Survivors of the Horde

Chapter 10 - The City - Ace

Taeh fell asleep with her head in my lap in the car. Her dark brown hair effortlessly flows through my fingers as I caresses her head. I feel special to be able to get her this vulnerable. She's a tough girl. She wouldn't do this with just anyone. The adorable little smile that gets smacked onto her face whenever we talk makes me so unbelievably happy. I wish I could stay like this forever.

Chicago

"We made it to Chicago, guys!" Faith cheers. A bunch of little "woos" and other cheers come from the back. Taeh starts to wake up. The city is in rough shape. Broken down cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, and windows were smashed all around.
"Doesn't look like much has changed," Kireina jokes. We all let out a slight chuckle.

We see someone. She's standing in the middle of the road yelling. She has darker, beat up clothes on.
"Hey!" She screams, "Stop the car!" her arms are waving like one of those weird tube things you used to see at car dealerships. "Stop!" Faith presses down on the break the van screeches a stop. Before anyone can even think a group of five previously hidden guys practically fly into the car.
"Shit!" I yell, no one is prepared for this. I throw myself over Taeh. They pull me out of the car. My head slams against the ground. I feel dazed, the world starts to get darker and the city starts to spin.

I awake to a cold sensation around my wrists. I open my eyes. There's a bag over my head. After about a minute I'm able to slip the bag off my head. I never got why movie characters seemed unable to get those off, those are super easy to slip off. Upon taking the bag off I'm blinded by the bright fluorescent light illuminating the room. William is here too, chained to the wall. I look to my right, there are two others. The one closest to me is this pale girl with orange frizzy hair, she looks a little older than us, probably about the same age as Kireina. The next one over is this skinny kid with pale skin about our age.

I try to wiggle out of my shackles but I am unable to. I look back at my restraints to investigate. The handcuffs are chained to an old radiator. I pull the hair pin out of my hair and carefully slide it into the keyhole. After a few minutes of messing around with it I am able to slide my hand out of the cuff. The second one comes much easier.

I wake William up and undo his handcuffs too. After taking a glance around the room. He wakes up the other two. He signals to me to uncuff them too. After a few minutes they're both uncuffed.
"Hey, I'm Ace, and that is William" I point towards Will.
The redhead girl introduces herself, "I'm Estella" she signals towards the skinny kid, "and that's Landon"
"Estella? Kind of posh don't you think?"
"Goddammit William, why do you always gotta say something smart?"
"Sorry"
Estella blushes, "Shut up!" she kicks Will in the shin. William helps her up. Landon gets up on his own. As Estella stands up she reveals herself to be about two or three inches taller than William. He blushes and looks away.

I open up the door to reveal a room full of backpacks and after around thirty seconds of searching I find mine next to William's. After a quick look through my bag I breathe a sigh of relief, "Thank god everything's here" I see Estella reach down for a messenger bag. It's black, just like everything else she's wearing. I swear if she's another one of those emo kids I'm going to scream. Wait she's wearing all black, It's hot as hell outside.
"Why are you wearing all black? It's like in the eighties outside?" I ask, puzzled.
She slowly turns her head towards a random wall, "Well, you see, the writer really liked the idea of me wearing black so I kind of have to now, though he does give me the added advantage of just having it not affect me in the slightest. He could also change the season to be fall which might actually make more sense, but he's stubborn so he won't"
"Wait, what?" I glance towards where she was looking. "What was that about?" No one else seems to notice the weird comment.

"Wait where is my phone?" William says in a worried tone. I look over to see him rummaging through his bag.
"Remember? you left it in the van." I remind him. "It's probably gone though. They would've looted the van, seen your phone and taken it." He looks down, with a disappointed look on his face, "But that's not the worst of it either, our food supply is probably gone and who knows if we'll even see the van again." he looks even more disappointed. "Well if it's any consolation, I still have my gun and a few mags of ammo"
"We needed that for our GPS!" We both let out a sigh. "Do you at least know where the others are?"
"No" I clench my fist.
"Wait there's more of you?" Landon asks.
"Yeah there's three more of us. Do you have anyone you're missing?" I answer.
"Nah, we were the only survivors out of our group. Figured we'd be safer sticking together."
"Do you always speak in that monotone voice?" I ask him.
"Yeah, this loser has, like, zero emotions." Estella lightly hits him on the shoulder.

"Hey you should come check this out!" I see William standing by a window. The three of us rush over to the window. "Look!" he points downward. I see the ground an astonishing distance away from me, my stomach turns, I never realised that I have a fear of heights until now. I'm forced to look away.

Landon tries to comfort me, though it doesn't save me from grabbing the nearest trash can and filling it with today's breakfast. Everyone turns away in a mixture of disgust and awkwardness.

"You alright?" He asks me while rubbing my back.
"Ugh, I never realised I'm afraid of heights until now"
"We should probably plan out our next move"
"Hey, finally Landon gives us a good idea!" Estella takes a jab at Landon again. We all sit down at a table after I'm done puking my guts out in this stupid garbage bin.
"So we're missing some of our group... Do you know where they could be?" William asks.
"Nah, we were walking down the sidewalk when we got jumped," Landon says in his stupidly monotone voice.
"Anyway, Ace, how are you being so calm right now? Aren't you and Taeh like in lov-" I kick him in the shin. He shuts up.
"Are we sure that they're even here? HOLY SHIT!" We hear a loud crashing sound. Estella yells, she points towards the window, "A person just fucking fell out of a window!"
"Wait what?!" We all yell out at once while turning to the window.