Surviving Chaos

10

The night was only getting colder.

Cynthia was close by, maybe a foot away. John could hear her breathing.

The forest was completely silent, except for the moans of pain of the man that John had shot.

It hadn’t been a good shot. He’d only had the flashlight to go by.

John and Cynthia knew there were more people out there. But they didn’t know how many. They didn’t dare turn on their own flashlights. It would give away their position immediately.

They didn’t even speak now, unless they had to.

Kiki seemed to understand, in some instinctual way, the gravity of the situation. She was nearby, probably up against Cynthia, keeping very quiet.

John’s pulse was racing. He felt an intense fear running through him, and it didn’t leave him. He’d felt fear plenty of times since leaving his apartment in Center City Philadelphia, and there was always that subtle fear in the background of all his thoughts.

But this was different. Maybe it was the intensity of the darkness, of the night that seemed to close in on them. Maybe it was the thought of being hunted. Maybe it was the uncertainty, not knowing how many people were out there, after them. Maybe it was the knowledge that the compound, somehow, must be involved in this.

This was true fear. John knew that for certain.

Had that man they’d met, who’d told him about Max, betrayed them? Had anything he’d told them been true? Maybe he’d told John what he’d wanted to hear, and then promptly alerted his friends back at the compound.

Maybe some of it had been true. Who knew what to think.

John wanted to say something reassuring to Cynthia. He knew she must have been terrified, practically petrified. But there was nothing to say. Nothing that could make it all better. Anything he said would have been a lie.

It was so dark that sound was all they had. And John didn’t know whether they’d be able to hear someone approaching or not.

His mind raced through a series of horrible possibilities. What if those pursuing them had night vision goggles? Would those have survived the EMP? What if they had something else, something John couldn’t even think of?

Then again, if that was the case, they’d already be dead.

Suddenly, a voice called out in the silent darkness.

A woman’s voice.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” came the voice.

Cynthia’s hand clutched John. Neither she nor John spoke.

There was silence again.

Finally, John spoke.

“What do you want?”

“I know you have a woman in your party.”

John didn’t dare speak again. There was the danger of giving away their position.

The woman’s voice sounded fairly far away. But it was hard to tell. She was yelling, and her voice seemed to ricochet around the unseen trees.

“We want the woman, and nothing else. Hand her over, and we’ll let the rest of you go.”

There was a lot of information in that sentence. The woman was claiming she was a member of a larger party, but John had his doubts. If she really had others with her, aside from the ones who’d already been killed, then she probably would have wanted to downplay their numbers for purely strategic reasons. But if she was by herself, then it might be to her advantage to exaggerate the numbers.

The unseen voice also seemed to think that there were more people than just John and Cynthia.

“What do we do?” came Cynthia’s voice, as she dared to whisper.

“We fight.”

They waited in the silence for what felt like an hour. In reality, probably only minutes had passed.

Kiki growled, a deep and intense sound that rumbled out of her.

A flurry of sound, movement in the darkness. Kiki dashed forward, growling.

A scream. A woman’s scream, high-pitched and terrified.

John dashed forward to where the sound came from.

He ran, unable to see where he was headed, not knowing what he was about to face. But he knew he had to do it. This was the chance. Kiki had made the first move. The woman was close. Too close.

John tripped, falling forward.

He still couldn’t see. He fell against a body.

A flashlight switched on, nearly blinding his darkness-adjusted eyes.

He looked away.

Something smashed into his torso. A rock, or something hard. Or the butt of a handgun.

John hit back, punching in front of him, unable to see. The flashlight fell, the cylinder of light rolling across the forest floor.

John grabbed the flashlight, scrambling off of the body and rushing towards it. He took it, groping in the darkness, and when he finally had it in his hand, he shone it towards his attacker.

Kiki was still growling. The flashlight illuminated her head first. She had her jaws sunk into a human leg.

John turned the flashlight more, illuminating a woman lying there.

She was attractive, and her long hair had come undone and hung around her face.

But she had the most intense look on her face, both of pain and pure fury.

The wound on her leg looked terrible. Kiki was tearing away, doing everything she could to stop the woman.

She had a gun in her hand. She pointed it at John, but she was squinting intensely. She was blinded by the flashlight that John now held.

It was all happening so fast. There were just seconds to act.

John had his own gun trained on her. He squeezed the trigger just as her gun went off.

She missed, the bullet lodging itself into the trunk of a tree. The splinters of wood exploded outward, hitting John in the back of the head.

John’s round hit her in the shoulder.

Cynthia appeared in the light. She came suddenly, out of the darkness. Her hands went right for the gun.

“Drop the gun,” snarled Cynthia, as she pressed her own handgun into the woman’s head. The woman’s long hair fell around the gun’s metal.

She dropped the gun. Cynthia took it.

“Kiki,” said John. “Enough.”

Kiki looked up at him, but didn’t release her grip.

“Kiki!”

Kiki released her grip.

The woman didn’t speak. She glared up at John, probably unable to see him because of the brightness of the flashlight.

“There might be more,” said Cynthia.

“Kiki will let us know. She’ll smell them.”

“They’ll have rifles,” said Cynthia.

John switched off his flashlight. He felt like an idiot, realizing his own error. It had all happened too fast. There hadn’t been time to think of the consequences of holding the flashlight. He’d been fighting for his life, in the immediate sense.

“Let me go,” said the woman. Her words came out harsh and vicious. “Or my men will kill you.”

“You know,” said John, “I don’t think there are any others. I think we killed the ones who came with you already. Otherwise, I’d already be dead from holding that flashlight, as my friend here pointed out.”

“That’s what you’d like to think.”

“I think you’re right,” said Cynthia. “I just thought we should be extra cautious.”

“Definitely right,” said John.

John was breathing hard. His heart was pounding. He sat down on the ground, keeping his handgun out.

“What should we do with her?” said Cynthia.

“What do you think?”

“You can kill me,” said the woman. “But it’s not going to make any difference.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m part of something larger. It’ll live on without me.”

“You’re part of the compound?”

The woman didn’t answer.

“We can make this hard on you,” said John.

“I’m not just part of it. I’m the brains and the soul. I call the shots.”

“Well it’s not doing you much good now. Why were you hunting us?”

“I’m not doing this for personal gain. I want what we establish to live beyond us.”

“You were after Cynthia, weren’t you? We spoke to your friend, and he came back and told you there was a woman in the area, right?”

“Mark? He wouldn’t tell me anything unless it was for his own gain. He never understood the process. I had to torture it out of him.”

“So my brother, Max, really was at the compound then?”

“Max? Unfortunately. I wish I’d never laid my eyes on him.”

“You’re after me?” said Cynthia. “That’s completely sick.”

“It’s the world we’re living in,” said the woman. Her voice never lost the vicious, cold tone. “That’s the breaks, honey. Expect a lot more of it.”

“I might expect that from a man,” said Cynthia. “But you’re a woman.”

“How astute,” said the woman sarcastically. “You would have been perfect, since you don’t sound too bright.”

Cynthia was getting angry. “You’re disgusting.” The anger came out of her voice with force.

“We’re done with her,” said John. “Go ahead.”

“Wait,” said the woman frantically. “I can give you anything you need. Don’t kill me.”

“I thought you didn’t care if you died?” sneered Cynthia.

“She’s only human,” said John. “At the end of the day, she’ll do anything to try to save her own skin.”

“Anything you want,” said the woman. “You wouldn’t believe what we have available to us at the compound. We have more flashlights. Guns, more guns that you could ever dream of. Anything you want and I’ll give it to you if you just spare me my life.”

“I have a feeling that as soon as we step foot in your compound, that’ll be the end of us,” said John.

“The end of you,” said Cynthia. “Sounds like she wants to keep me as a prisoner there forever until I can reproduce enough times.”

“You don’t have to come in,” said the woman. “I’ll send the things out to you.”

“There’s no reason we should trust you. Absolutely no reason.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want, trust me. You can always trust a desperate person.”

“You’re a real snake. You can never trust a desperate person. They’ll promise whatever is necessary.”

“Come on,” said John. “Finish her, Cynthia. There might be others out there. We need to get out of here.”

“They’ll come looking for me,” said the woman. “You’ll never get out of the area alive.”

“Neither will you,” said Cynthia, as she pulled the trigger. Her gun went off, the shot ringing through the woods.

John turned on the flashlight.

The woman lay there, lifeless, her head blown in, blood flowing freely.

Kiki whimpered.

“Come on,” said John. “We’ve got to go.”

“You think they’ll really come for us?”

“Probably. If there’s anyone nearby, they’ll have heard the gunshots. We’ve got to move fast. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Same as before. Stay alive. Maybe find Max.”

“You think we’ll be able to find him?”

“I doubt it.”

“But he’s got to be close by. He couldn’t have gone that far.”

“If he has a car, he could. And there’s no way to reach him.”

“What about Dale’s radio?”

“What about it?”

“We could use it to find Max.”

“How? He doesn’t have a radio of his own.”

“Maybe he’ll come across one.”

“Who knows. I’m not holding out much hope.”

John’s spirits were completely sunk. The death of Dale was finally setting in. Now that the chaos had calmed down for a moment, Dale’s death stuck out as a senseless and cruel event. But that was the way things were now. That was the way the world worked. There wasn’t any justice, unless you created it yourself.

They found their packs, shouldered them, and set off. There were still hours before the sunrise, and they used the flashlights to find their way, to avoid tripping over the roots.

Kiki walked in front of them, glancing back towards them periodically. She would be useful. She’d be able to hear attackers before they would. But they couldn’t rely on her completely. She was just a dog, after all.

They were still within the compound’s territory. They were still in danger.

But they were used to that. As used to it as they could be.

John’s mind wasn’t at ease. It was likely there’d be more people after them. If the woman they’d killed really was the leader of the compound, wouldn’t the others come looking for her?