From the Ashes, You Crawl

Chapter Twelve; Flashback

The next time Gerard left the dumbwaiter, it was much, much later. The radiation in the air had caused him to go into sort of a hibernation-like state for several days. Now, he was awake, and the home was deadly silent. He crawled from the hole in the wall to find the window across from him had been blown to pieces. Outside the broken pane, there was a wasteland. Gerard's hometown outside lay in shambles, the homes in piles of rubble, or barely standing, paint peeled off and shingles missing. The trees were naked, and the grass was blackened. Gerard didn't cry as he stood very weakly. He was dehydrated and starving, and now, nearly bald. He moved his chapped lips a few times before moving to the first room. As he stood in the doorway, Gerard for the first time noticed a pistol on the ground near one of the bodies. Curious, he moved towards it, and as he picked it up, realized it was loaded.

A loaded gun.

Gerard in an instant pressed it to his head, finger moving over the trigger. Of course, his first instinct was to pull it, but he found his finger unable to move. He couldn't do it, not after the same hand had ended his brother's life. No. He couldn't do it. Gerard took the pistol and shoved in inside the waist band of his jeans. He would keep this... Just in case.

The door was still open like how he had left it, and the two dead bodies were corroded to the ground, unrecognizable as humans anymore. Gerard moved forward past them, his limp strikingly worse than it had been before as he stepped outside.

He was starving.

Gerard watched out the door, searching for any signs of life. There wasn't even the caw of birds or the creaking of crickets. Just completely dead silence. His stomach ached and cramped as he limped forward, the warm breeze ruffling the few strands of hair he had left. Where could he go for food? In his mind, he recalled a grocery store not far from here. He could make it.

When Gerard arrived, he found the glass broken and the front of the building was burned.He moved to one of the crumpled shopping carts and took it inside through the wreckage, using the cart as a sort of walker and taking the strain off of his tired legs. When he was inside, he found that the power was cut entirely, and the whole supermarket stank of rotting meat. He gagged, pressed his hand over his nose, but endured as he leaned on the cart, guiding himself down the aisles. It was very dark in here.

He moved along through the aisles. It was very hard to see, but after a second, his eyes adjusted in the darkness, and he pulled boxes from the shelf. Gerard was so very hungry. He took a full box of rice and pulled it open, taking handfuls of the uncooked, hard grain and swallowing it. They stung his throat and made him cough, but he didn't care. He was so hungry.

After a moment of frantic eating, he threw the box onto the floor, and he continued through the market, the squeaking of the cart the only sound. He needed water now. He needed water so very badly. Gerard remembered a bathroom in the back. That was where he had endured many a spanking in his childhood for misbehaving in the store. The memory made a hard lump arise in Gerard's throat, but he swallowed it and ran into the bathroom, propping open the door behind him with the cart, which allowed a tiny bit of gray light from outside. At first, he foolishly tried the lights, but when nothing happened, he moved in almost complete darkness to the sink and turned it on.

There was a gurgling as the frozen pipes churned, and, for a bitter second, Gerard was afraid that they were broken, but, after a moment, they spat and then ran water from the faucet.

Without a second thought, Gerard sprung his face into it.

He did not know what was coming from the faucet, but it was not water. It was sour and tasted a little like bleach. The liquid coming from the faucet stung his face and mouth, but he didn't care, he was so dehydrated. He swallowed mouthfuls, gagging as it stung through his entire throat and stomach.