Ryan Westfield - Staying Alive

For a second, John thought he recognized him. Maybe from some meeting long ago.

The attacker lunged forward, barreling towards John with all his weight. He collided with John, and they both fell to the ground.

The attacker grabbed John’s hops bag, the bag full of food. It had fallen to the ground when John had been knocked down.

The attacker was up in a flash, moving quickly despite his size.

Lawrence lunged at the attacker, trying to grab him, but he merely grabbed the man’s shirt. The man easily pulled himself free, and went dashing down the alley.

“Shit,” said John, scrambling to his feet.

He knew that he needed that bag of food.

He also knew that he was lucky to be alive. Most people wouldn’t merely tackle him for a bag of food, or unknown provisions. Most would kill first and examine the contents of the bag later. But this attacker was weak.

Just like John. He’d had the opportunity to stab the man when they were both on the ground. But he hadn’t done it. The knife had been in his hand the whole time, but he simply hadn’t acted.

He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

Knife in hand, John dashed down the alley.

Lawrence ran clumsily after him. John heard the footsteps behind him, but didn’t turn to look. He was intent on catching the thief and getting back what was his.

The alley opened up to 18 th Street.

John turned the corner.

The attacker was resting against the brick wall of a building, the sack of food between his legs. He was panting heavily with exertion, and rummaging through the bag greedily. He didn’t even look up to see John approaching him. He was too hungry, too desperate, to act sensibly. He was at his wit’s end.

John walked slowly towards him, like an animal approaching its prey. He was angry, furious. His chest felt hot. Stealing someone’s food was as good as killing them, thought John.

There was a sound off to his side, but John didn’t look. He was too intent on the man rummaging through his food sack.

Something hard hit John in the shoulder. Pain flared through his body, and he fell to the ground. His head hit the pavement, and the knife fell with a clatter from his hand.

Max tried to ignore the pain in his leg, but it was almost impossible. He’d been using it far too much already. Now he was trying to run towards the house, away from Mandy.

James had been hotheaded enough to try to move the van by himself. What he hadn’t considered was that since Max was with Mandy, it was James’s responsibility to guard the door.

And apparently he hadn’t thought that starting the van would cause the attackers to leave the house, to see what was going on.

A shot rang out on the other side of the house. There was nothing Max could do about it, except to hope that it was from Georgia. Likely, it was, since it was a single shot. But still, there was no way to know for sure.

The red rear lights of the van were on, and James was backing it up, moving it away from the house.

The door to the house flew open.

Max already had his Glock out. He raised it, ready to fire.

The attacker was raising his assault rifle.

Time seemed to move in slow motion.

Max felt a searing pain through his leg, and he suddenly collapsed to the ground, before even getting a shot off.

There was a noise as a shot was fired.

Max though he was a goner. He thought he’d be dead.

But he was still alive. His brain was still working.

He managed to look up, trying to ignore the pain in his leg.

The man with the assault rifle had fallen to the ground. He’d dropped his gun, and he didn’t move.

The door of the van opened.

James got out, moving quickly to the man on the ground.

“He’s dead,” shouted James.

The pain in his leg was too much for Max. He shouldn’t have been trying to run around on it.

Before passing out, Max vaguely remembered seeing Georgia and Sadie appearing. That meant that things were OK on their side—the gunshot Max had heard had been from Georgia, most likely. They were alive, and the attacker must have been dead. That was what mattered.

The last thing Max saw before his vision went black was Chad standing triumphantly on the roof, holding his rifle. It had been Chad. Chad, who everyone had thought was useless… he had saved the day.

Max woke up in almost as much pain as before.

He was back in the farmhouse, lying on his bed. He didn’t know how much time had passed. It was dark outside. Candles lit the upstairs bedroom.

Mandy was sitting in a chair nearby.

“You’re awake,” she said, getting up.

“What happened?” said Max. “Is everyone OK?”

“Typical,” said Mandy. “You want to know about everyone else first. Don’t you want to know if you’re OK?” She was smiling at him as she spoke.

“I must have passed out from the pain,” said Max.

“Your stitches came out,” said Mandy. “It’s amazing you did as much as you did with that wound.”

“What about everyone else?”

“Well, as you can tell, we’re back in the farmhouse. The guys who came in… they’re both dead. Georgia shot one at the front of the house.”

“You mean the back of the house.”

“I’m going to let that slide, considering your condition.”

“And Chad shot the other one?”

Mandy nodded at him.

“Where’s everyone else? Who’s on watch?”

“Georgia, James, and Chad are all outside.”

“Don’t tell me Chad’s still on the roof.”

Mandy shook her head. “Georgia’s up there.”

“I hope she got some rest or something to eat.”

Mandy shook her head. “I gave her some more caffeine pills from the supplies.”

“We’re going to be running out of those soon enough,” said Max. “I’m glad there are three people on watch. I don’t know what we were thinking having just one person on the roof. It’s clearly not enough.”

“That’s what we decided,” said Mandy.

“I’ve got to go talk to them,” said Max, starting to rise up in bed.

“It took me forever to get those new stitches into you,” said Mandy. “You’re not going anywhere. If you do, don’t think that I’m going to stitch you up again.”

Max grunted, but he sunk back down into the bed.

“Sadie’s sleeping,” said Georgia. “We can bury the bodies tomorrow.”

“We need food,” said Max. “Everyone’s running on empty. I don’t know how much longer we can last like this.”

Mandy nodded. “Georgia said she had a deer in her sights before she saw the other men. There’s food out there…”

“It’s going to be tougher than I thought,” said Max. “I guess I was naïve. I thought we’d just bunker down here, set up defenses for the occasional intruder, and that’d be that. But there are more people arriving than I’d thought, and sooner… Even if we can defend the farmhouse, it’d going to be too dangerous to hunt. And forget about growing food.”

“What are you saying?” said Mandy.

“I’m saying we take that van and leave,” said Max.

“Are you crazy?” said Mandy. “This is the only place we have. This is it.”

“I know,” said Max. “The farmhouse was my whole plan, but we need to get farther out.”

“This is just your mania of getting to the absolute least populated area.”

“Well, it worked so far, didn’t it?” said Max.

“Fair point,” said Mandy, bending over to examine Max’s leg. “I wish we had those painkillers of Chad’s.”

“I’m fine,” said Max, gritting his teeth. “That guy needed them more.” Max was referring to the man who’d no longer be able to get his dialysis treatments.