Ryan Westfield - Pushing On

Max moved over to the pit and lifted the large stick.

The squirrel, suddenly free, didn’t even glance at Max before dashing off back into the forest.

Max didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he knew what he had to do. If Jeff had been telling the truth, his friends were in serious trouble back at the compound.

Max was only one man, but he had a distinct advantage: he was supposed to be dead.

John threw his pack down. Cynthia did the same.

They ran towards the sound, their guns in their hands.

John was tired. Completely exhausted. But he pushed his legs, even though they felt like lead.

He could hear Cynthia behind him, panting.

Cynthia tripped. She cried out as she fell down, heavy with a thud.

John turned back to look at her. He knew he couldn’t wait. The scream he’d heard had been someone in pain. There wasn’t any time to go back for Cynthia.

John kept running, leaving Cynthia behind him.

“Don’t move,” came a voice.

John looked to his right. It was one of the criminals, still dressed in his orange jumpsuit. Small and skinny, wiry but strong. Distorted delight on his face.

The criminal pointed a gun right at John’s chest. The same gun John had given Derek.

He was about twenty feet from John.

“Drop the gun.”

“What’s the point?” said John. “Just get it over with.”

“We want to have some fun with you two.”

John spat on the ground. He was fed up. Fed up and exhausted.

John pointed his own gun. As he did, the criminal fired.

The bullet slammed into John’s left arm. He felt the pain, but he still took good aim, and squeezed the trigger.

John’s aim had been good, but not perfect. Still, his practice had paid off.

The criminal screamed, dropping his gun. The bullet had hit him in the shoulder.

John walked forward, getting closer, keeping his gun level and aimed at the man’s chest.

“Don’t do it.”

“Where are the others?”

“Don’t know.”

“This is your last chance. Tell me.”

The criminal spat on the ground. “Screw you, asshole.”

John pulled the trigger. The criminal fell down. A heavy thud.

Footsteps behind him.

John turned. It was Cynthia.

“You OK?” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been shot,” she said, looking at his arm. It was bleeding badly.

“It’s fine. We’ve got to find the others.”

Another scream, off to the right.

“Come on.”

John and Cynthia dashed off in the direction of the scream.

A body lay on the ground, tangled in the underbrush. It was Derek. His chest was full of crude puncture wounds.

“He’s dead,” said Cynthia, reaching down and feeling for a pulse on his neck.

John nodded.

He didn’t waste anymore time with Derek. This wasn’t the time to mourn.

Behind a cluster of thick trees, John and Cynthia found Sara. She was lying on the ground, blood coming out of her mouth. Her face was bloodied. Her nose looked like it was broken, blood flowing freely from it.

“Sara,” said John. “Can you hear me? Are they nearby?”

Sara tried to talk, but it was just a gurgle of blood. She shook her head.

“They’ve left?”

Sara nodded. Her eyes were filled with pain and tears.

“Derek’s dead,” said John. He was sorry to give her the news, but he knew that she wouldn’t live much longer herself.

“Come on,” said Cynthia. “We can still save her, I think.”

Sara’s shirt was soaked with blood around the abdomen area. Cynthia lifted the shirt to reveal a bloodied mess, a cluster of gunshot wounds.

Cynthia’s face fell.

“We can’t do anything for her,” said John quietly.

“It’s going to be OK, Sara,” said Cynthia. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you fixed up.”

But Sara’s eyes were already fading.

“Come on, help me,” said Cynthia, frantic. She was pushing down on the horrible wounds on Sara’s abdomen, trying to stop the bleeding. Cynthia’s hands were soaked with thick red blood. She was crying.

“Come on, Cynthia,” said John, gripping her around the shoulders, and trying to pull her away from Sara.

It wasn’t Sara any longer. Sara had died. Her final breaths were over. She was just a corpse.

“No!” cried Cynthia. “Come on, why won’t you help me?”

Cynthia was sobbing. She was worse off than when John had first met her, when her husband had been shot. But she wasn’t crying for Sara. She was crying for everything that had happened to her. She was crying for her husband, for Derek, for Sara, for everyone, for everyone who lived now in this horrible world.

Finally, John got her away from the body.

“It’s going to be OK,” he said, knowing that it was a lie, as he helped Cynthia clean her bloodied hands.

John put his arm around Cynthia’s shoulder and pulled her close to him. She cried into his chest.

John knew they couldn’t wait long. They had to get a move on it. They had to get their packs and keep going. They couldn’t sit there, lamenting the loss of life, while the criminals were still out there. And now they were armed, more dangerous than before, and just as vicious.

“We’ve got to get our packs. Come on.”

John stood up, and tried to pull Cynthia to her feet, but she wouldn’t budge.

“We’re not going to bury them?”

“There’s no time. We need our packs, or we’ll end up just like them soon enough.”

Cynthia hesitated.

“Come on, Cynthia, snap out of it. I need you now. You’ve got to get my back.”

Cynthia didn’t answer. She’d fallen into complete despair, staring at the ground, unmoving, like a statue.

Who knew where the criminals were. Or what they were capable of.

Mandy wouldn’t have said that the shower had been a disappointment. In fact, it had been great. She felt clean now for the first time in… she didn’t even know how long. She was grateful.

But if she was being really honest, the hot water had only lasted about half a minute, and it wasn’t exactly what she would have called hot. It was more like lukewarm water, trickling down on her, nothing more than a thin stream. Forget about water pressure, like on a normal shower head. The whole setup had reminded Mandy of water coming out of a leaking gutter after a long rain storm.

There hadn’t been a bathroom. No faucets. No toilet. But at least there had been privacy. Mandy was thin, but she’d had to squeeze to get herself into the cramped, dingy, dark space that approximated a shower stall.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” said Sadie. “They’ve been in that meeting for a long time.”

Georgia, Sadie, and Mandy were alone in the women’s quarters. Sadie sat on her mother’s bunk, and Mandy sat on her own.

Their meager possessions were piled up around them. It was the first time in a long while that Mandy had unloaded her pack. She gazed with some dismay at the dirty and stained clothing, at the battered things that amounted to all her worldly possessions.

The concrete building was even colder now that the sun had gone down. It seemed to suck the heat right from Mandy’s body. She hadn’t been able to get completely dry after the shower, and the damp chill seemed to reach her bones.

She was already hungry. The big meal had only filled her for about an hour, and now the hunger was back. Maybe it was because she hadn’t eaten properly in so long, and her glycogen stores were still perilously low. Or maybe because there hadn’t been any animal protein in the meal. It had tasted good, even though it was simple, but was that kind of food really enough to sustain someone day in and day out?