                        Also Hiring![/b]


"Girls" and "Also Hiring" made her lips curl with distaste. 

"A [i]whorehouse[/i]? Here in Salem?", she thought bitterly, "John would have had that whoremonger horsewhipped and run out of town on a rail!" 

She then caught herself....the stern morality of her youth was not relevant anymore...that was a far different world than the one she was in now. She also knew now what she had not then, that they were not sinners in the hands of an angry God, ceaselessly watching over them and keeping score. Whore or virgin, there was only one thing behind the veil for all....oblivion in a vast and uncaring universe. It really didn't matter in the scheme of things what you did...though it was still foolish to squander what little precious time they were given with such activities. Also, a place like that might have it's uses.  The idea of actually selling herself in such a place was out of the question...but other opportunities might present themselves. The sort of people who frequent such places might be useful as helpers...if paid in sufficient coin. And she would need help indeed with the task that had brought her home after all these years. She decided to find this place and speak with it's proprietor later.

The other thing that got her attention was the horse....the first one she had seen since a few years after the War. She had noticed it tied up to a lamp post outside the diner yesterday, after she had been distracted from her cleaning by some silly child playing with a small pistol in the streets. If that woman who had confronted the Mutant hadn't taken it from her she would have gone out and given her a piece of her mind. She hadn't given the horse any further thought, but she now saw it was still in the same spot today, and getting a bit restive from the way it had begun to pull at the halter securing it to the lamp post.    

Heading back into the house, she put away the pails and got the clean pail she was using for clean water, then filled it from the plastic tank the purifier was discharging into. She then exited the house and, pail in hand, walked towards the Diner and the horse. As she approached, she noticed the horse, a silver dappled Rocky Mountain Horse, was still saddled and there was blood on it's flank. Approaching the horse, she patted it reassuringly and moved around the front of it, and placed the pail of clean water where the horse could reach it. The horse immediately plunged it's muzzle into the pail and began to drink greedily. 

"Thirsty, are you?", Mary said as she stroked the horse's neck affectionately as she examined the blood on the horse. To her relief, the horse was uninjured, the blood on it's flank and smeared on the saddle was human, probably it's rider. "What happened to your rider?", she said. The horse looked back at her and snorted, not that she expected an answer. Looking in the Diner, there were several people, none seemed at all concerned with the horse or her. "Well, lets get you cleaned up and get that saddle off you....these people clearly don't know what you need....but I do."  
  
Mary untied the horse and led him back to her house. Once there, she removed the saddle and saddle bags, draping the blanket over the railing of her front porch then hauling the saddle bags and bloody saddle inside. Looking into one of the bags, she found among the personal effects of the rider the horse's brush, which she took and closed the bag up again. After filling the pail again, she went back outside, and gave the horse more water. She then turned her attention to cleaning the blood off the horse and brushing it, while it grazed at the overgrown grass in her front yard. The horse patiently allowed her to take care of it, though she could see that all was still not quite right.

"You need some exercise, don't you?", Mary said. "I don't have a big enough pen for you to run in so we'll take a short ride....how about that?" She then clambered up onto the horse's back....the water having earned her enough good will for the horse to accept her....and after a few unsteady moments, coaxed the horse into a slow trot. She hadn't ridden a horse bareback for so long that she could barely remember it...she had been fifteen and had done it on a dare from her elder brother. How upset father had been at her for that...both of them had gotten a taste of his belt. The sensuous feeling of the powerful animal between her bare thighs brought the old memories flooding back...her life had been a happy one in those days....happy in her ignorance of the awful truths that she would come to know, and what the world had been like before the fools running it had ruined it for everyone else.

After the first circuit of the streets surrounding the Village Square, she felt secure enough in her seat to coax the horse into picking up the pace, trotting around the Square, smiling at the townspeople who had noticed what she was doing and stood and gawked. Soon, she would need to find who this horse belonged to and get their property back to them....but for now she chose to enjoy the moment.