Do What It Takes to Survive

I don’t know why I expected the hallway outside of the door to be any different. I guess it was just the sense of mystery that had set off my imagination. The hallway was just too typical with its cement floors, grey walls, and single light bulbs lining the ceiling every twenty feet.

“Which way?” I asked.

Gerard shrugged. “You pick. It’ll just depend on luck, I guess. All we can do is try not to run in circles or run into people.” He cocked his gun, and I did the same with mine, like had had tried to teach me.

I turned right randomly and started running. The faster we got out of that dump, the better. Gerard ran right beside me, keeping my pace, which was probably much slower than his. When I was about to turn the corner to the only hallway we could turn onto, he held me back and peeked around the corner.

Once he saw there was nobody there, he pulled me around the corner. We ran for minutes before we reached another turn. Gerard repeated the process of making sure the coast was clear before letting me pass. It slightly irked me, but it also greatly pleased me.

We continued to run. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice behind that made my skin crawl and sent chills down my spine, no matter how hard I tried to suppress them. “Well, hello there,” Tattoo Face said, not sounding at all surprised.

Gerard and I whipped around simultaneously. We would’ve shot him, but he wasn’t alone, and he and Mark had guns too. I stared Mark down, pointing my gun evenly at him. He echoed my movements. Gerard and Tattoo Face mirrored each other perfectly, looking very tense.

“We’re even,” Gerard said. “If any of us shoots, we’re all dead.”

Tattoo Face smirked. “Is that how it looks to you?” Before any of us could do anything, he angled his gun to the side. It was no longer pointed at Gerard. Two guns were now aimed at me.

Okay. SO I was officially dead, but now Gerard could get away. He would shoot Tattoo Face, and I could shoot Mark. They’d both be down and he could run, but I’d get shot by both Mark and Tattoo Face. If he didn’t act now, we were both toast.

I took a deep breath and said, “Gerard, go. This way you can be free.”

He looked at me, his face full of anguish. “I can’t do that.” He dropped his eyes and let his gun fall to the ground. It bounced and clattered before he kicked it to Tattoo Face. I sighed audibly and did the same.

“Idiot!” I mumbled under my breath. Louder, I said, “Now we’re both dead. Why couldn’t you just go?”

He didn’t answer, so Tattoo face did for him in a mocking tone. “He wasn’t going to live without you. love.”

I was fuming. “Stupid! You’re such and airheaded idiot!”

He shrugged and murmured, “Call me what you want. What’s done is done.”

I turned to Tattoo Face. “Are you going to kill us now and stop playing with your prey, or do you prefer to pick out our eyes first? Maybe pull off our limbs?”

He frowned. “Oh, I’ll kill you, but not quite yet. Oh, come now, shooting you is just too easy. Don’t you want to watch each other die slowly?”

I think I almost threw up right then. What a sick, disgusting creep! I didn’t even want to know what was in store for us next. Too bad Tattoo face had other ideas on his mind.

“Go on, Mark, Tie them up. We can’t wait for any more escape acts. We’ll burn them up tonight, I think.”

Mark roughly pulled my arms behind me at once and tied my wrists together with thin, almost string-like rope. Before Mark got to him, Gerard pecked me on the lips, in front of them. I should’ve been angry, but what if this was the end? Shouldn’t he be able to kiss me one last time?

Then Mark tied his wrist together and tied him to my back. So now we couldn’t even see each other. Even so, he wrapped his hands around mine.

Mark urged us forward, but we both had to walk sideways so we didn’t trip over each other. We walked around one more corner, and tada! Mark opened the door out It was heartbreaking to see how close we had been to escape. Maybe a thirty second dash down the hall, and we would’ve been out. The door wasn’t even locked.

The door didn’t open to bright green grass, cloudless blue skies, and colorful birdies singing in perfectly shaped trees, like I imagined freedom was supposed to look like. The heavy metal door opened to the open back of a moving truck. The only other thing I could see was the paved ground and that it was dusk.

I would’ve rather died than go back into that truck, but I didn’t have much of a choice, so we stumbled into the back like they wanted us to.

Gerard and I sat down with out backs to each other, which was really the only way we could sit. He turned his head to the side so that he could press his cool temple to mine. We didn’t speak. I knew he was asleep when his hold on my hands slightly slackened. I fell asleep shortly after, the feel of the truck’s movement almost making me feel peaceful. I was about to die. Being scared was a waste of time.

When I woke up it was still dark, but Mark was pulling us to our feet. I saw the dim glow of the moon reflecting off of the metal walls of the truck. I didn’t get to look for very long. After Gerard weakly attempted to kick him, Mark punched my head so hard everything went black.

I came to my senses. I was still tied but no to Gerard’s back. I groaned. My had was throbbing, and the air seemed thicker, harder to breathe.

“Oh, no. Why did you wake up? It would’ve been so much better if you were unconscious through this,” Gerard said on my right side, not sounding particularly excited. In fact, he sounded… dead.

“What is that horrible smell?” I asked, but I think I already knew. I just didn’t want to admit it.

“Smoke,” was his grim reply.