Whatever It Takes: Mutations

Chapter Five

Closer to Death

September 30th; 3:01pm

Current Location: Baltimore, MD
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I shielded myself with my arms, bracing for Sgt. Brown's lust for blood. He turned into a Regular out of nowhere, and none of us were ready for it. I clenched my eyes closed, just waiting for it. Then a loud noise deafened my ears.

BOOM!

I slowly opened my eyes, wondering what had happened. Sgt. Brown was thrown sideways away from me, and there was blood pouring out from his side. I looked over at Navarez, and the barrel of his gun was steaming. He shot him, I realized. Holding out both of my arms, I tried my best to keep my siblings behind me. Sgt. Brown turned his attention to Navarez, whose arms were shaking vigorously. Dad suddenly pulled out a knife and lunged for him, which the Sargent definitely didn't expect. He stabbed him in the crown of his skull, and he screeched before collapsing on the ground. A few stabs later, just to make sure, he was surely dead.

I stared in shock. Navarez dropped the gun and broke down crying. Dad looked absent-minded with blood all over his hands. Olivia began to whimper, and Braxton just stayed quiet.

Around a couple of minutes later, Dad recollected himself and offered a hand to Navarez. He looked up, confused. "What?"

"Get yourself back together, man," he said. "We're running out of food and we can go into the city to find some, alright?"

Navarez looked down, but he took Dad's hand and he hoisted him onto his feet. Dad turned to me with a sympathetic smile. "You three okay?"

I turned to the kids, and they both looked fine. Not a scratch in sight, which is what I wanted to see. "Yeah, we're okay, right?"

Olivia silently nodded, and Braxton looked up at me, with concerned eyes. "Yeah."

"That's good. Get ready, we're going out into the city."

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After Navarez and Dad took care of the body, we found ourselves back in the destroyed city. Nothing except distant screaming, smoke starting to rise into the cloudy sky, and motorcycle engines revving up. Baltimore looked like the aftermath of Hiroshima in World War Two.

"Where are we going to find food in a place like this?" I asked.

Nobody answered me for a while, but Dad glanced behind him to look at me. "I don't know, but I'm confident that we can take down a few Raiders. Not any in a huge gang, but some less than three. We've got a few guns to share."

It surprised me on how confident he was about that. Most of the time, Dad avoided any contact with hardly anyone outside of Navarez and Sgt. Brown, especially with fighting.

Then the motorcycle engines started to get closer than I was comfortable with, although when I heard them I was never comfortable at all. Dad held up his hand for us to stop.

"Quick, over here," he said, motioning towards a concrete wall that we all hid behind.

The roar of the engines came in to view, and my heart sunk down to my stomach. Countless Raiders began to swarm the street, and it was so loud that I was forced to cover my ears. I made sure that Braxton and Olivia were at least doing the same, which they were. I could also hear Dad say, "J-Jesus!" 

Once they finally passed us, it got quieter and safe to the point all of us started to let go of our now damaged ears. I took a deep breath as the wave of relief passed over us. Unfortunately, of course, it didn't last very long as screaming suddenly filled the polluted air. Looking north, a few Regulars seemed to be chasing the Raiders that passed us earlier. Then, one of them made eye contact with me, and it howled in agony. Cursing loudly, I pointed at the one that saw me, glancing at Dad. His eyes grew wide as it started to sprint a whole lost faster than we were used to. Dad pulled out the shotgun and aimed it right at him.