Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2015 18:43:00 GMT
This is something else I started. It does have cussing, so be warned.
I don’t know exactly what time of night it was, but it was sometime early morning. Leon and I had made it to the super market parking lot just as another bomb decided to go off not 60 feet away, blowing whoever was targeted (probably a mugger) to fragments and sending us to our knees because of the shakes in both ourselves and the earth. There was no warning. There was not even a scream from the guy who’d inevitably been destroyed. You never get used to surprise explosions like that, do you?
We quickly ducked behind a burned out car, probably a Mercedes. I don’t know really. I didn’t really pay attention to the car type, but it seemed like it used to be a real sweet ride when it wasn’t dead. Probably could go over 60mph easy. And those metal seats inside that used to have cloth covering them would’ve been comfy to sleep in.
Damn war, taking good people and good cars. And food. Supplies. Comfortable beds. Fun. Modern fighting seems to drain those all away too.
Only when the reverberations subsided, and the concrete had returned to its normal, slight trembling from far off bombs that I looked back at Leon who was crouching along with me behind the car, his stolen glock pistol in his hand instinctively. By his blank but also tense expression, he didn’t hear anything else (even though the sudden loud noise had left ringing in our ears). It was just a random mine. Probably not a ground troop. The foot soldiers normally didn’t come out at night to random super market parking lots to blow civilians up.
Silently, cautiously, watching out for any more detonators or anything that might cause us to lose a life, we covered the remaining ground to the side entrance with short bursts of low to the ground jogs. As inconspicuous as we could try to be, we were probably pretty easy to spot from anyone that might be lurking nearby. I could imagine a soldier watching us as we ran through the dark lot. In fact, there was always a possibility that a sniper actually had us on their scope, ready to pick us off just for target practice any second. Sitting on a bombed out building’s window sill, completely apathetic to the petty civilians that were caught in the constant urban crossfire below him. It wouldn’t matter which side he was on. By this point, neither side really cared about the people that had lived in this long torn city.
But we made it the dark doors that led to our one possible remaining source of food and other stuff that could let us survive another day or two. Now it was time to enter.
That being said, we were pretty desperate to be looking in the Walmart when we were sure at least a dozen thugs were camped out here, in the best place to be in a warzone (just FYI: a shopping center has just about everything you could need).
Anyway, it was open, wide open, and we slipped inside. No lights remained on inside, and the faintest nighttime light sifted through the dusted and darkened windows (with glass or without). The long columns of light were cast upon the trashed floor, barely illuminating anything inside.
Our footsteps seemed to echo out our arrival to the ex-shopping center. I stayed beside Leon, basically following his lead. We knew where to go. There was no time to stick around and browse yu-gi-oh cards or $5 DVD’s.
As we went deeper into the building, I was able to make out more of the surroundings. We were in a part of the gardening section of the store. A few wilted plants were sitting haphazardly on shelves or lying dejected on the concrete floor. We passed through there quickly.
Leon looked back at me, this time with an expression of be-completely-quiet-cause-here-we-go. If that could be an expression. Sticking close to the walls and the ground just in case, we approached the threshold into the main market.
Which was about the time we heard something coming from deeper within the building. Voices. People. Danger.
And yet, we went in, silent, determined, but definitely on the watch. I guess Leon thought the risks were less costly than the possibility of supplies. I guess I was just a scared pussy that went along with whatever my older brother did. I didn’t protest. I didn’t make a sound. There was no way either of us could afford to back down now.
It was as we passed by the brown watered aquatic tanks of belly up fish that I could discern the all too near sounds of two or three people talking. And it didn’t sound like a nice conversation either. It seemed…tensional…edgy. I tried to listen as I passed through a ray of weak moonlight that was poking through the ruined and holey roof.
‘…Pretty name for a pretty face,’ a deep, masculine voice.
‘Thank you…I can’t stay though,’ a frail young woman’s voice.
I looked to Leon. He wasn’t paying attention to the voices at all. He was busy looking down the clear hall between shelves and swiftly stepping into a safe medicine aisle. I followed.
‘And why not? I have plenty of food in the back. We can dine and have some fun.’
Now I could hear the talkers clearly, as Leon selected a few antibiotics on the back of the shelf and slipped them into his back pack. He still gave no sign of acknowledgement to the voices.
‘I-I’m sorry…I have to get home.’
‘Home? What for? C’mon baby, don’t be stuck up now.’
Now the voices were getting louder. Leon suddenly grasped my shoulder and gestured to the other side of the store with the canned food (our next and probably last stop). We needed to get away from the people. At least that’s all Leon could think of.
‘I-I have to go,’ she said, fear rising in her voice. I could see a flashlight’s beam from three aisles away. Just three aisles away…
“Come on, there’s nothing we can do,” Leon whispered urgently, sensing my idiotness ticking, and grabbing my arm.
“Like hell we can’t,” I hissed, turning back and breaking away from him.
‘Like hell you are!’ the man shouted. Jinx. The flashlight went wild in the other aisle. Quick footsteps. There was the sound of scuffling and then a heavy thunk and a short cry.
I wouldn’t let a woman get raped in a Walmart aisle. Running away wasn’t quite my style in these situations.
Suddenly, I was tackling the soldier’s back (wasn’t expecting Mr. Raper to be soldier). He had a rifle. I had fists. A crumpled form lay on the ground. I was only able to cause the man to stumble away from me as I practically was thrown to the ground. The mounted light on the man’s gun swung around as he regained his posture and yelled out, “Son of a --“.
He had army gear; he was well fed and trained; he was not going to be pushed over. And now as I scrambled back at him, I realized he had a gun pointed right at my nose. The beam right in my eyes.
A single shot rang out in the building.
The soldier fell to the ground, the rifle slipping out of his hands and to the tile. His arm made a flailing attempt to catch the shelf of discounted beach towels and ended up with a brightly colored blanket on top of him as he twitched and made a strange gurgling noise with his throat. The beam of light from his gun spread across the floor.
The girl still on the floor seemed younger than what I had originally thought - or maybe it was just the way she was curled into a little ball and making slow, quiet moans or sobs that made her seem so small. She couldn’t be older than 17.
Leon ran up to me, his breathing hard and ragged. “What the - why the hell did you do that?!”
In his hand, he held the pistol that had saved me and taken the soldier’s life. Well, would eventually take the soldier’s life (he probably had about minute more of spasming before the last drop of soul left his body). Thank god Leon actually had a bullet left in that thing.
“You were going to leave her here? You were going to let that happen?” I retorted, my heart trying to stop hyperventilating. Leon was not having such an easy time controlling himself.
“I was going to let - holy crap, you are an IDIOT. You really think I want you to get killed for a fricking stranger? That guy was a second away from blowing your head off your shoulders!”
“Yeah… I didn’t notice that. I thought if I was able to catch him off guard-“
“Oh god, now you think you can catch loaded army troops off guard – Damn. C’mon Ryker, we need to get out of here before his whole battalion shows up to get revenge,” he said, turning to the still twitching soldier whose weapon lay a couple feet away. Leon quickly stooped to grab the rifle off the littered floor.
“We aren’t leaving her behind. She’s definitely been hit in the head,” I said looking back at the almost unmoving girl that was still not giving any sign of thankfulness towards her savers. “And what makes you so sure there are more of them?”
Immediately as I said it, multiple lights and voices came bursting from the back of the huge store. A large group coming from the storage room, talking and moving all at once. Several men. Several guns.
‘Hey, you all right there, Jake?’ a loud, echoing voice called out. Leon and I did not move, as if moving might trigger another mine. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who these men were. ‘JAKE! Hey, I’m talking to you. Quit dickin’ around. We heard a shot.’
“Let’s move,” Leon hissed at me, turning to go.
The dying soldier by my feet barely moved now. He couldn’t make a noise. The girl was rocking back and forth, holding her head in her hands.
Leon glanced back at me hastily. I wasn’t going to leave someone to die after I’d just risked my life for them.
Why do I have to be such a compassionate moron? I thought as I crouched to gather up the starved (like everyone else), light girl in my arms. I followed Leon as best as I could after that.
I don’t know exactly what time of night it was, but it was sometime early morning. Leon and I had made it to the super market parking lot just as another bomb decided to go off not 60 feet away, blowing whoever was targeted (probably a mugger) to fragments and sending us to our knees because of the shakes in both ourselves and the earth. There was no warning. There was not even a scream from the guy who’d inevitably been destroyed. You never get used to surprise explosions like that, do you?
We quickly ducked behind a burned out car, probably a Mercedes. I don’t know really. I didn’t really pay attention to the car type, but it seemed like it used to be a real sweet ride when it wasn’t dead. Probably could go over 60mph easy. And those metal seats inside that used to have cloth covering them would’ve been comfy to sleep in.
Damn war, taking good people and good cars. And food. Supplies. Comfortable beds. Fun. Modern fighting seems to drain those all away too.
Only when the reverberations subsided, and the concrete had returned to its normal, slight trembling from far off bombs that I looked back at Leon who was crouching along with me behind the car, his stolen glock pistol in his hand instinctively. By his blank but also tense expression, he didn’t hear anything else (even though the sudden loud noise had left ringing in our ears). It was just a random mine. Probably not a ground troop. The foot soldiers normally didn’t come out at night to random super market parking lots to blow civilians up.
Silently, cautiously, watching out for any more detonators or anything that might cause us to lose a life, we covered the remaining ground to the side entrance with short bursts of low to the ground jogs. As inconspicuous as we could try to be, we were probably pretty easy to spot from anyone that might be lurking nearby. I could imagine a soldier watching us as we ran through the dark lot. In fact, there was always a possibility that a sniper actually had us on their scope, ready to pick us off just for target practice any second. Sitting on a bombed out building’s window sill, completely apathetic to the petty civilians that were caught in the constant urban crossfire below him. It wouldn’t matter which side he was on. By this point, neither side really cared about the people that had lived in this long torn city.
But we made it the dark doors that led to our one possible remaining source of food and other stuff that could let us survive another day or two. Now it was time to enter.
That being said, we were pretty desperate to be looking in the Walmart when we were sure at least a dozen thugs were camped out here, in the best place to be in a warzone (just FYI: a shopping center has just about everything you could need).
Anyway, it was open, wide open, and we slipped inside. No lights remained on inside, and the faintest nighttime light sifted through the dusted and darkened windows (with glass or without). The long columns of light were cast upon the trashed floor, barely illuminating anything inside.
Our footsteps seemed to echo out our arrival to the ex-shopping center. I stayed beside Leon, basically following his lead. We knew where to go. There was no time to stick around and browse yu-gi-oh cards or $5 DVD’s.
As we went deeper into the building, I was able to make out more of the surroundings. We were in a part of the gardening section of the store. A few wilted plants were sitting haphazardly on shelves or lying dejected on the concrete floor. We passed through there quickly.
Leon looked back at me, this time with an expression of be-completely-quiet-cause-here-we-go. If that could be an expression. Sticking close to the walls and the ground just in case, we approached the threshold into the main market.
Which was about the time we heard something coming from deeper within the building. Voices. People. Danger.
And yet, we went in, silent, determined, but definitely on the watch. I guess Leon thought the risks were less costly than the possibility of supplies. I guess I was just a scared pussy that went along with whatever my older brother did. I didn’t protest. I didn’t make a sound. There was no way either of us could afford to back down now.
It was as we passed by the brown watered aquatic tanks of belly up fish that I could discern the all too near sounds of two or three people talking. And it didn’t sound like a nice conversation either. It seemed…tensional…edgy. I tried to listen as I passed through a ray of weak moonlight that was poking through the ruined and holey roof.
‘…Pretty name for a pretty face,’ a deep, masculine voice.
‘Thank you…I can’t stay though,’ a frail young woman’s voice.
I looked to Leon. He wasn’t paying attention to the voices at all. He was busy looking down the clear hall between shelves and swiftly stepping into a safe medicine aisle. I followed.
‘And why not? I have plenty of food in the back. We can dine and have some fun.’
Now I could hear the talkers clearly, as Leon selected a few antibiotics on the back of the shelf and slipped them into his back pack. He still gave no sign of acknowledgement to the voices.
‘I-I’m sorry…I have to get home.’
‘Home? What for? C’mon baby, don’t be stuck up now.’
Now the voices were getting louder. Leon suddenly grasped my shoulder and gestured to the other side of the store with the canned food (our next and probably last stop). We needed to get away from the people. At least that’s all Leon could think of.
‘I-I have to go,’ she said, fear rising in her voice. I could see a flashlight’s beam from three aisles away. Just three aisles away…
“Come on, there’s nothing we can do,” Leon whispered urgently, sensing my idiotness ticking, and grabbing my arm.
“Like hell we can’t,” I hissed, turning back and breaking away from him.
‘Like hell you are!’ the man shouted. Jinx. The flashlight went wild in the other aisle. Quick footsteps. There was the sound of scuffling and then a heavy thunk and a short cry.
I wouldn’t let a woman get raped in a Walmart aisle. Running away wasn’t quite my style in these situations.
Suddenly, I was tackling the soldier’s back (wasn’t expecting Mr. Raper to be soldier). He had a rifle. I had fists. A crumpled form lay on the ground. I was only able to cause the man to stumble away from me as I practically was thrown to the ground. The mounted light on the man’s gun swung around as he regained his posture and yelled out, “Son of a --“.
He had army gear; he was well fed and trained; he was not going to be pushed over. And now as I scrambled back at him, I realized he had a gun pointed right at my nose. The beam right in my eyes.
A single shot rang out in the building.
The soldier fell to the ground, the rifle slipping out of his hands and to the tile. His arm made a flailing attempt to catch the shelf of discounted beach towels and ended up with a brightly colored blanket on top of him as he twitched and made a strange gurgling noise with his throat. The beam of light from his gun spread across the floor.
The girl still on the floor seemed younger than what I had originally thought - or maybe it was just the way she was curled into a little ball and making slow, quiet moans or sobs that made her seem so small. She couldn’t be older than 17.
Leon ran up to me, his breathing hard and ragged. “What the - why the hell did you do that?!”
In his hand, he held the pistol that had saved me and taken the soldier’s life. Well, would eventually take the soldier’s life (he probably had about minute more of spasming before the last drop of soul left his body). Thank god Leon actually had a bullet left in that thing.
“You were going to leave her here? You were going to let that happen?” I retorted, my heart trying to stop hyperventilating. Leon was not having such an easy time controlling himself.
“I was going to let - holy crap, you are an IDIOT. You really think I want you to get killed for a fricking stranger? That guy was a second away from blowing your head off your shoulders!”
“Yeah… I didn’t notice that. I thought if I was able to catch him off guard-“
“Oh god, now you think you can catch loaded army troops off guard – Damn. C’mon Ryker, we need to get out of here before his whole battalion shows up to get revenge,” he said, turning to the still twitching soldier whose weapon lay a couple feet away. Leon quickly stooped to grab the rifle off the littered floor.
“We aren’t leaving her behind. She’s definitely been hit in the head,” I said looking back at the almost unmoving girl that was still not giving any sign of thankfulness towards her savers. “And what makes you so sure there are more of them?”
Immediately as I said it, multiple lights and voices came bursting from the back of the huge store. A large group coming from the storage room, talking and moving all at once. Several men. Several guns.
‘Hey, you all right there, Jake?’ a loud, echoing voice called out. Leon and I did not move, as if moving might trigger another mine. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who these men were. ‘JAKE! Hey, I’m talking to you. Quit dickin’ around. We heard a shot.’
“Let’s move,” Leon hissed at me, turning to go.
The dying soldier by my feet barely moved now. He couldn’t make a noise. The girl was rocking back and forth, holding her head in her hands.
Leon glanced back at me hastily. I wasn’t going to leave someone to die after I’d just risked my life for them.
Why do I have to be such a compassionate moron? I thought as I crouched to gather up the starved (like everyone else), light girl in my arms. I followed Leon as best as I could after that.