Episode 5: Greed

Episode 5

"Greed"

(This Part of the Story is From Jess's Point of View)

"What?" Mark asked.

"I'm going to find Hilda, and I'm going to kill her." I repeated.

"No! You can't! You'll never find her! Toronto is huge, and it's too dangerous!"

"Don't tell me what to do Mark." I said.

I started walking towards the food court doors, but Mark did not approve of this. He ran over to me again.

"At least let me come." he said.

"No! This is my fight, not yours. Someone needs to watch the mall while Jeff is gone too." I argued.

"Julie and Ned are here!"

"Julie is just a kid, and Ned is weak. Now go." I raised my voice.

Mark didn't say anything else, he looked like he wanted to argue, but he just backed off. I opened the front doors of the food court, and headed out. I had nothing but rage in my mind right now. I headed for the front door of the mall, leading outside. I looked outside the glass door quickly. There were not many stranglers around, but there were a good handful. I opened the door and then the cage. I shut the door and locked the cage behind me. I took a deep breath, and made a run for it towards the alley. I made it there without any strangler seeing. I headed down the alley, I needed to retrace my steps. I have to head back to the hardware store where Hilda attacked us last. I can't take the truck, because then they'll see me coming. I need to be careful on this one.

(This Part of the Story is From Jeff's Point of View)

"I think there is a supermarket close somewhere around here." Patrick said.

"How would you know?" I asked.

"I remember it from when we were clearing the mall. I made note of trying to remember where everything was. It's a big mall, and we need to know where stuff is." he replied.

We got to the escalators and headed up them, Patrick led the way to where he thought the supermarket would be at. He led us around a couple corners, and we stopped in front of a small supermarket at the back of the mall.

"Told you." he said, heading in the place.

I followed him, Kayla and Brandy stayed close to me. Since we were the only ones living here I was expecting to see the shelves stocked with different foods. They were all empty.

"What the hell?" Patrick yelled running through the aisles.

"Where did all the food go? We're the only ones living here!" Sabrina yelled.

Now this was a time to panic, we were going to have to start leaving the mall on runs if we need food. Where did it all go?

"Dad is something wrong?" Kayla asked me.

"Nothing," I said, "We'll figure something out."

"All the food is gone?"

"Not all, not yet." I replied.

I saw a couple of boxes of cereal lying on the ground, but that was really it. You would also see the odd rotten fruit lying on the ground. Someone had ransacked this place without us even knowing.

"What do you think happened Jeff?" Sabrina asked me.

"Someone was obviously here without us knowing. They must have kept coming back, and eventually took all the food. That's the only idea I can think of."

"That's what we get for not guarding the whole mall," Patrick began, "We were so stupid. We had the mall cleared out, yet we crammed ourselves in the food court. Why? We only guarded the roof of the food court, that's it. Anyone could have come in through the backdoors."

Patrick kicked a shelf, "Damn we are so stupid!"

"Alright settle down," I said, "We'll figure something out, at least we still have the mall. It's not all that bad."

"Yeah, I guess we will all just die from starvation then," Patrick said, "Not all that bad."

"Dammit Patrick listen to me, it's not that bad. We will find something, it's not the end of the world."

"It kind of is." Sabrina added in.

"What do you think we are going to do then? Huh?" Patrick asked.

"We are going to have to start leaving the mall to go on runs. Toronto is full of stores, we can manage."

"You know what else it's full of Jeff? Stranglers." Patrick argued.

I heard a sound by the supermarket door. Like the sound of cracking.

"Stay back." I said.

I started walking closer to the door, very slowly. I then got to the door and peeked my head out, I jumped back. I saw two people there, a man and a woman. They were crouched by the doors, I wasn't expecting that. They both looked young, around their twenties. I pulled my shotgun out and pointed it at them.

"Stand up." I ordered.

Everyone else pointed their guns at the two people. They both got out of their crouching positions. They stood up and faced me. They looked pretty bad. They had dirt and blood covering them.

"Who are you two and what are you doing in our mall?" I asked.

"I'm Dan, and that's my sister Gretchen." the man stuttered, raising his hands.

"Do you have anything to do with this?" I asked, waving around the empty supermarket.

"Y-yes, we're very sorry," Gretchen spoke, "We thought this place was abandoned. We are living on our own. We have our own little camp inside of an abandoned building just outside of here. Very close. Ever since the start of this all, we've been taking some food from here. It was just so convenient. Being right there and all, it's the only thing that has kept us alive."

"I say bullshit! They are thieves!" Patrick accused.

"Stop!" I yelled, "I can tell they're telling the truth. We wouldn't have noticed anyway. Jake and Jess had this place stocked up with so much food, this was the first time we've ever actually had to go on a run for it! We would have never noticed them, it was our fault."

"I agree." Sabrina said.

"Do you want your food back?" Dan asked.

"Some of it, we aren't going to let you people starve out there. You can keep some of it. You don't need a whole store full though."

"Thank you," Gretchen said, "You are good people, all of you."

"Just take us back to your camp, and we'll collect some." I said.

"Sure, follow us." Dan motioned.

I didn't follow them, they started walking, then stopped. They looked back at me, confused.

"You coming?" he asked.

"If this is a trap," I began, "If you have more people back there waiting to ambush us. You are going to die."

"It's just us, I promise." Gretchen said.

I started following them, I kept my shotgun pointed at them, just incase they wanted to try anything funny. They were unarmed to begin with, so they couldn't be that big of a threat. Patrick led behind me, and Sabrina stayed in the back of the line watching the kids. We headed out of the mall, out the back door. We were now on the backstreets of Toronto. I turned my head and saw the mall's generator right there, we never did get any gas for it.

"So how much food are you wanting back?" Dan asked.

"Three quarters of it." I said.

Dan stopped and looked back at me, he looked concerned.

"That much?" he asked.

"We have a whole team of people to feed," I said, "You've only got yourself and your sister. You are lucky we are giving you any. Any other group would take it all back, and who knows, some might not be as forgiving as us."

Dan nodded quickly and started walking again. You have to be tough to survive, I need to scare these kids or else they won't take us seriously. We kept walking through the backstreets, we should be at their camp any minute now. Dan and Gretchen were acting weird though, they were slowing down a lot and just being jittery.

We kept walking with them for a couple more minutes, then they stopped in front of a building. This must be their camp.

"This is it?" Patrick asked.

It was a very small building, I could still see the sign. It was an old abandoned thrift shop. It was pretty small. Dan looked back at me one last time.

"Please, could you spare us some more? Once we run out, I don't know what we're going to do. You have a group of people with you, you could find supplies easier than us! Can we do fifty even?"

I shoved him out of the way and walked up to the door of the thrift shop. He fell onto the ground.

"No." I said.

That's when they lost it, I guess they knew they weren't capable of living in this world, so they needed as much of an advantage as they could get. We weren't budging, so they lost it. I saw it from the corner of my eye, Dan reached into his shoe and pulled a knife out. He screamed and ran for Patrick. Patrick tried his best to get out of the way, but Dan stabbed him in the shoulder. Patrick hollered in pain and fell to the ground with the knife still sticking out of his shoulder. Gretchen also pulled a knife from her sleeve and darted at Sabrina with it. She tackled Sabrina onto the ground and tried putting the knife into her chest. Sabrina was resisting but I didn't know how long she would last. I then got a headache for no reason, then I was starting to get flashbacks. It was of me and Samantha, we were on a picnic with Kayla. Then I flashed back to reality and saw Dan trying to finish off Patrick, I shook my head and I pointed my shotgun at Dan and fired. Several shells blasted into him, and I put multiple bullet holes into Dan, he fell to the ground and was dead. Sabrina was still resisting the knife for her life. I ran for her, but I didn't have to do anything. There was a flash and a gunshot. I saw Gretchen fall off of Sabrina, she had been shot in the side. I looked over and saw Kayla holding a pistol in the air. She shot Gretchen and saved Sabrina's life. Gretchen was lying on the ground crying in agony. I walked over to her, she looked at me in fear.

"We're taking all of it now." I said.

I pulled out my knife from my sheath and stabbed her in the chest. Ending her crying and suffering. She was going to attract the stranglers if she kept crying like that. I looked over at Kayla, she didn't look scared at all. She kept a brave look on her face. Brandy looked scared though, I guess Kayla was adapting to this world faster than him.

"Let's go get our food back." Kayla said.

I walked up to the building and flung open the doors, I held my shotgun up high incase there were more people here. I almost felt bad for Dan and Gretchen, they were just hungry. We were being generous but they were greedy. The thrift shop was only one floor. I saw all of the food spread out on multiple tables. We weren't going to be able to carry this all back in one trip.

"Patrick go get the truck and bring it here." I ordered.

"Sure thing." Patrick headed out of the building.

I walked up to the tables and started to check over some of the food, it was still all good. Canned goods were close to expiring though.

While Patrick was gone Sabrina walked up to me.

"You weren't yourself back there." she said.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You showed no mercy, you aren't like that. You are always for giving people a second chance."

"They tried to kill us." I said.

"I think I know another thing that triggered it." Sabrina said.

"What?"

"Gretchen was trying to kill me, you got angry. Same thing happened with Clark, you killed him with no mercy. Even Timothy, remember the crazy people at the arcade? They had me hostage and you killed him with no mercy. Your weak point is me, isn't it?"

Sabrina was right, whenever someone tries to hurt her I go mad. If anyone does anything to her, or Kayla, I make sure they die. I think it's because of what happened to Samantha, she was taken from me. I don't want that to happen again. Sabrina moved in closer and kissed me.

(This Part of the Story is From Jess's Point of View)

I kept walking down the alleyway, I wasn't coming back to the mall until I avenge Jake's death. It can't all be for nothing. They alleyway ended, I was surrounded in buildings. Stranglers could be hiding out anywhere. I peeked my head around the corner of a building and saw the street full of stranglers. I placed my backpack down and pulled out a shirt that was cut in half. I wrapped it around my face like a bandana. I liked these better than the respirators anyways. I heard a growl behind me, I turned to see a strangler had come up from behind me. It screamed and I kicked it over. I knelt down and plunged my knife into it's forehead. I looked around the corner and saw all the stranglers on the streets screaming and running in this direction. The other strangler called them.

"Shit!" I yelled.

I turned around and started running down the alley, but more of them showed up in front of me and surrounded me. This was the end. I turned back around and saw more heading for me. They have trapped me in the alleyway. There were a bunch of silenced gunshots and stranglers started falling over. A wave of them fell down and I saw Mark behind them with the silenced rifle. He was holding it one handed and it actually looked pretty cool.

"Come on!" he yelled.

This was my chance to get away, I followed him down the alleyway, in the direction back to the mall. More of them came running around the corners of buildings and blocked our way. Mark kicked a back door open from a building in the alley. He grabbed me and we ran inside. He slammed the door behind us and pressed himself up against it as stranglers tried getting in. We were in an old bar.

"Get something to barricade this door with!" he yelled.

I ran over and found an old jukebox. I unplugged it and started pushing it closer to the back door. It was heavy, but I had to keep pushing. Mark ran out of the way at the last second, and I pushed the jukebox right up against the back door. Stranglers could try all they wanted, but they were not going to get in here. The sunlight from the windows was enough for us to see clearly in here.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Don't you mean thank you Mark?" he said.

I rolled me eyes, "You followed me?"

"Yeah, like I was going to let you go alone. Julie and Ned can handle the mall for a little while."

"So what do we do now then?" I asked him."

"We wait, get some rest and we will bust out of here once I come up with something."

I sighed and walked around, I was not going to find Hilda. Toronto is too big, I need to accept that now, I bumped into something. I looked door and saw a container of gasoline. Then a bunch more, there was a whole stack of them lying around. I felt each one, they were all full. I guess this bar was preparing for the worst. Now is not the time to ask questions though, now we can power the generator at the mall. We can't carry that much gasoline though, and there were stranglers everywhere surrounding the building. We would think of something, we always do.