Ryan Westfield - Surviving Chaos

“You’re part of the compound?”

The woman didn’t answer.

“We can make this hard on you,” said John.

“I’m not just part of it. I’m the brains and the soul. I call the shots.”

“Well it’s not doing you much good now. Why were you hunting us?”

“I’m not doing this for personal gain. I want what we establish to live beyond us.”

“You were after Cynthia, weren’t you? We spoke to your friend, and he came back and told you there was a woman in the area, right?”

“Mark? He wouldn’t tell me anything unless it was for his own gain. He never understood the process. I had to torture it out of him.”

“So my brother, Max, really was at the compound then?”

“Max? Unfortunately. I wish I’d never laid my eyes on him.”

“You’re after me?” said Cynthia. “That’s completely sick.”

“It’s the world we’re living in,” said the woman. Her voice never lost the vicious, cold tone. “That’s the breaks, honey. Expect a lot more of it.”

“I might expect that from a man,” said Cynthia. “But you’re a woman.”

“How astute,” said the woman sarcastically. “You would have been perfect, since you don’t sound too bright.”

Cynthia was getting angry. “You’re disgusting.” The anger came out of her voice with force.

“We’re done with her,” said John. “Go ahead.”

“Wait,” said the woman frantically. “I can give you anything you need. Don’t kill me.”

“I thought you didn’t care if you died?” sneered Cynthia.

“She’s only human,” said John. “At the end of the day, she’ll do anything to try to save her own skin.”

“Anything you want,” said the woman. “You wouldn’t believe what we have available to us at the compound. We have more flashlights. Guns, more guns that you could ever dream of. Anything you want and I’ll give it to you if you just spare me my life.”

“I have a feeling that as soon as we step foot in your compound, that’ll be the end of us,” said John.

“The end of you,” said Cynthia. “Sounds like she wants to keep me as a prisoner there forever until I can reproduce enough times.”

“You don’t have to come in,” said the woman. “I’ll send the things out to you.”

“There’s no reason we should trust you. Absolutely no reason.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want, trust me. You can always trust a desperate person.”

“You’re a real snake. You can never trust a desperate person. They’ll promise whatever is necessary.”

“Come on,” said John. “Finish her, Cynthia. There might be others out there. We need to get out of here.”

“They’ll come looking for me,” said the woman. “You’ll never get out of the area alive.”

“Neither will you,” said Cynthia, as she pulled the trigger. Her gun went off, the shot ringing through the woods.

John turned on the flashlight.

The woman lay there, lifeless, her head blown in, blood flowing freely.

Kiki whimpered.

“Come on,” said John. “We’ve got to go.”

“You think they’ll really come for us?”

“Probably. If there’s anyone nearby, they’ll have heard the gunshots. We’ve got to move fast. We’ve wasted too much time already.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Same as before. Stay alive. Maybe find Max.”

“You think we’ll be able to find him?”

“I doubt it.”

“But he’s got to be close by. He couldn’t have gone that far.”

“If he has a car, he could. And there’s no way to reach him.”

“What about Dale’s radio?”

“What about it?”

“We could use it to find Max.”

“How? He doesn’t have a radio of his own.”

“Maybe he’ll come across one.”

“Who knows. I’m not holding out much hope.”

John’s spirits were completely sunk. The death of Dale was finally setting in. Now that the chaos had calmed down for a moment, Dale’s death stuck out as a senseless and cruel event. But that was the way things were now. That was the way the world worked. There wasn’t any justice, unless you created it yourself.

They found their packs, shouldered them, and set off. There were still hours before the sunrise, and they used the flashlights to find their way, to avoid tripping over the roots.

Kiki walked in front of them, glancing back towards them periodically. She would be useful. She’d be able to hear attackers before they would. But they couldn’t rely on her completely. She was just a dog, after all.

They were still within the compound’s territory. They were still in danger.

But they were used to that. As used to it as they could be.

John’s mind wasn’t at ease. It was likely there’d be more people after them. If the woman they’d killed really was the leader of the compound, wouldn’t the others come looking for her?

James was about to do something really stupid. Or really smart.

Either way, it was risky.

He’d walked for two hours, going farther than he knew he should have. The woods never ended. He never came to another road. He just walked straight, heading away from the road.

He was far from the campsite. As far as any of them had gone. He was way past the squirrel traps they’d set up.

James had marked the trunks of trees with his knife as he’d passed, leaving himself a trail so that he could find his way back. He had a compass with him, and he made sure that he was always heading due south.

To get back, all he’d have to do was head due north.

In theory, at least.

James was well aware that the woods could be deceptive. He’d learned it from his mother, who’d told him stories of her early hunting days, getting lost deep in the woods when she thought she knew exactly where she was.

At least James was aware of the possibility of getting lost. At least he was well aware of the risks. He was taking every precaution he possibly could.

Except for what he was about to do.

He was sitting cross-legged on the forest floor. Dead leaves were under him and all around him.

In front of him, there was a huge patch of wild mushrooms. They were growing out of an old log that had fallen years ago and partially rotted away.

They were good-sized mushrooms, a couple inches across at the cap. The caps were a light brown color.

But that was where James’s identification process began to break down. The field guide he had in front of him talked about cap size and color, but also about things like spore prints, and a dozen other characteristics that James couldn’t even pronounce.

From what James could make out, the mushrooms in front of him were either common honey mushrooms, or deadly Galerina mushrooms.

Both were common in Pennsylvania. Both looked superficially similar. Both were often mistaken for one another.

The only thing was that the honey mushrooms were edible. And the deadly Galerina mushrooms were extremely toxic, capable of killing four adult men with a small portion of flesh.

James was over his head. And he knew that. He’d racked his brains for anything he knew or had heard about mushrooms. But there was nothing there. They’d never been mentioned in biology class in school, except that he’d had to memorize the fact that fungi actually outnumbered all other forms of life by some huge margin. It had been on the test, and he’d passed, but it certainly didn’t help him now.

James had never learned anything about mushroom identification. Apparently, from what the field guide was saying, it took many years of study to be able to accurately distinguish look-alike mushrooms from one another.