The Human Adjustment

Chapter Seven

The apartment block itself looked like it had been abandoned for years, not from the lack of people, but from the damage. A third of the windows were broken and the glass from them carpeted the sidewalk. The ten story building looked fragile, much like the two buildings on either side of it. This was the most concentrated destruction I’d seen so far, probably because Maple Avenue was mainly lined with shops, so there weren’t many residents. But in this particular area, there were three apartment blocks, all with around thirty apartments in each. It was a breeding pool for these monsters and the evidence was clear.

In front of us was a scene which you would normally see on the animal channel. There was a body lying on the ground, but you could barely see it through the six turned who were ripping it apart with their bare teeth. Shards of slippery flesh splattered across the road, escaping from the mouths of the turned. I could hear their snarling from inside the car. To the side of us were two cars which had crashed head on with each other. One of the cars was empty with the doors open, but the other one has someone in it. Rather, it had someone out of it; they had flown through the windshield, the top of their head had crumpled inward and the blood was still dripping from it onto the hoods of the cars. There was a group of three turned next to the entrance of the building, they looked like they were fighting each other. The door to the building was shut, you could only open it by being let in by someone or with a key, which we didn’t have. I scanned the windows of the fourth floor, that was Lindsey’s floor, the windows seemed intact, but who knew if she was still there or not.

‘What’s your plan Jake?’ I asked in a condescending way. He looked at me and pulled a face.

‘I…I’m sorry guys, I didn’t realise it would be like this’ he looked down at his hands.

‘You knew full well it would be like this buddy, she’d better be worth it’ Piper was angry, she had a frown similar to Max’s etched on her face. Jake shyed away from her and made eye contact with me.

‘I’m sorry!’

‘You’ve led us straight into a death trap Jake’ Max piped up and turned around in his seat to face him ‘I hope you’ve got an idea on how to get to your precious Shelia’ he stared at him.

Jake shuffled in his seat, Ellie edged away from him slightly. He looked at everyone individually; his face was full of worry. He was silent for a minute, thinking; finally he spoke.

‘Ok, we’ve all got weapons right? We can take on these guys, we’ll just use the cars as cover and make our way to the doors’ he paused slightly, we were all listening ‘From there I’ll try and break in, the doors will be locked’ he stopped and waited for our reaction.

I glanced at Max, he was already looking at me, his blue eyes were glowing from the sunlight streaming into the car, it was almost mesmerising. He locked eyes with me as if we were communicating silently and after a second I shrugged my shoulders, he nodded and looked at Jake, I let out a breath silently.

‘Ok mate, let’s put that plan into action shall we?’ he grinned; he seemed almost excited about going into battle with these things. I stared at Jake and he stared back. I guess it was an ok plan, it was the only plan we had.

‘Ok fine, everyone got their weapons?’ I asked, everyone held up their weapons except for Ellie, we all looked at her waiting for her to pull out the gun I gave to her but she just looked at us shyly.

‘I…I’m scared. There are loads of them’ she blushed slightly and moved closer to Jake, he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and took her gun from her side, he pulled one of her hands out and gently placed the gun in the palm of it.

‘You can do this’ he said, she blushed away but he placed his finger under her chin and turned her back to face him ‘Look at me, you can do this’ they stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time before Ellie nodded her head and looked at us.