by Lauren Beltz
Ripping the sheets proved more difficult than he originally predicted. A tear was difficult to start with the seams along the perimeter. Once he finally managed to tear a sheet, it never propagated in a straight line. After several botched attempts, he smartened up and retrieved his sole pair of scissors. The daunting task ahead would no doubt dull the sharpness of the blades, but he doubted it would be difficult to find another pair in the building. He only wished he had grabbed a couple of spare pairs while they had been doing their sweep.
The scissors sped the process along considerably. Before long he was surrounded with long, thin strips of bedsheets. He began to braid three strands together at a time, with the hope that it would add strength to the material. He didn’t know what Lenore weighed, though he imagined she had withered away to practically nothing by the looks of her. Light as she may be, his contraption would still need to hold the weight of a human for a significant amount of time.
There had been an episode of Mythbusters where they tested myths about breaking out of jail and scaling the side of the prison with a rope made of bedsheets. He had seen it, he was sure of it, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember which method of making the rope from the bedsheets had worked the best. He only remembered that only one of them had worked at all, which did not instill him with the highest vote of confidence in his own ability to create a rope. But he had time, and he had a practically unlimited supply of raw material, so he planned to over engineer the thing and hope for the best.
His recollection of knot tying variations from his time as a boy scout long ago was hazy at best, but as he worked the different techniques slowly came back to him. By the time he finished, he was confident that at least the knots in his contraption would not come undone.
The rope came together in pieces. By sunset he still had a ways to go, but he was at least proud of his accomplishment thus far.
Nathan
He had learned to block out the noise of visitors by the time William came pounding on his door. It was not even his door anymore, he thought with bitter irony. It was a door taken from another apartment to replace his destroyed one, one destroyed at the call of the man knocking on the replacement. It was hard to say how long William stood out in the hallway, knocking repeatedly and insistently, before Nathan finally became aware of the noise.
Nathan barely had the strength to get out of bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten or changed his clothes. Fortunately, one tended to be immune to their own scent. He didn’t bother trying to get up as he yelled hoarsely for his unwelcomed visitor to simply let him be.
“I’m afraid that’s not an option this time, Nathan,” a gruff voice responded. Blinking, a sleepy fog slowly lifted from his mind. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen William, and he couldn’t recall a single time William had ever made a house call, especially not to Nathan and Hayley.
“I have nothing to say to you murders,” Nathan spat towards the door, the words scratching his dry throat.
“Well then you can listen to what I have to say,” William countered.
Grudgingly, Nathan started the slow process of lifting his aching bones from the bed. His entire body hurt from the grief that consumed him and the nightmares that plagued what little sleep he could manage. He used to dream of his future with Hayley. Of all the different ways in which he could make things right between them once again. He wanted to find the happiness they’d basked in not so long ago.
Now all he could see was her lifeless body when he closed his eyes. The look of pure adrenaline on that bitch’s face when Anna sliced through his wife’s head with a machete like a savage animal. When he woke, he no longer worried about how he could right his wrongs. He simply woke in a rage; the need for retribution consumed him.
“Nathan,” William called impatiently from the hallway.
Nathan did not bother with a response as he dragged his tired legs across the studio to the hallway. They had fixed his front door and cleaned his floor. They had even tidied up the barricade in front of the closet door. But they would never be able to mend his heart. He wouldn’t be able to either.
“The fuck you want?” Nathan asked as he yanked open the door.
“Just to talk, nothing more,” William promised. Nathan eyed him, studying his stance and his appearance. They had told him they only wanted to help Hayley, and he was painfully aware of how that had ended.
“You’ll understand if I don’t invite you in,” Nathan told him bluntly.
William waved off even the suggestion, “It’s not necessary. What I have to say will be brief.” When Nathan made no move to make further objections, William began. “As you may or may not have heard since you did not attend the group meeting, we have exhausted our supplies in the building. We are forming a plan to ensure our continued survival but as such, all those who plan to use the resources are being asked to contribute in obtaining them.”
William’s words were clear to Nathan. Even after what they had done to him, they expected him to help them. It was not enough that they had taken the life of his beloved; they wanted him to risk his life to ensure their survival. Nathan could barely suppress his laugh of hysteria at the thought.
“I will not beat around the bush,” William charged on. “If you would like to continue to use our water and eat our food and use our supplies, isolation will no longer be an option. You will need to contribute in whatever capacity we deem necessary. And you will need to join in the group discussions until the situation improves. We are a small group, and we have limited intelligence of what we will be facing when we leave this building for the first time in months. The more heads we have brainstorming, the higher our chances of success. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if we do not succeed.”
Fury beat against Nathan’s chest at William’s thinly veiled words. “And if I decide I do not want to put my future in the hands of murders?” Nathan asked, disdain dripping from every word.
“Then you can find a way to survive by yourself.” William placed his hand on the door frame as he leaned slightly in. Nathan fought the urge to slam the replacement door on his hand. Though William had been the only one not present for the ordeal, Nathan had no doubt who had likely made the final decision to take his Hayley away.
“You have been dealt a difficult hand,” William acknowledged. “No one would blame you for giving up. I’m sure we’ve all thought about it at least once. But we do not have the luxury to carry you while you wallow in your woes. In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve all lost those closest to us. You were fortunate to have her as long as you did.”
Nathan stood rooted in place, unable to accept the audacity of William’s words. Had he dared call Nathan fortunate? Nathan shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve heard what you had to say. You should leave now.”
“Just make sure you understood it. Really understood it, Nathan.” William didn’t seem to feel the need to press on for further conversation. At least he showed Nathan that small respect. Nathan slammed the door in his face, making sure to engage the dead bolt before returning to his bed.
Davidson
He hadn’t touched the duffel bag stashed on the top shelf in the closet since he had arrived back stateside. He had cleaned all his gear before his return to the States for leave. He liked to keep the two parts of his life as separate as possible.
They were merging ever quickly, he realized, as he stretched to grab the cloth handle of the duffel. Its contents shifted, and he eased his pull. Though everything was safely disassembled, he hated the thought of something getting scratched because he couldn’t spare an extra second to be careful.
Pulling the bag down with one hand, he caught it with both arms. It seemed noticeably heavier than it had felt when he had stowed it in the closet a couple of months ago. He wondered how much muscle tone he’d lost since then.
Carrying the bag to the bed, he tossed it onto the perfectly tucked sheets. Old habits died hard. Though he hadn’t
washed the sheets in ages he still made the bed every morning when he woke. Just because civilization have abandoned them didn’t mean he had to abandon be civilized. The familiar sound of the zipper as he pulled it open soothed him, as did the sight of the polished metal that sat inside.
Seeing them now, he admitted he had missed his toys. He ran his fingers over the ones on top, pausing to pull out his favorite rifle. Though the bag had felt heavier than before, the rifle still felt as if it was a simple extension of his arm. He hadn’t had the opportunity to practice since the world had gone to shit, so it was going to be interesting to see how his first couple of rounds went off if he had to shoot it.
Placing the rifle on the bed, he ignored the small pang in his heart as he removed the scope. It was sacrilege, almost, to separate the two parts of the whole. To use the scope without aiming the rifle wouldn’t feel right. But survival was about adaptation, after all, and he hardly needed the rifle to assess the situation on the first floor.
Removing the scope was the easy part. Figuring out how to employ the scope to see would be the tricky part, though he had an idea in mind.
His idea, however, turned out to be fruitless as he quickly came to realize he had no way to see through the scope when it was lowered to the window