by Sourav Deka
I put my hands on my head and sat on the couch in the living room. “Damn it!”
“We should go to the mall,” Keith said.
“No,” Rowena said. “Didn’t you see what was going outside?”
“I know, maybe tomorrow. Things may cool down.”
“Maybe,” I opened the fridge and grabbed a burger. The kid was staring at me with his innocent face. I leaned down towards him. “Are you hungry?” I said.
He nodded. I handed him the burger. He sat on the couch and started eating it.
“We should think about locking the doors,” Aaron said. “Those men came with baseball bats, cleavers, and axes. The door won’t hold.”
I nodded. “Let’s put the couch and the cabinet at the door. We need to block it,” the kid stood up from the couch. I looked at Aaron, Keith and Rowena. “Come on! Help me move it,” I said.
We moved the couch and the cabinet in the living room to the door. “This should do it,” I rubbed my hands to clear the dust.
Everyone opened the fridge and took something to eat. The kid finished his burger and came to me. “I am hungry,” he said.
“You just ate a burger,” I said.
“I am still hungry.”
I smiled. “We have to save food, kid.”
“No, I want another one.”
“Hey kid, relax,” Keith said. “Coming days will be tough. We can’t give you food whenever you want.”
The kid began to cry.
I hugged him and rubbed his back. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I will get you one. Just one, okay,” I shook my finger at him. “You won’t ask again today, okay?”
The kid nodded lightly. I went to the fridge to bring another burger. He was just a kid, I didn’t even know for how long he hadn't eaten. Maybe he hasn’t eaten for days as he lost his parents. He had no one to look after him.
We all had to share and manage the food we have. We couldn’t go out. We had to wait until the situation outside is under control. Maybe the military will show up and control the chaos. That’s what we hoped for. But we didn’t know when. They should have showed up until now, but there was no sign of them. We had to stay inside until it’s safe. We could hear the screams from inside. People were shooting each other, beating up each other. It hadn’t stopped.
“Don’t let the kid manipulate you, Ross,” Keith said.
Rowena slapped Keith’s arm. “What’s wrong with you? He is a kid,” she said.
“Then what?” he gave a half shrug. “We all will be dead if we don’t save food. You have seen what is happening outside.”
“The kid’s mother died. Be a little sympathetic, Keith. He is just a kid,” Rowena walked towards the kid and leaned down to talk. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Luke,” the kid replied.
She forwarded her hand. “I am Rowena, and this is Ross, Aaron and Keith.”
The kid shook her hand.
Aaron turned on the TV. “Ah, there is nothing on TV,” he said.
“Maybe they are dead too,” Keith said, sitting on the sofa nearby.
I called Michael, his phone rang. “At least cell phones are working,” I said.
“Ross, did you get home?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, we are safe for now. Where are you?”
“I am leaving this country.”
My forehead creased. “What? Where will you go?”
“I don’t know, Ross. I haven’t decided. People have gone crazy, my family can’t stay here. We have to go. The world is ending.”
“No, Michael! Wait! Take us with you.”
“No, I am sorry. There isn’t enough time. I am at the airport, we are leaving. If we stay here for long, my family will be dead.”
“Michael…………….”
“Please understand, Ross. I am sorry. I have a family to take care of. Be safe, find shelter, and gather enough food and water. I hope you and Aaron survive. Take care, good luck.”
“Wait! Michael!” Before I could say anything more he hung up.
“What did he say?” Aaron asked.
“He is leaving the country with his family.”
Aaron scoffed. “Leaving the country? Where the hell he would go? People are killing each other everywhere.”
I nodded and rubbed my temples. “I know. But he has to try, he has a family.”
“What about us?” Rowena said.
I put my hands on my waist. “Let’s stay here, and see if we can figure out something.”
CHAPTER 8
A week passed. We saved food and water as much as we could but it was not enough for five of us. We ran out of food in a few days. Some people even tried to bash our door, but they gave up after a couple of minutes and left. We brought our other cabinets and pushed it onto the door to block it. Every night some people come and try to bash our doors. Fortunately, those cabinets helped and blocked the door. They try to break our doors and leave after a couple of minutes. But it couldn’t go on forever. One day they will break the door and come inside. We had to do something. We needed a plan. The military troops didn’t show up. We didn’t even know if there was any military troop or not. Was everyone dead? What happened outside? We had no idea. We were scared to go and find out. For the first few days, we heard the screams, but as days passed by it stopped. I guess most of the people in the town were dead. The cell phones weren’t working. I tried to call Contessa, and Uncle Bill but no luck. We needed help.
“We can’t stay here like this. We will die,” Aaron said.
“We have to go outside looking for food,” I said.
“Wait, if we open that door………..we…… are all going to die,” Rowena said.
Keith looked at Rowena. “If we stay here, then we will definitely die.”
I knew it was dangerous outside. We had no idea what happened these days, but we had no choice. If we stay inside, we will die of hunger. We had to take the risk. As it has been days, there was a good chance that people were gone. The crazy ones who try to bash our door, come only at night, so we decided to go out at noon.
“We have to go. We have no choice,” I walked towards the door. “Help me move these cabinets.”
We moved all the cabinets from the door and peeked through the keyhole to look outside. There were dead bodies lying everywhere.
“It’s bad,” I said. “Very bad.”
I opened the door and we all walked outside. “Oh my god!” Rowena said, covering her mouth. “So many people.”
There was blood everywhere. Crows were feeding on the dead bodies. It smelled like shit. Most of the dead bodies had weapons beside them, some of them were cops. I guess they tried to control the situation, but it wasn’t enough.
I gulped. “Grab whatever you can.”
We checked the pockets of those bodies, grabbed whatever we could, picked up some of the weapons and checked the nearby houses, there was some food.
“Ah, finally,” Keith said and began to eat.
We all joined him. We were hungry for days. But before we could finish it all, we heard a jeep coming. We left the food and hid under a house. The jeep stopped nearby. We peeked through the window to look. There were five people in the jeep with big guns. All of them had their faces covered with yellow bandanas. They got off the jeep, surveyed the area and checked the dead bodies.
“Someone is nearby, someone alive,” a guy said.
“Find them,” another guy said.
All of them started searching. As the weapons were missing from the dead bodies, they knew we were there.
“Oh god! What should we do?” Keith whispered.
Two of them were coming to the house where we were hidden.
“They are coming towards us,” Rowena whispered.
“I know,” I whispered back. “Let’s move to the bathroom.”
Aaron shook his head. “No, no. No matter where we hide, they are going to find us,” he glared at the baseball bat in his hand. “We have to take them down.”
“Are you crazy?” I hissed. “They have guns, Aaron.”
“If they find us, they are going to kill us anyway.”
“No,” I grabbed his arm. “We can avoid this. Look for a back door.”
Those two men were trying to unlock the door. We all went to the bathroom. There was a back door beside it, but it was locked.
“It’s locked,” I said, trying to open it.
Aaron was about to bash the lock with his baseball bat, but I stopped him. “Wait! What the hell are you doing?” I said.
Those men unlocked the door and entered the house. “We are too late. Let’s go to the bathroom,” Keith said.
We entered the bathroom and closed the door. Those two men surveyed the room and noticed the food lying on the floor. “Someone was here. They took the food,” one of the guys said.
“Find them,” the other guy said.
Those guys kept searching the rooms.
“We have to do something,” Keith whispered.
“Be prepared. They will come here,” I whispered back.
“We are dead. We are dead. Oh my god! I can’t die again,” Keith began to shiver.
“Hey, calm down, man,” I grabbed his shoulder. “We will make it.”
“Do you know how it feels to die?” Keith’s throat clenched. “I know okay, I can’t die again, man.”
“We won’t, okay. We will escape this.”
Luke looked at me with his innocent eyes and grabbed my hand. “Will they hurt us?” he said.
I shook my head lightly. “Don’t worry, I will protect you.”
I could see it in his eyes. He was scared. We all were scared. But we had no choice. We had to survive, even if it requires fighting them. Those guys weren’t looking friendly. They won’t hesitate in killing us. The world is not the same as it was before. We have to kill in order to survive.
One of the guys tried to unlock the bathroom. “Hey Mike, the bathroom’s door is locked.”
“Why the hell are you telling me that? Break it,” the other guy replied.
He broke the door and entered the bathroom. Aaron slammed him with his baseball bat on his head. He screamed and fell on the floor holding his head. The other guy heard the noise. “Who was that?” He came running to the bathroom.
I was hiding behind the wall. When he got close, I punched him on the face with every ounce of energy I had and he fell on the floor.
I picked up Luke in my arms. “Run!!!” I screamed as I rushed to the back door.
Keith broke the back door with his axe, and we all ran away from the house. We kept running as fast as we could. We didn’t know where we were going, we just kept running. We needed to get away from them as far as we could, but we couldn’t run far. “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!” Keith screamed and fell. Someone shot him in the leg. “Aaaaaahhhhh! You piece of shit!!” he groaned, holding his leg.
Rowena stopped running and tried to pick him up. Aaron also helped her. Luke started crying in my arms seeing Keith getting shot.
“Come on!!! We will die,” I shouted.
We helped Keith stand up. Another shot was fired. It hit Keith’s leg again. He fell and groaned. One of the jeeps came towards us at full speed and stopped in front of us. Three guys were standing in the jeep pointing their guns at us.
“You want to die here?” one of them said.
I put Luke down and we all raised our hands.
“You shot me!!!!” Keith groaned.
“Shut up!” another guy yelled.
They got out of the jeep. “Who are you?” one of them asked.
We didn’t say anything.
“Who are you?” the muscular guy raised his voice.
“Ross, Ross……… Cromlin,” I said.
“How the hell did you all survive here, huh?? The whole town is dead.”
“Aaaahhh!” Keith screamed in pain as Rowena was trying to stop his bleeding with her scarf.
“Answer me!!!!!” The muscular guy yelled again.
Luke was crying his eyes out holding my leg tight. He was scared.
The muscular guy looked at Luke. “Stop it, kid!”
Luke didn’t even look at him and kept crying. I leaned down and picked him up. I rubbed his back and tried to calm him down. “We were inside my home for days,” I said.
The two guys whom we knocked out in the bathroom came running towards us.
“What did I give you guns for, huh?” the muscular guy shouted at them.
“Sorry, we didn’t know. It just happened so fast. They were hiding in the bathroom,” one of them said.
The muscular guy turned to the other guy. “And you? What’s your excuse?”
“I……….I heard the noise and came running. This guy,” he pointed his finger at me. “He was hiding behind the wall. He took me down by surprise.”
The muscular guy took out his gun and shot them. “Useless idiots,” he growled.
He just killed them in front of us. What should we do? Is he going to kill us? I was confused and scared at the same time. We couldn’t try to run, he already shot Keith.
He looked at the other two guys. “Tie them up. We will take them to Jonas. He will decide what to do with them.”
“Who is Jonas?” Aaron asked.
“You will know,” the muscular guy said. “Don’t try anything, or else I won’t hesitate for a second to shoot you all.”
They tied our hands with ropes and took us in their jeep. We had no idea where they were taking us. The world wasn't the same as before. I could smell death. There were dead bodies everywhere. Many houses were burnt and some were vacant with stray dogs barking around. The roads were empty with a few cars lying around at the side. Some were abandoned, and some were burned down. Keith was suffering all the way. He was groaning and panting in pain. The bullet was still inside his leg. They patched him up to stop the bleeding, it was temporary but that’s what they could do until we reached their place. I wonder where Ambrose is. Is he dead? He should be, all this happened because of him. He brought the apocalypse. Bloody idiot! If he isn’t dead I will kill him by myself.
Finally Luke stopped crying. He was sitting in my lap. “Are we going to die, Ross?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea what’s going to happen. Maybe we will die, maybe we will survive. It all depends on where they were taking us. I wonder what Jonas is like. Is he going to spare us, let us live or is he going to murder us like the muscular guy murdered his own people?
As I got lost in my thoughts, Luke kept looking at me with his innocent eyes waiting for my answer.
I shook my head. “No Luke, we will survive okay. We are strong, you have to stay strong.”
“I can’t,” Luke replied.
I grabbed his cheeks. “You have to. The world is not like it was before.”
He lowered his head. “I miss my mom.”
I gulped and rubbed his arm. “I am sure you do, kid.”
“I am surprised that the kid survived,” the muscular guy said. He was sitting at the front with the driver. “It’s getting worse day by day.”
“Who is Jonas?” I asked.
“You will see.”
“You just killed your guys,” Aaron said.
“They are stupid, always has been,” he said in a heavy voice. “Weak, always weak.”
“What?”
“They are good as dead, never learns. We don’t need weak ones like them.”
I didn’t know what he tried to say, but I nodded and pretended to agree.
“How far is it? We have to take down the bullet from Keith’s leg,” Rowena said.
“We will be there. We need him, that’s why I didn’t aim for his head.”
“What???” Keith’s eyes widened. “You need…………”
“Yeah, yeah, we need people,” the muscular guy rubbed his nose. “Don’t worry, if everything goes well, you will live.”
“You need people? You just shot two of your guys a few minutes ago,” I said.
“As I said they were stupid, weak. We need strong people.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Strong people?”
“We have to start over.”
“Start over? Did the government take some step?”
He chuckled. “The government? That ended when all these started, now there is no government, only lunatics running around killing for food and water.”
“Then what did you mean by starting over?”
“You will see when we reach our destination.”
********************************
They stopped the jeep. It was a huge area. There were farmlands everywhere. Many people were working. Some were taking care of the animals, some were cutting wood, and some were farming.
I stared at the farms and inhaled deeply. “What is this place?”
There was a house in the middle, a big one surrounded by farms. It was the only house in the whole area which had a road connected to the farms. The road was full of tents. I guess the farmers lived there. Three of their guys took us inside the house. The inside of the house was luxurious. It had chandeliers at the top and some sparkling lights on the walls. A couple of book shelves were at the side of the walls along with a big table and a couple of chairs. Some antiques were shining at the top of the bookshelf reflecting sun rays coming through the windows. A tall man was sitting on a sofa eating an apple. He had a deep set of eyes, a chiseled face, long black hair and was wearing a silver suit. “Who are they?” he asked.
“They survived thirty five miles away, everyone was dead,” The muscular guy answered.
“What weapons do they have?” The tall man asked.
“Just melee weapons, no guns.”
He nodded and looked at Keith. Rowena and Aaron were holding him. “You shot him?” he asked.
The muscular guy nodded. “They tried to run.”
“Take him to our doctor.”
Three men stepped forward and took Keith to the doctor. “I will go with you,” Rowena said.
“No, you all are going to stay here,” the tall man said like it was an order.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Jonas,” he replied. “And that muscular guy is Stan. He is my right hand, sorry for his behavior. He can get very aggressive sometimes.”
“What is this place?”