A trip to the store at the end of the world

The wind rushes past me, making my hair fly in tandems and my eyes tear up. The truck rushes down the road, avoiding the largest cracks. My fingers dig hard into the metal of the rifle as I try to keep them at bay. The big quake struck a month ago and already people have let their true selves run wild. The world's a lot more hostile than it was months ago. Neighbors that would have greeted you with a smile and wave now take shots at you as you try to scrounge for the few undestroyed and unclaimed supplies.

A tall guy about my age jumps from the snow and raises a pistol. I move before I can think and fire a shot that takes the top of his head off. I wish I could say I wasn't used to it but in the days since the quake all I've seen is death and destruction. I'm still amazed how quickly and savagely we all became this.

The truck swerves suddenly and I barely catch myself on the wall of the truck bed. I jump to my feet and see salvation and damnation standing hand in hand. The mall. It's filled with looters getting everything they can and gunshots fill the air. We're one of the many who lost everything in the quake and we have to get supplies before they're all taken. From the number of people rushing into the mall and cutting each other down a lot of people had the same idea as us. I raise the rifle and begin picking them off before I run out of ammo. I slide open the back window panel and climb into the seat. I put my seatbelt on and brace myself.

"If we die I entirely blame you and this crazy-ass plan." I say to my sister smiling. The front of the mall rushes to meet us and I breathe in deep. We crash through the front window and I hear the horrible, stomach churning, mushy crunch of bodies beneath the tires. We start spinning and tear through a checkout aisle before grinding to a stop. I toss my sister a pistol, tear off my seatbelt, and leap out of the car. Two are already coming at me with blades raised high. I fire 2 shots and hear 2 bodies drop.

I whirl and am glad to see that most of the others are too interested in their current situations to mess with us. I rush to the nearest shopping cart and take off for the frozen foods aisle. I don't have to turn around to see my sister take off for the canned goods aisle, just as planned. I sprint towards the aisle and avoid people as best I can. I run into a few but thankfully have to kill none. One was busy shoving candy into his pockets, the next was stabbing the clearly dead body of an old man repeatedly, and the last saw my gun and immediately booked.

I turned the corner into the frozen foods section and started scooping everything into my cart. I hear a crash and turn to see a section of an aisle topple over. A muscular guy with a machete hops over the fallen aisle section and charges me. I raise the pistol to fire and it clicks empty. I slip it into my jacket pocket and draw 2 knives from my homemade sheathes. I flip the one in my left hand so the dull of the blade rests against my forearm and raise them into a stance I probably learned from a bad Kung-Fu movie.

He reaches me and brings the machete down in a wide arc. I side step it and slice through his side with my left knife before turning and jamming the right knife into his temple. The knife goes straight through the other side and a gush of insanely hot blood blasts over my hand. I tear the knife out and more blood shoots out. I stare at my reddened reflection in the blade and wonder again how it all happened.

A 9.3 earthquake strikes and the world goes all to hell. Entire cities are dropped into the ocean or burned to ashes. The remaining cities suffer catastrophic damage and in the ensuing days thousands rush to the stores that are still standing and take as much as they can carry. When the stores started to run out people turned against one another in the struggle for basic necessities. Who knew we'd all turn so violent so quickly just for the sake of what may happen later.

I wipe the blades off on my pants and sheathe them. I run back to my cart and finish loading it before taking off for the gun/ammo section. I arrive and my sister is nowhere to be seen. I hopes it's because she couldn't find a cart or something. I load my pistol and then begin shoving ammo into every pocket when a bullet whizzes by my head. I leap back and take cover behind the counter. I peak out and get a glimpse of a middle-aged woman with a rifle before a shot makes me duck back. The chunk of counter where my head had just been explodes in a shower of splinters. I look around for an escape route and see that I'm trapped. The gun counter is separated from every other structure and any way I go will make me and easy target for the woman.

"I'm just a kid lady. I used to go to Westcliff High on the north end. My best friends’ names were Tyler Durdin and Craig Morehouse. I just want my cart and to get out of here with my sister." I said trying to humanize myself to her. I read somewhere that it's a good way to avoid being violently murdered by a person with a conscious. I hoped that book hadn't been full of s***.

"Sure kid." I heard her call in a sarcastic tone. I sighed and fell back against the counter. I saw my sister turn the corner and felt my blood run cold. I heard 4 shots and saw my sister’s body contort as each one slammed into her. One in the kneecap, one in the gut, one in the shoulder, and one in the head in that order. Rage flooded through me and I jumped up firing in the woman's general direction while running towards my sister’s body. I heard a scream from behind me as I slid to my knees next to my sister. I scooped her head up and saw that the top part was gone. My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes. I hadn't cried when I watched my parents get swallowed by the earth or when I saw my friends burn but all the pain I'd suppressed from their deaths came back to me in great racking sobs as I clutched my sisters lifeless body to my chest. In that moment I felt hatred so deep and pure that I felt part of my soul be swallowed by it. I hated the world, the people in it, god or Mother Nature or tectonic shifts or whatever had caused the quake, and most of all myself for not being able to protect the people I cared about.

I knew I'd live a very long time in that moment. It came to me like a vision of startling clarity. I had watched everything I loved die and now I would live with it. The tears stopped and I stood letting my head fall back. I let out a scream of rage that I could hardly believe came from human lungs. The world seemed to swim around me and I stumbled toward the screaming woman. She had taken a shot between the eyes. It hadn't killed her but had left her blind and in horrible pain. I put my hand over her mouth to stifle her screams.

"I'm going to leave you to live with this pain and slowly bleed out. Bitch." I whispered into her ear before walking away. Her scream began anew and had something other than pain in them. Utter soul-shattering despair. I finished cramming my pockets with ammo and grabbed my cart. I walked out of that mall, killing everyone who got in my way. I kept walking for days until I came to an abandoned farmhouse where I set up camp. That was a year ago. Society is pulling itself back together. The lost are being mourned for. The government is trying to get people to stop fighting and work together. Some are listening, most aren't. I don't blame them. I think it's human nature to fight and we only recently were able to beat our nature into a corner and allow logic to somewhat overtake us but once the quake came we all got blasted back to the violent, animal-like creatures we were all those many years ago. But I'm also very nihilistic. So who knows?

The End