Lana
I bend over, breathing heavily. My eyes are still wide, my lungs and legs burning from the exertion. Aiden finishes relaying our location to the other two teams while I try to catch my breath. He comes over and rests a hand gently on my shoulder. “Are you alright?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I look back towards the building. “I think.”
Aiden follows my gaze. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure I want to go back in there.”
As I straighten, Aiden wraps an arm around me. Despite the fact that he’s only seventeen, his muscles are large and well-toned. “I understand. What we saw in there, it isn’t easy to see.”
I look up at his face. It isn’t surprising that he could pass himself off as older than he actually is. “You don’t seem very phased by it.”
He forces a grin. “Oh, I am, trust me.” His eyes return to the building. “I’m just not sure if we should be more concerned about what we found inside, or about what could be outside.” I look around us and my grip tightens on the bow in my hands. It’s a weapon I don’t know how to use, but it’s all I have. I notice Aiden has his other hand on the gun at his side. For all we know, he’s just as clueless about how to use it. Hopefully it takes less skill than mine does. “I won’t let anything happen to you, you know.”
I feel a blush rise into my cheeks, and I look down. “I know.” Suddenly we hear a noise from the street to our right and we both jump. We release a sigh of relief in unison when we see that it’s only Savannah and Elise coming to join us.
“What did we miss, lovebirds?” Savannah strides in with her confidence fully intact. Aiden and I quickly take a step away from each other. Elise titters behind a raised hand. Aiden’s cheeks redden, and I cross my arms over my chest. “Oh, I’m only kidding,” Savannah adds, waving her hand at us dismissively.
“What is it that we needed to see?” Elise refocuses us. “You sounded pretty shaken up over the radio.”
Aiden nods. “I was. It isn’t a pretty picture in there.” He points to the building.
“Huh,” Savannah muses. “Seems like a normal residential building to me.” She readjusts, cocking her hip out to the side a little. “Wanna clue us in as to what's waiting for us?”
Aiden shakes his head. “No, it’s easier just to show you. But I will say, you should brace yourselves.” We lapse into an uneasy silence.
Danger is the next to join us, his long strides easily beating out Viren’s shorter ones. “Slow down, you giant,” they complain. “Hey, wait up. We can see them, and they already told you they’re fine.”
Danger’s fast pace doesn’t change, and it allows him to reach us quickly. “You guys are okay, right?” Viren comes up behind him, basically panting.
I nod. “We’re safe, just shaken is all.”
“Good.” He looks over me to Aiden. “What’s in there?”
“Already asked that,” Savannah chimes in. “They said we need to see for ourselves.”
“We’ll show you,” I tell them. “Just, prepare yourselves.”
Danger leads the group into the building. Aiden waits up a moment. “Hey, I can show them. You don’t have to go back in there.”
I shake my head. “No, I can do this. Besides, I probably shouldn’t stay out here by myself.”
He nods, but I see the reassurance in his face. “You’re probably right.” I walk with him into the building.
“Hey, what are you trying to pull?” As soon as we enter, Viren is right in my face. “This whole floor is empty. There’s nothing in here.”
I sigh. “Well, that’s what tipped us off that something was different about this building.”
Elise walks over to us, stepping through a framed wall made of bare wooden studs. “This building was never finished. It’s like someone gave up on it.” She puts her hand up against one of the beams.
“Well, we didn’t.” Aiden steps forward. “We wanted to figure out why this building was so empty, so we kept looking.” Aiden leads the way up the lone set of stairs. We follow him up, and I trail the group. Even though I’ve prepared myself for what we’re going to see, I’m not looking forward to it. Aiden stops just below the seventh floor, and I hear his voice filtering down through our posse, an extra warning. Of course, there really isn’t enough warning.
“Oh my gosh!” I hear Savannah’s exclamation and Elise’s gasp. Danger doesn’t say anything, but that isn’t unusual for him.
Viren, the last to reach the floor before me, yells, “Ew, gross!”
I step up onto the floor and immediately slide myself up against the back wall of the building, trying to stay as far from the gruesome scene as possible. As the others move around, examining and talking, I only see glimpses of the object of their focus. I see a bony hand, a shrunken foot, aged clothes. I know what they all see, a human body.
“This is how we found them,” Aiden tells the group.
“That’s horrible,” Elise says.
“This is the most recent sign of activity we’ve found so far,” Savannah adds.
Danger nods. “Viren and I found some looting, but that clearly happened some time ago. This corpse is much newer than that.”
“Ugh, I know.” Viren makes a show of pinching their nose. “I can smell that.”
“It’s from the decomposition,” Aiden tells them.
“No, actually I think it’s from the vomit in the corner.” Viren points to it, and looks back at me.
I throw my hands up. “Okay, so when I first saw it, I was startled. Can you blame me?” Aiden shrugs. Clearly he was trying to cover for me. He ran out almost as fast as I did earlier, so I know he empathizes.
“No offense, guys, but that isn’t really what’s important here.” Elise redirects our attention, back to the dead body in the room. I can see it clearly now, and it sends a shiver down my spine. I avert my eyes, preferring to look at a blank wall. Even so, I feel the bile trying to rise up my throat.
“Guys, what does it mean that the most recent sign of human activity is a corpse?” Savannah poses the question.
“It means that whatever scenario we’ve found ourselves in,” Danger starts, but pauses for a moment. “It can be deadly.”
“So, the apocalypse kills people,” Viren says dismissively. “Is that anything we didn’t already know?” They shrug. “If we were a little less lucky, we could be just as dead.”
“You mean, if we didn’t have Danger?” Elise asks.
Viren pouts, but Aiden shakes his head. “Actually, Viren has a point too. If you, I, or Savannah was closer to that explosion, we could have been killed by it. If the beams had fallen differently overtop of Lana, she could have been crushed.”
“Or if I’d let you try to rescue her.” Danger’s eyes pierce Savannah.
“Will you drop it?” Her voice belies her frustration, as if her wild hand gestures hadn’t. “You know we were doing our best.”
He laughs quietly, and the corner of his mouth turns up. He may not be quite as instigative as Viren, but Danger clearly enjoys frustrating Savannah. “Actually my job was to not drop it.” She seethes in response to his shrewd comeback. Everyone else seems to enjoy the lighthearted bickering. For just a moment, it relieves the tension in the room.
I realize something though. “Hey, I know the apocalypse is deadly and all, but whoever this was,” I point towards the corpse and glance towards it briefly before looking away. “They don’t seem prepared for the apocalypse.” I open my arms out to emphasize the empty space around us. “There’s nothing here. Who lives on the seventh floor of a vacant building with absolutely no supplies?”
“An idiot,” Viren replies monotonously.
Elise quickly punches them in the arm. “Have some respect for the dead.”
“Hey!” Viren rubs their arm. “I believe respect is a two way street, and I don’t remember this, whoever they were, showing me any respect. Why should I respect them just because their dead?”
Danger rolls his eyes, and Savannah puts a hand over her face. “It’s called manners,” Elise grates out between clenched teeth.
“Alright, alright,” Aiden interrupts. “So Viren is disrespectful, that’s nothing new.”
“Ouch, Aiden,” Viren pretends to be hurt.
He shrugs in response. “You’re the one who said respect is a two way street.”
“Touché,” Viren admits defeat, so Aiden continues.
“Now, Lana has a point. We should figure out how they died. Summing this up as death by apocalypse isn’t very insightful.”
Viren turns to me. “Okay, Lana, do you want to examine the body?” They step out of the way, gesturing towards it.
As they move, my carefully obscured view is cleared so I turn away, afraid to see the corpse again. My stomach churns. “No, I can’t do it!” I shake my head fervently, desperately. I hold one hand over my stomach, and one hand over my mouth. Smells of decay and my earlier weakness start to fill my nostrils, so I adjust my upper hand to cover my nose as well.
“I know how they died.” Danger moves the corpse’s dried bangs.
“Ack! What are you touching it for?” I cringe away as though I had touched it.
Danger rolls his eyes. “That isn’t what we need to be concerned about. Look here.” We all crowd around, though I still hang back slightly.
“A hole?” Elise’s voice is the first to pierce the silence.
“A bullet hole,” Aiden notes.
Danger nods. “We aren’t alone. Someone killed this pour soul. Somewhere out there, there’s a murderer on the loose.”
- Sorry to be posting this a little later in the day than usual, but even writers need to get out of the house for awhile on occasion. As for this week's snippet, Aiden and Lana's discovery is the first proof of not only recent human activity in the area, but also of imminent danger. Find out next week how the group will respond to their newest threat.
No comments:
Post a Comment