Trying to Survive (Part 3)

by Crowley,C. J.

  “Hurry up and leave before they notice us. The street in front of this place is totally empty, so we’ll have no problem getting another car. Doesn’t matter what it is as long as we can get it started.”

  Brian put it in reverse and let the car start rolling backward. Jenny said “Good thing these Cadillac’s are so quiet. The shredders would have heard a normal car.”

  I cut in. “I think I have an idea.”

  Once we were out of sight, Brian quickly backed into a parking spot and pulled out so wouldn’t have to continue the rest of the way in reverse. Jenny said “What?”

  “The buildings seem to circle around a small lake, so if we head left at the entrance it should eventually loop around and put us on the other side of the pack. We don’t want to lead them back to the entrance. They might end up blocking us in.”

  “Perfect.”

  “I’ll be the one to pick them up. I’ll wait by the entrance, and once you lead them away I’ll pull up in front of their door. Easy.”

  “Take Walter with you so he can watch them while you drive. We can’t trust them.” Clara said with a dulled, but serious tone.

  I looked down at her and watched as she moved her eyes over to me without turning her head. “Good idea Clara.”

  Walt said “She’s right. You never know.”

  Brian left the complex and drove over to a station wagon that was left in the middle of the street. Jenny opened the door, got out to keep watch and said “Sounds like we have a good plan worked out.”

  When I started to climb out, Clara grabbed my arm. “Don’t trust them.”

  “Don’t worry Clara, I learned my lesson on trust. I think we all did.” I half-smiled. “Everything’s going to be fine. Like I said… we can’t be the only good people left.”

  Clara didn’t respond. She just held onto my sleeve for a few moments, let go and then continued to stare straight ahead. I could feel the anger and concern in her surprisingly tight grip.

  Walt got to the car first, so he hopped in the driver’s seat. “Keys are here!” When I made it over, he said “You’re the better shot, so I’m driving.”

  I agreed and got in the passenger seat as he started up the engine. “It probably won’t be much longer until we have to start jumping any cars we want to use. Good thing that Caddy has an emergency kit with jumper-cables in the trunk.”

  When Jenny heard the old Volvo station wagon come to life, she said “Be careful guys!” and hopped back in the car. Brian leaned over so we could see him and gave us a wave, as if to say “Good luck.”

  Walt flung open the door and yelled “Wait!” as Brian started to drive away. The car stopped and Walt approached Jenny’s window. “Give me your 9mm. It’ll be really hard for James to keep a big-ass rifle on them in the car.”

  Jenny agreed and passed it through to him. When Walt fell back into the car and handed me the pistol, he said “As soon as they get in, you keep this on them. I don’t care how nice they look or how honest they seem.”

  “I know... And when we find a place to stay for the night we’ll take turns keeping watch. One of us will always have to be awake for a while.”

  I’m the one who found Melanie and saw Clara huddled in the corner, covered in her blood… If these people even put off a weird vibe on the way to the car I’m telling Walt to drive away…

  As we sat at the entrance and waited to hear Brian start beeping the horn, I looked down at my stomach. The small “belly” I’d built up over the last few years was already shrinking away. Walt was always rather thin, and he was never a big eater, so I doubted he was even bothered by having to eat such a small amount of food every day.

  “So, I guess it’s a couple.”

  “Yeah… They’re just lucky that one of them didn’t have the gene. That’s probably the only reason they’re still alive.”

  Walt sighed. “Can you imagine that? Most people were probably killed by their own partners or family members… Children were killed by one of their parents – or even both… Remember? Jenny said children don’t turn.”

  “That’s why there aren’t really any survivors. Almost every home had at least one person with the gene.”

  “If Alex had come with me to your house that night – we might not be here right now.”

  “Maybe…”

  “The math suggests almost definitely.”

  I turned to Walt and thought I picked up a touch of sadness in his eyes. “I know I never said anything about it, but… I’m sorry about Alex.”

  “It’s okay, I barely even knew her, man.” He let out a single laugh through his nose. “She was kind of turning out to be a bitch anyway. I’ll be fine.”

  I struggled to hold back a smile for a few moments and then began to lightly laugh. “Oh, you remember that asshole Patrick we used to run into on the new construction jobs?”

  Walt scoffed “How could I forget? He used to call me rosy-cheeks and constantly talk shit to me because I was so young.”

  “Remember when he ratted us out for smoking on the job? I mean, the builder didn’t care, but still… No tears for that dick.”

  Walt frowned, looked at me from the corners of his eyes and said “I hope his wife turned while she was giving him a blowjob.”

  I wanted to say “Come on, that’s fucked up” but I couldn’t stop laughing.

  Suddenly, we heard the car horn start to blare. The laughter instantly ceased. I readied my rifle, and Walt took his foot off of the brake and headed for the third building. I said “Stop as soon as you round the second building. We have to make sure none of them notice us and break away. It’s getting pretty dark out… And whatever you do – don’t turn on the damn headlights.”

  “No shit.”

  “Had to say it.”

  Walt took his time coasting and slowly weaving around the cars in the middle of the road and half-way backed out of parking spots. It was difficult to look around at the half-dozen or more apartment buildings and think about the devastating number of people who were brutally killed in such a small area.

  I could see children’s bicycles near the front doors, along with toys and balls barely sticking up from the slowly overgrowing grass. My eye stopped at a knocked over baby carriage with double seats that was obviously meant for twins. It was halfway between someone’s doorstep and the cars. There wasn’t even an inch of fabric that lacked the stains of old blood.

  When I heard Walt speak, it brought me back to the front window of my house. I could almost see my hand in front of my face, spreading a small space in the blinds so I could fearfully peer out. Just like then, his voice was the only thing that could break me away from staring. “Should I wait another twenty seconds before I keep going?”

  I could hear the horn and the sounds of Brian and Jenny yelling moving further away as the seconds passed. They still seemed somewhat close, so I suggested “Just creep up a little so we can see around to the parking lot in front of the building. We don’t want to wait too long – something could go bad.”

  As soon as I got sight of the third building, I could see the shredders all chasing after the car. They were still somewhat close to the front door of the couple’s apartment, but moving so quickly that we’d only have to wait another ten seconds or so.

  “Go ahead and keep moving. They’re making more than enough noise for us to sneak up.”

  The man and the woman were standing next to each other at the window, waiting for me to direct them to come down stairs. The woman was tightly clutching his arm and I could see them talking. She seemed upset. I couldn’t truly tell, but I felt the way she looked down at us portrayed distrust.

  I stuck my hand out of the window and motioned for them to stay put. Even though the old Volvo was quiet as can be, Walt didn’t dare touch the gas pedal. He just continued to let the car slowly roll toward their front door.

  Once we were close enough, I began waving for them to come down and they both disappeared from the window.

  As they ran to th
e car, I quickly studied them and came to the conclusion that they were related. The man was noticeably older, most likely in his forties, and the woman looked to be about ten years behind. He was starting to show gray, especially in his stubble, but they both had the same reddish-brown hair, somewhat olive skin tone and small, almost sharp noses.

  Walt said “Get in!” when they approached the car.

  When the woman saw my face, it seemed to frighten her and she became hesitant to enter the car. Without a second thought, the man flung open the door and practically forced her inside.

  I hated to start things off by coming across as threatening, but we couldn’t take the chance. Even though they appeared to be unarmed, as soon as he closed the door and the car was moving again, I turned sideways in my seat and pointed the 9mm at them.

  The man instantly became angry and leaned over to block the woman. He barked “What the hell is this!?”

  I did my best to soften my expression and calm my voice. “Please, just relax. We aren’t going to hurt you. We just can’t trust you.”

  We locked eyes for what seemed like five seconds before I said “We’ve had some… bad experiences with other people. That’s all. We’re just protecting ourselves.”

  “Then why did you help us?” The woman asked with a shaky voice.

  “Because we all need to work together if we want to get through this.”

  The man cut our conversation short. I could understandably see the immense distrust in his dark-brown eyes. “There’s someone else around here.”

  The woman said “Yeah, that’s right! We saw a young guy.” She pointed to Walt. “About his age.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Walt said as he glanced at them in the rear view mirror and backed into a spot so he could turn around and head to the entrance to wait for the others.

  “He passed by in the woods, heading in the direction your friends are going. We saw him about five minutes before we saw you, but we couldn’t get his attention.” The man answered.

  I said “Well, then he’s got to be close by. He’s probably at one of the windows watching right now.”

  Walt still hadn’t pulled out of the spot to head back toward the entrance. “Should we keep going and look for him? If Brian sees us continuing on, I’m sure he’ll put two and two together and keep leading them away.”

  “Let’s do it. I say if we can, let’s try and circle the whole neighborhood. Who knows how many more people we could find?”

  Brian and the others were already out of sight, and they’d managed to lead away every single shredder in the area. Since we were temporarily “safe”, Walt took the time to ask “What are your names?”

  “Allen.”

  “Veronica.”

  “Veronica, since you’re on my side, check all the windows for anyone else who might be trapped. Walt, by the way.”

  Veronica gladly did as Walt said, but Allen continued to stare directly at me, only breaking away periodically to glance down at the gun in my hand. To try and ease the tension, I introduced myself.

  “You have no idea how relieved we are to know other people survived. We were starting to think no one else was left.” Veronica said as she continued to search the windows for the young man she claimed to have seen.

  Allen thinned his eyes and said “What happened to you people? Why are you pointing a gun at my face?”

  “We can talk later, Allen. For now, we need to concentrate on seeing if anyone else here is alive. You just have to trust us, but we can’t trust you yet. That’s just the way it is. Take it or leave it... But I promise you, we mean well.”

  I pointed the gun slightly lower so it wasn’t aimed directly at his face. “Please, help her check the windows. I can’t look away.”

  Without warning, Walt slammed on the brakes and sent me falling back into the dash. I heard a loud thud come from my right, and turned just in time to see a young man bouncing off the side of the car and fumbling for the door handle.

  Walt took a deep breath and said with a raised voice “Fuck, he just came out of the bushes!”

  Veronica moved over and he frantically climbed inside. When I saw that he was holding a shotgun, I trained the 9mm on him and said “Put it on the floor, now.”

  He just froze and looked at me. “Now! Or I’ll have to shoot you.”

  His eyes grew even wilder as he turned to Allen and Veronica. I said “Please, slowly put it by your feet. Just for now. We don’t know you.”

  I could see that he was now focusing on the scars and the bandage over my eye. I suppose it made me come across as untrustworthy – even menacing.

  He took a deep breath and slowly dropped the shotgun by his feet. I said “Thank you… We’ve just had some bad experiences with other survivors.”

  As he softly said “I’ve only got one shell left” he appeared to be regretting his decision to get in the car. I knew this wasn’t the best way to get people to join us, and that it was probably confusing to them because they haven’t been through what we have, but there was no other choice.

  I looked him over and noticed small amounts of blood on his jeans. When I moved to his hands, I could see blood around and underneath his fingernails. I tensed my trigger finger and asked “Where did that blood come from?”

  He suddenly seemed agitated when he replied “Where the hell do you think it came from?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It’s from those things.”

  That’s not enough. He could be lying, just like Naya. “Give me details.”

  He looked over at Allen and Victoria again. She said “They won’t say what, but something really fucked up happened to them... That’s why they’re acting like this.”

  Walt glanced back and said “Before we met up with the other people in our group, some men killed two of their friends and tried to steal everything they have… Just about a week ago, we ran into a gang of psychos that kidnapped one of our people, threatened us and killed another. There’s even more to it than that… So trust me, we have our reasons. Answer him.”

  The young man relaxed the muscles in his face and leaned back in his seat. “So, we don’t just have to worry about those things? We have to worry about other people too?”

  “You need to worry about people even more.” I quickly replied.

  Veronica introduced herself and he replied “Lee… Castellanos.”

  Allen reached over and shook his hand “Allen Thrace. I’m her brother.”

  I interrupted them. “Lee, tell me why you have blood on your hands.” I sighed. “Look, we’ve already had someone gain our trust and then murder one of our people in their sleep. So, please.” I motioned to him with the 9mm.

  Allen muttered “Jesus…”

  Veronica looked off to the side, most likely trying to understand why things like that would be happening… I guess if you don’t want to harm anyone else, it’s hard to understand why others would want to…

  Lee took a moment to recall the events before he spoke. “I, uh… After I ran out of food, I escaped into town. My car ran out of gas, so I had to get out and just run until I hit a hardware store… When I opened the door, two of them were inside.”

  “That doesn’t explain the blood.”

  “They were eating someone, so I had enough time to shoot them before they got to me… After hours in this heat the bodies started to smell, and I was worried it would attract more, so I dragged them out behind the store.”

  He seemed to be telling the truth, and all three of them seemed like good people. They were just scared and confused, but I could also tell that seeing all of us temporarily lifted their spirits… until they saw the gun pointed at them.

  Though that was meaningless, because I thought the same kind of things about Naya. I immediately noticed her strange appearance, but it wasn’t until after I studied her for a while and spent a little time talking to her that I really started to suspect something was off.

  I can’t ever forget. One of the most danger
ous weapons a person can have is the ability to deceive. And I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are a lot better at acting than Naya…

  “Lee, have you seen anyone else?”

  “I almost can’t believe I’m seeing you… The only other people I’ve seen were… getting killed.”

  When we rounded another one of the buildings and still couldn’t see the Cadillac, or the large mass of shredders following behind, Walt barked “Shit, they must be having to drive really fast. I think we might have to turn around, otherwise they’re going to lead them all to the entrance before we make it out of here.”

  Walt slammed the brakes again. “Fuck, stragglers!”

  I turned back for a moment and saw that about thirty shredders had lost interest and stopped following the others. By the time Walt put it in reverse, they were already running at the car. He had no choice but to back into a parking spot to turn around due to the lack of room.

  I knew some of the closer ones were going to make it to the car before he pulled out and built up enough speed, so I dropped the 9mm on the seat and picked up the M4. There were so many of them, and they were so close, it was hard to pick which one to shoot first.

  They were running in their usual frantic and totally unpredictable patterns, so a headshot was almost impossible (at least for me). Walt finally began to pull out, but one of them was right at the car with three others very close behind. I’d already put three bullets into it, but it never even slowed down.

  Just when I thought I was going to be mauled through the window again, I heard what sounded like a bomb go off behind me. The shredder flew back almost five feet and took another one with it.

  I turned back to see Allen with the shotgun in his hands. He said “We need to find more of these. Those rifles are only worth a fuck if you can shoot them in the head.”

  “They’re so fast… How can you possibly shot one in the head?” Lee fearfully asked.

  Walt had it floored, which wasn’t saying much for the old Volvo. I felt guilty for leaving before we really knew whether or not there were any other survivors. Though I also knew we had already pushed our luck by trying to go even deeper into the complex after running in to Lee… We just found three more people. That’ll have to be enough for now…