Survival Perspective

Broke The Ice

Reginald, June The Twentieth. 

I awake with a wheezing gasp, its cold, I'm fuckin' cold. Three layers of clothing including ballistics vest and I'm still fuckin' shivering. It must be early, it's too dark to tell but the feeling of frost on my jeans confirms my suspicions as I brush the glass off of my body and fumble to my feet. Although I can't see anything I know they're out there, I can hear them shuddering and twitching against the walls, growling as they bump into each other, it scares me. Feeling my way through the dark I'm able to make out some stairs and I climb them blindly, reaching the top I finally catch a glimpse of where I am thanks to the rising sun. It's a school. Hallway I'm in is filthy, definitely hasn't been cleaned for months judging by the papers strewn all over the place, crude childish dioramas litter a table to my left. Cautiously I begin to search for the way I came in, each step echoing through the building mixing with the sounds of the groans coming from outside which I've begin to follow. The moans get louder as I reach what I'm searching for and when I find it; the window I fell in through, I can see the rotting culprits of the noise in the golden rising sun. Their teeth needlessly sawing backwards and forward at nothing, jaws agape, some dressed in their Sunday best while others are decorated in garments that would suggest they made it for a little while at least, before they had their entrails ripped out which now drag behind them with a wet scraping sound. Some of them notice me staring out the window in the early dawn and reach up at me like needy children, begging for a meal. I wouldn't make much of one; I've been starving through the winter living off of cans of dog food and what little game I can catch in my Boy Scout grade snares. Stomach begins to rumble at the thought of fresh, greasy charred rabbit meat filling my mouth and it reminds me why I ended up on the floor below this one in a pile of glass and snow. Hours earlier I had just climbed a drainage pipe to the right of this window, hoping to find some sort of commissary in the cafeteria here. Food and shelter that could last me into the spring was a bounty I was prepared to risk my survival for, so I shimmied along this roof. The last thing I remember is a deafening crack and a heavy thud in my chest as pain that felt like fire spread through my chest. What the shooter hadn't counted on was the glass behind me which shattered with the force of the shot; carrying me through with it and knocking me out from shock. I felt for the bullet in my vest, fingertips tracing over a small smooth metal dent which I couldn't be more thankful for. I couldn't stay here now though, with people around chances were that commissary was empty, peering out through the shattered glass I could see my car past all the dead ones, hidden under some deftly placed branches. Moving away from the window and back into the school, I begin scrounging for something to defend myself with when I finally make a break for my car. My holster is empty which means I must have dropped it in the fall, I didn't see it when I awoke so it must be in the horde outside; it's very welcome to stay there. I'm not sticking my hand into that hornets' nest. I find nothing nearby that could even be remotely helpful if one of them managed to get the drop on me, I was just going to have to make a run for it. I move back over to the window and remove my car keys from my pocket; I wasn't going to waste time with finding it when I got there. I take a deep breath and step up outside onto the roof from earlier. The dead ones from before have gone back to bashing on the doors below, good I'll get a head start. I steel myself for the moment ahead and leap into the snow boughs with a soft crunch, immediately scrambling to my feet and bounding toward the hatchback in panic. Everything seems eerily silent as I pound toward the vehicle; the only thing making sense as the adrenaline rushes is getting to the car. Some of them have surely started to give chase by now, reaching out ahead of them with gnarled rotted fingers, reaching for a shirt collar, a loose thread, something that will surely pull me toward their snapping teeth. It never comes and I reach the car fine and that's when I realize I wasn't being chased at all. They're still gathered around the door and it finally occurs to me what happened to my shooter, they must have flocked to the sound of the gun shot. He was right below me and I didn't see, part of me wants to try my chances for the commissary again, my stomach especially knowing now that the school would be empty.