The Survival Pact
Page 16
She shoved it into her mouth and then spit it out a minute later.
“That’s not good at all.”
I shook my head. “Listen, if you walk back that way, I think you’ll probably find the way back to town. You cannot follow me. I don’t have enough food for the both of us and if you stay with me you may get killed.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the only one that has a weapon and you can’t fight for yourself,” I pointed out sarcastically. “I just learned how to shoot a gun and I cannot protect myself and you.”
She nodded. “Well, I do know that there is a freeway that way, maybe.” She looked confused. “Actually, I’m not sure where anything is anymore.”
Remembering I had a compass, I fished around for it and pulled it out. I wouldn’t have all this if it weren’t for Lou and that fact wasn’t lost on me. Neither was the fact that I didn’t know where to go.
I picked up my bag and slung it over my back, tucked Snack into my jacket and zipped her up in it.
“So, if the freeway is that way,” I said to myself. “Then the coastline might be that way, and I want to stay away from there. So I’m heading north.”
I left the safety of the little spot that housed me for the night and planned on walking until I found another safe place to stay, and possibly another school for food.
After an hour of walking Linda was beginning to lag behind horribly. She told me to slow down several times but I refused to listen; I was surviving for myself not for her. I kept walking until I saw a small outline of a town about a mile away. Not knowing what I was walking into made me hold back for a bit so I could observe from here. What I saw shocked me because we hadn’t seen anything like this on our travels. A large fence surrounded a huge portion of the town and military were posted high upon towers and vehicles with their guns aimed at anything that posed a threat.
I stepped out of the tree line and walked toward it hoping for a place to call safe until this all died down. If it ever did. Linda went rushing past me, almost knocking me over, and waved her hands. Snack popped her little head out of my jacket and watched, growling softly.
“Help!” she yelled at the men in the towers. “I need help!”
“State your business?” a burly guy said, as he came up to the fence. I noticed that he didn’t see me yet and something told me to hang back to watch how it all played out.
As the scene unfolded before me, I realized I didn’t want to be part of Linda’s insanity. She began to cry and fell to the ground in desperation. She rambled on about how she lost her husband and she needed a place to stay and how she was trapped in the radio station for a week without food; which was a lie. Then she told him how she killed a dead thing with her bare hands. Liar.
I shook my head and laughed quietly to myself. He watched her wave her arms and cry without any emotion on his face.
“Come on up to the fence,” he demanded, and as I watched her walk toward the fence I felt a sense of uneasiness about the whole thing. Not that I didn’t trust my military, but the scenario gave me a bad feeling. He looked her over and turned away saying something to another guy who laughed at him.
“Can you shoot a gun?” he asked her.
She shook her head and then he looked her up and down, examining her.
“We’re full.”
Her mouth opened and closed like she was gasping for air.
“What do you mean, full?”
“Are you stupid? We. Don’t. Have. Room.”
Linda fell down to the ground and cried even harder.
“I don’t understand, if you were full, why did you tell me to come closer? Why did you give me hope?”
I began to feel badly for her then and walked forward to scoop her up. If I had to, I’d help her. She didn’t belong here with these assholes anyway. But as I walked out of the woods toward her, I heard a rustling to the side of me and noticed it was a lifeless. But unlike any I had ever seen before. This one was bloated beyond belief like it died in a horrific drowning. It had trouble walking but Linda didn’t see it.
I tore out of the tree line and shot it with my gun, missing it entirely.
“Linda, get up!” I yelled, as I tripped over a branch. Snack jumped out of her pouch and ran toward it barking. The swollen lifeless turned away from her and locked its eyes on me and the dog. Pulling up my gun I shot it again, this time taking it down for good. Linda helped me up and thanked me. She wiped her tears and that’s when I heard the gate open up.
“We have room for you,” a guy in uniform said, as he stepped out from the gate.
I shook my head and pushed Linda toward him. “Take her. I have somewhere to go already.”
“We need someone good with weapons. Anyone else is a liability and we can’t afford those anymore. From the looks of her, she’s high-maintenance and she can’t take care of herself. We’ve already lost thirty-seven people due to stupidity in the last three days.”
This guy was ridiculous. “So you’re telling me that all the people inside there with you can shoot and protect themselves?” I asked.
He nodded. “They’ve already been training or are already trained prior to the attacks. We are trying our hardest to make sure people can protect themselves and this camp. If they can’t do that, they will take us down and we cannot fail. Anyone else is just dead weight. We have orders, ma’am.”
I took one look at Linda and then back at him. I handed her my gun and said, “Shoot that tree.”
She took it with shaky hands and shot. It missed. She handed it back to me already giving up. I shook my head. “Shoot it again, Linda. This time pretend it’s a lifeless and it’s going to kill you,” I said, as I came up behind her. “Take a deep breath, Linda.”
She held it up and this time she took a deep breath like I told her and hit the tree upon her shot. She smiled at me.
I looked at the soldier and said, “There. Now she’s trained.”
The soldier rolled his eyes and took her inside. Then he turned to me and said, “Are you sure? Do you know what’s going on out there, it isn’t safe. Those things aren’t the only threat.”
“You really have some nerve, you know that? You turned away a woman and then offer it up like it’s the caring thing to do. And yes, I do know what’s going on,” I told him. “I know what you’re talking about and it isn’t a threat, it’s salvation. Idiot.”
I took back my gun and walked away from Linda and the camp. I had to be with my friends. Running away was the stupidest thing I had ever done, besides marrying Sam. I had to find them and apologize to them for what I had done.
****
Snack and I had been walking forever when I noticed the sun was going down; another day gone by. I needed a place to hole up for the evening so I could keep this up again tomorrow. I searched the area around me and found another tree with a huge hole in it; the forest was full of them. I searched it for bugs and creatures and when I didn’t see anything, I climbed inside. Snack sat on my lap as I went through my bag for my evening meal. I nibbled on a fruit bar and handed a little to the dog. It wasn’t enough for her so I decided to break apart one of the MRE’s. I had never made one of these in my life, but it couldn’t be that hard. Walking for two days straight had drained me and I was exhausted and hungry. I followed the instructions as quietly as I could just in case there was anything around listening for any humans. I was surprised to see the amount of food inside the plastic bag and filled the heating element with water. I sat and waited for my meatballs to cook as Snack sniffed it hungrily. Poor dog probably ate several times a day and now that she was with us, she was forced to starve.
In a few minutes I had a pretty good meal that I shared with her and it filled both our bellies. I was surprised that it also had a little cake and extras with it. But I didn’t open all of it. I decided to wait until the morning to finish the rest.
I looked around the outside looking for any Lifeless just in case I needed to jump out of the hole. I slowly grabbed my flashlight and clicked it on and looked up. Crawling around inside with me was a snake. It curled up as my light hit it and with as much speed as I could muster, I tore out of the hole and bit back my scream. But, of course, Snack began barking like mad at the snake.
“Shh… it’s okay, Snack.” I ran my hands over her fur trying to calm her down and keep her quiet so she didn’t alert anyone or anything that we were here. I had to get away from this spot and that snake as fast as I could. I began walking again, having a bit more energy now after the meal. Snack sniffed the ground, ate something, and then came back my way. The sun was gone and it was completely dark outside now. I wouldn’t be able to see a lifeless unless I came right up on it, and having my flashlight on wasn’t a good idea either. I stopped walking when I heard something in front of me. I strained my eyes to see what it was, but it was too dark out. So I relied on my ears and listened as I closed my eyes.
Water. I opened my eyes and walked toward the sound, wishing the moon would break through the thick trees above so I could see. I tripped and fell on my knees and that was about it for me. I clicked on my flashlight and shined it in front of me. There in my path was a nice little camping spot where someone was staying. A tent was set up and a fire pit, except that it looked like no one was there at the present moment.
With a beating heart, I walked forward, afraid of what I would find.
“Hello?” I called out. When I got no answer I went closer to the fire, and while there was remnants of a previous fire, it was cold to the touch. If anyone was here, they were either dead or they hadn’t come back. Or perhaps they hadn’t had a fire in days.
The tent in front of me was unzipped so I peeked inside, praying I didn’t find a dead body. When no one was inside I took a sigh of relief. Someone had been here and they had plans on camping for a long while. Food was stacked up inside of melted coolers and clothes and luggage remained. I turned around to inspect the area and found a small car parked to the left. I approached carefully and pulled my gun from the holster. Snack stayed back behind me which was not like her at all. I looked around the car, shining my light and saw movement. When it moved, I stopped and my breathing became heavy. It stood up and came around the car, its eyes, or what was left of them, locked on mine. This was the worst Lifeless I’d ever seen, not due to the evil that resided inside, but because it’s head was huge and bulging and not because of swelling. No it wasn’t that simple.
I realized that I was in absolute panic mode as it slowly walked toward me with its large head leaning to one side. That head seemed alive as it moved and something definitely crawled around inside as it pushed the flesh outward. When the lifeless opened its mouth, several wasps flew out and then back inside.
“Oh. My. God.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. A lifeless with a head full of the things that scared me the most; wasps. I backed up as far as I could go until I felt something behind me that wasn’t budging. I glanced down quickly and saw bodies of humans and they weren’t killed in the normal head bashing way. They had thousands of stings all over their bodies. What an awful way to die.
I looked back up at Wasp Head and shook my head. I wasn’t going to die like them, but then again, my fear held onto me so tightly that my hands were literally frozen. It was like my mind wouldn’t communicate with my hands. I had always had this damn fear and it was beating me now. I was letting it kill me, literally. I moved around the dead couple and their innocent child and fought the bile that rose up in my throat. They were probably on a family camping trip when Wasp Head killed them. And then I wondered how it even got a head full of wasps in the first place.
I wasn’t going to ask it. I backed away from the gruesome scene slowly, praying he would let me go. My options weren’t that great right now. I could shoot it and risk letting tons of those things out, or I could run back the way I came or into the water. I looked at the car and wished I could run back to it. I’d at least be safe inside there. I decided to go toward the way I came and turned and ran like I usually did when I saw a wasp.
I remember being picked on as a kid whenever I ran from them, but right now I was scared. Not only was there a Lifeless hunting me, but it was the worst possible scenario ever. I saw the tree I had passed and realized that I’d much rather be with that snake than with this thing. It walked faster than I realized and I didn’t stop. But as I ran ahead I felt the familiar pull of wind that I had felt when we saw a tornado take the people on the freeway. I heard the wind and I just knew that another one was coming.
Great! I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go back. Lightening lit up the dark sky and I saw the twister land right where I had left Linda. When I saw the fencing and buildings flying inside the intense cyclone I knew it was over for them. I almost thought I could hear Linda’s yelling, but I knew that couldn’t be. She was probably gone and so was everyone else in that camp. God did what he did best, take them away and leave nothing behind.
22
I turned my eyes away from the tornado and faced Wasp Head. If I didn’t kill this thing, I would be dead just like Linda and everyone else that was sucked away in a blink of an eye. I pulled up my hand and aimed my gun at it. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. It didn’t explode and release a ton of wasps, and it certainly didn’t die.
I tried again and realized like an idiot, I was out of bullets. Any other time I was out, Lou or Emma helped me load it, and now that Wasp Head was so close, I was seriously screwed. I took off running but not toward the cyclone. I ran toward the abandoned car. Wasp Head reached out to grab me but I veered around it just barely missing its fingers. The car was so close but yet so far. I ran helplessly as wasps began flying around me as if that thing had sent them after me. The first sting was on my cheek.
“Aaaahh!” I screamed, as it began stinging me repeatedly. The next sting was my hand and I swatted them away, my worst fear coming true. They had surrounded me and began stinging over and over. The pain became too immense and my legs shook as I tried to get away from them. I knew that I was freaking out when they began crawling up my pant legs.
I dropped to the ground and rolled around like a complete maniac but I just wanted it to stop hurting. I realized that I could die if this continued. Wasp Head’s hands surrounded me and I fought it even through the stings. I reached down for my knife, realizing that if I didn’t kill this thing now I was going to die. It was just like in the station except I was being attacked by two things.
It opened its mouth releasing more wasps and I closed my eyes not wanting to see them as they surrounded my whole body. I didn’t understand why they were so angry with me. I didn’t attack them. I had even stayed away from it; what I normally did when I saw a nest.
When the pain became too much I started seeing black spots in my field of vision and the angry lifeless just held me down as his wild beasts crawled over my skin. I heard Snack’s nippy barking and I reached out for her but she never came.
Here lies Kamila Archer. She fought the good fight only to die a brutal death by wasps.
As I felt my body giving up, I closed my eyes and let them take me away from here.
****
“This is not a test. This is the emergency broadcast system. At the request of your National Government you are advised to take shelter. Lock your doors and wait for your local authorities to releas
e word upon safety. Our country is currently under attack. It is not safe to travel outside or go outdoors for any reason. Make sure you have enough food and water. It is not known how long you will be under this advisement. Again, this is not a test.”
I opened my eyes to the sound of the most annoying beeping and wailing coming from crackling speakers. I blinked, trying to focus on my whereabouts. All I could see was plush tan interior of a car. Not just any car, but a nice one. One that I never had money to buy. I tried to turn my head to look sideways but pain shot up my neck upon movement.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” a voice said to my right. The car lurched and then slowed down. “You’re covered in some pretty nasty stings. I covered you in mud from the lake nearby where I found you. They say mud helps extract the poisons inside, but it leaves you stiff as a board. I honestly didn’t think you’d survive that.”
“Who… who,” was all I could say. My throat was dry and it felt swollen.
“Well, I know you’re not an owl my dear, are you?” She cackled. “I’m just a woman who just happened to be in the area and found you alive, and I’m surprised, really.”
I had no idea who this woman was. But then again, I was alive. And she covered me in mud. If she wanted me dead, I would be.
“My names Bertie. I’ve lived here all my life. It’s a damn shame what these things are doing to my state. They’re nothing but destruction. I try to run ‘em over if I can. If not I chop off their heads. It’s all ugly business, really.”
I wished I could talk and ask this woman where we were exactly, but for fear of making things worse, I stayed quiet. Suddenly thoughts of Snack came rushing toward me. I reached around for the little ball of fur, but I didn’t feel her at all.
“I plan on taking you up to my place. I don’t mean any harm, you can trust me.” She laughed quietly. “I know how preposterous the thought of trusting anyone is now, but I really do mean it.”