An Unlikely Ally

Chapter 4 - Not alone

On the 7th day since the encounter with the creature, John had almost entirely forgotten it having finished the last book, he lay in his bed and looked at his watch, which read noon.

As he leant upwards, his back cracking slightly as he assessed himself. He was wearing the same clothes for 4 days, having forgotten entirely to tend to himself. He promptly undressed and had a thorough dry shower, using up the rest of the wipes, and brushed his stale mouth. His hair was a shaggy mess, partly thanks to the lack of real showers, which he couldn't do much about now unless he sacrificed a bottle or two of water.

He donned a fresh pair of fishing attire, unpackaged an equally pristine pair of socks that were covered with cartoonish depictions of tunas, and stretched fully. "Today I should go out and get some supplies, get some more stuff from the fuel station, and more books. But maybe not get so involved next time I read, I need to care for myself still." He quietly remarked as he stood up, bending down to touch his toes, wincing at his lack of flexibility.

John neatly piled the books together in the corner, he frowned at the dank smell of his pillow and a makeshift bed. "This will certainly not do for another night, maybe I can use a shirt as a pillow case, and just cycle the clothes top to bottom so I have a fresh layer. Goodness I certainly need to find a way to clean this stuff, it is slowly becoming an issue, especially for my nose."

With that, he stripped the pillow case and tossed it into the corner in front of his bed, then reshuffled the clothes around so a fresh layer was on top. He somewhat successfully used a shirt as a pillow case, even though it didn't fully fit, he reminded himself it would be temporary as he would secure proper bed linen, maybe even a real bed for that matter.

With one final stretch, John scooped up his backpack, slipped it on and made his way outside. He winced a bit from his foot, the injury still had not healed as much as it should be, but he pushed on.

John made it out the front of the store, took a right, and then another, before making it down the main road, en route to the fuel station. John daydreamed for most of the walk, thinking over a few plot points of the books he just read, as well as sequels he wanted to read.

He was brought back to reality once he approached the entrance of the petrol station, the smashed window brought back unpleasant memories of the previous Tuesday when this all happened, but he shook them out of his head and rounded the corner to the backdoor.

It was still closed, which was a reassuring sight for John, he went down into a cautious stance as he slowly opened the door, peering inside to see if there was any otherly presence to be found, but sighed in relief when there wasn't.

Once inside he immediately set off to pick a fresh box of cleaning wipes, a few bottles of water and some shirts for sound dampening, this time nothing stood out as important in particular, as he had most of the essentials already and just needed restocking.

However as he passed the shelves in the backroom, to go to the front of the store, he stopped in his tracks, he saw bloodied tracks coming from the fridge room, with a definite non-human impression in the now fully dried blood puddle. Shit it came back, oh fuck oh fuck it was, no maybe still is looking for me.

John felt every hair on his body stand on end at this realisation, the creature wasn't just mindless and coming to any source of noise, it explicitly came back here, in search of him. His good mood plummeted hard, this was not something he wanted to find out.

He was getting ready to make his way back hastily, but he stopped himself. "No calm down and take breaths, John. Easy. As long as you don't make any noise, or go into any unknown buildings, you will be ok. He/she/whatever the hell that thing is, can't see, hopefully, can't smell, only can hear. You can do all three, you have the advantage." John gently rubbed his arms and took a few long and slow breaths, calming down.