Midnight Malfunction

Chapter 2

Ryan was amazed to see that nobody was there. The fire was dancing around, making its usual sound. The boy, however, noticed that there was a map of the city and a bunch of pictures laying on it. The map itself was stapled to the brick wall of the other apartment building. A backpack was laying on the floor, next to the fire and Ryan decided to move it away, because it could burn, as it was made of fine cloth. There were also three chairs, like the ones that fishermen use for fishing. They were easily bendable and barely weighed anything. This lead the boy to believe that at least three people were up here not long before he came. He decided to loot the backpack to see what was in it. He found a bunch of pictures of a man with a small girl, possibly a father and daughter, walking around in the park, holding hands. Others were of them, now in the winter, ice-skating. He decided to stop looking at them because he felt nostalgia flowing through his body. He found some canned fish as well, a few half-filled bottles of water and a note.

The note said: 'IF ANY SURVIVORS ARE READING THIS, BY THE DATE OF 18/02/2037, A GROUP OF 4 SURVIVORS WILL BE IN A CAMP ON 37TH STREET!' The note also contained some valuable information about the apes. Apparently, they only came up after dark, so they aren't spotted as easily by the humans and then killed.

The eighteenth was just the following week, and was also his birthday. Ryan was going to turn 15 then, a really special day for him.

Ryan didn't come from this part of the city, he didn't know it at all, so he looked at the map to try and find the mentioned 37th street. He chose not to take the map in case any other survivor came, which also led him to leave some supplies and the note exactly where he had found it.

The first problem with trying to get to that part of town, which was almost a kilometre away, was getting down from the building, and even then he had to avoid the apes roaming the city. He turned back to look around the area. There was a hole that he had completely missed, which led to the inside of the building. He walked over to there and was faced by another choice. Should he go up to the roof, or go down, to roam the dangerous streets? Safe roof, or dangerous streets? Roof, dangerous streets? He walked up the stairs right next to the hole and went to the roof. The hatch to the roof was really rusty and hard to open, but he made it through.

'37th was that way,' Ryan declared, pointing to his left, up the main street of the region.

At least the buildings in this city, Northern Hornington, were like the buildings of old-time London, they were right next to each other and easy to travel on. Ryan walked on the roofs casually when he heard a loud noise, like the clashing of metal and metal. The tiles he was walking on would obviously never making such a sound, and that caused Ryan to become anxious and scared. He turned back slowly, kneeling down, and saw one of them, strolling on some broken bars. The silence was killing the boy from the inside, but at the same time he felt that it was somewhat better than the horrifying music the play in horror games. He despised those games, as he almost always stayed home alone, and those games made him feel insecure and as if he was being watched or he wasn't alone. He slowly walked backwards, spying on the creature to make sure it wasn't looking towards him. He kept walking backwards when he lost sight of the ape, turned around and started to walk slowly and cautiously. He now learned some valuable information, the apes could also go on the roofs of buildings. Dang creatures!

Then he heard it again. Another sound, this time of heavy footsteps on tiles. Ryan stopped immediately and turned around to see what had created the noise. He saw nothing, which frightened him even more. He started walking backwards. Slowly, slowly... He tripped.. The boy fell on his back and automatically screamed in pain. That was the biggest mistake he had made so far. For a second he heard nothing, which calmed him down to a degree, but then he could hear somebody running. Not one, but two people. He struggled to get up fearing for his life. He could barely breathe, the air had been smacked right out of his lungs. The bag he was carrying also hadn't helped. It contained some metal cans, sharp edges of different kinds of stuff, including tools for cutting. The volume of the noises had increased significantly. Ryan's back was still hurting a lot. He got onto his feet, tried to run for cover when he heard gunshots. 2 gunshots had been fired. He looked up and saw an ape, with bullet holes through its chest, falling on top of him. When the giant body hit Ryan, he fainted.