We Are The Survivors

by Vanessa Marie

  “Is Pam going to die?” she asks.

  “No, we will get her back,” she assures ensures.

  The rain is still pouring. I wander the store looking at all the food. There is enough to give away. Zane’s right, we can’t give them food without hearing or seeing the girl first. I feel bad for the girl going through God knows what.

  I’m in the frozen food aisle. The guy who was held at gunpoint is looking in the freezer. He has black razor stubble on his cheeks and chin. He grabs out a pack of fish sticks. Which is weird because I thought the grocery stores recalled seafood products.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He turns to me. “I’m fine. Teenagers don’t scare me.”

  “I have one and he doesn’t act like that, thankfully” I say.

  His eyebrow raises a little. “Really? I wouldn’t expect such a young, pretty woman to have any kids,” he says.

  “I have a husband too,” I say.

  “Oh,” he changes the subject. “This place is one of the best to stay in. The guy on the walkie can’t have it. We stand our ground, let him know who he’s messing with.”

  “He will walk all over us otherwise,” I say.

  “Yeah. I’m going to eat dinner. I’ll try to cook these in the microwave in the lounge,” he says.

  He walks away. I wander the aisles for a long time and I see Kevin on top of the shelves. He calls to me. He tells me he set up the bed and our stuff there.

  I hear a scream. Kevin grabs his rifle and climbs down the shelves trying to get down as fast as he can. I run to the doors where the scream came from. A woman is on the floor getting eaten by the guy I was talking to. I grab his shirt and pull him off her. He grabs my leg and tries to bite me. What made him turn so quickly?

  Zane runs up and shoots him. The woman’s left arm has a big piece of flesh ripped off it. Her arm is bleeding a river. She closes her eyes. The disease is already working its way through her system. Zane shoots the girl in the head.

  He drags them out of the door. He comes back in. Some people gather around. A girl asks what happened.

  “The guy who was going to be shot he turned,” I say.

  “Harry? He’s dead,” she asks.

  “That could have been him…”

  She walks away crying. Zane walks up to me.

  “That was her boyfriend. How did he turn?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. He ate fish…” I connect the dots. They recalled it. Why would they do that?

  I reflect on the week before I went to the hospital. The news said that seafood would no longer be served since people have gotten food poisoning from it. We went on a fishing trip. I caught a trout and it was huge. It’s one of my best catches. I wanted to cook it.

  Gavin told me not to eat it. We planned a fishing trip that day for fun. We didn’t intend on taking any fish. “What could it hurt?” I said. It could hurt a lot. It could kill almost a whole world of people out there. One fish could do that to a person.

  “Where’s Alyssa?” I ask.

  “She’s getting her sketchpad out of the car. She’s a wannabe artist,” he says.

  I hear a muffled scream for help outside. Zane turns to the front doors where the scream came from.

  We walk out together. There is a truck in the parking lot that wasn’t there before. A boy gets in the front seat. “There!” I point to it. Zane runs towards it. He reaches for the door handle when the truck backs up and takes off. When we can see the tailgate, Alyssa bangs on the backseat window trying to get out. Zane shoots at the tires, emptying the clip without hitting the truck. It turns a corner not in our site anymore.

  Damn it. Two girls gone. This guy is a psycho. Zane kicks the gate. It shakes from his movement.

  The walkie talkie makes a sound. “I told you it would get worse. She’s mine now until you give me your store.”

  “Fuck!” Zane takes his walkie talkie out of his pocket. “Listen up, Blake. I will pick every one of you fuckers off even if I have to do it alone,” he says.

  “You listen up. I took Pamela and offered a trade. You didn’t answer me back so I did what I had to. You’re running out of time. I will continue to take kids until you listen to me. We can make a deal.”

  Zane considers it and he goes to talk.

  The voices stop.

  Zane holds the walkie talkie considering what to say. “Why them? What is in it for you?”

  I can hear someone breathing on it. Blake is considering what to say next. “I’m going to admit something; I have mental issues as you have probably seen. I’m controlling too. I like to control people, to give them someone to fear. I was a killer before this I’ll always be a killer, it’s who I am. I have a girl here who will be my sister, I have Alyssa to be my helper slash sister slash friend to my sister, I have Pam as a warning to you. Why them? I want them. You hurry up now. I haven’t killed for a while and I have a feeling that Alyssa is going to get on my nerves soon. One last thing, I want the store because my place isn’t going to serve me well now that I have four filled rooms. You don’t know the other girl in the fourth room. She’s a family friend. She’s been here for…years. Again, I say give me the store for the girls.”

  Zane holds the button on the walkie. He puts it in his pocket. “What would you do if it was your family member?”

  I cross my arms. “I would hold this place. You don’t know how this guy works. I would come up with a plan. Tell him later you’re willing to trade for the girls, if he stalls you know he’s lying about trading. He seems like he doesn’t want to lose more of his boys either, he could have just taken this place. When did he find it?”

  “The same day we did. Pamela was always outside playing. We didn’t have the gate up but we were in the process of getting it up. I didn’t know she was on her own playing. Me and this other guy were putting the gate up so we didn’t see if she ran away or was taken. Now we know.”

  “I’m sorry. We can figure this out. Just keep your mind off it for a little bit. You have to play this carefully.”

  He goes inside. I walk inside to go find Kevin. I reach down to scratch an itch on my ankle. I feel a mark on it. I bend over to look at it. There is a bite mark on my ankle. That guy who turned bit me.

  I pull my jeans down to cover it. Nobody needs to know about this now.

  I was cured once. If only there was a cure for me now.

  CHAPTER NINE-XAVIER’S SIDE

  I’m worrying about Rain shopping when the small group bursts in the door. Oliver is holding his hand which is bleeding all over the carpet. The girls have bleeding cuts on their foreheads. Crimson dots are hitting the beige carpet making soft thuds. I stand up.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “A bullet went clean through his hand,” Sierra says. “I will discuss the details later but Blake ambushed us.”

  I consider that Rain is not there. “Rain, where is she?” I ask. Nya puts her hand on my shoulders.

  “Blake took her. He never planned on coming here. He tricked us,” she says.

  “What? He took her? We should be out there tracking him. How did he know where we were going anyway?” I shrug her hand off.

  “He knocked us out. We tried to follow tire tracks. The trail ended at a certain point.” She has sympathy for me.

  “Why is he doing this?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Every madman has their motives.”

  I respond with an honest answer. “Every madman does have their motives but they don’t have a Rain. She’s strong and even despite that fact I fear what she’s going through but I know she will live.”

  “Blake has teenage boys, peons that he uses, they almost shot me. She tackled me to the floor when they tried to kill me. She doesn’t know me and she saved me,” she says.

  “I was mad at her for my mom’s death. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t give up talking to me for four days. I love her,” I say.

  Oliver is on the couch. Sierra must have left because the door is open.
She comes back with a suture kit. She grabs paper towels and she puts Hydrogen Peroxide on the wound. She dries his hand. Oliver screams in pain. Gavin walks out of the hallway.

  “Oliver, what’s wrong with your hand?” he asks.

  “I got shot,” he says.

  Sierra starts stitching his wound. Tears are coming out of his eyes at the pain. Adelyn walks out of the hallway. Her mouth hangs open at the sight of Oliver’s hand.

  “Why are you bleeding?” she asks.

  “Go back in your room?” His face is red with pain.

  She runs to her room. Oliver grits his teeth.

  “Where’s Oakland?” I ask.

  “He saw us come in. He’s standing guard still.”

  Dave, Kay and Alex come in the house and have the same questions. Nya explains. Nya asks where they were. They were setting up their houses waiting for decorations to arrive. The three sit on the couch.

  Sierra finishes stitching Oliver’s hand. His first run and he gets shot. I feel bad for him. He says something to Sierra. She goes in the fridge and grabs a beer. She pops the top with a bottle opener. She hands it to him. He drinks it.

  “We need to be looking for her,” I say.

  “It’s raining. It’s too dangerous right now,” Nya says.

  “Her being in the same house with Blake is dangerous. That’s my point. She’s running out of time!” I yell at her.

  She levels her eyes with mine. “I understand. I hate this too. She saved me and I owe her for that. I want to get her back too. There will be flash floods in the street. Killing ourselves while trying to rescue her won’t help her. We have to wait,” she says.

  I get it. The thought of her in the same place with a psychopath scares me. If I lose her I lose the last person in the world I care about. I don’t have any more blood relatives, not any I care for. My mom is gone. My father is in Florida. I don’t care whether he is alive or not. He wasn’t a good person.

  My parents got divorced because he was with another woman. After that I severed all ties to him. He obviously didn’t and still doesn’t care about me, why should I care about him?

  Rain is my whole entire life. She is my dream come true. I can’t explain the way she makes me feel very well. The world is so much more beautiful with her in it. She is a part of me somehow. If she dies, I’ll die too. I can’t survive this world without her in it. Her love has shown me that even when life is dark there still is beauty in it.

  I’ll wait. The clock will tick in my mind. The time she has left. What is he doing to her? The answer will haunt me until she’s found. I swear to God if he hurt her I’ll kill Blake myself.

  I clench my fists in rage.

  Oliver puts his empty beer bottle in the trash. He grabs another out of the fridge. He pops off the top and chugs it. Sarah looks at our faces of defeat. She asks why Oliver’s hand is stitched up.

  “Blake played us. He said he would be coming here. He must’ve been watching us, he followed us to the store. He took Rain.” Oliver takes a sip of beer.

  “I’m done with this son of a bitch. He beat Avian now he has Rain. Once we get her back he’s dead,” she says.

  Everyone has a look of surprise on their faces. She is usually shy. She spends a lot of time alone not speaking to us. Even though I didn’t expect those words to come from her, I expected it from the others.

  Gavin crosses his arms. “I’m with her on this. His father killed my aunt and tried to kill my cousin. He’s no better than his father,” he says.

  I turn to Kay. “Do you know where he lives?” I ask.

  “No. He didn’t move in after his sentencing. Which was annoyingly short. He got off on good behavior.”

  I watch Oliver take another beer from the fridge. He shouldn’t be drinking. He finishes that one. “Maybe you knew he was going to take Rain. You decide to come and she gets kidnapped. You set this up.”

  “Take it easy,” I tell him.

  He throws his beer bottle on the floor in anger. “If I find out you were in on it, I don’t care if you’re a girl, I will kick your ass.”

  She puts her hands up in surrender. “I didn’t have anything to do with this? You think I hid in the closet for hours to fake my own kidnapping? What sense does that make?”

  “What sense does it make? Well what doesn’t make sense is the fact that you were kidnapped and he didn’t take you with him? Why didn’t he?”

  Her face is blood red. She’s furious. “Okay, asshole, I was in the bookstore. They didn’t see me.”

  “You didn’t hear the shooting?” he asks.

  She bows her head. I clench my fists even more enraged, thinking she is going to confess that she is still with Blake.

  “Yes. I heard it. I didn’t know what to do when I heard the shots go off. I freaked out. I just hid behind a shelf. After I found out what he was doing with the girls I had severe anxiety. He would send me letters from jail. I couldn’t eat, sleep or just go shopping without being paranoid that he was going to come for me. He always said he would come and take me in those letters. I tried everything to make it stop, it never did. So, when I heard those gunshots I hid because I was afraid of him taking me.”

  “What was he doing to you in the house?” Oliver asks calmly.

  “He was trying to drill it in my head that in would always be his girlfriend. No one would ever take me away from him ever again. He’s going to brainwash Rain. He always talked about wanting another sister, one that would always respect him. I hate to say it but if she doesn’t at least pretend to be brainwashed, she’ll be dead. The last time he left that house with me in the closet, he said I would die.”

  I feel so awful now. I feel horrible that she had to go through that. I feel bad it was someone she loved that would do that to her. My stomach is in knots at the thought of my girlfriend trying to act like the perfect sister. What if she gets it wrong? What the hell am I going to do without her?

  Alex starts cooking shortly after. His wardrobe is mostly skulls and grim reaper type stuff, which is fitting for the apocalypse. He is told about the ambush. He informs us that the food in the fridge is going to expire soon. We will have to eat REMs. Alex holds a plate of food in front of me. I tell him to give the plate to someone else.

  I’m too worried to eat. My stomach has butterflies in it. I’m shaking with fear. My stomach is in knots still.

  Oliver takes a fourth beer with dinner. I’m convinced he is going to pass out. He stands up almost falling back on the chair.

  “Sierra, Sierra, don’t string me along. I could tell you like me, just tell me,” he stammers.

  “I like you. I didn’t want to get close to you because I lost a boyfriend years ago. He was killed in a robbery at a bank. I also didn’t want to tell you in front of everyone. Just please stop drinking,” she says.

  “Okay.” He starts to fall near me. I grab him, saving him from hitting the floor. Sierra lifts him up with me. We guide him to the couch each of us with one of his arms over our shoulders. When we lay him down he covers his face and starts sobbing.

  “I let them take her away. All of you got knocked out. I couldn’t stop them. It’s my fault she’s gone, it’s my fault we’re not looking. I couldn’t stop them,” he says.

  “You were outnumbered. You did what you could. You can’t be blamed for this, I don’t blame you for this,” I say.

  Sierra helps him sit on the couch while Sarah and Alex clean the broken bottle mess up. She hugs him. Oliver’s eyes brighten up a bit.

  “You loved me the whole time,” he says with an idiotic grin.

  “Stop smiling you creep me out,” she says. He stops and passes out on her lap. She tries to wake him up. He is unconscious. She holds him up and stands up. She lays him down.

  I stand with her. We both stand there watching him sleep.

  She turns to me with a smile. “Any chance he’s going to forget that?”

  “Which part?” I ask.

  “Either.”

  “Neither,�
�� I answer.

  She has an awkward smile on her face. “It wasn’t his fault, we just…it went so quick. Once he got shot, he couldn’t do anything, then when we woke up we had to get him here.”

  “I get it.”

  I understand. We’ll get her back. There was nothing that could be done.

  I get out of the house for fresh air. I go to Cassandra’s. I put my hand in my pocket and touch the necklace I meant to give to Rain. I hope I can give it to her one day.

  I’ve heard about divination before so I thought it would be worth a shot. I want to do divination to get answers. There is nothing else to do.

  The rain soaks my clothes and hair. I’m too worried to care.

  Cassandra is sitting at the table reading a book when I open her unlocked door. She is wearing a black strapless lace dress that stops at her knees. Her hair is held back by a black lace headband.

  What is the first sentence to say? I’m standing with my hand in my pocket fiddling with the necklace chain. She stops reading at the table and acknowledges me.

  “Yes?” she says.

  “Can I do divination? I need answers about something,” I say.

  “You want a yes or no or do you want a simple prediction?” she asks.

  “Either, I guess.”

  She stands up and walks away. She comes back with a crystal ball, a lighter and a tea light candle. She hands me the crystal ball and motions for me to sit. I sit. She lights the candle telling me to hold the tiny crystal ball in my hand and gaze into it. The candle light shines through the quartz creating reflections and rainbows. I see a pool which doesn’t make sense to me. I tell Cassandra what I am seeing. She tells me that symbols have a personal significance to people and that I should figure out what it means to me.

  When I was a little kid I almost drowned in a pool and since then I associate pools with danger or fear. The symbol means Rain is in danger I conclude.

  Another symbol materializes, it’s a diary. It has a lock on it. There is a key next to it. I associate diaries with secrets. I ponder what the secret is. The story Blake told was complete crap. Tell a tragic story of a father and son and get sympathy from others.

  How could one person be so sick. With rotten people, everything about them is evil. Like they came from the Devil himself.