Hiding

Wooden walls don't save you from Reavers. They can smell you and they can taste you in the air, on places where you touched.

Jayne grits his teeth against the ache in his legs from crouching too long, and makes sure Vera's good and ready. He doesn't reckon he could bring himself to fight those things hand to hand, doesn't reckon he could bring himself to touch them.

Reavers make noises like the rabid dogs Jayne's uncle kept for fighting. He saw them dogs fight for the first time when he was twelve, saw them tear chunks of flesh off one another. They snarled and yipped and bayed, burbling through slaver and blood.

But when Reavers came to his uncle's town, they didn't recognize their own tongue, and did to those dogs as they do to people.

The dog-noises get closer, long nails scrabbling at the wood and cut tongues tasting the walls. The sweat on Jayne's hands makes them slip when he tries to get a better grip on Vera, and he fumbles her for a horrifying second. And then she drops to the ground, clatter, such a thin noise for his girl to make.

And the walls explode in with splinters and noise, hot, wet, dirty bodies that rot as they walk slamming into him.

When Jayne wakes up, he doesn't scream. He bites down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. On his stumble across the room he trips over a few things—boots, guitar—but at least he gets to the toilet in time to kick it open and puke.

Gorram nightmares.