A Place Like This

Chapter 6: The Gingerbread Man.

"That was so fucking close!" Alex exclaimed, jumping back into the passenger seat. "You think they're gone?" He glanced into the rear view mirror to double check.

"Yeah, I hope so." I said as I cracked open a water bottle.

"Where are we going?" Ally asked shyly.

"Somewhere far from here," I replied. "We're going to find a way to make the world a better place again."

"You mean it wasn't always like this?"

"No...Before you were born it was beautiful." Josiah sighs, and I could see his face in the reflection on the windshield. Clearly, he was upset. No, he was simply just sad. Depressed, if you prefer. Honestly, I haven't seen him smile once this whole time. And I don't blame him.

It started to quiet down. Ally's head rested on my lap as I played with he curly locks of hair, stringing them through my finges. I was exhausted. My head leaned on the window and I watched all the landscapes zoom beside me in all one big blur. Josiah was driving too fast, and he'd soon have to slow down as we approached a town called Rugby.

"I'm beat," Alex muttered. "Can we stop to sleep?"

"Not here. It's not safe here. We'd be so much safer if we camped out in the forest. There's too many people here, probably ready to murder us in our sleep. If we get out of here quickly, we can find a place on the outskirts."  Josiah answered then he flicked off the headlights.

None of us answered.

-

The warmth of the sunlight woke me up. It was quiet, and peaceful for a second. I could hear the birds chirp and everything was okay. And then, all that stopped when I opened my eyes to a bloody mess, and a swollen leg with blood gushing out of my knee. Dammit. What the fuck happened? I tried sitting up, to realize that I was on the floor. I looked up, and tugged on Ally's leg. She didn't budge, so I pulled myself up and sat on the seat...which was covered in dried up blood. Gross. I was ready to throw up by now, but the sight of Ally stopped me. She was tangled in her seat belt, sprawled across the seat. I unwrapped her body and laid her down, but then she woke up.

"Hey, Ally....Are you okay?" She shook her head.

"My arm and my head hurt." She complained. So I carefully set her down on my lap and examinded her small body. She didn't seen to have any open cuts or broken bones, but her head was soft, and her eyes were purple. She looked as if she could hardly breath. Her face was pale.
"What happened, Audrey?" She asked, looking down at my knee. It hurt like a fucking bitch but I had to put up with it.
"I don't know...Will you hand me the black bag over there?" I asked.
She gave me the bag that had all of our supply in it. I dug to the bottom and grabbed advil. I popped open the bottle and grabbed some water.
"Take this," I ordered. "You'll feel better." I gave her one tablet, and some water.
I used the rest of the water to wash out the dry blood off my leg, and wrapped it up with a gauze.

God damn, my body aches. I tried to reach over the seat and wake Alex and Josiah, but my stomach was bruised. Alex was curled up in the passenger seat, and Josiah was sprawled across the dashboard, his ripped jeans covered in blotches of blood. I grabbed my black bag of water and chucked it at his gut. He jumped up, smacking his head on the roof them tumbled on top of Alex. 

"Fuck, ow, holy shit, sorry, Alex. Ahh, Jesus Christ!"  Josiah shouted. I couldn't help but chuckle a little, but I stopped as soon as I realize how much pain he was in. 

"What the hell?!" Alex yelled, pushing Josiah off his lap. 

"What happened to us?" I asked, tying my hair into a ponytail. 

"We must have crashed or something..." Josiah pulled himself back up on the seat, clutching his gut. "Does anyone know what happened last night?" He asked. Me and Ally shook our heads, but Alex spoke up.

"Uhh, I think I remember you driving into the town, and when you turned off the headlights, we could see a distorted figure in the middle of the street...and you swerved into this ditch. But we wouldn't have been this injured. So why Audrey has a gash in her leg or why Josiah ended up on the dashboard beats me."

I turned myself and glanced out the back window. 

"The ditch isn't even that deep," I muttered. "Someone, or something, must have moved us, or like...attempted murder." I looked at my leg, applying pressure on my wound with my hands. 

"Maybe, but, uhh, I think I have a better idea of whats going on. Look." Josiah pointed to the boulder in front of us, the one we must have crashed into. In red, "Run, Run, as fast as you can." was written on it. It looked...surprisingly familiar.

"You-You guys...remember the writing in the bathroom I told you about...?"

"No." They all answered.

"Well, there was writing on the walls. In that same red lipstick....in that same hand writing."

"Wh-What do you think that means?" Alex questioned.

Josiah looked down, "I uhh, I think," Then back at us. "I think she means that...somebody's out for us. Somebody is following us. And I don't know what they want, but whatever it is, that want us to be dead first."

"Well what the hell, we need to get out of here!" Alex stated, gripping the door handle. 

"No shit, but we need a plan!" I said. "We can't just go into the town without being prepared!"

"I don't think we should go into the town. They're is more risk as to being murdered. If we go in the forest, whoever is following us will likely have a hard time keeping track of us. And if thats the case, we can make it out alive." Josiah explained. 

I nodded, and started collecting anything we needed.

"Umm, you guys, we're missing our pistol."

And it was almost at that second, when we heard a gunshot. A very close gunshot, making us all jump. 

"We need to get out of here..NOW!" I hissed. I grabbed everything I could, and grabbed Ally. She clung onto my waist, and we ran out the truck. I trailed behind Josiah and Alex behind me. I lifted Ally onto the boulder so she could climb up the ditch and into the forest. I jumped up next to her and helped her up. I turned to Alex who was struggling to climb up the rock , and reached out my hand. He shook his head. "No, I'm fine."

"We don't have time for this! So stop trying to show off and be manly. Take my damn hand, we need to go!" I shouted. He rolled his eyes and hesitated before grabbing my hand and I lifted him up. 

"Was that so hard, Alex?" 

He was about to open his mouth when Josiah interrupted. 

"Shut the hell up, lets go!"

I jumped up the rest of the ditch and Alex did so behind me. We looked back at our demolished truck...it made me wonder how we survived the night. However, we needed to get out of this place. We needed to move on. And since we didn't have a vehicle, we had to move on foot, and tough it out through the pain we all were in. My leg felt like it was slowly falling off my body, but I ran. 

We were all running. From what you might ask? 

K-I-L-L-E-R-S.

Except, these people weren't people. I caught a glimpse of a figure, who seemed to have a pale body with purple bumps. Their skin looking dry, and scaley. Their limbs fell off but they kept chasing us. I didn't know what these things were, but for now, we call them the Killers, because they all had red yarn sewn into their backs spelling out Killer...like the men with the black jackets, who held Ally as hostage. 

It didn't matter to me what they were. All that mattered is that I was running with a gash in my leg, bruises on my ribs, and a small child clinging on my waist for dear life. I trucked through the mud behind Josiah, and jumped over fallen logs. And somehow, the pain went away for a split second, and in that second, I had hope.

And it made me run even faster.