The survivor

Ninety-Five

Courtney felt the van tilt as it turned hard somewhere on the road. The unexpected motion made her stumble and almost fall onto her side. Instead she hung on desperately to the inside edge of the rear door of the van, and tried to clear her head of her drunkenness and terror.

The movement made her head spin, and she vomited in the darkness. But that was okay. She felt better from it.

And maybe it would help her sober up a little.

There was no light in the back of the van, and only the whimpering sounds of Raine, who was somewhere deeper towards the back of the compartment. She felt around the walls and ceiling for a switch, found one, flicked it, and a small light came on.

The first thing Courtney saw was Raine. The girl was sprawled out on the cold floor of the van, on her stomach, head tilted to the side, in between the boxes of meat. Her lips were split, and blood trailed down her chin, onto the white surface of the van floor.

‘You okay?’ Courtney asked.

Nothing.

‘Raine, you okay?’

The girl just laid there, a look of shock on her face.

‘He has a gun,’ she finally said.

Courtney remembered it well. She’d seen the gunman slam it into Felicia’s head before turning it on them. It was a pistol; she knew that much. But what type or calibre, she had no idea. It was a big gun, and he would kill them with it.

The gunman had taken her cell, so she looked to Raine. ‘You got your phone?’

‘I dropped it… in the crowd somewhere.’ Raine started to cry.

Courtney made her way over to the girl. All around them were boxes. Courtney opened the nearest one. It was full of steaks: thick, frozen slabs of meat. She grabbed the frozen slabs and started tucking them into Raine’s costume.

Raine gasped with shock as Courtney shoved package after package down her top, sliding them down to her stomach and lower back area, then adding more. Courtney had no idea if the frozen meat was strong enough to stop a bullet, but it couldn’t hurt. When she had Raine completely layered with frozen meat beneath her costume, she looked down at herself.

Grabbing a few packages of frozen steak, she shoved them down the front and back of her costume, padding the waist as best she could. It was so cold, it froze her skin, and she felt nauseous from the booze and fear.

The van tilted hard again, to the left, and she tumbled into Raine. The girl let out a sharp cry, as if the contact had finally woken her. She looked up at Courtney.

‘It’s the same guy from the school,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘The one who killed all the others.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s going to kill us, too.’

Courtney saw the fear and desperation on Raine’s face, which mirrored her own emotions. And she said nothing, because there were no words of comfort. She simply put her arm around Raine and felt the van turn and tilt at every corner, as they were driven further and further away to an unknown location.