Survive (Day 5)

by Wise, A. R.

  “Don’t make me shoot,” said someone down the road as Red began to run.

  He recalled sitting atop the hill the day before, waiting for June. He’d found a pair of binoculars in the squad car, and had been waiting in hopes that June would return to the car in search of their dog, Porter. When she finally arrived, she was being chased by helpers with guns, and she began running side to side to avoid their fire. Red was inspired to do the same, although his attempt probably looked more like a drunkard’s wavering stride.

  Red recognized a nearby house, and ran for it. This was the first house he’d visited in town, and he knew the front door was unlocked. When he got inside, he was reminded why he’d left in such a hurry before. The stench of feces stole his breath away, and he rushed through the living room and into the kitchen, overturning furniture to block the way as he did. The screen door to the backyard was still propped open, and he hastily unlatched it, slammed the door, and then reached for the nearby grill. He pulled the grill close and then kicked the legs, bashing the exhaust pipe against the side of the house and igniting fury from the wasp’s nest. Soon the entire backyard was alive with the angry buzz of insects, and Red escaped as fast as he could manage. He clumsily mounted the fence and fell hard in the alley before scrambling to get up and run.

  It wasn’t long before he heard the surprised scream of a helper who tried to go out into the backyard, only to be met by a haze of angry, stinging insects.

  Red went between another pair of homes, and to a side street where he began searching for a car to steal. He found a pristine Pontiac Firebird with a golden etched phoenix on the hood. Everything about the car seemed like it’d been plucked from a teenager’s dream. The rims sparkled gold and silver, and the tires gleamed as if freshly polished. The leather interior was equally resplendent, without a scratch or abrasion to be seen. Whoever owned this car had loved it. There wasn’t a single crumb on the floormats, and the interior smelled like the car had just been driven new off the lot. The key in the ignition didn’t even have a ring, as if it’d been handed over to a proud owner at the dealership and driven straight to this spot.

  “Now this is what I’m talking about!”

  The engine started with a satisfying roar, and within seconds he was speeding out of town. Red slapped the dash in appreciation, and cheered. There wasn’t any sign of a follower in his rearview, but he knew that wouldn’t last. Soon the helpers would come after him, which could lead them to Allie and June.

  Red came up with a hasty and risky solution. “I hate to do this to you, buddy,” he said as he rubbed the dash. “But I don’t have a choice.”

  Outside of the Boise City limits, the horizon stretched flat and wide, dominated by barren land where shrubs struggled to grow. An occasional farmhouse broke the monotony of brown, and it was at one of those farms where Allie and June hid. Red knew he had to lead the helpers away from there, and the only way to do it would be to drive past and then abandon the Firebird.

  He tried to test the car’s limits, but the uneven, roughly patched road wasn’t easy on the suspension. By the time he exceeded one hundred miles an hour, he was bouncing and losing traction. He zipped past the farm where Allie and June were hiding, and as he neared the edge of the wheat field he slowed to a stop in the center of the road.

  The field would provide scattered cover. The wheat had been cut and bundled into blocks that dotted the land. He could hide behind them, running from block to block on his way back to the farm.

  Red grabbed the duffle bag and got out to search for a stone that was large enough to serve his needs.

  “This had better work,” he said as he put the car in neutral and then positioned the stone over the accelerator. The engine roared, but the tires stayed still as Red reached in cautiously for the shifter. He tried to shift into drive and then duck out of the vehicle, but he wasn’t as fast as he’d hoped. When the car started moving forward, he was hit by the driver’s seat and knocked away. He spun, his knee planted on the pavement, and fell as the car zoomed down the road. He watched and prayed, “Go straight, go straight,” in an attempt to will it forward. “No, no, no, don’t…” The car listed left, towards the field.

  “Fuck!”

  The Firebird ran off the side of the road a couple hundred yards ahead, past the farm and into the wasteland that seemed to stretch forever. It wasn’t designed for off-roading, and soon the Firebird was careening side to side as it bashed through the uneven terrain. Red continued to watch it as he ran into the field, and saw the car slow to a stop. The stone had fallen off the accelerator.

  The car was several hundred yards from the farm where June and Allie were hiding, but not far enough. When the helpers inevitably found the car they’d assume Red had escaped to the nearest farmhouse, which would lead them straight to June and Allie.

  As Red escaped to the field, he saw the hazy outline of cars materializing in the heat mirages down the road. Helpers were on their way.

  Day Five – 12:40 pm

  “Allie, get the guns,” said Red as he burst into the back door of the farmhouse. “We’re about to have company.”

  “Why?” she asked, panicked. “What’s going on.”

  Porter barked, excited by Red’s ferocious entrance.

  “Helpers.” He gasped, out of breath and painfully exhausted from his sprint through the wheat field. “Three or four cars.” Another gasp. “Headed here.”

  “What?” she asked in exasperated fear.

  “Get June up. She’s going to have to fight too.”

  “She’s out cold.”

  “Then wake her up!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then try!” Red had no patience.

  “I’ve been fucking trying!”

  Red cocked his head like a confounded pup. “What?”

  “I’ve been trying. She’s out cold. She’s, like, as out as you can get. She took some pain killers. I didn’t know what she was doing. She grabbed some prescription pills and took them. She said she needed them for the pain, but I think they… I think she overdosed.”

  “Is she all right?”

  Allie shrugged.

  “Is she all right, Allie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh fuck. Oh my fucking God.” Red felt panic rising. “Okay, one thing at a time. We’ve got to fight off these helpers. You and me, kid. We’ve got no choice.”

  Allie’s eyes welled with tears, and she went to the window to look out at the farmland. Red grasped her shoulder, pulled her away, and pushed her towards the stairs. “Go,” he said harshly, and then closed the curtains.

  They’d been able to find a lever action rifle and a Ruger revolver in the farmhouse when they first arrived, which had left them with four guns total. The loss of the shotgun in Boise City was a blow, but they’d still each have a weapon of some sort. He refused to consider the thought that June was dying. He had to focus on one problem at a time.

  Red continued through the house, closing the blinds and locking the doors. The farmhouse was a quaint two-story colonial. The residents had kept their home tidy. It looked like they’d simply left for vacation. Allie had been working on gathering supplies while Red was gone, and the kitchen table was stacked with canned food. There were two suitcases filled with clothes on the couches, along with several knives. Red took a butcher knife, and then went upstairs.

  “She won’t wake up,” said Allie, crying. “I tried and tried, but she won’t…”

  June was laying on the four-poster bed, her skin as pale as the linen.

  “Is she alive?” he asked fretfully as he stood in the threshold of the room, staring at his girlfriend’s motionless form.

  “Yeah, she’s just out cold.” Allie was beside the bed, shaking June to no avail. “I can’t get her to wake up.”

  “Leave her,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Leave her there. She’s not going to be able to help us. Come on!”

  Allie looked at June, and t
hen back at Red. “We’re going to leave her here?”

  “Get the guns! Where are the guns?” His patience had reached its limit.

  “We can’t just leave her here,” said Allie.

  “If we can’t wake her up, then she can’t fight. Where are the guns, Allie?” He started searching the room.

  “I’m not leaving her here to get caught,” said Allie, defiant.

  Red halted, struck by the realization that Allie had misinterpreted his intentions. “We’re not leaving her here to get caught. Allie…” He looked at the weeping young woman and bluntly told her, “Kid, we have to fight to stay alive, right here, right now. We’re not getting out of this house unless those helpers are dead. Now where the fuck are the guns?”

  “The rifle’s downstairs,” she said as she went to the nightstand. Her hands trembled as she opened the drawer. “The other two are here.” She left the drawer open and backed away from it as if scared to touch them.

  Red took the Gloc and forced Allie to take the Ruger. “Here,” he said as he pressed it to her palm. “Don’t start shooting until I do.”

  “I can’t,” she shook her head and moaned.

  “Yes you can.”

  “No.”

  “Allie, look at me. You can do this.”

  She stared at him with tears flowing down her freckled cheeks.

  “They’re going to break in here, and when they do we have to kill them. Do you understand? If we don’t, they’ll kill us.”

  She shook her head.

  “Listen to me, Allie. They’re not going to shoot us first. They’ll try to stab us. That gives us the advantage. We’ll hide, and June can be the bait. When they see her, they’ll come in here…” He shook her as she began to cower. “Listen to me. We’ll hide in the corners, and when they come in here to get June, we’ll shoot them. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to,” he said as he took her hands and forced her to hold tightly onto the pistol. “The safety’s here on the left.” He tried to flick it, but the switch was jammed. He took it from her, and she backed away. He forced the safety off, and then tried to give it back to her. “Take it.”

  She shook her head.

  He moved fast to her, and forced the gun into her hands. “Take it!”

  “The safety’s off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I put it back on?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to put it back on, just in case. If they get in the house, I’ll take it off. Okay? It’ll make me feel better.”

  “Fine, but it sticks. Be careful. Where did you put the rifle?”

  “It’s with the stuff in the living room, by the clothes.”

  “I’m going to go get it. You stay here and…”

  There was a loud thud downstairs. Red froze and listened while holding his finger up to shush Allie as well. They heard another thud as someone banged their fist on the front door.

  “We’re here to help,” said a muted voice.

  Red muttered a curse and then pointed to the corner of the room near the door. He whispered to her, “Get in that corner. When the door opens it’ll cover you. And take off the safety.”

  She was crying and asking, “What’re we going to do?”

  “Be quiet and listen. You’re going to stay behind that door until you hear me shoot. Then you close the door and start shooting too.”

  “I can’t.”

  The helper yelled, “Open up.” The door rattled.

  “You have to. You’re fighting for your life now,” said Red as he pushed her towards the door. She did as she was told, and then closed the door just as they heard the helpers breaking a window.

  Red moved to the other corner, and crouched in a futile attempt to hide. All he could hope for was that the helpers would focus on June when they came into the room.

  “We know you’re here. Come on out. We can help.”

  Red and Allie stared at each other. He could hear her sobs despite how she tried to stay quiet. He put his finger to his lips, pleading with her to stop. The pistol trembled in her hands. She held it close to her chest, as if she was using it to pray.

  The helpers searched methodically. Red struggled to get a sense of how many of them there were. He counted at least three distinctly different voices. One of the helpers came up the stairs. The floorboards in the hall creaked. Red watched the door handle, waiting for it to spin.

  “It’ll be easier if you just come on out,” said a helper.

  The knob spun.

  Time slowed to a crawl as Red gripped the Gloc tight. The sweat on his palms was trapped between his flesh and the grip. The door eased open, the tip of an assault rifle’s barrel pushed it. Then the rifle lowered as the entering helper said, “Ma’am, we’re here to help.”

  Red couldn’t see him from his vantage.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  The helper entered, a tall and handsome man with thick dark hair and an equally masculine beard. He looked like a model for men’s hair dye. The handsome helper let the rifle hang by the strap around his shoulder, and then reached into his pocket to retrieve a pocket knife.

  Allie was trapped behind the door. Red stayed crouched and silent, in full view of the helper if only he turned to look left.

  “I got one in here,” said the handsome helper, his voice strong and deep. He put the pocket knife’s blade to his left palm, and slit his skin to produce a wealth of infectious blood. “Keep sleeping, princess. This won’t take a second.” He advanced to the bed.

  Red took careful aim at the back of the man’s head.

  “What’d you find, Will?” asked another helper who came bounding down the hall. The handsome helper was near June when the second man entered. He pushed the door further open as he came in, slamming it into Allie. She yelped in pain.

  Will spun, the trap revealed. “What the fuck?”

  Red fired two quick shots, tearing through Will’s handsome face. The helper twisted and fell, grasping his wound in the seconds before death. He fell partially over June, leaking blood all over the bed sheets.

  “No!” The second helper turned to Red, and raised a shotgun.

  Red fired first, hitting the helper in the shoulder, but the first strike wasn’t enough to keep the helper from pulling his trigger. The shotgun blast sent pellets and air rushing past Red’s cheek with a blistering heat and force. The helper had missed, but not by much. Behind Red, the wall was left with a massive wound surrounded by several smaller holes.

  Allie forced the door against the helper, knocking him off balance and back into the hall. She pointed the pistol at him, and started uselessly pulling the trigger. The safety was stuck.

  The teenager looked down at the gun helplessly, as if she wasn’t certain what it was.

  “The safety,” Red yelled, although he could barely hear himself over the ringing in his ears from the shotgun blast in the confined space.

  Allie looked at him, her eyes full of tears. She said something, though he couldn’t tell what.

  Suddenly, violently, Allie was thrown backwards into the room, as if she’d been yanked away by some unseen cord. Red’s hearing was a din of horrendous ringing, worse than before. The helpers second shotgun blast, the one that tore through Allie’s frail body and sent her flying back, had nearly deafened Red in the process.

  The teenager was dead, her chest a mess of shredded cloth, blood, and exposed meat. The sight paralyzed Red. Her mouth was agape, and her eyes stared lifelessly forward, wide and unblinking, as if gazing into the depths of hell as she fell hopelessly in.

  Red snapped out of his momentary daze. He went to the door, emboldened by hatred and fury. The helper was reloading in the hall, and had no way to defend himself as Red pointed the Gloc at him and fired until the pistol clicked empty. The helper was dead before he hit the floor.

  Red slammed the door shut, and then pulled the handsome helper’s body off the bed so that he could take the as
sault rifle off his shoulder. It was a semi-automatic AR-15, the same type that Red’s father cherished and forced his sons to learn how to shoot.

  With his hearing lost behind blaring ringing, Red stood in a haze of anger and fear. He screamed, as if experiencing a warrior’s bloodlust in the midst of a hopeless battle. His hands were slick with blood, but he didn’t know who’s it was. Perhaps the shotgun blast that he thought had missed him had torn through his face. But if that was the case, then the pain had been masked by adrenaline. His heart raced, thundering in his chest with enough force that he felt the vibration in his bones.

  “Come and get me!” He could barely hear himself screaming.

  He kept the rifle pointed at the door, waiting for one of the helpers to dare turn the knob. He moved to the side of the bed, and used his left hand to try and wake June. As he shook her, he saw the knob twist. Without a second thought, he fired through the door, piercing the white painted wood in five spots near the handle.

  “June, come on!”

  She was still unconscious, the result of an overdose.

  The door burst open, and splinters of wood flew at Red. He was aware that someone had fired a shotgun again, but his comprehension of what was happening was muddled by his loss of hearing. Suddenly there was a large man in the room, his face a mess of knife cuts. His left eye had been stabbed days earlier, and the wound had never been treated. His cheeks and forehead were purple with infection.

  Red fired the assault rifle, easily hitting the girthy helper, but not felling him. The man staggered back, pained but determined. He tried to raise the shotgun to shoot at Red, but couldn’t manage before another few rounds struck his chest. He hit the wall, and then went down to his knees before falling forward over the body of Will.

  Red wasn’t going to chance anything. He got closer to the big man, aimed, and put a round in his head, splattering brain matter onto the floor.

  “Who’s next?” he asked, though he could only hear a weak mocking of his voice through the painful ringing in his ears.