“What if it doesn’t work? Then we’ll all die!” Robert forced a whisper and it made his voice sound raspy at the end of his irritating response.
“I don’t remember having heard your idea!” Sandra snapped at Robert for his complaint.
“It’s all we’ve got!” The hardest thing I’ve done in my life to that point was listening to Robert complain and exist in a consistent terror without strangling him with my own two hands in the process. To not have to hear his pathetic rants and complaints is to live in peace. “Just gather things you interpret as loud and place them by the windows so that we can get away before it becomes too late to try.”
Robert’s fear persisted and resulted in slow paced assistance from his part. The stress of survival weighed on his mind and it would not leave. On the other hand, Sandra rapidly gathered anything she thought would assist and placed it in a corner by one window. Before I knew it, we gathered half of the things in the shop by the windows.
“Alright, no time for second guesses. This happens now,” the last words to come out of my mouth before Sandra broke one of the windows and I broke the other.
We threw the larger things out first to have a wider surface for the smaller one to make more noise on. Screams surfaced from the infected while they investigated the sounds, which in return led them to the window. This gave us our figurative window of opportunity.
Robert remained quiet but his body wasn’t as quiet. It manifested his fears as a cold shiver that both Sandra and I clearly noticed. He would get us killed out of terror if he didn’t see some form of progress in the plan. Sandra grabbed Robert by his shoulders and stared in his eyes briefly to calm him down, then aimed her index finger at the garage door. No words spoken so that the infected would continue to follow only the sounds of what we disposed of. Robert understood the message and he approved of his job better with the idea that most of the infected already gathered at the windows.
Sandra threw what remained at the heads of the infected in order to keep them from climbing in through the window and getting inside earlier than the plan called for.
I didn’t think of that obvious solution, the only thing that came to mind to solve the same problem was to shoot them away from the window. Thanks to Sandra we did not need to waste our emergency rounds. I also threw what remained on my side at their heads.
Sandra, Robert and I kept our attention on each other to know the exact instant things would get the most intense, the transition between opening the garage door and exiting through the front. It arrived precisely when expected. The number of infected behind my window became so large, to knock any of them back with something thrown at them would simply bump them into another behind them and they’d continue to climb in or at least attempt to. It was time for us to make the next move.
I nodded at Sandra, Sandra nodded at me and we both nodded at Robert. He pulled the chain, which manually raised the garage door, once he let go it would shut automatically, a good thing to know since some of the infected still stood out front.
“Let’s go!” I yelled out. Sandra and I both stopped tossing things and ran for the front door.
“Let it go, Robert!” Sandra warned him so he would come to us and we could leave.
Few infected remained out front. Robert tried to be a man for the first time since I met him. He didn’t have particularly good timing. I readied the rifle and aimed ahead of him in case one of the infected came too close for him to outrun. The last infected who remained made it inside; Robert dropped the chain and ran off in our direction. Seven runners were inside the body shop with us.
“Sandra, get the door open!” My rifle set on the infected that stumbled over and around everything in the shop. The door opened behind me, Robert and Sandra left the shop and waited on the other side for me. I backed up and made my exit along with them. Once outside I closed the door and we snuck our escape from the body shop and the infected that overwhelmed it.
The walk back to camp was as expected: more difficult with time. The storm took a turn for the worst while we attempted to stay alive, although our situation at the shop did not take long. The speed in which the storm escalated was enough to take that short period and turn it into an opportunity to become more powerful and destructive. We did not let the storm stop us though. Robert, Sandra and I continued to push forward to the camp.
At no point did Sandra loosen her grip on the handgun; it was in hand at all times and ready to be used if need be. The way a true survivor should be.
We finally reached the camp after minutes of relatively paranoid travel.
“That’s it up ahead,” the excitement of being back at the camp was difficult to contain. Sandra and Robert both lit up joyfully as well.
Once face to face with the building, I opened the door and let both Robert and Sandra in and I entered last to properly shut the door and lock it behind us.
Camp
I
walked into the building and led Robert and Sandra up to the second floor where we’d encounter the rest of the group. Once atop the stairs I opened the door and walked by some of the guys still knocked out. Jason was up and eating with some of the guys who also awoke.
“Make sure the two of them” I referred to Robert and Sandra while I spoke to the group Jason sat with “are nice and warm, have something to eat, and get some rest. Today is going to be a big day for us and them.” Two of the guys stood and proceeded to do as I asked.
Jason sat there and stared at me. A look of confusion lingered. Over time he’d learn the things I do have purpose. Time would win him over, as he further understood my reasons. He’d make them his own eventually. The next step would be to show him an instance in which doing something he would understand as bad could save his own life.
“We’re behind schedule, but now we have to wait out this blizzard. When things clear outside, we’ll head out. Let the rest of the guys know,” I addressed the group that still sat eating.
“Richard, catch!” Sandra’s voice came from across the room. I turned to my handgun, midair; headed in my direction she tossed it. My reflexes kicked in and I barely caught the gun. “Thanks. Remind me I owe you one!” She said. One of my men led her to the food. For a fearful coward who couldn’t help but scream her lungs out when I first met her, she mesmerized me with the one-eighty she made once she got a hold of the gun. She didn’t look half bad either, but business would always come before play, I would not act on mere carnal instinct. It was entirely out of the question.
I could not contain my excitement. I wanted Jason, my men, everyone to know the truth behind the key to survival as soon as possible, but it was as if the world worked against me so that I would never show them what the truth was. I had an idea.
“You three!” I called over the two guys who stood to help Sandra and Robert and an additional one they spoke to.
“Yeah? What’s up?” one of them said when they came closer.
“I have a small job for you….”
I gave the guys their assignment.
I gathered some things to move again once the storm eased up and made sure everyone else did the same.
The three men I sent out would be fine in the blizzard if they traveled in a small group; they trained for worse conditions.
Time moved much too slow for my taste and I became progressively more impatient with every second that went by. I needed a distraction. I dreaded conversations with the men in my group; their stupidity knew no bounds. They might have all been able to do what it took to survive but aside from that trait there was little else going on in their heads.
I decided to have a conversation with Sandra. She ate some bread the guys found with an expiration date that hadn’t come to pass yet. Sandra didn’t seem to enjoy plain bread much but she was satisfied with the fact that it was food.
“Hey,” I sat next to her, against a wall.
“’Hey to you, guy,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. When I get into the survival mindset I leave little room for anything else, I suppose manners are one of those things that get cut out. My name is Richard,” I reached out to shake her hand.
“Well, that is much more respectable!” with a large grin on her face she shook my hand. “Thanks again for helping us. I’m sure we would have died right where you found us if you didn’t come help us out.”
“Don’t worry about it. We all serve a purpose, and yours was not yet accomplished. You were not meant to die there; it had nothing to do with me.”
She told me how scared she was before I came along and how she felt that Robert would be the death of the both of them. I thought the same.
We spoke for a few minutes and it killed as much time as I wanted.
The three men I sent out returned with some supplies I figured weren’t looted along the way. “Leave the things right there,” I told them while I stood up. Steve, the taller one of the three, placed the things by the door.
“I wanted to ask you a question,” I turned my attention back to Sandra who I abandoned mid conversation to instruct Steve.
“Sure, what is it?” her tone of voice became as serious as mine was when I asked the question.
“I assume you were once part of a much larger group. Where are they? Why aren’t you with them anymore?” I let the curiosity get the best of me.
I waited Sandra to explain what occurred with her group before she I encountered her.
“We were attacked by the kind of infected that run. Robert and I ran to stay alive.” She became embarrassed of the fact she left her group in exchange for her own survival.
“So you left them behind.”
I walked over to the supplies and scanned them to see what the men managed to scavenge. Canned food, medication, first aid kits, gloves and a bottle of soda, all placed inside shopping bags.
I walked back over to Sandra, her knees up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them while she watched me walk back to her.
I took a knee and stared into her beautiful big blue eyes. She stared back into mine and time froze. I proceeded to put my hand behind her long brown hair and grab it tightly.
“OH MY GOD!” Sandra yelled out and I forced her up with the grip I held over her.
“Come on!” I said and pulled her along.
“What are you doing?! Let me go! STOP!” she continued to whine.
I yelled at her to shut up and she became quiet. I flung her onto the floor and watched her stare back at me in fear. “Bring me the guy too,” I told Steve.
“Oh, no! Ahh! Please, please, please! Don’t hurt me!” Robert couldn’t help it. He hadn’t become any more pathetic than he already was; it was more or less the same.
“Shut up or my gun will shut you up!” I said once again to bring the coward into silence and like Sandra before him he became quiet instantly. “Everyone gather.” My small group of survivors stood around Sandra and Robert.
“These two parasites you see right here already died.” I walked a half moon shape similar to the one my men formed around me. “They died a few hours ago when I found them unable to fight off one of the infected between the two of them. I walked over to Sandra and grabbed her hair again.
“Ahh!” she shrieked.
“She left the group she was with to die because she was unable to handle her own when the time called for it.” I pushed her away from me back onto the floor. “Had I not saved them, they would not be here. They’ve already expired. This means that the food they would eat and the air they would breathe is all someone else’s because they were destined to die earlier. Now, because they are alive and supplies are low, two of you will have to give up your meals so they can eat, or you’ll have to split the meal so it could be shared equally with them. I don’t find this fair at all. Not since you guys worked for your food, survived for your food!” I walked away from the inside of the half moon and over to one of the nearby chairs behind the guys.
“What do you think, Jason? What should we do with them?”
Jason was not comfortable with being asked the question directly but it needed to be done.
“Don’t hurt them. Just let them go, they’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” I asked. “EVERYONE! Pay close attention, please!” I turned to face Sandra and Robert again. I would never send someone to suffer their existence away, and these two sorry excuses for human beings are already as good as dead to the world which tried to get rid of them once before. They abandoned their people. They left them to die. That added manpower they could have supplied was taken with their leave. Anyone who died in their group died because of them. Survival is all there is. What stops them from doing this same thing to us? Now that they know of us, what stops them from coming up with a way to take our supplies? If we send them out they suffer, and if we keep them here we must divide the supplies evenly, just to be abandoned by them when times get rough.” I turned back to Jason. “So, Jason, what do we do with them?” I asked him again except this time all he did was stare with a horrified look on his face.
Jason remained in shock but I continued to talk to him knowing that he listened. “If we keep them they will wait till we are in danger and take our supplies or abandon us when they are most needed the same way they did to their group before they lost their lives. Not only this, but in the meantime they will force those of us who have worked and earned anything and everything we have to lose what we’ve worked for. Finally, they can’t be forced to suffer outside in the world of the infected. No one deserves an end like that, regardless of their crimes. So what do we do with them?” I paused for a second and stared at everyone’s face. Most of my men were as scared as Sandra and Robert and yet excited for what was to come.