Collapse: Chapter 4

FOUR

Seth ducked for cover as one of the group walked into the storage room.

It was dark, and he could use the darkness to his advantage. Hopefully, whoever it was didn’t know he was in here. If he stayed in the shadows and kept some shelves between himself and the visitors, he could get out of this without having to fight them. He had nothing to defend himself with, and even if he did, he still would have wanted to avoid conflict. Four on one were not favourable odds, especially if they had weapons.

Silently, he crept around the side of the nearest shelf. Through the gaps between the layers, he could see the man who had come in. He looked relatively well-kempt, and his clothes weren’t torn and dirty like those of the lunatics. Perhaps he was just another regular survivor, here to scavenge. Perhaps he could trade with them.

Trade what? He had nothing. The woman had robbed him of everything he had, leaving him with just the clothes on his back. Clothes which were covered in sick. If he approached them like this, they’d probably think he was some kind of madman.

Another of them jogged into the room, coming up beside the man, who was looking around.

“What are we doing in here, man?” He asked.The first man looked at him.

“There were two of them, John,” he replied, “I heard the voices. A woman and a man.”

John shuffled his feet uncomfortably, looking spooked. “I don’t like this place, Dan,” he muttered, “can’t we just leave this guy and take what we’ve already got? We got the gun. We captured that woman, whoever she is. What else could we need from them?”

John’s words shattered any of Seth’s hopes that these people were peaceful. They’d found the woman when left, obviously, and now they had the gun. They were bandits. No doubt about it. If they were lunatics, the girl would be dead by now. He shuddered.

Whatever they were planning to do with her, he couldn’t say she deserved it.

For now, though, he needed to worry about more immediate problems. Neither of them looked like they were carrying weapons, and he was pretty big. If he managed to separate them, he could probably take them both down quietly... But any sound echoed in here, and all it would take was one shout and whoever had the gun would come charging in. Then he’d be done for.

Dan grunted irritably. “Stop being such a pussy,” he said, “if you don’t want to be here, piss off and send Eric in. But I want to find the man. If the woman had a gun, who knows what he has?”

Nothing. Seth thought. He had nothing. Thanks to her.

Then both the men perked up like meerkats.

“What the hell is that?” John said, his voice quavering. Dan ran back into the supermarket as fast as his feet could carry him.

Seth heard it. A scraping sound. The same one he’d heard earlier. Only this time, it was constant. A metallic sound, like something being dragged across the floor. Something moving. Seth began to shake.

He’d been right. There had been something else in here. Something dangerous.

“Stop trying to spook me!” John shouted, following the sound further into the darkness. Was he insane? “I know you’re in here now! Come out and make it easier on yourself!”

The sound stopped for a moment. A faint sniffing sounded near Seth, a couple of aisles away he guessed, then the scraping resumed, but louder now. Whatever it was was moving closer every second, but Seth remained rooted to the spot, paralyzed by fear.

“I ain’t afraid of you!” John shouted, adrenaline fuelling him. The scraping was getting nearer. “I’m a black belt, man, make it easy on yourself!”

A huge black shape flashed past the end of Seth’s aisle. The scraping was coming from whatever it was dragging along behind it, though the creature moved so fast that it simply appeared as a blur.

John seemed to see whatever it was far too late. He screamed and turned to run, but there was a sharp clang and a crunch as the creature attacked him. His screams of terror were replaced by screams of pain as he collapsed, clutching his knee. Then the unseen creature was upon him. There was an awful tearing, popping sound, and his screams were cut short with a gurgle.

A grunt sounded. But not from where John had been. From somewhere else entirely.

There were two of them.

Slowly, taking heavy, tremulous breaths, Seth began to inch his way towards the door. The scraping sound resumed, stopping every so often. There were two sounds now. The other had begun to move.

Seth halted as the scraping moved closer to his shelf. He could see it through the gaps, a hulking, hunched silhouette. It seemed to be dragging a pole behind it.

He turned, moving along the shelf away from the creature. It was looking straight at him now, but it didn’t seem to notice him. It’s eyes, disks of light, simply scanned the environment, unseeing.

He didn’t understand. Was it blind? How had it not noticed him? Not that he was complaining. In his current situation, this was practically a gift from God.

He inched his way back, slowly as he could. As quietly as he could. Maybe, he reasoned, since they seemed to have bad vision they had excellent hearing?

A grunt sounded from before him. The other creature had stopped at the end of his aisle, blocking his escape. It took all his willpower not to swear. No sound, he reminded himself.

Not that it mattered now. He was trapped. The creature at the end of his aisle was beginning to work it’s way down, it’s pole dragging along behind it.

Echolocation. The word came to him suddenly. Seth remembered reading about it before the Collapse, back when the internet had still been working. They were blind, they must be. Why else would they drag the poles behind them? They saw through sound. Through echoes.

It was a long shot, but it was the only chance he had. As quietly as he could, he pulled an empty can from the shelf. It made a hollow sound as he pulled it off. He winced as the creature perked up, listening intently. Then, quickly, he turned and threw the can as far as he could.

It flew across the room, clattering against a shelf at the other end. Two loud synchronised grunts came from either end of the aisle, and the creatures charged towards the sound. Seth had to press himself up against the shelf to avoid being run down by one of them.

He waited until they were gone, then crept around the side of the shelf. He could hear snuffling and scraping as they investigated the sound.

Then he saw John.

He lay in the middle of the aisle. His left leg was bent back at the knee, which must have been the crunching sound. Seth cringed as his eyes travelled up the poor man’s body. Blood soaked the front of his t-shirt. Fresh blood was still coming from somewhere. Finally, Seth’s eyes reached the man’s head.

He barely suppressed a gasp. His lower jaw had been torn clean off and discarded on the ground next to him. Bloody strands of flesh hung down from what remained of his cheeks. His tongue lolled uselessly against his exposed throat. His eyes stared upwards, totally vacant.

“Jesus...” Seth moaned. He tore his eyes away for a few seconds. The creatures had heard his exclamation and were slowly moving back towards him. Tentatively, Seth closed his hand around John’s lower jaw. He felt still warm blood seep through his fingers and tender flesh pressed against his palm. Nervously, he gripped it tight. John’s teeth dug into his hand. Then he threw it. It hit the ground behind the silhouetted beasts with a squelching thump. They turned and moved back towards it.

Seth turned. It was a straight path to the door from where he was. He could see the light, tantalisingly close. These things are Twisted, he thought, they must be. They couldn’t go out in sunlight, right? If he tried to approach the door slowly, the Twisted would realise the jawbone had been a trick, and they’d investigate the last sound they heard. Which was him.

Taking a deep breath, Seth straightened up and sprinted towards the door.

He heard the Twisted roar, heard the pounding of their feet as they bounded towards him. But he was almost there now, he’d almost made it. They were remarkably fast, already almost upon him.

Then he burst through the doorway. The creatures screeched and howled as they entered the light, deafening him. He turned round just in time to see a long, pale, scarred leg step into the darkness.

Seth thanked his past self for having the foresight to pursue athletics. Then, pausing briefly to regain his nerves, he sprinted out of the supermarket. It was noon. At this time of year, it would be about seven hours before night fell, he guessed. More than enough time to find the woman. She had stolen a lot of valuable things from him, things that would be almost impossible to replace. He remembered the bandits that had taken her. He remembered the gun.

Chasing them down could well be suicidal. It was certainly far too reckless for his liking. There were only three of the bandits now, though, and he knew that without those supplies he would probably not survive the next time he was wounded or fell ill.

He scanned his environment. He could see drips of blood on the ground. Presumably, the bandits had knocked the woman out when they captured her. Hit her over the head with something, he guessed. Head wounds always bleed a lot, he thought.

He caught his breath, then began to follow the trail of blood at a steady jog. They couldn’t have gone far, he hoped. He needed to find his supplies. Perhaps he felt some obligation to the woman’s daughter, too, though he wasn’t sure if she existed.

He had to hold on to his humanity in some way. Even if he wouldn’t show it.