Trying to Survive (Part 2)

by C. J. Crowley

  I was glad to hear the rifle go off and watch it fall face-first to the ground – just so I didn’t have to see or hear it anymore. “Right in the middle of the head.” I let out a sigh of relief. “Glad I picked the right dial.”

  Walt dropped his shoulders and his mouth hung open for a few seconds before he said “You just guessed?”

  I nervously smiled. “It’s been a long time… and I guessed right – that’s what’s important.”

  Chapter 5

  Jessie and Brian took the time to thoroughly search the house before the rest of us climbed through the back window. The garage was even empty, so it appeared as though no one was home when people started to turn.

  The inside was nothing short of pristine – almost like it was never lived in. The marble floors were spotless, the white carpeting and wood flooring looked brand new and I could smell fresh paint.

  Walt figured it out too. “Shit, guys… No one ever lived here. It’s just furnished – I can smell the fresh paint.”

  I took the long walk to the granite riddled kitchen and checked the unnecessarily large fridge. “You’re right. The fridge still has the manual sitting in it.”

  Jessie groaned out an especially loud “Fuck!” and Brian said “Looks like we might have to move on. We’re gonna be getting low on food soon – we gotta stock up before we hit the road again.”

  I left the kitchen and went over to the arrangement of windows at the front of the house. It was a large bay design, so it enabled me to see all the way to the end of the street. I took a few seconds to look around the neighborhood again. When I noticed that only one out of the thirteen driveways I could see had a car parked in it, I figured out why the whole place seemed so empty.

  I turned back to everyone and said “This is a brand new development. Most of the homes were never sold… That’s why the place is a ghost town and everything looks so perfect.”

  Jessie clenched his fists, took several steps forward and then kicked a small table a few feet across the room. Anthony and Clara grabbed on to Melanie and she forcefully demanded that he calm down.

  I guess Jessie has a temper…

  Walt said “What’s the big deal? I saw a few houses with cars outside when we were driving around.”

  Jenny added “Yeah, calm the hell down Jessie. We can still stay here.”

  Walt walked over near Brian and leaned up against the wall. “The three of us can go out tomorrow and search the other houses. It’ll be easy since there aren’t too many shredders around – this all seems like a good thing to me.”

  Jessie paced the room for a few moments and then fell back onto one of the couches. “Yeah, you’re right… Sorry everyone – I’m just a little tense.”

  “Oh? I wasn’t aware there was a point in your existence when you weren’t tense. Are you talking about before I met you or something?” Jenny remarked with sharp sarcasm.

  Brian smirked as he tried to hold back his laughter. Jessie pressed his lips together, folded his arms across his chest and jokingly glared at Jenny with a curled lip.

  Melanie said “So, the house is clear, right?”

  Jessie replied “Yep, checked every room and closet.”

  “Well, since I have the kids – we get the biggest room.” Melanie said as she smiled and led Anthony and Clara away.

  Anthony looked up at Melanie and gently pulled at her arm. “Can we stay upstairs?”

  “It’ll keep us further away from those things.” Clara said in her usual delicate and apathetic tone of voice.

  “Of course we can. We’ll go upstairs and you two can pick the room. Sound good?”

  The inside of the house felt like a sauna. It was so hot that the slight breeze coming through the broken window felt like it had been treated with Freon. I wanted nothing more than to start opening up all them, but we just couldn’t take the risk. If anything, we had to block off the broken one.

  Brian peeled his shirt away from his chest and collapsed into the plush, maroon leather chair across from Jessie. “Wow, so this is what a millionaire’s chair feels like, huh?”

  Walt walked over and sat on the other side of the couch. “So, military scientists who work with NASA aren’t rich?”

  Jessie started to laugh and barely got out “What are you kidding me? If you wanna get rich working for our government, you have to get into politics and start scammin.”

  Brian said “Shit, I’d wanna be in congress. They don’t do anything except… suck at their jobs and go on vacation over two hundred days out of the damn year.”

  After we all had a good laugh, Walt reached over and started feeling around the side of the couch. After a few seconds, he groaned out “Ah, here we go” and the seat reclined and lifted up his feet.

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Jessie said as he reached over and did the same. Brian started checking the sides of his chair, but when he couldn’t find a way to make it recline, he muttered “Mother…fucker.”

  Jessie recognized his frustration, pointed at him and started to laugh again. Brain slowly raised his hand and extended his middle finger. “Eat a dick.”

  “Fry it up – it’s all good. I got my couch, baby… Just make sure to put some ketchup on it or something.” Jessie was amused with his comment and began laughing harder than ever before. Walt and I couldn’t help but chuckle as well. They reminded me of the way we were before all this started.

  Brian’s face suddenly turned serious and he said “You… are retarded.”

  “A retard with the greatest God damn reclining couch ever made!”

  Jenny turned away from the window and said “They do this all the time. Just get used to it.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “You will after about a week.”

  I smiled and Jenny went back to studying our surroundings.

  Jessie and Brian continued to bicker and make fun of each other while Walt sat there and took it in as entertainment. I hated to break up their fun, but there was something I needed to discuss with Jessie. I was finding their need to check D.C. bothersome. I felt we already knew what it would be like, and that going so far up north was totally unnecessary.

  I like what Jenny said about looking for more survivors and creating our own safe zone… But we’ve yet to see any evidence that suggests D.C. could possibly be any different than it is here…

  “So, Jessie.” I said at a somewhat elevated level so I could break into their “conversation”.

  He stopped talking and turned to me. I said “Why exactly are we going to Washington?.. We all know nothing’s there.”

  For a moment, I forgot that my leg was injured. I was leaned up against the wall and putting all of my weight on the other side of my body. When I went to move closer to them, I swung my leg forward like nothing was wrong and gave it all my weight – causing me to groan in pain and almost fall.

  Walt lunged out of his seat and I put my hand up. “I’m good.”

  Walt ignored my pride-driven demand and took my arm. “Take my spot. You need your feet up a lot more than I do… Sorry, I didn’t even think about it.”

  Jessie’s eyes slowly followed us as Walt guided me over to the couch and helped me fall back onto it. I couldn’t tell whether his bleak and questioning expression meant that he felt bad for me, or that he regretted ever picking us up… I wouldn’t blame him…

  He most likely felt the same fear that’s been chewing at the back of my brain since they found us – What if my weakened state gets one of them killed?.. I can already tell they’d be willing to risk their lives for us…

  Once I was done adjusting myself to a comfortable position, he said “We need to check it out because it’s the best place to look for a safe-zone… And yes, we all know it’s probably a waste of our time.”

  Brian brought his right foot up, rested it on his knee and sunk back into the chair. “And we need to find more survivors. It’s a good distance to D.C., so it’ll give us the opportunity to search a lot of different places along the way.”


  “That’s still an unnecessarily long and dangerous journey to make – especially since the main highways are fucked... If we look hard enough, I know we’ll end up finding more than a few people in this area alone.”

  Jessie said “Don’t be so sure about that. We’ve driven across half the state and only run into two other people besides you guys.”

  Brian scoffed “Yeah, and they tried to kill us.”

  Walt pulled over a chair from the dining room table, sat down and leaned forward – showcasing his desire for Brian to continue the story. “What happened?”

  Jessie and Brian’s expressions softened and their eyes glazed over. Brian wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared at the arrangement of fake flowers on the coffee table. Within his first few words, I could sense the tragedy enveloping his drastically altered tone.

  “There were three others with us when we finally escaped the base. Xander, Clark and Rhona… We stopped at an empty Mobil station in Daytona to gather supplies... The second we all stepped out of the van, Clark took a bullet to the stomach. Rhona was dead before she hit the ground.”

  I knew something had happened to them… but that? What the hell is wrong with people?

  Jessie cut in. “The shots were silenced, so we had no idea where they were coming from.”

  When Jenny left the front bay and started to head for the stairs leading to the second floor, Jessie said “Everything alright, Jenny?”

  She came to a stop near the island in the kitchen, and without turning around, she said “I’m going to check on Melanie and the kids. I was there. I don’t need to hear the story too.”

  Brian waited for her to disappear around the corner and quietly remarked “Jenny and Clark were… They were planning on getting married.”

  “All we could do was drag Jenny into the store and hide – listen to Clark suffering as he bled to death… They had us perfectly pinned down. I let my head show in the window for a split second and a bullet came through and missed it by an inch… We couldn’t do a fuckin thing.”

  Jessie got up from the couch and walked over to the French doors that led into back yard. He drew the blinds so he could look outside as he said “After about five minutes, a drone landed by the front door.”

  Walt was clearly stunned. “A drone?” He said with a somewhat strangled voice.

  Brian said “A fucking drone… with a note on it. These assholes had a clever little scam worked out.”

  That’s what people do instead of trying to work together? Come up with clever ways to fuck each other over?

  Jessie continued. “The note instructed us to leave all of our guns and supplies near the front of the store, then get in our van and drive away. After about a minute it just flew off.” He brought his hands to his hips. “Now that I look back – I wish I’d shot the fuckin thing, but I was just so stunned.”

  Walt was still in disbelief. His mouth was hanging open and his eyebrows were so far down that they were almost touching the bridge of his nose. “That’s crazy. Why couldn’t they have just fired a few warning shots!?”

  “They paid for what they did… Brian came up with the idea to leave everything behind but one rifle. When we drove away, I slowed down to take a corner and he jumped out so he could take a position in one of the buildings.”

  Brian said “Their little plan must have been working like a charm until we showed up. Within ten minutes, these two pricks just casually strolled up and started looking through all the shit we left in front of the store… I dropped one and popped the other’s head before he even realized his buddy was down.”

  Jessie scoffed “We learned a valuable lesson about trusting people that day… Shit, we almost didn’t stop when you guys fired as we drove by. Luckily, Jenny was watching through the back window and noticed you were purposely aiming high.”

  Walt took a deep breath through his nose and said “Sorry that happened to you guys.”

  Jessie and Brian both pressed their lips together and nodded in recognition. I wanted to ask more questions, but I could tell they needed a few moments of silence. When I glanced over at Walt, his grim expression suggested he needed some time to let their story truly sink in.

  Even though I had already suspected that type of thing was going on – for whatever reason, the story deeply upset me. And it wasn’t so much because they lost their friends… It was the fact that people don’t understand how important it is to work together… We could have four more people in our group right now, and their presence could have saved the other guy they lost along the way – none of them had to die…

  Chapter 6

  The house was so large that it offered a fully furnished room for each one of us. When I fell back onto the massive, snow-white bed, I was instantly met with a level of comfort I’d never experienced before. Even the pillows were perfect. The purposely aged wood flooring, elegantly designed bathroom and medieval style, bronze light fixtures made me feel like I’d won a lavish vacation.

  It only lasted for a few seconds before I laughed and thought to myself – Vacation to where?.. Hell?

  The sun had only gone down a few hours ago, but we were all so exhausted that everyone turned in early. Based on my own feelings, I suspected that everyone really just wanted some time to be alone with their own thoughts.

  Tomorrow, we’d have to start searching the neighborhood for food and water... I was already pissed off because I knew I’d be left behind due to my leg.

  Melanie and I were starting to run low on painkillers so I was rationing. Really being able to feel the pain was finally making me understand just how long it was going to take for my leg to heal – and that all I’ve been doing by using it so much is prolonging the process.

  I kept telling myself that I needed to sleep – that it’s when the body truly gets to heal. My eye was heavy and every muscle was begging for rest, but I soon found trying to be a waste of time. My mind was doing too good of a job keeping me wide awake.

  The moon was clearly visible through the sliding-glass door leading out to a small, but welcoming balcony. The air in the room was hot and stale, so I eased myself out of bed, opened it all the way and stepped outside… Still hot as shit…

  I pulled out the pack of cigarettes Jessie gave me and dug around for my lighter. There was a rather large pond in the backyard directly across from me. It was producing a headache-inspiring amount of different noises from all the frogs and bugs chirping away. They so were high pitched and annoyingly loud that it wasn’t long before they drove me back inside.

  Can’t even leave the damn door open…

  Knowing it was a waste of my time to try and fall asleep, I left the room and headed down the hallway. When I walked past Melanie’s door I heard the light squeal of hinges. It was cracked open and I barely noticed the gleam of an eye staring out at me.

  I came to a stop and the door eased its way open – revealing Anthony. He whispered “Where are you going?”

  “I was just going to hang out downstairs for a while.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Why not? What’s the matter?” They did spend most of their time sleeping on the way here…

  “I saw a dog outside and I know those things are gonna get it.”

  Shit… I’m all about helping animals – just not at a time like this. What the hell should I say?... I sighed and leaned down as far as I could without hurting my leg. “We’re goin out there tomorrow to look for food. I promise I’ll save the dog if I come across it – it can come along with us… Now go back to bed and get some rest.”

  My lie didn’t seem to comfort him. He still held onto the wrinkled expression of being close to tears as he slowly nodded and closed the door.

  I felt so terrible. For a moment I actually considered heading outside to try and make friends with the dog so we could take it with us… It would really make them happy, but we just can’t… Or maybe we can? Would it really that big of a deal?

  As I walked down the stairs, I
noticed that my bandages were feeling old and soggy again. To kill time, I found the duffle bag, gathered up everything I’d need and headed to the bathroom… it’s time for me to see what they did… Along the way, I grabbed two large candles that were sitting atop decorative stands on a small table placed under a painting in the hall.

  After I lit both candles and rested them on the sink, I stood in front the mirror and looked myself over. My clothes were filthy and riddled with random blood stains. My hair was wild and greasy, the stubble on face was turning into a beard and I’d been scratching at it so much that my neck was raw… I look like a crazy person... Do I even need all this shit wrapped around my head anymore?

  First I peeled the bandage from my cheek, taking some hair with it. The gashes were fully scabbed up and noticeably smaller in size. I could tell they were going to leave substantial scarring, but there was no point in keeping them covered any longer. If anything, they were at the stage where a little fresh air and dryness would do them some good.

  I opened the small white box with the red cross on it and located the scissors and a pair of tweezers so I could remove the stitches Walt had put in. There were only a few for each cut, and they were all loose and clearly ready to be removed. It took nothing more than a series of cautious snips and gentle tugs with the tweezers to slide them all out.

  I unwrapped the lengthy bandage, put my hands on the sink and leaned closer to the mirror. The only thing left to remove was the square of gauze and tape that held my eye shut.

  I took a deep breath and peeled it away.

  Just as before, the moment air hit my eye and the lid became mobile again, the pain shot through the roof. I stared just long enough to get a good look before I covered it with my hand… I really do look like a monster…

  Part of my eyelid had been ripped away. There were more gashes on my brow and directly underneath my eye that linked up to the ones on my cheek. My eye no longer looked like an eye. The iris and pupil were horribly damaged and barely even visible – it was just a mangled blob of white and red.