Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Just Another Day
He left. Chester, I think his name was, left about ten minutes ago, trying to figure out why I wanted a goldfish and all of the stuff that comes with it. What I want is to know how in Christ's name I'm going to get access to that drug ring. I finish putting the second crate of carrots and take out a lollipop I made. I'm not selling these to anybody, sugar is precious nowadays. Sugar is…well I don't know what exactly it's made of, but it's the main ingredients for my hard candies, and I happen to reuse the same plastic stick for the lollipops. I'm sure I could make a fortune out of these if only people actually had money to spare. Sadly, they don't.
I should've asked him for sugar and food colouring instead of a goldfish. That was impulsive thinking, wasn't it?
The little bell on the door rings and I look up, the hairs on my body standing up. I immediately spot my bat sitting on the counter, so swearing becomes the only thing I can do. This might not be a person but a famine-driven cannibal.
"Hey Hunter."
Once I hear Anny's voice, my guard drops. Any is one of the people I used to go to school with. She was one of those popular people, always wearing expensive clothes and having her grades drop alarmingly. She used to be pretty generic, looking exactly like the others. She's one of the few that survived.
Last I checked, I think her sister and her grandpa survived, and I have no idea how.
"Did they follow you?"
She shakes her head, entering the shop completely and closing the door behind her. "Why're the potatoes pink?" She says casually, but I know she's worried. She analyses one of them and puts them back down.
"I tried, they're good," I lie. Even though I managed to bury the hate I had for her, nowadays it's either stick together or lies and get away with it. There's no in beneath. Not for me at least.
"I'll skip. Is there a way I can get one of your lollies?" I take it out of my mouth and look at it.
"For whom?" Cause if she's planning to get it for free, then I need to know for whom the lollipop is meant to go to. Her grandpa doesn't need this shit.
"Me?"
I shake my head. "This is my last one, sorry," I lie again, knowing I have a few more lying around in the large pan in the kitchen, or what's left of it, anyways.
"Oh. Can I get some carrots?" I nod, putting the lolly back in my mouth. I watch her carefully as she grabs them. She's no longer dressed in those posh clothes like did. There's nothing that differentiates us now.
I let her walk around the shop, looking through the only three crates that are filled because it's all I can give. I quickly get bored and come back to the counter, holding my baseball bat in my hands. Dried blood is the only visible colour on the rounded part. The metal is light in my hands, but when I take a full swing, this can easily knock someone out, and several blows later, that person's dead or close to.
"Hunter, I need to admit something," she mutters, her voice starting loud and slowly decreasing. I sigh, put the bat back down, the tip touching the bloody prints he left on my desk.
"Yes?" Is what I say. But if she feels like confessing to some shit, she should go to a fucking church. I've got much better things to do than listen to this girl who used to be such a respected person.
"I hooked up with someone."
I cough and take out the lolly in my mouth. "Good…Good for you?" I ask, unsure. I'm not sure why she would be confessing to something like that, because I don't personally think that it's a sin or some shit.
"He's coming back, but I just needed to be sure."
She drops a couple of dollars on the counter and I pounce on them like a cat would on a mouse. "Sure of what exactly?"
Anny stuffs the food in a bag, the one that used to be her high school handbag. Hah! "I saw him come here and stay for a long time. Is he your boyfriend?"
I choke on my saliva. She what? "I'm…I…What?"
��He told me his name was Ezekiel, and I just wanted to see, because I'd be feeling horrible if I slept with a man that already has someone in this horrible life."
"You mean Chester?" I laugh when she looks at me, completely lost. Was he lying or not? Well, he sure knows his way around women then. I can't believe he hooked up with someone when he was full of blood. Anny must've been desperate, like really, really desperate, to the point where she was willing to…give her body to the government.
"Who's Chester?"
Whatever his name is, once he comes back, I'll have ropes ready and I'll smash any kind of device he has on himself that listens. It's going to be interrogation time, whether he wants it or not. "Chester's your Ezekiel. You can have him, I'm definitely not with him."
I'll choose death over him any time. What a fucking piece of garbage. And he's a snitch, willing to work for the government but also betrays it in order to get what he wants. That's hypocrite. And morally wrong. I'll never associate with someone like him unless he can get me what I want.
"So I can marry him?" she says, her eyes big and sparkly. I erupt in laughter. Who would've thought someone in this world still thought about marriage?
"Yeah, sure, marry him and make lots of little Chester-Ezekiels and Annys."
This is what sets the line in between the both of us. One's dumb and the other is smart. She's so stupid, thinking there's still a ray of hope in this ruined world, where the only thing that could make you free would be death. The broken buildings, the decomposing corpses, the cannibals, and the food that could poison you when cooked wrongly. All of these are what's left in this rotting world. It's just like our sanity. Every day, a shard of it flies away. Someone dies. A building explodes. Cannibals invade. Food is scarce. And we have to survive because it's the only thing that keeps us going in this hopeless world.
Do any of us really have a goal? Do I want to join my rotting family members six feet underground? Yes. The thought happened to pass my mind more than once, but I'm no coward. I know what my responsibilities are, and even when I feel like I'm drowning, I've always found a reason to keep going. The aftermath will only come in several years. But right now all I can do is survive and wait. Surrounded by my dead family.
"You think?" she says, sounding even more enthusiast than before. She just can't face the cold truth, so she decides to walk away from it by inventing herself a life. It would be fun to watch when she breaks down, finally realising that life isn't a fairy tale and happy stuff in apocalypses only happen in books and movies.
Once she realises I'm not going to reply, Anny clears her throat and I look up. "Where'd you get the blood-red lipstick?"
I take in a deep breath. Calm down, Hunter. It's not like she asks you every time and forgets. I laugh nervously, trying to not hit her with the bat that's right next to me. "It's my mum's, remember?"
"Oh yeah! Sorry, I forgot," she chuckles, and the urge to hit her is becoming stronger and stronger. Yeah, so I wear lipstick. My mum's lipstick. Big deal? It's a way to have someone I care about close to me. I'm wearing outfits from all of my family. That's one of the reasons why I'm still alive.
"Can you go now?" I ask, taking in a deep breath, frustrated as hell. What an annoying little twat. Yes, I do believe I'm superior to her in many ways. I do believe that I've got honesty with me, while she lies to herself, and in cases like that, since I face my problems and not escape them, I'm superior to her, who runs and escapes when a storm's up ahead.
"Oh yes, sorry! I'll leave now. I've got my trusty knife with me!"
I watch her open the door, have the bell ring and walk away, her luxurious handbag slung on her shoulder. I sit on the chair and lean forward, resting my head in my hands. But she's got one thing that I don't. She's optimistic. Sadly for her, they're the ones that die first.
I take a glance at the bloody marks of dried blood on the wooden countertop, sigh heavily and wondering with what I'm going to get that off. Water is rare and limited. I don't have the time and patience to wash this.
I need to sleep. That's what I really need. To close my eyes for a few seconds and process all the shit that's happened in a day. Something's going to go wrong very soon. Very, very soon. No matter what his arrival does, this town has some problems, and he's just going to worsen them.
And there's that drug deal, with Rod something as a name.
I'm not sure how long I've been thinking, it could be seconds or hours, but it didn't add any type of clarity in my life.
I slowly open my eyes, grasping my bat furiously. Someone's here. Someone who didn't announce themselves. I stand up in the quietest way, still gripping the bloodied bat so angrily that my knuckles are ghostly white. I try to peek through the top windows because the growling sounds seem to be coming from there.
I was fucking right.
I see its gross demeanour, its bloodshot eyes, standing on two legs looking like twigs, face skinny, cheeks invisible, pointy teeth covered in blood, a blue-whitish skin tone and horrible claws. I look at the blood-soaked cat on the ground, trying to meow. What's a fucking Kravmol doing here?!
"Hey, fucker!"
It looks up. This one's starving. He's not part of a group. I can kill it. Those red scarlet eyes fix me, all life that was inside this human is long gone. It flew away, transformed into a killer, a murderer. This person might've been your average primary school teacher or your grocer from next door.
"Come and get me, you monster!"
I feel like whacking something. I feel like hitting someone. I hear growls, footsteps and feet running and—
BANG
Silence follows. Except the loud ringing in my ears and the piercing blades in my head. I didn't move. My heart beats, my hands could break the handle of the bat if I continued to grip it that tightly. I walk cautiously to the door, feeling my heartbeat in my fingers.
My breathing steadies once I see the Krav lying on the floor, dead, already being cooked by the sun outside. I must've slept. That's the only thing that seems rational. And someone's dumb enough to shoot with a gun in the middle of a desert where it echoes like hell. I open the door, the ringing making me scowl. "Who's there?"
If this is an ambush, this is not how I'm going down.
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