“How many did they kill?” Reaver shouted to the remaining members of her crew - I counted ten. Some shouted twenty-two. “God damn it,” Reaver shouted slamming her gun down on the table in front of her.
“Can we take ten?” I asked Kyle who seemed to be doing the calculations in his head. I was watching him when his eyes went wide before, he nodded pointing to the table near Reaver. I looked and understood immediately. On the table sat three glass bottle, dirty white rags spilling out of them. They were crude but I recognized the device from movies - Molotov’s. A well-placed shot would cause all three to shatter, killing at least the six standing nearby.
“Do you want the honors?” I asked Kyle. He struggled with the answer, his missing eye would mess with his depth perception and I could see he was worried he would miss. “Go ahead,” I said. “I'll aim for backup. You need your confidence back.”
Lining up one of the bottles in my sight I waited while Kyle did the same. I’d let him get his shit off first; if he missed, I had to make sure I hit. Kyle took a deep breath and let it out slowly squeezing the trigger. The sound of the hammer hitting the bullet pulled everyone's attention in our direction, but it was too late for them. Myles bullet shattered the Molotov’s igniting the liquid within.
It was like watching a fireball being born. The explosion fed off the air like a baby at its mother breasts engulfing anyone close enough to be burned. Reaver and six of her crew went up in a blaze of fire their screams sickening, the smell of burning flesh made me vomit.
Kyle also looked a little green around the gills; in this kill or be killed world, while he didn’t want to die, clearly, he didn't like to kill either. I could see now that Dr. Harron was wrong, there were more than two types of people in the world still. Kyle was the type of kill, although he didn't enjoy it, to save himself and others.
When the screams died down the gunfire began. The three remaining members of Reavers crew shouted at one another shooting at Kyle and me.
Three more to go, I thought to myself. Freedom is just three lives away. I opened fire catching one of the remaining three in the chest with a single bullet. Kyle had been aiming for the same one because the man's body fell his bullet tore into the man's forehead.
Clearly the last two saw a losing battle, eight out of ten of them were dead and the third-floor meeting room was burning; the fire was beginning to spread.
“Let’s go,” Kyle said holding the sleeve of his shirt against his mouth to avoid inhaling the smoke. “We need to get out of here now.”
Following Kyle, we made our way off the third floor and down to the second. The scaffolding had been the plan, but the fire that was now raging from the Molotov’s blocked the window it was outside of.
As Kyle started out into the second-floor hallway, I had a bad feeling and was about to say something when the young girl who helped take us hostage blindsided him. She grabbed at his face trying to tear out his other eye; screaming incoherently.
I tried to find an opening to shoot the crazed woman, but she was struggling with Kyle and one miss aimed shot could spell death for him. Moving forward I was about to grab her and throw her off Kyle when he drove his knee into her guy forcing her upwards. She fell back into me knocking my gun out of my hands; knocking the wind from my body as she came crashing down on me.
As I gasped for air the young woman managed to get back to her feet and pull a knife from her belt before lunging at Kyle again. Before Kyle could roll out of the way she jumped down on him driving her knee into his groin.
Kyle cried out in pain as he fought to keep his strength, which was beginning to give. Holding the woman at gay Kyle tried to get his own knee up again to give him a moment to regain his strength but the woman was wild and seemed to be getting stronger.
“Augh,” Kyle cried out as the woman but his shoulder breaking skin and drawing blood. Finally, Kyle managed to get his hand around the woman's throat long enough to make gag. When she moved to grip Kyle's hand, he made his move.
Letting go of the woman's throat he let her fall forward onto him. Gripping her hand with the knife he pulled it up, using the momentum of her hand to drive the small blade into her throat.
Blood spilled all over Kyle as the woman fought to stop the bleeding. She gripped her throat trying to stance the bleeding or at least slow it, but it did no good. Using her eyes, she tried to plead with us to help her as blood bubbled from her lips.
We watched her die. From the moment the knife entered her throat until she pitched forward and died; we did absolutely nothing to save her.
The day seem to drag on as we laid in the hallway of the second floor. The young woman laid dead on the ground, the blade Kyle had driven into her throat, a small blade he had pulled from her belt, laid on the ground next to her. The gun she had planned to kill me with lay not far from her body. It looked like it was finally over, and we would be able to get out of here and head for the water, sail away to a distant land and maybe, just maybe, survive in peace.
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. The entire ordeal had seen so many people die at our hands. I kept returned to the words of Dr. Harron. How was I supposed to be the kind of person he wanted me to be when I had caused so much death? I wish Dr. Harron was here, he would have found a way to reason with these people to make them see the error of their ways without having to resort to so much violence. But he wasn’t here, he had died at the hospital along with Benjamin and Michael.
Laying my head back on the cold floor I wanted to just sleep forever but that idea was short lived. It was low at first, but I heard it. The sound of heavy booted footfalls coming closer, quickly. I knew it was a larger man before I even seen him, he appeared at the door, covered in blood and panting. It was one of Reavers crew, one who had managed to survive.
The look in his eyes when he noticed the young woman dead on the ground was one of pain and sorrow, clearly, he had run all this way thinking he could save her. The man who looked exhausted suddenly seem to fill with an uncontrollable rage, sliding through the pain of his loss so quickly I almost missed it.
Was this man her husband or father? Maybe a sibling or a friend who had survived with her. I didn’t know and it didn’t matter now. It took a moment, but he spotted me, laying against the wall, and Kyle, laying on the ground near the young woman. Although it was me, he had seen first it was onto Kyle the man projected his rage. Kyle after all was the one covered in the young woman’s blood. The look in the man’s eyes said more than any words could have; his pain, his loss, it had turned his anger into a bloodlust. This man wanted to kill someone, to take from them what they had taken from him - a life. The look in his eyes said he was going to kill Kyle first - I wasn’t going to let him do that.
“No,” I heard myself scream as I scrambled to my feet. I noticed Kyle out of the corner of his eyes moving to grab the gun, there would never be enough time; this man, he would kill Kyle before he even got a shot off. Without thinking, knowing that what I was doing was being one of the two kinds of people Dr. Harron told me not to be, I leapt in between Kyle and the gunman.
The gun erupted, almost as if in slow motion, the bullet tore from the chamber. I felt a searing heat in my chest, as if someone had pushing a red-hot poker through me, and then I was falling. When I hit the ground, I hear someone else screaming. My head rolled to the side to see Kyles hand grip the gun on the ground and suddenly he was on his feet the gun blasting, the entire clip emptied. For a moment it didn’t look like Kyle was going to stop screaming but he finally did and then he noticed me.
“Kyle,” I heard myself say. He gripped my hand tried to console me with his words of finding something to stop the bleeding, something to save me, but I knew it was too late. “The bullet, it’s in my chest,” I said. “There is nothing you can do, please just listen.”
I told Kyle what Dr. Harron had told me about the two kinds of people that existed in this world now. That there were only two kinds of people in this world now, the on
es who saved others by dying and the ones that saved themselves by killing others.
“I promised I'd be the third kind,” I said coughing; I could take the blood on my lips. “I couldn't let you die for me, I broke my promise. Please be the person I could not be, be the person who lives by saving other people. You were well on your way, you saved me.”
The darkness crashed over me as I felt my breath slide out in a long-drawn sigh.
.TEN.
The Road Beyond
I stood, back against the wall and peering into the porthole in the kitchen doorway. I held my flashlight in one hand and my gun in the other as I did a quick sweep across the room. Far in the back corner, the noise that Joanne had heard, I saw the source - there was a child in the kitchen. The young girl was cowering in the corner, frightened, sobbing bitterly.
Do not do it. I could hear my paranoid brain screaming at me. There were all sorts of red flags and sirens going off in my head, but I decided to push them aside. This was a child who was lost in a world that no longer offered children and more solace and innocence than it did the adults that had survive. If anything, it offered them less.
It is going to be a trap, my brain continued in a harsh judgmental tone it echoed inside my brain. You are going to regret this. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and plunged head first into the kitchen.
“No,” Joanne screamed from somewhere across the room. I leaned up to look and saw her running towards the man with the gun. Clearly, he was aiming at me. The girl that laid dead on the floor, the one who had attacked me, she must have meant something to him.
Sudden realization dawn on me, I was no longer in the diner, I was on the second floor of the hotel Reaver had locked Joanne and I in, what was going on. Turning my head, I noticed the gun on the floor not far from where I laid. Desperately scrambling to my feet, I lunged for the gun but before I reached it, I heard another go off. My first instinct was to check if I had been shot, but I knew I hadn’t been. Turning around I watched, almost as if in slow motion, Joanne stumbled and pitched forwards, falling to the ground. Behind her the man glared, clearly, he had used his last bullet on the wrong person.
Anger born of pain erupted inside me like lava bursting forth from the top of a volcano, and I grabbed the gun that lay near me now. I unloaded all thirteen rounds in the gun, each one stuck the man who had shot Joanne. Even when the man laid on the ground dead, I kept pulling the trigger of the now empty gun. As I stood there pulling the trigger, I became aware that someone was screaming. It took me a moment to realize that it was me screaming.
Tears filled my eyes as I looked over to see Joanne laying on the ground, her chest was barely rising and falling. I dropped the gun and moved quickly to her side. Gathering up her head I laid it on my lap. The man had only been able to unload a single bullet, but it was all he would need, it was in the worse place - her chest.
“Kyle,” Joanne said weakly, reaching up to grab my forearm.
“I’m here,” I said trying to steady my voice. “Stay still, I have got to find something to stop this bleeding.”
“Kyle,” Joanne repeated coughing. There was blood her lips, she was bleeding internally. “The bullet, it’s in my chest, there is nothing you can do. Please just listen.”
Just listen. Listen. Listen. Joanne’s voice echoed those words in my thoughts as I sat up. They were amongst the last words she said to me. The full ache I still felt losing her was there every night when I went to sleep and every morning when I woke up. My dreams it seemed would never let me let her go.
Sitting up, I slid my feet off the bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It took time to bring myself back to the present. I dreamt about my bunker, the hospital, the diner, and Reavers safe house; constantly remembering those who were gone. They were the lucky ones, losing Joanne made me the unlucky one.
The bed I was in was in a second-floor abandoned apartment far from Reavers safe house. After burning Joanne’s body in my own personal funeral to say goodbye I wandered for weeks, heading towards the edge of the city. I had stumbled from the Reavers safe house lost and alone - again.
Pushing myself up to sit on the edge of the bed I stretched; I knew I wasn't going to sleep anyways. I had barely slept much since Joanne and it didn't look like it was going to get any better. Reaching into the backpack beside the bed I pulled out a half bottle of water and drained it.
She is dead, I thought to myself as I screwed the cap back on the bottle and placed it, empty, back into the backpack. And, it’s my fault.
I shouldn't have gone into the kitchen at the diner. Had I been smarter and listened to my inner thoughts, my paranoid brain, I never would have. We could have avoided Parker and his crew and never been traded off to Reaver - and Joanne, she would still be alive.
Taking a deep breath, I got up and cross the room to where I had a rifle, snatched from Reavers storage before I left, set up. Staring down the scope I surveyed the street below and the roads beyond.
The mutated in this area seemed to roam about, almost as if stuck in a loop of their former life. One such mutated was an elderly man who lived, so to speak, in an apartment across the street. He continued to go about his daily routine and had it not been for my paranoid thoughts I would have mistaken him for a living normal person; if normal even existed anymore.
I had watched the man go about his daily routines all while wondering if he was consciously aware that he was different; that the world he was living in now was different. To keep track of the types of mutated I had encountered I had begun documenting them. These particular mutated I called Loopers, simply because they were caught in a loop of what their life had once been.
More than once I had considered going down and outside, coming face to face with the old man to see how he would react to me; but I didn't. Joanne had wanted to be that type of person who rose above all this to be something else, she had survived so much and didn't get to see the road beyond the hell we were in. Before she passed, she asked me to make the same promise she had made to Dr. Harron but to her instead.
“I promise Joanne,” I said to myself as I watched the old man. Though she could never hear it now I planned to keep the promise I made to her and to myself. I would rise above this and find a way to better my life and the life of others I came across.
As I prepared to turn around, to return to the bed and get things ready for the day ahead - the journey ahead - something cause my attention. Outside, just beyond the sidewalk, within the shadows of the alleyway; he was there staring at me. The same look in his eyes that had been there the first time, the same half smirk grin.
“Stenson,” I whispered to myself. I had to blink my eye and squint. Was it really him or was my mind playing tricks on me? After a moment I stepped back from the window; it was definitely Stenson. The last time I had seen the former cop, turned mutated family murderer, he was locked under the rubble that was his home. I had travelled for weeks leaving that neighborhood, been to different parts of the city, how did he end up here? What he following me?
Crouching down I moved closer to the window and peered up and out, looking into the alleyway across the street - he was gone. Had he even been there I wondered? Part of me wondered if perhaps he was following me; was there some drive left in him to seek me out? Everyone in the neighborhood knew I was paranoid, that I had paid for a bunker to be installed inside my home. Perhaps, just maybe, Stenson's mutated brain blamed me for the death of his family, for not offering them the protection of my bunker.
Stay calm. I heard another voice inside my head. Don’t lose your cool, it could cost you your life. The voice inside my head it was Joanne’s. While I knew she wasn’t really there, I could almost feel her presence and wondered if it was just my fear building or was I going crazy. Risking it I popped my head out the window to see if Stenson had crossed the street and was out of my line of sight, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Returning to my bed I sat down and took a deep breath. The last time I had encounter a
man with the same characteristics as Stenson, I was headed towards the hospital and it took emptying an entire clip to bring him down. Even then, there was a split second where I thought he wouldn't go down and I would die right there in the concrete maze the street had become.
When he had finally died, falling in the street, I noticed something on his neck, a black little square that crumbled upon his death. A sudden thought hit me as I sat staring at the floor. Reaver and her crew had been able to control a group of mutated, were able to walk alongside them and then at the punch of a few buttons had them attack and kill Parker and his crew.
Closing my eye, I tried to remember as much detail as I could about the day, I left the bunker. When
Climbing across the rubble that was once the Stenson home I stopped for a moment and listened. The sound was faint, but it was there, a whimpering, but there was something else, something I didn’t hear when I cross the home. It was fainter than the whimpering, but it was there, behind me. It was whispering. Someone else had been there that day, beyond my line of sight, where I could not see them.
I crawled over the house and moved towards the back. Finding the backstairs under the collapsed roof I shoved it aside slightly and climbed down. I was standing at the back door. The whimpering was louder, the sound of shuffling from Stenson was present, but again, there it was low but closer, the whispering. Someone was following me.
Stenson was staring at the wall, slowly walking into it. I had my flashlight in my hand, I could see his wife and children dead on the floor. The dog was torn in half like a piece of discarded paper, dying but not yet dead. He noticed the light out of the corner of his eye, and he stopped shuffling and slowly turned around.
Survival Series (Book 1): Survival Page 11