Episode 6: Ghost Land

Episode 6

"Ghost Land"

We drove for another half hour, and passed a sign that read:

"Toronto"

I saw in the distance, a big city with skyscrapers not too far from here. I felt like there was a big weight lifted off of my chest. I saw Patrick's eyes light up when he saw Toronto as well, Mark picked up speed, we were all excited to get there. I can imagine it now, big walls and the military taking everyone in. We get there and it's a whole new civilization.

"We made it buddy." I said to Patrick.

He smiled and nodded his head. I can't wait to get there. We pulled off of the highway, and led into a road that went straight into the city. Getting closer, the buildings were getting bigger. There was one problem, I didn't see any big walls or anything. What I did see were lots of stranglers. I pounded on the back glass to alert Mark, I held out the stop signal with my hand. He slammed on the brakes and I almost flew out of the truck. We got out, just a couple hundred feet from the city.

"Did you see all those stranglers?" I asked, "The damn place is loaded."

"I thought the military cleared the city!" Mark said.

"I thought they did too, maybe they still did. We need to go further in the city. I don't know if we should take the car though, it will make noise and we might have the whole city of stranglers on us in minutes. We'll leave it here, and if Toronto is no good, we will come back here and leave.

"Alright," Mari started, "Let's hope we don't have to."

We all headed into the city, making ourselves hidden, and running behind buildings. The main roads had stranglers everywhere. We crouched to make ourselves less visible. We kept sneaking around Toronto, we would see the odd strangler walking around the back roads, we would simply stab it before it could see us.

"Damn, I don't see shit." Mark said.

"Me neither, we've been walking around this damned city for what seemed to be forever. I don't see any sign of life here."

"Shit!" Patrick yelled, "We came all this damn way for nothing?"

"Keep it down!" I cried.

"All of you settle down," Sabrina said, "We can work something out, maybe the military didn't build big walls, maybe they're all just hold off in a building somewhere. Let's keep looking around. We went through hell getting here, let's make it count."

"Agreed." Mark said.

We headed around Toronto and looked for anything, any sign of life. We weren't getting any luck though, we decided to rest in an old comic book store. I opened the door, it creaked open. We walked slowly around the place, Mark shut the door behind us. I looked around, and noticed a strangler hiding behind a book stand, it tried to get the jump on us. I threw my knife at it and struck it in the face. It dropped to the ground and I picked it back up.

"I really want to learn more about these things," I started, "Some of them are dumb, some of them are smart, it's interesting."

"I really don't care about the stranglers, I don't give a shit about how they started." Sabrina said.

"Me neither." Mark agreed.

"I wonder about them too sometimes." Patrick stated.

We looked throughout the rest of the store, there was nothing left. It was starting to get dark out, so we stayed here for the night.

"Let's try to keep quiet for the night." Jamie said.

"Agreed." I said.

We sat around the store, I picked up a comic and started reading it. It was the average super hero comic, bad thing happens, hero saves the day, gets the girl. The end. It was all so simple in those books, if only it was like that in the real world. I looked over at Sabrina, she was reading Kayla a story to fall asleep to. It has officially been two months since the apocalypse started, so much has happened in those two months. I haven't shaved since then either, my beard was starting to get big. Mark was lucky, he didn't grow a beard as easily. Patrick's was about as big as mine too. I rested my head against the book shelf and closed my eyes. I was woken by Sabrina though, it was around the middle of the night.

"Jeff?" she asked, lightly shaking me.

"Yeah?" I asked.

She was sitting beside me, she smiled at me. I wasn't sure what this was about.

"I want to thank you for saving me back at the arcade." She said.

"It was nothing, I was just protecting my group." I said.

"Yes, but I saw your face when that man grabbed me. You got angry, really mad. I think you have feelings for me."

I shrugged it off, trying not to embarrass myself or anything. I did like Sabrina, I liked her a lot. I just never had time to show it, I had a group to take care of.

"I also saw it when you attacked Clark," she said, "He grabbed me and you attacked him."

I didn't say anything, after trying not to show my feelings for her, I couldn't help it. I did do a lot of things for her these past months.

"It's okay to admit it," she said, "I like you too."

"Thanks," I said, "I think."

Damn, I was making this awkward. I didn't know what to say, after Samantha was kidnapped, I didn't want to hook up with anyone else. I have been lonely for a long time. I wasn't used to this kind of thing. Sabrina leaned in and kissed me, I didn't know what to do. I just went with it, it lasted for about five seconds, then she backed away. My breath probably stunk so bad, I haven't brushed my teeth in forever. She didn't seem to mind though, she rested her head against my shoulder and went to sleep. She said nothing else after that. I didn't want to be rude and move my shoulder, so I went with it. It wasn't that bad actually. I closed my eyes, and before I knew it, morning was here.

I woke up, Sabrina was still sleeping next to me, her head rested against my shoulder. I carefully moved her head out of the way, then I got up. Everyone was still asleep. I decided to let everyone sleep, I checked the clock on the wall which was still working. It said:

"7:31"

It was pretty early, but I was wide awake. I looked out the window, there were stranglers everywhere. As long as they don't see us, we're good. They won't see us, as long as we're quiet. My stomach grumbled, I haven't eaten in a while. I was parched too, I really needed a drink. I looked through the desk at the back, maybe there were some snacks in here. There wasn't though, only a phone that was dead, and a couple pencils. After all of this, I better not die from thirst or hunger. I kind of wished we took the food from the arcade, but after who we found out lived there, I didn't want anything from that place. What those people did, was sick. The most sick thing I have seen in my whole life. I didn't even hesitate to kill Timothy, I just did it. I heard someone waking up behind me, I turned to see Patrick getting up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretched, then got up and walked to me.

"What's the plan now?" he asked.

"Toronto is screwed," I said, "I guess the military couldn't help this place. I finally realize it now, it's every group for themselves. That's how it will always be from now on."

"Where do you suppose we go?"

"Nowhere," I said, "We just keep surviving, if we find a place worth staying at we will do it. For now, all we have to focus on is pure survival."

We waited about a half hour later, and everyone started waking up. They all gathered around, and I let them know the plan. I told them we just have to focus on survival, nothing else, we're on our own now. They seemed to go with it, they trusted me. I got them this far, I guess I would trust myself too. We headed out, and snuck around the streets of Toronto. I was in the front with Patrick, Mark was leading behind us. Jamie, Sabrina, Brandy, and Kayla were all following behind in a small group. We need eyes behind us as well, that's why I got people walking from the back. We came across a fence in an alley way. It was a tall metal one. I hopped it. Followed by Patrick and Mark. They dropped to the other side. Sabrina did okay as well, she got over no problem. Jamie boosted Kayla up, and she dropped down perfectly fine. She went to help Brandy up, that's when things became complicated. She boosted him up, but there was a sharp edge on the fence. He cut his leg pretty bad, he screamed. We all tried calming him down, but he panicked more. He then fell off of the fence and hit his mouth on the ground. He screamed even more, blood coming out of his mouth and leg. I heard screams in all directions, not very far either.

"Shit! We need to go!" I yelled.

Stranglers came flying around the corners into the alleyways on the side Jamie was on. If she could hop this fence, we would be safe on the other side.

"Come on!" I yelled, "Go!"

Jamie climbed the fence with all her might, one of the stranglers grabbed her leg, she fought with it. I pulled out my gun and shot it in the face. The strangler dropped to the ground and Jamie successfully got over to the other side.

"Holy shit," she said, "That was close."

Jamie picked up Brandy and comforted him, we all started running down the alleyway. Stranglers were coming in all directions, we managed to dodge them and make our way through the alleyway. The alley ended, and we were forced out into the open streets of Toronto, the stranglers were everywhere. I looked around my surroundings, there were a lot of buildings, mostly apartments, but there was also a small mall too. There was no way out of this though, I was hoping to find a ladder to climb on top of a building, but there was nothing. The stranglers circled us, and started running at us. I started firing, using as many bullets as I could, but it wasn't working. There was too many of them, we kept backing up as they came at us. We were going to get overpowered. I held Kayla's hand and squeezed.

"I won't let go of you." I promised.

There was a gunshot, but it wasn't from our group. Tons of gunshots following by that, I turned to see another group of people. A lady and a man came out of the mall and started taking down the stranglers.

"Come on!" the lady shouted, "In the mall! It's safe!"

I didn't argue, we all followed her into the mall and she closed to the door behind her. The stranglers pounded up against the glass door. The man moved a cage over the door and locked it.

"Whoa." was all I managed to say.

"Come on, we have more people." the lady said.

Her and the other man ran ahead and we followed them through the mall. They made a couple turns, and led us into a food court. They opened the doors and revealed a ton of people. They were all eating breakfast from what it looked like. They turned and looked at us.

"We found them outside, almost dead." the woman said.

"Um, thank you." I shook her hand.

"I'm Jess," she said, "And that's Jake." she pointed to the other man that save us.

Jess had a long brown ponytail, she wore a tank top, and ripped jeans. She looked in her early thirties. Jake had black curly hair, and was really muscular. He wore a white t-shirt, and ripped up jeans as well. He looked a bit older, maybe early forties. They looked like brother and sister.

"We're brother and sister." Jess said, she must have read my mind or something.

The group welcomed us and gave us breakfast, I had time to count how many people were in the group now. There were seven of them in total, pretty big group. This place had everything, it even had a gas stove that they could cook on. Jake came and sat beside us at our table.

"Let me fill you guys in," he started. He pointed to a family of three. "That's Winston and his wife Heather, and their daughter Julie."

I saw Winston at another table happily eating and talking with his family. Winston had bushy black hair, was a little fatter, and looked my age. His wife Heather had short blonde hair, and was very skinny. Their daughter Julie was gothic, she had medium cut black hair, and tattoos in different parts of her body, arms, legs, neck. She looked around the age of sixteen or so.

"That's Wendy, she's a little mentally unstable. But we took her in because we felt bad for her naturally." Jake explained, he pointed to a brown haired freckled woman, she was sitting by herself.

"And that's Ned, he's the brains of our group. He knows how to throw off stranglers." Jake pointed to a small nerdy man also sitting by himself.

"How does he do it?" I asked.

"You use bright lights, that's what we've learned. They are normally pretty smart creatures, but bright lights are their weakness. Using something like a flare, or a flashlight distracts them for a couple seconds."

"We've figured that out too." I looked at Sabrina, she blushed.

"You guys found out how to do that?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, we almost died, but Sabrina threw a flare. They stopped chasing us for a few seconds. We made a quick escape."

"I'd say you are a lucky group. I feel a good bond between you all."

"We're all pretty close." I said.

Jake noticed Brandy, and his cut leg and injured jaw.

"Oh, do you want us to bandage him up?" he asked.

"That was be great." Jamie handed Brandy to Jake, he brought him over to Jess, they patched him up.

They were really good on materials, I haven't eaten this much food in a while. They seem to be pretty good on medicine. Sabrina handed them the medicine we found at the doctors office. I looked around the food court, and smiled. I felt hope, real hope this time. I think we can start a new life here, with a new addition to our family.