Trick or Treat - The Annual Teen Massacre

Chapter Fourteen - Cornered

Chapter Fourteen.

David was angry. Not only were they driven from their home, hunted by people he didn't even know before two days ago, escaped from a hospital and were then dumped in the middle of a city they knew nothing about, but it had become colder in the nights. Also this time they didn't have a warm place to call home. 
He and Vanessa were hiding in one of the alleys of the city there were dumped in. They sat in between two big dumpsters. David found some old carton boxes and he found a set of dirty pillows to sit on. It wasn't very cold yet, but he couldn't resist taking an old carpet out of the dumpster and calling it a blanket. David kept an arm around Vanessa to keep each other at least a little warm. He also felt it comforted her, because the only way to know David was there was either by touch or hearing. 

This time they didn't have the luxury of being invisible to people and what's worse, they knew that if anyone identified them as the ones who fled the hospital, they were as good as dead. It left David with a dilemma. They could split up so that they would be safer since the people of the city were looking for them as a pair, but that would put Vanessa in more danger than they were already in. She was blind after all and a blind thirteen year old girl was not easy to ignore. 
Everything was so unfair. Why did they have to end up like this? All they wanted was living in peace, but everywhere they went they were not welcome. 
"I don't know what to do anymore Vanessa", David said. "How can we survive here when everyone wants to see us dead?"
Vanessa was silent. And she had been for a while. It was only one hour after they were dumped by Peter Gibbiwibbs and the sun was almost about to come up. They had slept a little in the hospital after an incredible tiring procedure to remove their scars. But David figured they would get hungry around afternoon and too tired to stand a few hours later. 
"I feel your dilemma David. But ask yourself this : do we really care about the lives in this city?", Vanessa asked silently. 
"No not at all", David answered honestly. "Why though?"
"If you don't care about those people, will we be able to kill when it comes down to it?", she whispered. "I mean.. We're practically outlaws now right? So whatever we do there is no one could really stop us. I think we should start to think about ourselves rather than hiding and keeping out of everyone's way. It will probably cause our death if we choose to behave."
David laughed. "You mean we start robbing stores and steal money?"
"Exactly", Vanessa said. Her serious tone made David's laugh disappear as fast as it had started. 
"And.. I also think it's time to figure out what we can do exactly. I mean ever since we got away from our hometown we have experienced strange things we could see and do. We should figure out how to use that to our advantage", Vanessa said. "The things we can do.. is precisely why we were being hunted. I think they are afraid of what we can do"
"Or what we will do once we know how. I get it!", David said. "But I'm not ready to kill anyone yet, are you?"
She did not answer. 
"Vanessa?", David tried.
"At this moment, after the things we have seen and what they have done to us, how can you not think of killing them? Why can you still not think about taking out every single one that ever tried to kill you David? Tell me!", Vanessa shouted. Tears followed after that. "Why do you still feel the need of not harming anyone? Why David, why do you care?"
"I don't know, alright?", David snapped. "I think most people here don't even know what is truly going on around here, just as we didn't know about anything a few weeks ago, before the Halloween night. We saw how awful people were there right? Just killing everyone for the fun of it. All because the trick or treat event allows it. And even when we were invisible to everyone else. Even then we did not try to kill anyone. So why should we start now?"
"Sh, someone is coming", Vanessa said.
"What? I don't hear anyon-", David said but Vanessa's hand went over David's mouth. A few seconds later he heard two voices coming from the left. 

"-ittle brats should be hiding somewhere in this city. Could you believe that? Setting a whole hospital on fire, killing almost all patients in it. Why did they even accept two children of a mental institution from the other city? It seems that every time people get out of that place people die here. Why isn't the government doing anything about this?", a woman said. Her footsteps sounded as drunk as her voice, David thought. 
"You don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows that hospital was experimenting on people. And I don't know.. It's very convenient that those kids just happen to get out of a metal institution there and surprisingly burn down a building. It just doesn't make sense to me is what I'm saying.", a man said. 
The man and woman passed the dumpsters where David and Vanessa were hiding, but they seemed too busy with each other to pay any attention to them. The woman was hanging over the man's shoulder. She was clearly taller than him and her high heels sometimes scraped the ankles  of he man. He didn't show any sign of pain though, probably because he wanted to impress her. 
Vanessa stood up and her movement scared David. "Just stay here and be quiet", she said.
David looked how Vanessa took her shoes off and silently, but swiftly followed the man and woman who slowly walked away from David, still talking about them as if they weren't there.
A couple of minutes later Vanessa returned.
"I got some money from their wallets", Vanessa said. "Now you can buy us some stuff when the shops open.
"How did you do that?", David asked.
"Well it isn't the first time that I stole something. Sometimes when we got really hungry we just.. had to you know? And as long as I know it is night time I know I won't be noticed."
David was amazed. She managed her blindness better than he could have ever imagined.
"So what now?", David asked.
"Now.. we wait", Vanessa responded while she crawled back into the boxes and under the carpet blanket.  

The darkness quickly turned into light in a matter of hours and Vanessa and David talked about everything and anything that popped into their heads. How unfair the trick or treating was, and how fun it was to live on their own while everyone just did their things. Vanessa talked about how she experienced the treatment in the Hospital and how much it hurt her, and how she could still notice that Kira and Robert were such crybabies in comparison. She did have a lot of respect for Morgan though and she suspected it was Morgan who set the hospital on fire. 
"But how about you? How did you figure out we were being hunted or how you knew where that car was? I'm sure you couldn't have seen it", Vanessa said. 
"I don't know. I went out of my body when we fall. I walked around and everything was frozen. As if I stopped time, but I didn't do anything like that!", David said. 
"And before? You said you just happened to wake up and how convenient was it that you saw exactly what you needed to know we had to escape there?"
David grinned. "You think I was having an out of body experience then as well?"
"Well why not? It sounds to me that it kicks in whenever your life is threatened and tells you exactly what you need to know. It was like when I robbed those people just now. I knew my feet wouldn't trip and I knew I wouldn't make a sound, because that could have been the end of me. And remember what Peter said? That we have a knack for survival? I think he meant that literally", Vanessa said. Even though her eyes were... gone David still enjoyed to see her smile. It did not look sad at all. She actually looked stronger than before. 
"We'll see about that soon then", David said. "It's time."

He left Vanessa between the dumpsters and walked towards the end of the alley. He saw from there that the first shops had opened and the amount of cars had increased over time as well. People were walking on the streets, but David already felt that these people would ignore him just as the people in his town did after his GPS had broken. David knew the people in this city did not have a GPS. He noticed it when he saw the doctors doing inhumane things to Robert. They would have been electrocuted by the GPS if they did. So everyone could kill him at any given moment.
The street was crowded and filthy. It was completely unlike the town David grew up in. His town had always been cleaned by the golems, he knew now. 
But it was strange. The people here, even without GPS, did not kill each other. At least not in broad daylight. They had found a way to live with each other in a different way. So perhaps different rules applied? 

He entered a grocery store that was not far from the alley he and Vanessa were hiding. He bought some fruit he recognized and some bread. There were a lot of products he did not recognize and he didn't feel like trying them out. David looked at the exit of the store, while waiting in line to pay for his food. There was a man in a blue uniform that stood out from the rest. It watched how people entered and left. It reminded him of the volunteers he had met at the graveyard. They were there to keep the children safe. Were there people here who kept a close eye on people doing bad things? If that was true they may also be aware of him and Vanessa. They were fugitives after all. 
He observed the man in blue. He had a gun with him as well as a stick. That proved his theory. No one seemed to be scared of him or seemed to mind him being there. 
David payed with the money Vanessa had stolen. He just counted on the numbers being right because the currency was different from the one in his town. He greeted the female behind the counter after paying and left with his food in a plastic bag. 
He looked at the man in blue who stared right into David's eyes. For a second David thought he would be recognized, but the man averted his gaze and started to pay attention to other people. 

David quickly left the store and went back to Vanessa. He turned around the corner and saw three men standing close to the dumpsters where he and Vanessa were hiding.
"There", one of the men said, and he pointed at David.
David froze. He didn't expect to be captured this fast after their escape. The three men walked up to David and they were equipped with sticks that David had seen in the dumpsters. Had they hurt Vanessa? Was she still alive? He didn't hear anything that pointed out she was still alive. 
David took a few steps back and saw the man in blue coming his way from his right. He thought of what Vanessa had said. 'Do you really care about these people?' . It was either him or them, and he had Vanessa to protect as well. Maybe if she wasn't there he would have chosen a different path, but for now he ran towards the man in blue, who was surprised by David's action.
David agilely evaded the stick the man swung with and David felt the man was out of balance. He kicked the man in his stomach with his knee and grabbed the stick and the gun in a split second. The man in blue grasped for air and cursed at David. Some people around him started to notice something was wrong. David hit the man on the back of his head and pointed the gun towards the three man that had just appeared from the alley. They froze and stepped back. 
"Easy now kid. We don't want to hurt you. We just want to turn you in so you can be cured from your mental problems", one of the men said. 
"I am not crazy!", David screamed. "Get away from me! Why are you believing those lies?" He checked if the safety was off the gun. It wasn't. He thanked his teachers that they learned him how to disarm a fanatic with a gun in class years ago. Guns were only allowed by volunteers to make sure the graveyard was safe from fanatics. But every year one or two fanatics became desperate and attempted to kill children these way anyway. So the children learned at school how to disarm fanatics to save both the fanatics and themselves in the Halloween night. 

The three men noticed that David seemed to know how to handle the gun and flinched. 
"One of us dead ain't worth the reward", the man to the left said. 
"Yeah, let's run before he goes on a mad killing spree", the middle responded, "Let's go"
They turned around and quickly ran off into a direction they hoped David wasn't going. 
David ran back into the alley after checking the man in blue who only appeared to be unconscious. He looked between the dumpsters and saw Vanessa laying there motionless, but her arms shielded her head as if she had been kicked. 
"Are you alright?", David asked. 
"F..Fine, thanks. Those men spotted me and just kicked me for the fun of it until you came back", Vanessa said. "I don't like it here David. These people don't kill, they torture!"
"Don't worry I'll get us somewhere safer."
David felt eyes peering into the alley from the street. They had to move quickly before any of the people walking there came closer. He picked Vanessa up and guided her towards the end of the alley. Her arms were bruised but she didn't seem to be bleeding. At least there was some hope left.