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Chapter 4: Safehouse

We slept at the house that night. Well, I say we slept, but I doubt Andy could close his eyes for more than 10 seconds, and as usual I kept awake all night. Lily didn't even sleep that night. So I guess you could say that we rested at the house that night. When morning finally came, we packed up and without saying a word, we left the house and began to hike into the city centre.

Every now and then we would have to climb over a pile of rubble to get to the next street. The city centre was darker and more destroyed than the rest of the city. The grey remains of buildings lay at 1 metre high on all sides. It was like all life had been drained from it, even the patches of weeds were lifeless. To our right, the harbour's water was a murky grey, dust and rubble laying at its sides. The streets were mostly rock and shards of glass, so it took us an hour to navigate a few streets at a time. I was just about certain that no one had survived the city when Lily pointed to something on a broken wall opposite us.

"Look!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening as she swiftly sprinted across and read the poster aloud.
"All survivors, come to the city centre, We have a small setup, with food supplies to last us for years. All welcome, make sure you aren't followed!"

"What does it mean by make sure you aren't followed?" I asked in a low tone, raising my eyebrows at Lily.

"Who cares?" she replied, lifting her shoulders up and staring at me intently.

"I do. Some crazy stuff is happening here, I already told you we don't know who we can trust." I reply sternly. I hated having to be in charge.

"If there is even the slightest chance that Andy's parents could be there, we need to go check it out!" Lily crossed her arms. "That's all there is to it."

I glanced at Andy quickly. He was staring at the ground, hugging himself. He hadn't said a word since we left. I knew we had to try it, but I didn't like it. I just had a feeling that not everything is what it seemed. "Ok. But we need to be careful. I'll scout it out first, and then if it seems like a good idea, we'll join them. We don't know what we'll find there, so we're going to have to be prepared. Ok?" I ask, looking at Lily and Andy expectantly. Andy kept staring at the ground but mumbled a gentle "Yeah" and Lily nodded her head slowly.

And so we followed the signs to the safehouse. When we reached the corner that lead onto the street on which the safehouse was, I got Andy and Lily to stop. I peered around the corner. Nothing was unusual, it was the same as the rest of the city - blank and empty. I signal to the others with a quick hand gesture and continue forward.

The final sign was on a broken doorframe. It told us that the safehouse was in the basement. I went in first, the others close behind me. It lead to a small room that was empty but for a wooden coat rack with a single pink jacket on it.

"What the... I knew it. Just a waste of time, let's go quickly." I whisper, slowly beginning to back out of the room.

"Wait" shouted Andy. He pulled up his sleeves and tried to push the right side of the coatrack. Slowly, steadily, the whole wall began to move.

I'm not usually the religious type, but I muttered a quick prayer under my breath anyway, and Lily and I helped Andy push open into the Safehouse.