Survival of the Unfit

Chapter 18

Levi

“Oh sweet Jesus fucking Christ, what the—“ I fumbled for my phone, nearly falling out of bed again. “Uh, hello?”

“Help me.”

I immediately checked the number and felt my palms get sweaty. The new 911.

“April, you okay?” I asked, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, finding yesterday’s jeans still on the floor.

“No! Middle west woods. I need some damn help!”

I struggled to get up and pull on pants. “Okay, be there soon.”

“Hurry! Oh shi—“ The line went dead.

I jumped out my bed and frantically ran around my room, stocking up and dressing in a matter of seconds before going down the stairs as quickly as possible, heading out to my car and gassing it down the street towards center west strip. It felt like I was having a heart attack, or when your stomach swoops on a rollercoaster; except it was continuous, that airless feeling. Calm down. Calm. The fuck. Down.

She was in trouble, alright, but I didn’t have time to ask why or how. I just had to save her. Just find her, help her, and it’s going to be okay. I’d get the details later, once she’s safe. Because she’d definitely be alive. I sure as hell wasn’t letting April die on my watch.

At a much reduced ETA, I was pulling over on the shoulder and sprinting into the forest, getting my handgun out and clicking in a magazine, making sure I had another in my pocket. I had my knife at my side as well, as long with throwing knives and my switchblade. Suddenly it didn’t feel like enough, but find April. Finding April is my priority.

I heard a commotion from the left and found a group of hollering girls running through the trees, sounding like banshees and wielding an odd array of barbaric weapons: a spear, crossbow, regular bow, and the glint of throwing knives in one’s hand. They stopped and looked around. “Come on out! We want to see how much of a heroine you really are, coming from South and all.”

A piece of bark hit my head and I immediately aimed my gun up, finger on the trigger, but April’s wide mint green eyes met me instead. They were wide with fright. “Help,” she mouthed, blood on her hands, cut on her forehead.

“Found her!” an obnoxious voice said. I whipped back around and aimed my gun, and the four stopped short.

“Wait—“

"That’s—“

“Put your weapons down and this won’t be hard,” I said, walking towards them. I thought I was getting my point across by how scared they all looked. But the bow and arrow girl’s eyes flickered behind me, in the tree where April was hiding out in. As soon as I went to cock the gun, she strung an arrow, shot, and scattered.

I grabbed the spear girl’s shaft as she ran by, two headed towards a running April and the one disappearing deeper into the woods. She half-clotheslined and landed on her back, and I tore the spear from her grasp, throwing it behind me. She got out a combat knife and tried to whack at my ankles, but I stopped her swings easily, grabbing her by her hoodie collar and tugging up, looming above her. I put the barrel of the gun on her temple, and she started to bawl. “No, I didn’t, I didn’t want, please…”

I heard a scream from behind me and hit the spear girl in the temple with the butt of the gun instead, and she zonked out immediately. I put it in my holster and grabbed a couple throwing knives running towards the ruckus. This was absolute chaos.

The girl with the crossbow had abandoned her weapon on the forest floor and was violently choking out April against a tree with her teeth bared, looking completely feral. “You fucking snitch!”