The Group Project

~Chapter 4~

5 days.

It's been 5 days since the world went to hell. Although Jon, Bea, Gannon and I were fortunate to get to safety in the library's basement and bunker, we were trapped. Even if we could leave we had nowhere to go. During the first day's initial chaos, a truck had crashed into the fence surrounding the Archives and allowed some of those creatures to trickle in and surround us. We had spent quite a lot of time contemplating what exact they were, but only one word came to our minds, and none of us wanted to say it. It all seemed unreal, yet here we were, cowering and hiding from them. The first two days we spent scouring the internet, or rather what was left of it. Most of the world stopped uploading to the internet on the second day, we had no clue if it was due to loss of service or if this was happening worldwide. Although we found a few things online, they were scattered across the U.S and we couldn't find any from our surrounding cities or our own. We slowly moved up to the bunker on the second day, only going up to the main building to retrieve water, food or to use the bathroom.

After the third day, we cautiously came out of the basement around dusk to see a purple sunset and almost a dozen of those creatures surrounding us. We quickly took shelter in the basement after seeing we were surrounded and slowly started to cover the windows, blocking their view and giving us partial relief. Gannon, Jon, and I passed the time by working out for the past couple days but I started to notice that more seemed to show up. It made me wonder if they were attracted by the smell of us. Although we still took shelter in the basement as a precaution, we were still trapped with dwindling food and seemingly no hope. On the fourth day, we were losing what little hope we had left and began to search for anything that could prolong our survival and even give us a chance to escape.

As we split off to search through boxes, I began my search with the old bookshelves along with Jon, while Bea and Gannon headed to search for anything useful in the bunker. After shuffling and searching through various boxes we made our way back to our makeshift sleeping area and dropped off what we deemed useful. I had found a large foldable map of the area, some glowsticks, matches and some old binoculars, all of which useful in their own way. After sitting down with Jon, we shuffled through our haul and began to ponder their use.

Jon picked up what looked to be a portable radio and began to inspect it. Before he could say anything we were interrupted by Gannon and Bea coming up the ladder, squabbling back and forth. After making their way over and sitting down they continued bickering before Jon spoke up, holding the radio.

"Hey guys, did you happen to find any batteries?", he said while shaking the radio. This seemed to ignite hope in their hearts as Gannon and Bea quickly dropped what they were holding. Gannon had a bundle of rope, a suitcase, various batteries and flashlights. Bea was holding a white liquor bottle of vodka, frozen bread and some canned food, warranting confused glances from me and Jon.

Bea quickly spoke up, "Be careful with the case!" causing confusion among Jon and I. Gannon picked up a pack of batteries and passed them to Jon. He got them out of the package and popped them into the small radio. We all looked at it in desperation, hoping for a voice to spring out from it. Seconds later static erupted from it, filling the room. He began to run his finger over the channel dial and went over around 12 channels, all with no luck. We exchanged glances with each other and our expressions saddened a bit.

I tried to lighten the mood and asked, "Let's try some other channels and wait a bit, there has to be someone still broadcasting. Did anyone else find anything useful? I found a map and some binoculars. Also where did you guys find alcohol?"

"My grandpa had a small freezer down there in the electrical room of the bunker. I thought there was only bread and ice but I found it buried under the ice. And I know we shouldn't be getting drunk but it's still a liquid and we're running low on those." She replied.