We Are The Survivors

by Vanessa Marie

  The sign for Mirabella Homes comes to my attention. I pull up to the gate. I honk the horn. A boy walks to the gate. I’ve seen him, I know him.

  I run up to the gate. He smiles and throws it open.

  “Mom!” he yells.

  He was right here the whole time. We hold on tight to each other, crying. I pull back from him. “Where’s Rain?” I ask.

  “It’s a long story we need your help with something,” he says into my shoulder.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN-ESCAPE

  I wake up to the sound of someone screaming Alyssa’s name. The hall lights are on. I hear Colt yelling.

  I knock on the wall. “Alyssa, what’s going on? Is that your sister? I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Stay calm. They will let us both out and I will get the keys if you can’t. I think they spiked my food. They gave me some last night and I woke up with a huge cut my arm. I don’t feel good,” she says.

  Colt opens the door and it hits the wall. My heart stops. I’m sitting on the floor against the wall. He rushes to me.

  “Get up. Get up,” he says.

  “What? Why?” I ask.

  He grabs my hair and pulls me into the living room. He pushes me on the floor. Pam is to my far right. He stands in front of the circle of boys that have formed. He aims a gun at me.

  “I thought about what you said. You’re right. I don’t have to listen to Blake,” he says. “Ian and Brent gets the other one including the woman.”

  Two boys go down the hall and come back with Alyssa. They force us to kneel on the floor. They kneel the woman next to Pam. The boys get in the group.

  “You girls are dead. Blake will come back and he’s dead too. We do what we want,” Colt says.

  The boys say yeah in unison. Colt turns to the boys.

  “Get knives,” he says.

  Alyssa looks at me. She wants me to do something. The boys go in the kitchen.

  “You can’t do this,” I say.

  “Oh shut up.”

  Brent lays cloth on the table with knives arranged from biggest to the smallest. The end knife is a machete. Colt takes a pocket knife and goes to Pam. I go to stand and a boy sneaks behind me and pulls my arms behind my back, holding me in my spot.

  “Stop it!” I yell while struggling to break from the boy’s grip.

  A boy holds Alyssa back by her arms. Colt stabs Pam in her stomach. Alyssa struggles, trying to break free from the boys’ grasp. She starts screaming. Pam falls forward on her stomach. Blood is pooling on the floor around her. My vision goes red. I feel the same anger I did right before I killed my stepfather. The rage in me is uncontrollable. I grab the knife from Colt. I stab him in the chest where his heart is. The woman grabs a machete and kills the boy holding Alyssa by stabbing him in the stomach. Ian, Brent and another boy run in the mudroom and use the food shelf as cover.

  Alyssa turns Pam on her back. Her eyes are blank; they stare at the ceiling. Alyssa presses on Pam’s wound to stop the bleeding. I turn the table on its side to provide cover. Alyssa pulls Pam behind the table and the woman ducks behind it. I run to my room and grab the guns.

  I run then slide behind the table. I peek over the top of the table and fire. I hit the left wall. I hand the woman a gun. Alyssa is still pressing on Pam’s wound. Blood is tickling through her fingers. Pam is pale and she is sweating.

  The woman shoots one boy in the leg. He falls and the other boy attempts to pull him behind cover. I shoot him in the head.

  I can’t even believe that I’m killing people. I was the most nonviolent person in arguments. I didn’t even defend myself when people would try to start fights with me.

  Pam is out of it. Alyssa starts crying and is telling her to stay with her. The woman starts crying too. I wonder if my dad went through the same thing. They told us that he was impaled through his chest by a metal piece from the car being shredded. He died at the hospital.

  Did he lie on the road thinking of me and Mom? Was he scared to leave us? Where is he now? Is he going to reincarnate like I believe now?

  “Rain!” the woman yells.

  I am back in reality. I bring myself back in this moment. One boy left to kill.

  He shoots the table. I peer from the side of the table. He is reloading his gun. I stand up and he gets on a walkie talkie.

  “Blake, you have to help…” I shoot him in the head before he finishes his sentence.

  “It’s clear,” I say.

  Bodies are everywhere along with a lot of blood. I hear the radio crackle.

  “What’s going on? I’ll head over there now,” Blake says on the walkie talkie.

  I kneel beside Alyssa.

  “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom cabinet, get them,” the woman says to me.

  I get them and give it to her. She opens it and grabs a needle and thread. She tells Alyssa to move. She sews Pam’s wound up. I turn away, not watching her. Pam is still unresponsive. She’s still breathing just not here mentally.

  “Is she going to live?” Alyssa asks.

  The woman grabs her shoulders. “The knife could have hit a major organ but we don’t know that it did. She might not live. Bottom line is we need to leave. She needs help.”

  “I’ll get keys,” I say.

  I grab the keys off the front door. I open it. I am shocked to see daylight. I never thought I would see it again. It’s like a dream. The sun hurts my eyes. The fluorescent lighting made me feel like I was in a dungeon which I kind of was.

  “Wait. Pamela isn’t going to make a trip. I can’t carry her,” Alyssa says.

  “I can’t carry her either, I’m not so strong,” the woman says.

  “What are you saying?” I ask.

  “You have to go alone find your people or someone else that can help.” Alyssa wipes her bloody hands on her jeans.

  I drop the keys in shock. “I can’t do that by myself,” I say.

  Alyssa furrows her eyebrows. “We don’t have choices here. This is it. I don’t like it but we should do something. She’ll go with you,” Alyssa nods at the woman.

  “Okay. Let’s go. Any chance you know how to drive?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  Alyssa grabs the machete on the table. “I have to make sure that Blake is dead. I want his blood spilt. He did this to Pam. He’s as responsible as the boy who did stab her,” she says.

  I shake my head. “Make her stay with Pam. You can drive me to my people.”

  She slams the machete on the floor. “No, I want to watch him die!”

  “Okay. Okay. Just do me a favor,” I say.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Tell him that I said he deserves it before you kill him. Tell him I wasn’t his sister and never will be.”

  She nods. “Done.”

  The woman and I walk out of the house. I take the AK-47. The freedom is sweet but it’s even sweeter to the woman who’s been here for all these years. She takes a deep breath with her eyes closed. I can’t imagine how she feels to be let out after all these years.

  “How long have you been locked up for?” I ask.

  She furrows her brow in thought. “Blake didn’t want me to be seen for a while. He kept me locked in for about five years.”

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Blake used to call me by my real name all the time but I don’t want people to call me that. My friends used to call me by my middle name. Call me Amber,” she says.

  “Okay, Amber,” I say.

  The fluorescent lighting made her hair and eyes look awful. In the sunlight, I can see that her hair is a golden blonde color. Her eyes are a hazel color. She has freckles on her nose and cheeks.

  A zombie walks from the road to us. Amber backs up in shock. She trips over a rock falling on her behind. She crawls backwards.

  “What? What is it?” I ask.

  She was in captivity for years. They didn’t tell her about the zombies at all. I would think they would have told her that to scare her into
thinking staying there was a good thing.

  I shoot the zombie and it lands on its face. Amber crawls backwards even more. I make a decision that could save her. I pull her up by her hand.

  “Go back. There is a disease that spread and it kills and brings people to life. You will be safer by going back with Alyssa. You kill Blake and if I don’t come back in two hours look for me,” I say.

  “I can’t leave you alone,” she says.

  “You have to. I don’t want you to die.”

  She walks back. As she is walking she glances behind her shoulder. I wave her on. She runs to the house.

  I walk on. I remember the first day that I was walking the street and Dave and Nya showed up. I wish that would happen now.

  The houses are further apart than I would think for Las Vegas houses. They have more property too. I refuse the conclusion that I’m in another place. There’s no way.

  Blake setting up a house like that was smart. The rooms and the locks. The key by the front door wasn’t smart. They were so ignorant that they thought they could put the keys in plain sight and they would instill fear so much that we wouldn’t attempt to escape or that when we tried we could be stopped.

  I stumble onto a road sign. It says ‘The Desert Café. The best food in Pahrump.’

  I’m an hour away from help. Damn it! Damn it! I kick the sign down. I kick with frustration that I’m so far away from Vegas. I hear shuffling behind me. I turn with the gun pointed. There is a girl my age with long blonde hair holding a pistol in her hand.

  “Please, help. I was kidnaped and I have a little girl who’s hurt. Can you take me back to your group?” I ask.

  “No.” She aims her pistol at me. “That’s a nice gun, give it to me.”

  “No, I need it!” I yell.

  She trips me. I drop my gun. She picks it up and aims it at me. She puts the other gun in a holster.

  “Go ahead shoot me. My life won’t be on your hands alone there will be a little girl’s life on your hands too. You kill me and she could die. Do you want that to happen?” I ask.

  She considers it lowering the gun involuntarily. I tackle her and the gun lands to our left. She tries to grab the AK-47. I get on top of her. I hold her hands to the ground. She’s going to kill me. I let go of her right hand and grab the pistol. She grabs the AK-47 and hits me with it. I land on my back.

  I aim the pistol at her. “I don’t want to do this,” I say.

  She aims the gun at me. I shoot her in the head. I take my gun and hers.

  I run until I get out of breath. I stop at a clothing store. I lean against the wall and draw in deep breaths. I sweated through my shirt and my heart is racing. Hands grab me from behind and I elbow someone in the ribs. I hear a crack.

  I turn around and a woman zombie lunges at me. I shoot her without thinking. Zombies come out of the woodwork. They head for me. I try several routes and they are coming at me from all sides. There is a truck parked in a parking space.

  I step on the running board of the truck. I use that to step on the hood. I stand on the roof of the truck. I stand in the middle. The zombies surround me and swipe at me. I don’t shoot them. I won’t have enough bullets to kill them all.

  I need to get to a safer place. I step too far on either side and I will get pulled into the crowd. I need to get away from here. A distraction would be good.

  I’m in a shopping center. I can run in a store and go out the back door, run to the front and lock the bulk of them inside. It’s a shitty plan but it could work. I don’t have time to come up with another plan.

  I get on the hood of the car and jump on the ground. I run away from the car. I run to a store door.

  Locked.

  Another door.

  Locked.

  Unlocked.

  I go into a store and wait for them to come in. The crowd slowly walks in. I run to the back of the grocery store. There is no backdoor. I run to a shelf and get on it. The zombies walk through the place. I hold the AK-47 under my armpit. I take a loose shelf and use it as a bridge to walk from the shelf I’m on to the next. I alternate it until I’m at my last one.

  I jump off the last shelf and grab rope. I close the doors and tie the handles together as tight as I can.

  I take off down the road. Rain starts falling. It makes me even colder. I keep running. Within minutes the rain is pouring. I’m running and my shoes are covered in water completely. Even my socks are drenched. I jump up and pull myself up on the roof of a real-estate building.

  I curl up. I won’t be able to walk if a flood starts.

  Pam is going to die because I can’t make it. My fault, more like nature’s fault. Maybe Alyssa is right, none of this is my fault.

  They would’ve still gotten kidnapped if I didn’t get kidnapped. Pam would still be stabbed. I don’t know whether she has better odds with me trying to get help or not. I can’t get down from this roof until it stops raining.

  I hug my knees trying to get warmer.

  My parents named me Rain because it rained when I was born. My dad used to say that my name suited me. The rain can be gentle and create rainbows. It can also be tough. He said that I was mostly the first and one day I was going to have to be the latter.

  I thought that the killing I did was wrong. That I was too brutal. I was wrong. I killed to protect the people I love and myself. If that’s wrong, I don’t know what is right

  Alyssa is going to kill Blake to protect Pam. Isn’t that the right action to take?

  My mom and dad’s lives aren’t on my hands. I have to let it go. It was my stepfather who killed my mom and he would have killed me too. It was a drunk driver who killed my dad not me.

  Even my aunt’s and uncle’s death aren’t my fault, if they are dead. I would give anything to see them again.

  It has taken me fourteen years to understand that I didn’t cause my father’s death. Why didn’t I realize that sooner? I told myself every day it was my fault. Therapy didn’t even help me. Letting go is not forgetting it’s forgiving yourself or others. I always thought it was forgetting. I thought that if my parents’ deaths didn’t tear me apart it meant I didn’t care about them.

  I’ll forgive. I’ll remember my parents and try to live by the honest ways they taught me to live by.

  I stand up and throw my guns on the ground. I jump on the ground. I lose my footing. I land on my side. I grab my guns. The water is ankle deep.

  There is a four-wheeler in the road. I don’t know how to drive it but I can learn. The keys are in the ignition. I try to get it started but it won’t go. It probably has no gas. I turn the key in the ignition once more and it starts. I hold the AK-47 on my lap and the pistol in my hand. It goes smoothly for a few minutes. I get it to ninety miles an hour and the noise attracts zombies. There is a pop and I get a flat tire. The four-wheeler falls on its side.

  My leg gets stuck under one side of it. I push on it and it won’t budge. The zombies are coming closer. A man zombie leans over the four-wheeler, reaching for me. I grab my pistol on the ground and shoot the zombie.

  I push the four-wheeler upright with my free foot, I wiggle the other foot out. I have one bleeding cut. I don’t have a choice. I’ll walk from here. I run as fast as I can. The zombies can’t keep up with me.

  I get to the Welcome to Pahrump sign. I stop to catch my breath. My legs are numb. I drop on the ground from running. A white car speeds by me. I get up and wave. The car drives past me.

  I lie in the road. I can’t walk any more. I’m so thirsty. I have to get up. I stand up. I take a few steps. I hear another car driving down the road. It’s Blake’s.

  I jump in the dirt bumping into a cactus as I do. I pull the needles from my arm while hiding behind a bush. He parks the car. He aims his gun at me. I raise mine. He shoots for my shoulder and the bullet grazes me. He kicks my guns aside.

  “Where are the girls?” he asks.

  “They ran,” I tell him.

  He puts the gun directly to my head. “
You will die if you are lying to me,” he says.

  I will die anyhow. The girls can still live. “They ran that’s the truth.”

  He hits me in the head with his gun. My vision goes black.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN-MAY’S SEARCH ENDS SOON

  Apocalypse: A Few Moments After Dave Heads to Pahrump

  Gavin told me that Rain was kidnapped by her stepbrother she didn’t know she had. I ask him to repeat the whole story. He does, then he tells me that a group looking for her didn’t come back. A kid named Alex is standing in the hallway. His walkie talkie crackles.

  “We may have the address of the house Blake is holding Rain in. We are going to get her back. She’s in Pahrump. Stay there we will be back,” a woman’s voice says.

  Alex tells her to be careful. Gavin stands up. “They have the address?” he asks.

  “Maybe,” the boy replies.

  “We have to go then,” he says.

  Alex raises his hands, “Splitting up isn’t a good idea,” he says.

  “She’s been gone for weeks. We’re her family. We need to be there,” he says.

  Alex rubs his hands together and finally nods. A girl with red hair walks in the living room. Gavin introduces me to her as his girlfriend. His face gets red. He looks down. I’m slightly pissed. I’m his mother I say who he can date and not date.

  I deal with it later. She shakes my hand. He tells her where we are going. She leans in to kiss him then stops and looks at me. He pulls away from her. Alex suggests driving.

  He gets in the car. Gavin opens and closes the gate for us. He gets in the car after he locks it. They tell me the ride is going to take an hour. Alex tells the woman on the walkie that we are coming. She tells him the address.

  Alex talks to me on the way there. How they set the community up and I tell them how I met another group.

  They ask me all sorts of questions about it. I tell him that Blake kidnapped two girls from our group too.

  We meet up with the other group of people an hour later. They are in their car parked by the side of the house.

  Gavin talks to a guy in the car.

  “How long have you been parked here?” he asks.