42 months ago:
Just before the bullet left the gun, I heard, “Wait!” BLAM! My fingers then went numb and my
mouth fell to ground, opened wide in amazement. I slowly muttered, “A human...”
I heard a scream, “No! What the hell did you do?!” Before thinking any further,
I was knocked unconscious.
The dreams visited me once again, but this time, they came rushing toward me…without time for me to decipher each flash and each meaning. The images invaded my mind, filling my head with even more memories, but some of those memories actually started to piece themselves together. The major revealing piece was that I had a daughter. It was such a certain image, and the crayons under the bed at my house were obviously hers. The missing pictures in my photo album contained her beautiful face, as well as my mother’s. The last time I remember hearing from them was when Jacob, along with my mother and daughter went out to supper and were on their way home. Jacob called me to make sure I put in the next load of laundry. I stayed home to catch up on my work. When he called, it was raining. I heard my mom in the background singing my little girl to sleep. Jacob told me he was five minutes away and that he brought back leftovers. That certain memory stopped there, but it told me a lot. How could I have forgotten about my own daughter? What happened to her and my mom? And, why is there nearly no trace of them ever being at my house or even in my life? None of those questions would be answered soon and it was extremely difficult to verbalize what I felt during that dream. I started remembering a lot after I was knocked out, more and more each dream; deeper and deeper, as I fell into complete darkness. For a long time, I never exactly remembered why I ran away from my father. I just knew I hated him, with every fiber of my being. I was terrified of him and he rarely spoke to me, but when he did, it was to tell me that he was going away on another one of his long trips. He was never there for my mother and I. His little business trips would last for up to a year sometimes and he lived out of his car more than his own home. I got pregnant right before he left for his year-long trip, and even had the baby while he was still gone. If my dad knew what happened, he would’ve killed Jacob. He was very protective and didn’t want me getting knocked up like any other father; except, he was a dangerous man and had anger problems to make it even worse.
The dreams visited me once again, but this time, they came rushing toward me…without time for me to decipher each flash and each meaning. The images invaded my mind, filling my head with even more memories, but some of those memories actually started to piece themselves together. The major revealing piece was that I had a daughter. It was such a certain image, and the crayons under the bed at my house were obviously hers. The missing pictures in my photo album contained her beautiful face, as well as my mother’s. The last time I remember hearing from them was when Jacob, along with my mother and daughter went out to supper and were on their way home. Jacob called me to make sure I put in the next load of laundry. I stayed home to catch up on my work. When he called, it was raining. I heard my mom in the background singing my little girl to sleep. Jacob told me he was five minutes away and that he brought back leftovers. That certain memory stopped there, but it told me a lot. How could I have forgotten about my own daughter? What happened to her and my mom? And, why is there nearly no trace of them ever being at my house or even in my life? None of those questions would be answered soon and it was extremely difficult to verbalize what I felt during that dream. I started remembering a lot after I was knocked out, more and more each dream; deeper and deeper, as I fell into complete darkness. For a long time, I never exactly remembered why I ran away from my father. I just knew I hated him, with every fiber of my being. I was terrified of him and he rarely spoke to me, but when he did, it was to tell me that he was going away on another one of his long trips. He was never there for my mother and I. His little business trips would last for up to a year sometimes and he lived out of his car more than his own home. I got pregnant right before he left for his year-long trip, and even had the baby while he was still gone. If my dad knew what happened, he would’ve killed Jacob. He was very protective and didn’t want me getting knocked up like any other father; except, he was a dangerous man and had anger problems to make it even worse.
Present Day:
“Eric, why did you let her in here, there’s a horde out
there!” A blond woman said angrily toward the man who questioned my humanity.
“She’ll kill us all, with the noise we’ve just made rescuing her!” “Hush!” Eric
shouted at her for making such a ridiculous remark. “We haven’t seen anyone new
for weeks now! We need as many people as we can get for our trip, you know
that.” The blond woman immediately backed down. Wait, did I just hear trip? I
instantly spurted out, “You can’t make me go anywhere with you people!” A guy
who introduced himself as Darian snapped back saying, “You don’t really have a
choice sweetheart. You either stay with us or you rot with these damn Puppets.
We’re not going to force you to come, but we have a plan.” I looked around the
room and there was a little girl and boy huddling in the corner observing all
conversation and chaos. There are about 5 people in this group. They obviously
can’t stay here too much longer and I don’t see any food or anything to sustain
their needs. There’s excretion in the corners of every wall and the odors of
death are especially poignant in this room. These kids need to get out of here.
Eric seemed to be the leader because he started introducing everyone to me. “As
you may know, my name is Eric Sanders. Those are my kids in the corner that
you’re staring at.” He then pointed to his right, “That’s Darian and Sony. Now,
that we’re all acquainted, do you know the area of this city? I think there’s a
boat dock about a mile from here. Do you know where I’m talking about? We need
to get to the docks and find a boat that will carry all 6 of us, that is…if you
still want to be included.” I nodded in agreement to go with these people but
I’m definitely watchful of them. “I’ll go with you, under one condition. I
don’t have anything with me. I have no way to defend myself. I could really use
a knife or a gun. Can you at least give me that?” They all looked around at
each other and then looked at me all in unison. “Yes, but we’re guessing that
you know how to use these things.” His eyes looked downward and to his left at
Darian. Darian was holding a G22 .40 caliber. He gave me the gun and I dropped
the mag and locked back the slide to check the chamber. “There are only three
bullets in here.” Darian was surprised enough that I knew how anything about a
gun; moreover, he was startled that I didn’t find it to be suitable enough for
me. “Yeah, we’re in kind of short supply..” We only have two guns, including
the one you’re holding. They’re both Glocks and both have the same amount of
bullets in them. That’s all I can give you. We have an axe too, if you’d rather
have that.” I looked at the gun I was holding and decided that I better accept
what I have already and just use the bullets wisely. “The gun is fine. If you
all want to leave, we need to leave tomorrow morning. We don’t want it to be
dark because it would affect our vision of what surrounds us. We need to be
careful, it’s gotten worse since the last time you’ve been out there, I can
promise that. Are we all agreed?” Eric looked around at everybody and said,
“Agreed. We leave first thing tomorrow morning.” The room we’re staying in
isn’t very big. It looks like it used to be an office of some kind but we
obviously entered the side door. There’s a small room with a bunch of paper
work all scattered around. There were some creepy ass naked baby dolls on a
bookshelf and a picture on the ground of an older lady with her cat. This office
obviously belonged to a crazy person. It was getting dark and I used a book as
a head rest and sprawled out on the ground, slowly drifting off to sleep, with
my new gun in my hands.
42 months ago:
My
mom packed our bags and we rented a small motel room and stayed there for a
while, but then dad come home and was enraged. What my mother and I didn’t know
was that my dad had planted a tracking device underneath my mom’s car. He found
us just as I was reading a bedtime story to my baby. He went door to door
banging and yelling out our names. Mom told me to hide and I took the baby and
ran into my temporary bedroom, remembering that the closets were too small, so
I hid in the bathroom and locked the door. My mom ran outside to try and calm him
down but he was so angry and he started accusing her of cheating and abandoning
him because of it. Little did he know, that wasn’t even close to being the
reason as to why we left. I was so scared to have that baby, in fear of my
dad’s dramatic reaction and it turns out I was right on it being unnecessarily
terrifying. He barged through our door, with mom pulling at him not to go in.
The image I had in my head of him coming through the doorway reminded of one of
those creepy, classic horror movies where the killer is carrying a
stereotypical axe or weapon by his side, ready to kill. He would never hurt me,
but he’s very protective and has major anger issues, like I said before. He
yelled for me to come out and I looked at my child, kissed her goodbye and gave
her a pacifier to be distracted. I closed the bathroom door and went out to
face my dad. I approached him and told him mostly lies. I told him I got
pregnant and that I lost the baby my miscarriage. I told him mom didn’t want to
deal with his crazy reaction in fear of him hurting the guy who knocked me up
and that she finally wants a divorce. My mom started uncontrollably sobbing and
just silently said, “You’re not the man I married anymore.” I knew that no
matter what answers we gave him, that he’d force me to go back with him and
leave my mother here. To make the situation even worse, my daughter was in a
closed bathroom as I prayed for her not to utter a sound, and Jacob was on his
way over to our motel room as he went out an hour before to get groceries. I
was just lucky that any trace of Jacob was in our bedroom and that we were in
the living room. I frantically agreed to leave with my dad as tears ran down my
face, when at the same moment we heard a chuckle. A few seconds after we heard
it, we saw a little girl walk by with her dad as they laughed and ate ice cream
on the way back to their room. To a mother, it’s easy to decipher a baby’s
laugh from any kind of laugh. That little girl was at least 6 years old, and my
daughter was just about a year old. My
dad automatically assumed that the chuckling was from that girl, but like I
said, there’s no other laugh like a baby’s laugh. I guess it’s a good thing
he’s not a mother, or a female for that matter. He wasn’t able to discern that
difference and it was the only thing comforting me at that moment. I hugged my
mother goodbye and told her, “She’s in my bathroom. Tell Jacob to never give up
on her and that I’m sorry…I love you guys.” As I turned the corner, I looked at
what I was leaving behind and wept and my father lead me to his car.
Present Day:
I wake up to a fight going on among two of the group
members, Sony and Eric. I can’t make out every detail but it seems like she’s
saying that they should ditch me and not wake me up to leave. Eric just quietly
bickers with her and says that they need me. I get up, put the gun in the back
of my pants, and open the door without hesitation. “Do you have a problem with
me, Sony? As you may know, we can’t exactly “take this outside” to talk or
anything. So I need you to come into this tiny little room with me and tell me what
your problem is.” She looked at me like I was a bat out of hell, surprised that
I stood up for myself. She walked into the room and said, “Cadence, we all just
met you. I don’t want to start anything, but we don’t know anything about you.
We’ve had problems with other groups before is all. We don’t have much trust in
people these days as you can imagine. All I care about are getting these kids
to a safer place.” I thought carefully about what sentence should escape my
mouth next, because I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth. “I understand
your concern, and I know you can’t trust me, but all I can say is to try. Now,
the only reason I need this gun is to kill those mindless bastards out there. I
don’t intend to hurt anyone in here or steal anything from you. I hope you will
come to realize that I’m not in that kind of survival mode…yet. I haven’t lost
all of my humanity like some people have. Please just keep that in mind.” She nodded
and apologized. Eric then spoke up, “We need to leave in about 20 min. Get your
stuff together, I’ll wake up Darian and the kids.” We all obviously skipped
breakfast and had everything packed up and ready to go in 15 minutes. We put
our ears to the door and the thin walls to listen to what’s going on outside. We
heard slight shuffling but other than that, it seemed like the pathway might be
pretty clear. Darian slowly cracked the door to sneak a peek. He didn’t see
anything, so he stuck his hand out to take the outside lock off when suddenly a
Feral bit into him and he screamed. He pulled his hand back and I shut the
door. I put my hand over his mouth and whispered, “Don’t make this harder for
the rest of us. Your scream will draw attention. I’m sorry…” He whimpered and
prayed to a God he’d once forgotten. “The bite will turn you in about 24 hours.
I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do. You have only two options. We kill
you, or you do.” His eyebrows suddenly raised and his face got really red. Sony
ran over and said, “What are you doing?! We can’t leave him here!” Eric looked
up at me and looked down at the axe in his hand. “Sony, take the kids into the
other room, close the door, and cover their ears.” Sony stood stiff as a board
in shock of what Eric just told her to do. She didn’t question him though. She
gathered the kids, went into the room, and followed Eric’s orders. Darian’s whimpering increased and all he said
was, “Do it quickly..” Eric raised his axed, fixed his position, and brought
the weapon down on Darian’s neck. Eric looked away as blood spattered on his
face. I looked directly at him as he died, not caring whether the blood got on
me. I watched his face as his mind was racing with impatience. He was
terrified. When the axe came down, his head hit the wall and rolled onto the
ground. Eric and I moved the body into the corner and put a jacket over him,
along with his head. Eric then told Sony to come out with the kids. “We have to
go now, so let’s hope we didn’t make much noise.” We tried a second round of
listening through the walls. I cracked the door this time and didn’t see
anything, but to check the blind spot I grabbed a long object next to me and
stuck it outside of the door to see if anything would grab it. It wasn’t the
most efficient thing to do, but it’s not like I had a mirror to see what’s out
there. I waited five minutes and took the lock off to open the door. The alley
was clear and I signaled for the group to follow me. Eric told his kids to be
quiet and to remember not to be scared because he’d protect them. We turned the
corner and swiftly walked and then began to run in the direction Eric told us
to. There was a crowd of Ferals trying to approach us but they were luckily
very behind. We reached the docks and were out of breath as we looked around at
what was left. There was a massacre here; Children, families, animals, all
dead. They were all shot down before they could reanimate... probably by the
military or a large group or something. There were only a few boats left and
one was completely trashed. There was a sailboat that looked pristine and untouched.
It had huge cursive lettering on it. The name of the boat was Selene. I told everyone to stay back
while I walked up there to check out if anyone or anything was inside the boat.
I slowly approached Selene and
reached behind my back to get my gun when I heard a scream. It was coming from
behind me, so I turned around and saw a huge hoard that seemed to come out of
nowhere approaching the group. One of the Ferals apparently bit the little girl
on the shoulder. The little boy tried to stand up for his sister and started
kicking the monster that hurt her. As the girl fell to the ground in pain, the
boy turned to check on her and was bitten himself. The Feral grabbed him and bit
his ear off. I just stood there…frozen. There were about 50 feet away from me
and I could’ve helped them, but I just stood there in amazement, watching
everything unfold. Eric screamed and chopped off the Feral’s head and ran to
get his daughter and son away from the approaching danger. I raised my gun, and
shot a Feral that was behind Eric. Two more bullets left. I shot again at
another one and hit two of them at once, killing one and blowing the other’s
arm off. Everything was happening so fast. Sony had already been bitten and
Eric was just sobbing in fear or his children’s lives, kneeling on the ground,
not even looking at what was behind him. He held his daughter as she cried out,
“I don’t want to die, daddy.” Eric then looked up at me and screamed, “Go!” 15 seconds, that’s all it took for hell to
break loose. I quickly unraveled the roped to the boat and hoped there wasn’t
anything inside waiting for me. The rest of the Ferals were walking toward me,
reaching out for more. I started the boat and the city slowly started becoming
smaller and smaller as I made my lonely escape, assessing what just happened. One
bullet left.
Special Guest Writer -Celeste
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