I wait exactly four hours and forty six minutes before I begin my trek to the settlement. I took residence in two different buildings during that time, just in case someone came out to look for me. No one did. And it did wonders for my mind, which of course conjured up all the different scenarios it could, all of them ending badly.
But now, with twilight falling, I can't sit around any longer. Besides, my back's killing me, and my shoulder's annoying the crap out of me. So if anyone wants to render me useless, just touch my back and I'll crumble. Simple as that.
I don't put any weight on that shoulder and let my pack hang from the other. This only aggravates the opposite shoulder anyway, so I just can't win at life at the moment.
As the night creeps up, floodlights come on within the settlement. They're a bit taller than the fence, but they provide me with a good beacon to follow in the oncoming darkness. They don't face this way, thankfully. They shine light over the football field. But I thought by now they would've tried to rig them and have them facing outside the settlement, so they could see if someone was approaching. Like I am right now.
Surprisingly, there aren't any sentries roaming the top of the wall. There's a metal drum which is being used as a makeshift fire, but there's no one standing around it warming their hands. No, it's deserted. Which only leaves me unsettled and unsure.
I don't deviate from the plan, because this isn't about me. It's about Emmi, and making sure she's safe, and getting her back to her father. This whole situation has nothing to do with me. I'm simply the person who's going to go in there and get the little girl who should never have been taken in the first place.
And if that means I or someone else gets killed along the way, so be it.
My constant companion to the giant wall that surrounds the settlement are the crickets. I would like to think by now, considering they're all I hear, that they're friends of mine. All hundreds and hundreds of millions of them. Or however many there are that I can hear. I like to think that they're the same crickets I've been hearing all summer, following me as I made my way to Colorado.
Otherwise, Harold, or the many other crickets I have named Harold, we need to talk. I don't appreciate you not accompanying me on my journey through three different states. I thought we were friends.
I feel my way along the corrugated iron that makes up the fence. I know I'm a little ways off from where I need to be, so I just follow the wall, hand against the metal, until I find the little niche that will gain me entry to the settlement beyond. Or should I say, the loose panel.
It shifts slightly when I drag my fingers across it and give it a tug. Bingo. I take a step back, a single look over my shoulder to make sure no one's behind me, and another towards the top of the wall, in case someone might've snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. There's no one there. So I take a deep breath, square my shoulder – because the other one is useless and is starting to ache like a bitch – and pull at the loose metal panel.
It doesn't shift as much as I'd like. So I hook my handgun on my waistband – safety on – before I try tugging at it again with the one hand. I reveal a space just a bit wider than I am, but I'm going to take it. I'm not going to waste all my energy on getting in when I need to use it for other things, too.
I slide through the gap, my clothes of course getting caught on the metal. I rip a hole in both the front and the sleeve of Nate's shirt, but they offer comfort in the way that it allows the cooler night air to get to my sweaty and clammy skin.
I'm inside. I don't bother sliding the panel back into place because I'm behind a cabin. I peek around the corner and look up the street. There are three buildings to the left of me, on the other side of the road; on this side, there's another three. All are dark. The only light comes from the two streetlamps, one on either side of the road, and even then they're dull. They constantly flicker and attract bugs, which only diminishes the reach of the light further.
As much as I'm tempted to have the reassuring weight of my handgun in my grasp, I resist the urge. All I can do is repeatedly clench my fists, and try to figure out where to go from here.
My mental map tells me that Emmi would be kept towards the centre of the settlement, perhaps in the church. That way, if they do consider her a hostage, it only makes it more difficult for me to reach her. Because where do people congregate? In a church. And where's the hardest place to get into? A church. Okay, not quite. But it's more difficult to get to someone right in the middle of somewhere than if they were in a place along one of the boundaries.
As of now, all I can do is wait for Nate to get his ass into gear and maybe, maybe put that RPG to use. That's the only drawback to me being here, and him being the distraction. He possibly gets to use the RPG.
Let's just say that I'm more than a little jealous.
There aren't any patrols in the streets, which I'm not sure is a regular occurrence or if it's only for today. So, keeping low, I duck inside the cabin of which I entered behind, closing the door as quietly as possible so it looks undisturbed from the outside. I shrug off my pack, ignore my shoulder which now throbs in time to the beat of my pounding heart, and pull out my flashlight. Which is a bad idea, because as soon as I switch it on, it illuminates a young girl, maybe sixteen, seventeen, standing before me, handgun pointed at my chest. Except her hand shakes, and her finger's actually on the guard as opposed to the trigger.
"Who are you?" the girl whispers. Her voice is as shaky as her hand. "What do you want?"
She looks inexperienced, so I assume she's never held a gun before, or been on guard-duty – which makes it easy to disarm her: I snatch the gun from her, then punch her in the face with the gun in hand. She's unconscious before she hits the ground.
That's all good and well, because as soon as I relieve the handgun of its ammo, the case hitting the floorboards with a mild thump, it disguises approaching footsteps. The cool barrel of a gun presses into the back of my head, and all I can do is freeze. The owner cocks the weapon, the click the only sound in the silence and the darkness.
"Don't you dare move," the owner of the gun says. The voice is female. "Actually, you know what? Turn around so I can see your face."
She doesn't search me, touch me up. She knows I won't try anything stupid with a gun pressed to my head, because what idiot would? Still, I could have concealed weapons of mass destruction.
I turn around, slowly, hands slightly raised, though I know she didn't ask me to. It's just the reaction I have every time someone points a gun at me. Which seems to happen a lot.
As I face her, torch aimed just above her head, she must be able to see me just as I'm able to see her in the outskirts of the light. She gasps, audibly, and the gun in her grip shakes against my head.
Holy shit.
YOU ARE READING
What Lasts in Us
Science Fiction**COMPLETED** Several years after the world succumbed to a deadly strain of measles that turned those infected into crazed, mindless cannibals, Charlotte wanders the backroads alone, content with surviving day-to-day. That is until she crosses path...
