Alone

by Prunty, Mercedes

  “Cheers”, I said.

  “Thank you”, Ollie mumbled.

  “Now I don’t have many handgun bullets as I did have people break in before I put the sign up, some stupid man in a white coat”, he mumbled to us as he rummaged through some draws.

  “Wasn’t a doctor was it?” I asked intrigued.

  “Might have been”, he answered.

  “Well he won’t bother you again”, Ollie snorted.

  “Why’s that young man?” the man asked him.

  “He went down with the old hospital yesterday”, Ollie replied.

  “That noise was you three?” he seemed impressed.

  We nodded.

  “Well looks like you might have a fighting chance if you took that creepy hell hole down, I heard creepy shit had been going on down there”, he said.

  “You could say that”, I said.

  “Well don’t tell me I don’t care much, I only care for staying alive another day, well here I got two boxes of bullets for you kid”, he handed the handgun bullets to Monique and she pocketed them.

  “Well if that’s all?” he asked but meaning for us to go.

  “Could I have a strap as well?”, I asked him eyeing up a beige coloured one that looked like it would suit my rifle, it would be handy and mean I wouldn’t have to balance it in my bag.

  “Yeah but only as you lot seem like nice kids”, he said flinging it to me, “But don’t be thinking you can come back again asking for things as I won’t be so generous”.

  “Don’t worry we won’t were leaving this godforsaken city today”, Monique said.

  ”Thank you for your generosity”, I said.

  “Yeah don’t brown nose me too much kid”, he laughed before unlocking the door and pretty much kicking us to the curb before slamming the door shut once more, the image of him barricading himself back in crossed my mind. It seemed strange him staying there but then who was I to judge, I was still looking for my sister a year and a half after she disappeared, most people would of given up by now, they would have gone mad or looked for another reason to live or die.

  “Right so which way now?” I asked Monique whilst she tried to work out in her head the best way to go, as she stood there in thought I quickly worked out on how to attach the strap to my gun, it was quite simple so figuring it out didn’t take too long. I then slung the weapon over my shoulder which felt quite refreshing as to having my hands free for once. In my pocket I had placed Darren’s pocket knife so I knew I had either that or my gun at my disposal.

  “I think if we head this way we should be able to cross through Hove over the sea road, I don’t think we should try to go through the towns too much unless we have to, then keep going past that to Worthing. Would be good if we could make it to Littlehampton by night fall but I’m doubting it would be that easy as I think it is a few more than a couple of miles from here and those places are normally full of Creatures, if not we will have to find shelter before then and carry on tomorrow”, she said.

  “Where have they moved their camp to?” I asked feeling tired already this was not going to be just a walk in the park.

  “I think they were headed to Bognor Regis”, she replied, “But that was just a rumour I heard from some stragglers who also managed to escape from them”.

  “That sounds a long way from here”, I said.

  “It is, to be honest I think it will be a good few days trek ahead of us if the road is clear, if not could take longer all depends”, she said,

  I didn’t have the best feeling about the place I was trying to get to especially after what we had all witnessed here in Brighton, I just hoped Tanya was still alive, I hoped she was ok and that the ‘Big Guns’ hadn’t crushed her spirit, I knew how fragile she was, I knew that people like that would break her down if she let them, I prayed to whatever might be out there watching us that she would have the strength the hold on till I got to her.

  Taking our first few steps we headed off in the direction of Bognor Regis, I had never been there and before the war I knew people who had, apparently a large family holiday site was there somewhere but when the struggles of life, power and fuel erupted over the land only the rich could holiday and it probably wasn’t to Bognor. As we walked the sun kept beaming out over head, leading us into a false sense that things might be looking up after the bad couple of days we had all gone through. The sea road Monique had mentioned was probably the best path as it lead right through Brighton to Hove and then to Worthing but it wasn’t just a quick walk, yes we were making good time but I knew we were never going to make it to Littlehampton by nightfall, all the road signs that were still readable said that it was still at least 10 miles away which wasn’t too much but with all the things that blocked our path that we had to climb over or walk a mile or two the long way round was slowing us down. By late afternoon we had finally reached Worthing, if we had driven by car we could have made it within an hour or two but walking through debris from the bombs, buildings that had collapsed and the man-made blockades built with cars was all to time consuming.

  “I’m hungry”, Ollie said finally making us come to a halt.

  “We don’t have much food”, Monique said going through her bag and handing us each a tin of fruit, opening them we quickly ate the small meal which didn’t even touch the sides with me, in fact it made the hunger worse.

  “I could hunt for something”, I said pointing to my rifle.

  “Where there are no woods round here?” Monique said looking around the town.

  “What about the downs?” Ollie asked, “I’ve been here before I think there is some woodland just through the town”.

  “Worth a try and maybe we could camp out tonight?” I suggested.

  “Camp out? Are you crazy?” she sounded as if she meant the crazy part.

  “I have camped out a lot, sometimes it’s safer than houses or buildings, but if not we could just come back into the town and find somewhere”, I said.

  “We’ll do that, I hate camping”, Monique snapped not nastily just more of a memory of something that made her hate it, “Right let’s go before it gets dark I wanna find a place before night”.

  We headed through the deserted town, luckily for us it seemed when the big guns had come through they had taken out most of the creatures that had roamed here, a few random ones lay dead as we walked down the streets, gunshot wounds to their heads maybe more than a few weeks old, their bodies decomposing and rotting away, some animals had chowed down on them only for those animals to be dead a few streets away as their small bodies couldn’t handle the virus that penetrated their veins. The air in this town was just of the rotting bodies, when we reached the outline of the woodland area I was so happy I could have screamed, the acid scarred trees breathed better oxygen into the air and I breathed it in big gasps trying to dispel the nasty taste of the creatures. Personally I would want to camp out rather than go back to the town, I couldn’t handle that smell and taste again.

  As we walked all I could hear was the other’s thumping footsteps, crunching on twigs or on rubbish that had blown in from the town. The noise they were both making was scaring off the animals, finally I had to say something, “You two I need you to tread quietly so we don’t scare off the food”, I whispered taking my hunting stance, they copied me and followed me silently, I took my rifle from my shoulder holding it tight but ready to fling it into action to shoot. Some other twigs underfoot snapped every now and then as we scrambled through the trees and tall grasses but it was nowhere near as noisy as before. Holding up my hand I would stop our group then use my scope to cover the landscape around us looking for anything edible or anything that would consider us to be edible, spotting a rabbit up ahead I indicated I wanted them to hang back, crawling at a snail’s pace I made my way closer to make my shot more effective, holding my breath and taking aim I shot at the poor defenceless animal, BANG! The shot hit the rabbit in the throat and it fell instantly, waiting a minute or two making sure no creatures ran out to
see what the noise was I then ran for my kill, snatching it up I tied it to my bag. Ollie and Monique snuck out behind me keeping an eye out, moving further into the woodland we searched for more food, passing a bush full of berries Ollie stopped to pick some.

  “Wait”, I said stopping him in his tracks, “They might be poisonous”.

  “Oh sorry”, he said sounding deflated.

  “Don’t be you didn’t know, I don’t know if they are but we better not risk it for one of us to be ill or killed by berries would just be…well silly especially when there are worse threats out here than berries”, I smiled.

  We walked a few more feet inland then I spotted some more food that we could eat, wild chickens, or as wild as they come they most likely escaped from a nearby farm. I made the others stop and signalled to them what to do, I reached into my bag and grabbed my old penknife and passed it to Ollie, I then got Darren’s one from my pocket for me to use and Monique stood ready and waiting with her blade. We tip toed into the clearing where the chickens clucked happily, lunging forward I jumped onto one and sliced it so it fell down dead. The other two tried my tactic but the chickens had been disturbed by me and were running round as if in a chicken frenzy running wildly like they were headless until we tried again, then they pretty much were. I managed to get three of them, a chicken for each of us, Ollie managed to get one and so had Monique, it was plenty and would go nice with some rabbit and it also meant once cooked we could save it for a snack for the next day. Running to where the bird’s fell we snatched up our dinner. Looking around I could just make out a building in the distance, not too far from where we were now it was probably the farm where our chickens had come from. As we neared it I hoped there would be more food sources there we could pinch, maybe some vegetables to go with our meal, what I would do for a roasted Parsnip.

  Reaching the boundaries of the farm I made Ollie and Monique wait at the fence while I went to check it out, using my rifle I searched the nearby fields which showed me that cattle and horses roamed them, which was a good sign that they hadn’t been frightened off by creatures or eaten by them. An old barn stood adjacent to the farm house, they both looked deserted but I wanted to make sure, the barn was old and rickety, nearly falling to pieces in the gentle woodland breeze, giving it the once over I found no one and nothing of any help to us it had literally been used as a shed in its former life, rubbish, old machinery and some tools which I had no use for. The old farm house wasn’t as grand as what Linda and Arnold’s house had been, this one looked like it had been abandoned long before the war, the windows were non-existent mostly boarded up or just nothing in the frames, some wooden panels which had decorated the house over the brick work was hanging off, the front door swung to and fro not really making much noise other than the occasional creak. Entering I found it to be empty as well and nearly void of anything that could help us other than a fire pit that someone had made here before, it was a ring of rocks which stood in the centre of what could have been either a living room or a dining room but no furniture told me what, inside the pit the old dust showed me it hadn’t been used in a while. Checking the rest of the downstairs and concluding that part was safe I then headed upstairs, again nothing, my lucky day right? Five bedrooms adorned here fairly plain, the first one held a bed with an off pink coloured duvet and mouldy looking pillow on it, no wardrobe or other furniture, the next room had been decorated with a blue wallpaper once stylish but not now as the weather had gotten in a washed most of the wood work and paper away. A family bathroom with the usual bath, sink, toilet, and some mouldy looking towels sat hidden away between the last few bedrooms which were just as empty other than a couple of boxes filled with broken picture frames and the odd soggy book. This place was ghostly quiet, it literally looked like the family had packed up and left, which of course they might have not knowing what was going to happen, then in the midst of the move the acid rain? Or maybe they survived, guess I would never know.

  I headed back outside to flag to the others it was safe, within minutes we were fixing the fire pit and spit roasting the meat, Monique offered to go look for vegetables whilst I cooked, Ollie kept look out at the windows using my rifle scope as it was the best for long distance. Soon she returned with some potatoes small almost like new potatoes, a courgette and a carrot, damn no parsnips! Rummaging through our bags we collected our pots, Monique had wanted the veg to be boiled but as there wasn’t any running water we took to roasting them in a pan with some of the fat from the meat once the meat was properly cooked through. Within two hours we were sitting down on an old dusty wooden floor eating our make shift roast chicken, rabbit and roasted veggies, using our fingers we chomped down like ravenous dogs, the meal was so filling that by the end of it I felt a little sick as I was so stuffed I hadn’t eaten that much in such a long time, we had quite a lot of chicken leftovers which I wrapped in some cloth from my bag to save for our journey tomorrow, it wouldn’t last long between the three of us but we would at least have a few chunks of chicken each and some potatoes. Stamping out the fire we headed upstairs to sleep as night had begun to dawn on us the gloom of dusk penetrating the warmth of the sun and cooling it down to a sudden chill. Knowing that the scent of our cooking might attract something not human we barricaded ourselves into one of the bedrooms using the other remaining bed from the other room as a barricade. It felt strange to be so close to two other people as we all snuggled into the pink bed to keep warm as the windowless building was draftee and chilly, we let little Ollie go in the middle to keep him mostly warm plus if anything came in we could have a chance to grab our weapons and protect him, not that they were far my rifle was right under my side of the bed along with Ollie’s shotgun, Monique kept her handgun by her side and she was adamant to sleep nearest the window and door in case something did come in…Such a gentlewoman.

  The night was fairly quiet other than the odd nay or moo and when the morning light flooded in and woke me I felt stiff from laying right on the edge so as not to sleep right on top of Ollie. I was the first one up so I naturally did what I always done when I had been on my own, grabbing my rifle I went to the window to observe my options and to see what creeps had snuck up on me in the night, the view that obscured my vision was not one I was happy to see, during the night a whole horde of creatures had snuck in through a gap in the fence and had surrounded the house. Walking around it in a trance which looked to be ritualistic almost like if they did it enough their food would be sacrificed and dropped down to them on a plate. The poor animals that had been happily living in the neighbouring fields were all dead, eaten alive and torn to pieces. Turning on my heel as quickly and as quietly as I could I went to Monique’s side and nudged her awake, she awoke with a start and went to say something so I clamped my hand down on her mouth, Ollie had stirred during this and just watched me knowing something was wrong.

  “Creatures all around the house, we have to leave now!” I whispered.

  They both nodded, “How?” Ollie asked.

  I shrugged, “Window maybe? I think going down the stairs will be too risky, they have overrun outside so they must have overrun inside too”.

  Monique got up grabbing her gun and motioning with her hand for me to follow we both looked out together across the fields, I had never seen so many creatures all in one place, yes I had been chased by loads before but I had never actually seen them horde together like this, normally some wondered off on their own but these seemed…organised somehow?

  “What do we do there are too many of them for us to have a chance at running?” She asked me biting her lip.

  I shrugged, “I don’t know but I’ll think of something”.

  Ollie poked his head out and gasped, “Wow there are so many of them”.

  I hushed him as his little voice squeaked loudly, although they couldn’t climb stairs there could be a chance a screecher was nearby and could scream to attack so it was best to try and stay quiet.

  “Look over there”, I pointed out across the
horizon to a stream, “Maybe that leads back to the sea road, we could use the water to wash away our scent for a while?”

  “Do you think it will work?” Ollie asked.

  I nodded, “I’ve been in this type of situation before I hid in water and they lost me, the water washes off the scent that they follow”.

  “I used it at the water treatment place with big foot! I never realised it worked till then and it might be the only thing we’ve got”, she said sighing, “Why couldn’t they of just come later when we had gone”.

  Ollie asked, “How are we going to get to the stream?”

  I mulled it over for a few minutes looking around for something that might distract them long enough for us to run but nothing jumped out at me, the only thing I could think of would be splitting us up and I didn’t want that but if it could save Ollie then what else could I do? “I have a sort of plan”.

  Monique looked at me I think something in my voice signalled she wouldn’t like it, “What?”

  “You two go to the edge of the roof that side and wait, I’ll jump down the other side and distract them long enough for you two to run to the stream, make your way back to the town and I’ll meet you back by the sea road, if I’m not there say by highest point of the sun in the sky just go, if I’m alive I’ll catch you up”, I pointed to just outside the window, there was a flat roof which would mean jumping down right into the throng of the creatures but what else was there?

  She shook her head at me, “No we are not splitting up, last time we did I lost a friend”.

  “That was forced on us this is my choice”, I pleaded, “What other choice do we have?”

  “We just all jump down and run? Or we just wait it out see if they wonder off?” she suggested.

  “By which time we could have all starved to death or more could arrive, running together is not a good idea they will catch us all and tear us apart in minutes we would be easy prey. At least my way gives you two a way out even if just for a while. I promised I would keep Ollie safe and this is the only way to do so”, I said.