Dried blood.

It filled the place, staining the air, painting the floors. The kitchen of the house was where all the nightmares came from.

We were standing inside a normal-sized colonial home where Alaska’s previous owners lived until they were shot to death. Berta examined the kitchen floor where so many things scattered down there.

Berta frowned while she crouched. 

Two bodies on the floor, and all of them died not a week ago. The mom, short-haired blond, was a pretty fat woman who got shot twice on the chest and once on the head. Next to her was a bloody golf stick broken in two. Ten feet away, in the dining room, was a pretty young girl who got these amazing hazel eyes and blond hair, like her mom. She wasn’t fat and rather fit, and probably put up a fight to whoever murdered them. Clara found a revolver just next to her head, unloaded and empty. Bullets were also hampered around the house, and half of the house’s windows were shattered. The teen got shot twice on the belly, and her forever-staring eyes gazed deeply towards the white ceiling of her house. She couldn’t be older than fifteen.

Alaska sat sadly while we examined the house and the murders. He howled a lot and sniffed the teen’s dead body like he wasn’t sure she was gone. He then licked her face like he was cleaning her from her own blood.

We checked the house and everything was empty. Chase already checked it before, but it wouldn’t hurt to check twice with the rest of the crew. Dog foods weren’t taken from the shelves, but almost everything else was, even some clothes and shoes from the closets. Whoever robbed this poor family should bleed in an eternal flame.

Jon shouted from above, “I found a key.”

The SUV parked on the carport of the house was a black Jeep Cherokee, unscathed and clean. There was a dead predator right next to it, but even blood didn’t dare to touch it. Those burglars who killed these two women didn’t take it too.

“There’s no gas,” I said when I was about to start it. 

Then we spent the morning siphoning gas from our van to the Jeep. Surely the van with no windshields and almost broken tires wouldn’t do us any more good, so we needed the Jeep.

I revved the car and it jumped to a start, buzzing gracefully though roughly as the engine was still cold. 

When we were about to drive out from the carport, Chase went out from the car because his dog didn’t get in. 

Alaska, dog-crying in front of his old mistress, didn’t bear to move to leave her alone.

“We should bury them or something,” Chase said, patting his new dog with remorse. Sometimes, dogs are more loyal than humans. Such animals shouldn’t live in this confused world that humans created.

We burned the two bodies in the backyard and Alaska couldn’t stop barking. He invited two predators, but we took them pretty easily. We then buried the mother and her kid and led Alaska inside the car.

And we continued to drive away north, towards our next destination in this never-ending trip.

−

We were five miles before entering the town of Marion, and one sight in the sky stole our attentions. A Black Hawk swirled around frantically with smoke smoldering everywhere from its rotors. I stopped accelerating to witness the fall of the mighty helicopter. All of us were dead silent watching a chopper dropping altitude, like it was a thriller war documentary.

It crashed somewhere in the distance, in an open field, in the middle of nowhere. Barren wasteland with dying crops and dead crows were the only things that filled the area.

“Should we check it?” Clara asked. “They might have some good stuff there.”

I nodded. “I think we should.”

“That thing attracts so many people from so far. It’s too dangerous,” Jon cried. His face showed us that he was tempted to go, but his brain kicked in logically again.

But we finally decided to go. Jon said we should hurry and that was what we did.

Driving ten minutes on a rocky road in an open space really gave me anxieties. People could just missile our car and obliterate us to yeasts in a second, but maybe I watched too many spy movies.

We arrived at the sight. The chopper was almost torn to two, and its rotors were still moving by a bit. Smoke chiseled and puffed all our noses, so we used our hands as masks and proceeded closer.

Chase patted Alaska before coming down.

“Stay, Alaska.”

The smoke was so thick. Breathing it wasn’t healthy, but we breathed tons of stuff in our journey.

I then almost stepped into something while circling into the chopper. A guy was lying on the ground, dying. Or maybe I should describe it as half a guy, as only half of his body was there. His legs were ripped from the rest of his body, resulting bursts of blood spraying to the ground.

“H- heellp…..”

There was absolutely nothing I could do. The full-armored man breathed helplessly like it would help. He cried, knowing that his end was near.

Chase came after me with his baton and looked down. The sight almost made him puke.

“Gosh.”

And the man finally closed his eyes.

“There’s crates here!” Berta’s voice was concealed by the smoke, but I immediately got to her. 

As she said, inside laid dozens of black military crates. Up front, the pilot and co-pilot were limbless and dead, and another uniformed man laid next to the crates with a giant piece of metal stabbing his neck. All four of them died on sight, impossible to be revived.

“Damn. This is such a mess. What’re inside these you reckon?” I asked with wonder.

“Let’s find out.”

Berta opened the closest crate and they revealed twenty canned foods. She opened another one, and the same was the result.

“Holy shit.” I jumped in excitement. “This is not real.”

The two of us opened some more while giggling. Most of them were containing food, but some others contained ammos for rifles and pistols. We called the others and took whatever we needed.

“Guys, come here! Help us out!”

Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. No one came.

“Guys?”

No answer.

I looked at Berta with a worried face. We were still inside the smoke, so we couldn’t see anything besides ourselves and the crates. Berta clenched her pistol and so did I. We stepped off from the crashed chopper and out from the smoke.

In front of our Jeep, Clara, Jon, and Chase kneeled on the ground with their heads hung low. Berta and I aimed our pistols towards two men and one woman with assault rifles. They pointed their guns towards our friends’ heads. 

The punks.

A gray van was parked half a mile from the crash site. They were following us, luring us into their trap.

They all dressed in blacks, and they all had chaotic dyed hairs and unnatural tattoos printed everywhere on their faces.

“You two smart bitches, throw those fucking guns away!”

I hesitated, but Berta immediately tossed hers aside. I did too.

“Kneel to the ground!” the woman commanded.

We obeyed.

“Very good.”

The two men walked towards us and hold us with their muscular arms. We struggled, but it was just a waste of energy.

I stared deeply to the woman’s two black eyes. “You did this?”

“Oh sure we did.” Her face looked so proud. “We blast ‘em fuckers out from the ground. Fireball danced up there majestically, and gravity tore them down.”

“What are you gonna do with us then?” It was Clara who spoke. The woman shoved her purple hair and turned to face her.

“I will do whatever the fuck I want.” She pointed her rifle towards Clara’s head. Berta and I started squinting, but the two men locked us in their grasps

“Stop it!” Jon screamed. 

“Why should I stop?”

“We want to join you.”

Jon’s answer surprised all of us, but we stayed quiet. The woman smiled and crouched right before Jon. 

“And how come?”

“We wanna survive,” said Jon with a sensational sincerity. “You guys are the most affective group out there, and those fake army had been jerking us all since the beginning of this apocalypse.”

Jon never spoke like that before. He even changed his accent and tone while speaking. His acting deserved an Oscar.

“Oh, those jackasses? Yeah they suck.”

The woman rose to her feet and laughed. She kicked Jon’s face with her knee and he stumbled back, grunting. Berta cursed but they didn’t care.

“You think we’re idiots? Our folks from the south brought many stories when they return to central base. Storytelling is a great activity at midnight, and they just won’t shut up about this unkillable group full of children, and a fucking international celebrity also tags along in that group, killing Helena and Judas, and many other people that I considered friends.”

Jon admitted his defeat and hung his head low in shame and desperation. I realized that my face was like a brand, familiar to everyone in the whole world.

“Now,” she breathed. “Should I just drag you to our base or shoot you here? What do you think boys?”

The bald punk man who gripped me tight grinned. “I think these kids are pretty hard to kill. We should just end them here, you know, lessening our burdens.”

The woman laughed a bit in satisfaction. “I know you’re always the one with the brain, Cyth.”

She pulled the safety of her trigger and aimed it straight for Chase’s forehead. Chase trembled frantically, his whole body shivered in tense. He was the one who was scared to die. He told me he didn’t want to die. Would I fail protecting the ones I love again?

Chase jerked his eyes shut. He was preparing himself for the shot. The rest of us wiggled to break free, but it was over. The metal end of the gun felt cold while resting on his forehead. A single drop of tear exited his eye.

“Last words?”

Suddenly, springing out from the SUV, Alaska ran and barked towards the threatening woman. Alaska was so fast she didn’t get to react, and he jumped straight for her hand and chewed her wrist.

“Fuck!”

Alaska brought her down in a matter of second. He snatched her arm again. She yelped so loud and cried pathetically, and then she dropped her gun to the ground. Barking, Alaska charged one last time. I could even see the wolf side of his species flashing in his eyes. Those blue eyes pierced straight for his prey.

The woman tried to grab her knife, but Alaska leapt and went for her neck. He bit her without thinking twice, and blood came spurring out, staining his majestic white furs. All of us watched this with horror and fear, and Chase still couldn’t believe on what he saw. The two men who hold us were shook with fear.

Almost half a minute that the woman struggled on the ground, gasping, panting. She finally calmed herself after her last minute of torture. She finally shut both her eyes.

“Don’t come any closer!” Cyth poked my head with his gun. “Do not come closer.”

He threatened a dog and told him to not move any closer. Unless the dog was some ultra-genius Bolt then he wouldn’t understand. Alaska just responded with a growl and a slow approach.

And a bark destroyed every inch of bravery from their hearts. They just bailed and scurried away from the scene, running like cowards towards their truck. Alaska went for them, barking, howling, and Berta and I were busy cutting cable ties from our friends’ wrists as immediate as we could.

“You okay?” I asked. I rested my arm on Chase’s shoulder. His face was too pale, and he trembled too hard.

He nodded slowly and turned his head to watch Alaska chasing the two cowards away.

“I don’t understand,” Chase commented while witnessing the glorious scene, his voice shook with fear. “What is he?”

I smiled. “He’s a loyal friend, and your protector. You need to take care of him, Chase.”

“I will.”

In the distance, the two men were so close to Alaska that they actually screamed like women. One took his gun out and aimed, but the bullets sprang everywhere, not hitting a thing.

While Alaska was distracted by deflecting the bullets, the two managed to get inside their van. Their tires smoked and they accelerated away. 

And before the truck disappeared into the horizon, something interesting happened. A white sedan emerged from the north and immediately blocked the van. We saw this from the distance. A couple of people exited the vehicle and blasted them to oblivion. The two punks didn’t even get a chance to put up a fight.

“Shit. Who are these guys? A new cult?” Berta ran to our Jeep and ignited the engine.

“We have to get out of here,” I suggested.

Alaska came back in a second and jumped onto Chase’s lap inside the car. Berta didn’t waste a second. She quickly reversed and headed for the other way. 

“Those guys are getting closer!”

The sedan headed our way. They were definitely going for the chopper’s loot too.

“Hang on tight!”

Berta swerved right into the dead corn field. She navigated through corns, trying to run away from the car going after us. 

We completely lost our visions as plants covered our eyes from seeing anything. 

“I think we’re on the safe.”

And just as the words exited Berta’s mouth, we came out from the corn field with fences appearing suddenly in front of us.

“Holy shit!”

She slammed the steering wheel to the left, and the car drifted. It was too late. The Jeep smashed the line of white fences of someone’s lawn. It jerked almost to a stop, but behind those fences was a wooden gazebo built for farmers. Berta smashed the brake pedal.

We didn’t have any other choice but to crash onto the gazebo. I lurched forward in my seat and bumped my head to the car’s dashboard.

And everything turned black once again.

I didn’t know when this will end. 

---------

Picture: Vertical Mag