I quietly walk over to the side where she’s sleeping and crouch down by her head.
“Hey,” I whisper while gently shaking her. “Ash, I need you to wake up.”
It took about a minute of shaking and whispering for her to wake up. I was starting to get worried. I can’t find another dead body, I don’t think I’d cope with that too well.
“What do you want?” she asks, voice hoarse.
“We’re supposed to wake you up every two hours,” I say.
“Christine already woke me up not too long ago.”
“Oh,” I eloquently respond. “I didn’t know that. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m surprised you’re checking on me at all.”
Shit, me too.
“Why do you say that?” I ask, instead of voicing my thoughts.
“‘Cause you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say.
She snorts which causes her to wince in the process.
“I mean it, I don’t hate you. I dislike you, but that’s because you’re always being a bitch. We’re all stressed, we’re all scared, and to top it off you seem to want to make it harder for everybody.”
“I have my reasons,” she states.
“Yeah? Please, enlighten me on the reasons that causes you to make our lives harder than it already is.”
She stares at me and I stare back, refusing to back down from a simple stare down with her. I can tell that she’s starting to get pissed off, but I really don’t care. She has made every day a lot harder than it needed to be. Always having negative remarks, constantly complaining about things outside of any of our control and tearing down anyone with a different opinion than her. It got old after the first day it started. When Ashlynn first joined our group, she didn’t really talk. I took those days for granted. Now we can’t get her to shut up.
She takes a deep breath, probably preparing herself to cuss me out, before she surprises me. “You think you have me all figured out, huh?” she asks softly. “Ash, the bitch that hates everyone. The one poor Ashton has to always apologize for. But you don’t know shit about me.”
“Obviously,” I state. “I barely know anything about any of you. I just started talking to Brian and tonight I found out that Christine’s mom was a nurse. We don’t have many chances to powwow and get to know each other. Even if we did, you’ve been so closed off and on the defensive that I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you.”
“I have my reasons,” she repeats.
“Reasons you have yet to mention.”
“I found my mom, naked and dying, in our house.” She drops that bomb on me like we were discussing her favorite color.
“What?”
“You heard me. I found my mom’s naked body, in our house, minutes from death. Apparently, Bandit’s found their way inside, had their way with her and then killed her when they were finished. They also made sure to rob us of all of our food.”
“How do you know… I mean I know she was naked but…”
“If you saw her body, you’d know without a doubt what they did,” she says flatly.
“Where was your father?”
“I found him in the kitchen, long dead.”
“Ashton?”
“He was out with his friends.”
“How?”
“How what?” she asks.
“How was he out with his friends? The world ended long before we came upon you guys.”
“We lived in a small community. Everyone knew everyone. We all grew up together. It was safe, or so we thought.”
“Did Ashton see them?”
“No, I made sure he didn’t. I always protected Ashton. You guys wouldn’t know this, but I’m older than him by seven minutes. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot, but for twins that means a lot. I got charged with looking out for him. Being the big sister my parents wanted me to be. I packed up clothes for him and myself, filled our bags with as much food as I could and prepared myself for what I had to do next.”
“Which was?” I ask, completely enraptured with her story.
She takes a deep, fortifying breath and I can tell that this story is taking so much out of her. I’m actually starting to feel terrible for waking her up and making her retell this heart wrenching story when she’s so weak.
“I grabbed our family albums, waited until my mom took her last breath, and then I burned the house to the ground.”
I gasp. That was not what I was expecting her to say. No wonder she’s so mean! She found her parents dead and had to burn her childhood home up.
“Why did you set the house on fire?” I finally asked.
“I couldn’t have Ashton find our parents like that. If I would’ve left them like that and went to find him, he would have insisted on coming home to see for himself. I grabbed our albums so that we can have reminders of how they looked. So that I can remember them when they were alive, not how they looked when I found them dead.”
“What happened next?”
“I found Ashton and told him what had happened. That Bandits killed our parents and destroyed our home. He wanted to go check, and I let him, knowing what he’d find. He didn’t take it well. We went to our neighbors’ home and asked if we could stay with them, explaining what happened. They turned us away. Everyone turned us away. People we knew all of our lives threw us to wolves. We had no choice but to leave our town. We traveled discreetly for two weeks until we ran into you guys. By that point, I felt dead inside. I still do.”
“That explains everything,” I say.
“I don’t see why you guys fight so hard for this dream. Why you believe that there will be a ship waiting for us. We’re all going to die before we get there.”
“If we don’t fight for something, we might as well lay down and die right now. We’re fighting for a chance to actually live. To start over. If we stay here, we’ll never be able to live peacefully. I know it’s hard to see that there is a happy ending to this, but that’s when you need to call on your faith. Your faith in yourself and your faith in us.”
We were quiet for a while and it’s almost my time to go on watch duty. So I stand up, preparing to walk out the door when Ashlynn calls my name. “Yeah?”
“If you want to give advice on faith, then you have to have some too,” she says.
“I do have faith,” I say.
“Then have faith that Derrick and Sam are alive, because I can see that you already counted them out.” With that comment she closes her eyes, effectively dismissing me from the room. I look back into the room as I’m closing the door and I’m met with some hard eyes. Ashton was awake, and judging by the fire in his eyes, he heard the entire conversation.
That’s a battle for another time and, thankfully, it has nothing to do with me. Right now, I need to focus all of my energy on finding Derrick. Everything else will have to wait.
15
Derrick
All I can honestly say right now is that my entire body feels as though it’s been used as a chair for a group of sumo wrestlers. My body aches in places I didn’t even know could ache. I groan as I try to roll over onto my back. The pain that seizes my body makes me feel like throwing up. I can tell that I’m lying on the floor, but the floor is smooth, so I must be in a building.
I jerk upright, promptly causing my body to convulse in wave after wave of pain. At least one rib is broken. I’m struggling to catch my breath as I realize that I’m in a closet. A closet with barely any light filtering through it from under the door. I’m in the building where the Boss lives, and if I’m here, I know that Sam has to be here as well. I didn’t believe a word that came out of Chris’s mouth. But what good could I be to her? I can barely stay conscious as it is. I’ll probably end up getting us both killed.
I’m startled out of my thoughts as I hear footsteps coming towards my closet. This is it, the moment that I die. I rather go down swinging than sitting here waiting for death like a lame horse. I force myself into a crouched position, body gr
oaning in protest, waiting to tackle whoever is unlucky enough to open that door.
The door swings open and I’m met with a pair of familiar emerald eyes. My body collapses against the wall, all of the fight promptly leaving my battered body. I try to catch my breath as I take in every inch of her. Nothing really has changed about her. Her hair reaches to the back of her thighs and her skin is just as creamy as I remember.
“Sam,” I gasp. I try to get up to walk to her when she lashes out and punches me in my mouth. I crumple to the ground, more from shock than anything. I look up at her and I see everything I missed in my first inspection. Her eyes are hard and there’s a nasty sneer on her face. “Sam?”
“You should have forgotten all about me, Derrick, because I forgot all about you. I never thought you were this dumb, but I guess you proved me wrong. The Boss is going to have fun with you.” Even her voice has changed. It’s smoother with a huskier edge to it.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“Do you really have to ask? I was stabbed in the stomach and then abandoned by the people who so called loved me.”
“Sam! That’s not true! When we woke up, we spent hours looking for you. The trail dried up before we could find you. I promise you!”
“Blah blah blah. I no longer care and, as much as I love a good reunion, the Boss is waiting for you,” she wipes her hands off as if the conversation sullied her hands. “By the way, where’s Kiani? I wouldn’t expect her to let you roam alone.”
“She’s dead,” I spit out. No way in hell will I compromise Ki to Sam. To anyone. For a second there I thought I saw grief flicker in her eyes, but it was gone so fast, I must have been imagining it.
“What a shame,” she sneers. “I guess you’ll be our only guest of honor.”
She moves out of the way as two Bandits come in to take me to the Boss. I don’t even fight them, there's no point with me being all beat up. I have to conserve my energy. I’ll find a way to kill everyone in this building, it’s the only way to stop them from reigning terror on other unsuspecting souls.
I can only pray that Kiani is well away from this building when it happens.
16
Kiani
Brian walks into the apartment to find me sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. We look at each other for a little bit before he sighs and sits down beside me.
“So did you get any rest?” he asks.
I shrug my shoulders and look back towards the wall. I know that I have to keep this conversation as short as possible to limit the chances of me slipping up. I can already tell that Brian is a little keyed up. And for good reason, too. It’s not like we aren’t on borrowed time, more than we usually are.
“I got about four hours of sleep before waking up. I checked on Ashlynn to make sure she didn’t kick the bucket and I’ve been up since,” I respond.
“How is she?” he asks.
“She’s fine. Lucid, which is a good thing I’d guess. I still don’t know how she’ll do out there in the heat and walking for hours on end, though. Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about that.”
“Why do you say that? Is there an alternative?”
“No,” I lied effortlessly. “I’m just saying that I hope that Ashlynn isn’t as bad as Christine think she is.”
He stares at me for a little bit before resting back into the sofa cushions. He closes his eyes for a long moment, lulling me into the false reassurance that he’s succumbed to his exhaustion. I stand up, prepared to leave to sit at my post for a little while. I’ve already left my note with the explanation and instructions on it. I have my hand on the doorknob when Brian sleepily says, “Don’t do anything stupid, Kiani. There are people here who care about you.”
I look back at him, noticing that he hasn’t opened his eyes. I nod to him, even though he can’t see it. I know that there are people that care about me, but there’s just one face that pops into my mind with urgency. And that’s the face of my dumbass best friend.
I quietly slip out into the night, closing the door on my journey with this group of people. Hopefully we’ll be able to cross paths again, if I’m alive to have a path to cross. I shake those dark thoughts from my mind, focusing instead of climbing this ladder to the roof. I settle myself in to sit for an hour, just in case Brian decides to check in on me.
My eyes slowly scan the area around me diligently for an hour. No sound from any Bandits and no surprise pop ups from Brian. I stand, slowly stretching the kinks out of my muscles. My heart starts to hammer as I realize what I’m about to do. Not only am I going to risk my life, but I’m leaving my friends virtually vulnerable to any attacks. I can’t really think about that though. I can only be in one place at a time, and Derrick needs me more.
I scale down the ladder and I leave the building without a single glance back. I can’t second guess my movements or my decisions or I might as well sign my own death certificate.
I retrace our earlier footsteps, stumbling upon a small mom and pop pharmacy shop. I pause, conflicted by what I should do. I’ve only been gone for twenty minutes; not long enough for Brian to randomly wake up and check on me. It’ll take another twenty minutes to head back and I risk running into Bandits or blowing my entire mission. I stand there for another minute before deciding that I put my friends at enough risk, the least I can do is make sure that Ashlynn has the medicine that she needs so that they could leave quicker and safer than they will now.
I enter the building using the back entrance, slowly taking each step so that I don’t step on anything. I take out my flashlight, needing the extra light to illuminate the dark room. I seem to be in a storage area of some sort, which is great news for me. I scan the shelves, praying that everything here isn’t expired. Medicine takes a while to go bad, and I can tell that this store hasn’t been abandoned for too long. The shelves aren’t as well stocked as I would have liked, I can tell that someone was previously here.
I feel the pressure of time pressing down on me as I slowly look through each box, hoping that once I see the name of the medicine it’ll click for me. I’ve almost given up after ten minutes of searching, when I come across a box that looks promising. I’m rifling through the contents when I find what I’m looking for. Thank the gods! I check the expiration date and I see that it still has one more year before the pills are rendered useless. I grab a couple plastic bags off of another shelf and I begin to pile a bunch of bottles into it. You never know when one of us will get bust across the head again. I find some 800 mg pain pills and throw them into the bag without even checking the expiration date. They either work, or they don’t; I got what I really came for. After I fill that bag with all the medicine we need, I begin to throw random bottles in another bag. I have no idea what they all are, but I’m hoping Christine can identify them and decide if they’ll be helpful in the future.
I’m gathering up my loot when I hear the distinct sound of people talking. My heart begins to beat a staccato rhythm that shakes my entire body. I’m looking around the small storage area looking for a place to hide when I realize that there is none. I quickly turn my flashlight off and begin to head back towards the exit.
“I just have to check, I know they’ll have something here.” I stop moving, realizing that the voice belongs to a woman, Not saying that she couldn’t be a crazed Bandit, but the desperation in her voice tells me otherwise.
“Baby, this place could be full of traps. We can’t linger here any longer,” a man said.
“I don’t care! I will not leave her to die!”
At this point, I should sneak out the back and never look back. Their problem is theirs and theirs alone. But alas, I’m a dumbass that feels like she has an obligation to help everyone she comes across. I sit and listen to the couple further, deciding on whether or not I could help them.
“Her fever needs to break, Ravi. If she gets any hotter she’ll start to cook alive.”
I hear a deep sigh, probably Ravi, before they begin shuffling around. I see bea
ms of light from their flashlights and I realize that they’re making themselves targets for anyone close enough to the building; the front of the store is mostly glass. I have no idea how this is going to go, but I’m already running out of time.
I turn back around and look for the Tylenol and Penicillin that I came across. I toss some into my bag as well, there’s a high chance that Ashlynn might get an infection down the road. I have no idea what’s wrong with this girl, but antibiotics seem like the best bet. Tylenol is good for fevers, too. This Tylenol is a little strong, 800mg, so I’m hoping it’s not a little baby. I’m sure there’s some children Tylenol lying around here somewhere, but I should have been gone fifteen minutes ago.
I don’t have any time to think of a smart plan, so I don’t form one. I clear my throat and call out, “Excuse me. There’s someone back here in the storage closet. You might want to filter your flashlights with her hands before you alert the Bandits to your presence. Also, I found some medicine that might help you. Please don’t try to kill me, I also have a friend that is depending on my medicine. I would rather we didn’t fight for our lives tonight if we didn’t have to.”
I’m met with silence. The silence begins to stretch for so long that I figure they decided to leave. I begin to back away towards the exit when I hear what can only be a scuffle.
“Are you insane, Sarah?! It could be a trap and you’re just going to waltz right over there!” Ravi exclaims.
“Ravi, if my sister dies because of you, you might as well consider yourself dead to me as well.” Goosebumps rose on my arm at the cold calmness in her voice. I hear footsteps approach me after that, soft but determined. “Hello?” Sarah calls out. She rounds the corner and I am surprised to see such a small woman. She couldn’t be much taller than Isaiah. Her brown, curly shoulder length hair looks like it hasn’t been cared for in a long time. Dark circles take residence underneath her tired brown eyes. Her brown skin strains against her face, as if she hasn’t truly eaten in a long time. Her frame is hidden underneath clothes that looks like it belongs to a little boy. All in all, she doesn’t look like she’s in any position to be out exploring.
Kiani’s Journey- Mayhem Page 11
