The Last Seventeen: (Book 1) An Apocalypse Story

Chapter 23: day five

Chapter 23: Day 5

I never thought I would see so much blood and gore in my life. It was everywhere. On my shoes, on my pants, and I could even feel some dripping its way into my under-ware. What was even worse than that was that the blood was cold and made everything going on even worse. I kept doing that stupid dance you do when you try to readjust your pants. It was horrible. That's why my heart almost exploded out of my chest when The Loon called for us to go back to our holes. My arms felt like lead when I put the tools back onto the table. I could barely lift them up.

I started my way to the huge metal doors where my troupe exited for the day, even though they did hardly any work. I wanted to scream at all of them for being completely selfish and unreliable. To finally say what I really felt about them, but I kept my anger behind my usual dam of emotions. I knew one day it would bust. That all the emotions I have kept back from everyone would flow out of my mouth like a geyser, but for now that's where they had to be held. For everyone's safety.

I was almost to the doors when The Loon stopped me in my tracks and placed his hardened, gross hand on my bare chest. It was freezing and sent a shockwave of cold throughout my whole body. I think I shivered as he laughed in my face.

"I don't know where you think you're going." He smiled a toothy smile at me and pushed me back towards the tables where four unfinished bodies laid. "You aren't quiet done yet." The Loon walked over to the bodies and smelled them all with pure joy. He breathed it out like he was just done working out then looked back to me. "Don't they smell delicious? The way their corpses rot to just the perfect scent then to just the right tenderness."

He chuckled under his breath then he stared at me with almost judging eyes. "Don't act so innocent. I saw the way you gazed at the body. Hoping to take just a little tiny nibble. The way your eyes lit up as the scent entered your nostrils. Child, you are just as screwed up as me!" He laughed again and put his hands on the side of his head so he wouldn't shake so much.

"I'm not like you." I said with my eyes staring at the ground. I thought it would be better if he didn't realize just how scared I was to talk to him.

He stopped laughing all together and gave me a confused look. He stared at me for a couple seconds then over at the other psychos in the building. I looked at them to and saw the shaking of their heads and also the permanently fixed stare of lust for meat of the dead bodies. The Loon looked back at me with a crooked head and a small smile.

"Oh child, you are like us. All of us. You have the sick and demented head that we all carry on our shoulders. Everyone in this world does. The only thing that makes you think that you are different from us is that, for some reason, you still fight it. You fight to not to be like us. You see, we gave up. We didn't want to fight anymore. We wanted to be free, so we let our minds snap and send us to where we are now. Child, when things in life are to unbearable to handle, people want to hide and pretend that it never happened, so me and all the other lunatics here saw our way out. Yes, there are a couple of side effects, but it's like a drug that never gets old and is always around you. Why don't you just give into the insanity and join us, child." He placed his hand on the side of my head and tried to seek some understanding in my eyes.

The Loon spoke so fluently like he wasn't affected by the chemicals in the air. He talked like I was one of his children who asked an important life question. The way he talked made the chemical gas seem so intriguing. For a moment, I wanted to see if it was as bad as people were saying, but only for a moment until I realized how stupid it was to make yourself a lost cause to the world. I shook his hand off my head. He gave me a sort of death stare and gripped the side of my head by my hair. I struggled to get him off of me. I beat at his arm and even kicked at his legs. He was unaffected by it though. He threw me over to the table. My stomach slammed hard into it and made me lose my breath. I felt the side of my head. There was no hair there. A small patch was missing. There was no blood. That was good, at least.