Zuflucht

26

Curt's POV

"Why not?" I argued, noticing the almost inaudible sound of the static coming from the radio.

"Just rest first. You don't wanna hurt yourself and risk everything because you overworked yourself."

She sounds like my mom.

"Trust me, I'm fine." I dead panned, having no intentions of listening to her. She sighed before she briefly closed her eyes, clearly not giving up yet.

"You literally almost lost your life. How can you just go on like this?" She motioned towards my messy form. "You're literally shaking." I couldn't help as my eyes flicked down to my trembling fingers under hers.
She seemed to notice the awkwardness, and hastily removed her petit hand from mine.

"At least eat something fir-"

"Oh yeah, where's the radio?" Richard asked aloud. All pairs of eyes including mine looked at Curtis, who was just a few inches from my form.
I could help but internally thank Richard for giving me a reason to get out of there, and soon found myself standing up with the object of interest.

"I'll pass. I said I'm fine." I said coldly, not even giving her a chance to reply as I made my way over towards the only table in the room. As I walked across the creaky floorboards, I couldn't help my trembling knees as I heard the shrieks from the infected below mixing in with their scratching. Anywhere I stood or made noise is where they gathered around down below and desperately tried to claw their way in. 

"You did mention a radio." Ben asked himself aloud, as he started making his way over toward the fridge.  Although there wasn't any electricity, there were still beers and canned and bagged food stacked up inside. He grabbed one of the many cans and shut the fridge, before turning in our direction of interest.

"We might've found something." Richard blurted, and I couldn't help but give him a look from how open he always seemed to be.

"What?" He asked full of defense. I chose to only shake my head before breathing in and out deeply, turning my attention back to the low hum of the radio which was quickly unable to be heard from the pop of Ben's beer can. He made his way over to the table and watched as I faced it the right way and found the dial.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I couldn't help the feeling of eyes burning holes into my back, and would soon confirm it when I see Fiona glaring at me before she stood up and made her way back over to her daughter.

Women are strange...

"What exactly do you think you found? I used to look for stations before the power went out a few years ago, but eventually had to give up." Ben had now moved his chair over next to us and watched as I turned the volume up.

"Not sure yet." I answered with determination as I now moved the knob slowly, looking for the same station as earlier. I went from station to station, slowly making sure I didn't miss anything as I continued to skim through.
I hadn't noticed that the whole room was quiet, other than the sound of the raging infected below mixing in with the empty radio stations. I'm sure all eyes were focused on the scenery as well as I continued skimming through.

"Well did you hear anything?" Ben asked, all hopefulness from earlier now gone as the seconds ticked by.

"Yeah, we def-"

"Shh!" A loud shush from Ashanti caught my attention, earning a quiet room. It wasn't until I noticed the silence that I heard the hum of a male's voice coming from the speakers.

"What's it say?" Richard asked with his eyebrows scrunged in confusion. I myself couldn't interpret the muffled words, not a single sentence making sense to me.