Salamangka: 12SS 2020

Apocalypse Walker

Kyle was dropping another can of tuna into his rucksack when he heard distant sounds of an approaching vehicle. He froze as he focused on his hearing.

Single diesel engine... a pickup truck... carrying 8 heartbeats... about 10 kilometers away, running down TPLEX / Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway. They were going to reach Kyle at the Petron gas station near the southbound Pura, Tarlac Exit in about 15 minutes.

Normally he wouldn't be able to hear that far and to that detail, but with nearly everyone dead and everything so quiet, he barely had to listen.

"Crap," he said, voice muffled through his respirator mask. Kyle had to assume they were hostile.

He continued rummaging through the convenience store, the low light from the permanently gray overcast skies outside posing no problem to his vision. Within minutes he had filled his rucksack with enough canned food, snacks, and water to last another three days. By the time he was done, his rucksack weighed around 50 pounds.

He slung his rucksack over his shoulders and onto his back, paused and listened. The truck was about ten minutes out. Running out on the open road was useless, as you'd be visible to oncoming vehicles from a long distance. Best course of action was to hide and let them pass.

Kyle pulled his blue-green hoodie over his head and wiped ash from his goggles with a gloved hand. He stepped outside, M4 rifle at the low ready, and circled to the back of the store.

He waited for about ten minutes until finally, the truck drove up to the gas station.

Shit. Guess it was too much to ask that they'd just drive past without stopping.

The truck's sounds and echoes against the gas station structures told Kyle that it had three women locked up in a metal cage at the back.

The truck stopped, and four men stepped out. One of them had... four arms?

Mutant, Kyle concluded.

Kyle quietly walked to the left of the store. He peered over side of the wall, and saw the man with four arms climb up to the back of the black truck and make pelvic thrusts in front of the cage, the women backing away and huddling together, crying, screaming.

"Don't worry girls," the man said. "We'll all fuck you before we eat you! At least you'll die happy! HAHAHA!"

Shit. Cannibals. Kyle was glad he had his respirator on; cannibals smelled like dead rats to him. He wouldn't be able to get the stench out of his nose for days if not for his respirator.

Two of the men were now siphoning off fuel from the parked cars, while another was taking a piss on the far edge of the station, out in the open.

To intervene or not to intervene, that was the question.

Kyle had been in Baguio City up north for a cybersecurity convention two years ago when the world ended with nukes, volcanoes, and mutant swine flu. He wound up fighting the ensuing chaos alongside other survivors until they established the Baguio Settlement.

But now Kyle was done with fighting. His only agenda now was to get home, to his Mom. He knew Manila was nothing but a radioactive crater now, but he just... he just needed to get home.

Kyle hunkered down and waited until the men finished siphoning off fuel and started strapping four large cans along the sides of the truck.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to himself under his respirator.

The men got in the truck and drove out of the station, back onto TPLEX.

"I'm sorry."

Kyle stepped out from behind the store and watched the truck drive off.

100 meters.

They would be out of range soon.

200 meters.

Kyle ran out onto the expressway as the truck continued to speed away.

300 meters.

The longest he'd accurately shot an M4 with a 16" barrel was about 500 meters.

"Fuck it."

Kyle shouldered his weapon and aimed down the iron sights, eyes zooming in at 12x.

The truck was already making at least 150kph. If he'd shot out any its tires now, it would fishtail, tumble, and crash. Those women in the cage would be killed.

"GODDAMMIT!" he lowered his weapon.

He sighed. Guess that was it. He'll just let those women get raped and eaten by cannibals.

"Like hell I will," he said as he pulled down his mask, resting it on his neck.

He sniffed the air and started following the cannibals' scent.