Status: Am still trying to write, but school is keeping me really busy
Hopeless Wanderer
Two
Hours slowly passed me by. Then days. I sat in that sound proof shelter for at least a week, still waiting for Will to come for me. At some point the radio pretty much died, playing only the same emergency broadcast message over and over and over. I stupidly kept it on at the lowest volume because the sound of another human being was actually kind of comforting. As I dealt out my millionth game of solitaire, I realized my brain was no longer playing. My hands were just going through the motions trying to pass the time. Somehow that’s when I realized he wasn’t coming. Nobody was coming.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but I knew I couldn’t stay here much longer. I’d taken to sleeping to ease the boredom. I slept so much I began to wonder why I bothered to wake up at all. That’s roughly the point I caught myself rummaging through the bunker looking for the sharpest edge I could find. No matter what kind of insanity was going on out there, my life depended on leaving the nest.
I threw just about everything I could think of into the black duffel bag. The poor bag wouldn’t even zip up. I spilled its contents, looking for things I could probably do without. Everything seemed so vital. As I made another round of cuts to supplies, I semi-prayed things outside were better than the radio silence suggested. This time, with some added effort, the bag enclosed everything I intended to keep. My hand hovered in front of the door. At least in here I knew my enemy. What if Jeremy was still out there?
Fear of the unknown kept me trapped inside for one more night, even as I desperately tried to convince myself that if I would just waltz out of this bunker, I would find that everything was the same as always. People were probably looking for me right now, wondering what happened here. Instead, I slipped back into the sleeping bag. Curled up on the floor, I stared blankly across the room until finally sleep pulled my eyelids down.
When I awoke, I replaced the shoes on my feet, shrugged on a light jacket, and faced the door again. Chef’’s knife shaking in hand, I was ready for Jeremy. Maybe I could use one more day to fully prepare myself? I sighed the thought from my head and reached out for the door. I had to do this.
Slowly, and as quietly as I could, I made my way for the stairs out of the basement. Natural light spilled over the top couple of steps. I blinked away tears as the sun stung my eyes. I tried not to notice the patches of blood stained carpet. The horrible stench of decay, though, could not escape my attention. My stomach revolted, emptying its contents all over the floor. It didn’t seem to miss my shoes, either. I groaned from the aching pain in my core and the fact that it did nothing to quell the smell.
Curiosity was going to kill this cat, because I nervously followed my nose towards the smell until I found myself in the last place I had seen Will alive. It was coming from Jeremy’s rotting body. A chair leg through the temple showed that Will had fought back. Yet, where was he? Surely if he’d survived the blood loss from his neck being ripped out he would have come for me. Mentally replaying the scene, I knew it was fatal. He couldn’t have gotten far. Quietly, I searched the rest of the house for his body. There wasn’t one.
I couldn’t help but notice that just outside the windows, the world was abandoned. The lawns in the neighborhood turned a wilting straw color under the heat of the Georgia sun. Kids weren’t out playing in the street. For the most part, the cars in the neighborhood were gone. Birds chirped but generally everything was quiet, not even the sound of a random passing car to break up the stillness. If I wasn’t already a little traumatized by the stench of Jeremy in the dining room, I would certainly be on edge now.
Not knowing what else to do, I left the house. There really was nothing for me here now that I had Will to find. The whole world was so quiet, so eerily quiet that every little rustle from a slight breeze or a small animal incited a bit of panic. I hadn’t truly believed the radio reports, safe and locked away in my own little world. Now, facing the aftermath for the first time, I couldn’t help but think maybe I was the only live person left.
The fact that I barricaded myself into a survivalist’s basement bunker on my very first day in town did nothing to calm the fear coursing through my body. The temptation to just return to wait to die grew stronger by the minute as I just stood dumbfounded on the front porch. Where could I go? What should I be doing? Finally I settled on just walking away from this horrible house. I didn’t know where to go or what to expect, so I just set out south, away from town.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but I knew I couldn’t stay here much longer. I’d taken to sleeping to ease the boredom. I slept so much I began to wonder why I bothered to wake up at all. That’s roughly the point I caught myself rummaging through the bunker looking for the sharpest edge I could find. No matter what kind of insanity was going on out there, my life depended on leaving the nest.
I threw just about everything I could think of into the black duffel bag. The poor bag wouldn’t even zip up. I spilled its contents, looking for things I could probably do without. Everything seemed so vital. As I made another round of cuts to supplies, I semi-prayed things outside were better than the radio silence suggested. This time, with some added effort, the bag enclosed everything I intended to keep. My hand hovered in front of the door. At least in here I knew my enemy. What if Jeremy was still out there?
Fear of the unknown kept me trapped inside for one more night, even as I desperately tried to convince myself that if I would just waltz out of this bunker, I would find that everything was the same as always. People were probably looking for me right now, wondering what happened here. Instead, I slipped back into the sleeping bag. Curled up on the floor, I stared blankly across the room until finally sleep pulled my eyelids down.
When I awoke, I replaced the shoes on my feet, shrugged on a light jacket, and faced the door again. Chef’’s knife shaking in hand, I was ready for Jeremy. Maybe I could use one more day to fully prepare myself? I sighed the thought from my head and reached out for the door. I had to do this.
Slowly, and as quietly as I could, I made my way for the stairs out of the basement. Natural light spilled over the top couple of steps. I blinked away tears as the sun stung my eyes. I tried not to notice the patches of blood stained carpet. The horrible stench of decay, though, could not escape my attention. My stomach revolted, emptying its contents all over the floor. It didn’t seem to miss my shoes, either. I groaned from the aching pain in my core and the fact that it did nothing to quell the smell.
Curiosity was going to kill this cat, because I nervously followed my nose towards the smell until I found myself in the last place I had seen Will alive. It was coming from Jeremy’s rotting body. A chair leg through the temple showed that Will had fought back. Yet, where was he? Surely if he’d survived the blood loss from his neck being ripped out he would have come for me. Mentally replaying the scene, I knew it was fatal. He couldn’t have gotten far. Quietly, I searched the rest of the house for his body. There wasn’t one.
I couldn’t help but notice that just outside the windows, the world was abandoned. The lawns in the neighborhood turned a wilting straw color under the heat of the Georgia sun. Kids weren’t out playing in the street. For the most part, the cars in the neighborhood were gone. Birds chirped but generally everything was quiet, not even the sound of a random passing car to break up the stillness. If I wasn’t already a little traumatized by the stench of Jeremy in the dining room, I would certainly be on edge now.
Not knowing what else to do, I left the house. There really was nothing for me here now that I had Will to find. The whole world was so quiet, so eerily quiet that every little rustle from a slight breeze or a small animal incited a bit of panic. I hadn’t truly believed the radio reports, safe and locked away in my own little world. Now, facing the aftermath for the first time, I couldn’t help but think maybe I was the only live person left.
The fact that I barricaded myself into a survivalist’s basement bunker on my very first day in town did nothing to calm the fear coursing through my body. The temptation to just return to wait to die grew stronger by the minute as I just stood dumbfounded on the front porch. Where could I go? What should I be doing? Finally I settled on just walking away from this horrible house. I didn’t know where to go or what to expect, so I just set out south, away from town.