Episode 3: Hide

Episode 3

"Hide"

(Jeff)

I stare into the flames of guilt, this was on me. I promised Kayla to keep everyone safe, but I knew that was not true to minute I said it. Nobody can stay safe in this world, why did I even promise Kayla that? Not only did we lose Julie, but Bay was missing. Where did she go? We checked the strangler bodies over several times, and none of them were Bay. Stan was taking her disappearing very hard. I told him she would turn up, but he didn't want to hear it. She will turn up, I'm sure of it. We were burning Julie, she deserved a funeral, and the ground was too frozen to dig, it would take us all week just to dig one hole. Kayla stood beside me and held my hand, she looked up at me and I could tell what she was thinking. She remembered just as much as I did on what I said last night. It was a lie, I shouldn't have given her false hope.

"You can't keep everyone safe, it's okay." Kayla said to me.

We all said what we needed to say at the funeral to Julie, but out of all people, Ned seemed the most upset, I wasn't sure why. He would be the one that wouldn't care out of all people. Ned liked to keep to himself. Why was he so torn up now? He's attended so many funerals, and he never shed a tear.

"Julie never understood how useful she was to the group," Ned broke the silence, "she came to me last night and asked me if I thought she was useless. I told her no, but I was rude about it, and I wasn't too enthusiastic about it. All she needed was someone to talk to, she felt like dead weight the group pulled around. If only she'd known that wasn't true, maybe she wouldn't have done something so drastic."

"If you're blaming yourself, don't." Jess said.

"Yeah," Mark added in, "her death had nothing to do with you talking to her last night. People die, it will never get any easier having these funerals, but it's something we have to deal with nowadays. It's a part of life, it always had been."

Kayla leaned down to Julie's scorched body and placed her hand on her face.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, "It wasn't your fault you lost us."

The funeral ended and everyone started cleaning the bodies out of the mansion, this was going to take all day, and a lot of gasoline. We just can't leave dead strangler bodies outside to rot even more and smell the place up. Hopefully we would have enough gasoline for this.

"Everyone keep your bandanas on," Jess ordered, "these things may still be dead, but who knows if they can still get you sick."

Kayla and I teamed up and started lugging bodies out of the mansion.

"I've noticed your finger, you have it wrapped in something." Kayla said to me.

"I-I had to cut it off Kayla. A strangler clawed it, I didn't want the infection to spread."

"You'll be fine though right?" she asked.

"Yes Kayla, I'll be fine. Now that the finger is off, the infection stopped spreading. Well at least that's what should happen. I feel fine right now, so yes, I'll be fine."

"That's good to know," Kayla sighed, "But what about Bay? She was my friend."

"I don't know where she is, but I'm sure she'll turn up."

(Bay)

An army of stranglers came my way, I led them away from the mansion, but they were headed for the flare. I needed to get out of here before they found me, if they found me, I'd be dead. As soon as I fired off the flare I sprinted out of the location, I saw the stranglers coming for the flare at full speed in the distance. If I ran to the side and wrapped around the forest, I could probably dodge them. I just hope they don't come back to the mansion, it was a mess, and we were very close to losing it and everyone inside it. I jumped over logs lying on the ground, and tripping a few times. I was panicking, the stranglers were coming fast and they would see me if I didn't get out of here. I didn't want to lead the stranglers back to the mansion either. As they got closer I realized I wouldn't be able to outrun them, so I did something I was best at, climbing trees. I started scaling a tree as fast as I could. I got high enough so none of the stranglers could see me. I waited there in silence, I heard the stranglers getting closer and closer. After a few minutes of hiding up there I saw the first strangler pass, it headed for the flare which was lying on the ground about fifty metres from here. A wave of stranglers followed behind it. I held my breath and closed my eyes. Did stranglers know how to climb? What would I do if one saw me up here? Would they try to climb the tree? Or would they just wait me out? I didn't want to find out.

(Mark)

I started lugging bodies out of the house with Jess, I would take the head and she would take the legs, and we would toss them out of the house into a large pile. We had to make a bunch of piles, we would burn them all after this. The fire from the piles of stranglers was going to be a lot, so we were going to have to burn the bodies before dark, or else the fire will be a giant beacon to the mansion. We have a better chance of nobody seeing if we burn it at daylight. While we were lugging bodies out, I decided to start talking to Jess, to make things less depressing.

"I know we haven't had much time together," I said, "things just keep happening. Relationships are even harder nowadays. We should spend some more time together, maybe take a walk after we're done here?"

"I don't know if I'm really in the mood for a walk right now Mark." Jess said.

I looked over at Julie's burnt body, and I sighed.

"Oh yeah, sorry."

"But I appreciate what you're trying to do, once things clear up, we'll be together more. There has just been a lot of shit happening lately."

I nodded and tossed another body out into a pile with Jess, she was right. With the way things are going now, we need to take some time on things.

(Bay)

I stayed in the tree and shook in fear. I tried staying as quiet as possible, but I was so close to losing my shit. The stranglers were right under me, and they wouldn't leave either. Even after the flare burnt out, they stayed around and wandered. I was trapped up in this tree. I couldn't leave, even if I got away I would just lead the stranglers back to the mansion. I fumbled around in my pockets for something, anything. I felt another flare in my pocket. I got an idea, but it was a long shot. I took a deep breath and pulled the flare out, I loaded it into the gun. If I shot a flare further down the forest, would the stranglers follow it? Or would that just give away my location? I had no choice in this situation, if all goes to shit, I'm going to have to sacrifice myself. I took one more deep breath and pointed the flare gun in front of me. I fired it off and waited for something to happen. The stranglers looked into the air and watched the flare fly off further into the forest. They started following it, thank god. It worked. They started running after the flare, and left me alone. I needed to act fast, I dropped from the tree and landed badly on my ankle. I heard a crack and I bit down on my sleeve to stop myself from screaming. That hurt. I got up and limped away as fast as I could. The mansion was not too far, I can make it.

(Jeff)

Everyone took a break, we were nowhere close to being done. We already had three huge piles and there was still tons more of stranglers around the mansion to go. On the bright side, the dead strangler bodies inside the mansion were mostly cleared out. It was just the outside that needed a lot of work. Mark and Jess sat down together and talked, Stan and Ned hung around by themselves, not wanting to talk to anybody, and Kayla, Doug, and I stayed with each other. I pet Doug on the head and Kayla sat in the snow forming snowballs. She looked really depressed.

"Is this going to go on forever?" she asked me.

"What?" I asked.

"The killing, the death. Is it going to go on forever? It feels like whenever things start looking up for us, someone always has to die. I've lost count of how many stranglers I've killed. I never thought the apocalypse would last this long. Who were those people that sent the horde at us? What did they want?"

"Those are all questions I can't answer, but I'm sure the stranglers will all be killed off someday. Humanity has lasted a long time, and they have gone through a lot of crap. We can pull ourselves through this."

"This is different though dad. All of those horrible things that happened to humanity before, can't even come close to what is happening right now. It's almost as if this is how we go extinct. The dinosaurs went extinct from the meteors, humans go extinct from the stranglers? Is that how it is?"

"We're still here, and a lot smarter than the dinosaurs." I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

I walked inside to look around for some more bodies that we might have missed. There were still some strangler bodies here and there, but the house was pretty much strangler free. We still had the walls to clean up though, blood splattered all over them. While I was looking around, I heard a noise upstairs. It almost sounded like someone crying. I rushed upstairs and followed the noise into the infirmary, where Samantha was. I opened the door and saw Samantha on the bed, awake. She was freaking out, not knowing where she was. She saw me and passed out again. I pulled up a chair and sat beside her, I tried waking her again.

"Samantha! Samantha! It's me! Please wake up! It's your husband, Jeff."

She opened her eyes faintly, looking at me. She was barely conscious. She opened her mouth and croaked something, I could barely make it out.

"Don't let him hurt me." she said.

She closed her eyes and went to sleep again. She was talking about Charlie, she must have been. The things he did to her, I couldn't imagine. He's dead now, and he's dealt with. That's all that matters. I sat there and just watched her sleep, she was safe now. I wouldn't let anything happen to her, but I can't make any promises. We all know how that goes.

(Kayla)

I was sitting around with Doug, he looked sad, just like everyone else. I hadn't seen him wag his tail in a while. He just sat in the snow and looked at all of the dead strangler bodies, I could almost tell what he was thinking just by looking at him. He looked at me and whimpered. I pet him, trying to make him feel better. All of a sudden, he jolted his head towards the forest and started barking.

"Doug stop! You're gonna bring more!"

He started running towards the forest, everyone stopped what they were doing and watched Doug. I started hearing rustling going on in the bushes, I followed Doug, trying to figure out what was making that sound. A strangler suddenly jumped out from the forest and attacked Doug, he dodged the strangler and tried getting away, but the strangler was determined to catch Doug. I pulled out my pistol and pointed it at the strangler, I grabbed Doug and I pulled the trigger, nothing. Just the faint sound of a click.

"Damn this useless gun!" I threw it at the ground.

There was another sound from the forest, and Bay came running out. Limping a little bit. She pulled out a knife and tackled the strangler off of Doug. She stabbed the stranger in the head. Doug ran to me with its tail in between its legs. I hugged him, then looked up at Bay.

"Thank you."

Bay got up and brushed snow off of her pants. She limped towards me and patted me on the head.

"Anytime."

Stan saw her and his eyes lit up. He got out of his moping mood and darted for her. He hugged her.

"Oh easy there Stan, I'm a little beat up."

He let go of her and looked at her ankle, where she was limping.

"What happened?"

"I got the horde away, I fired the flare gun. I know it was a dangerous act, but it was the only chance we had at surviving. I fell out of tree and busted my ankle up. It was all worth it though, and I'd do it again if I had to."

Stan hugged her again, but lighter this time. Mark and Jess came over and congratulated her for saving the mansion. Ned was still moping though, he just sat there and stared at Julie's body.

(Jeff)

We started burning the bodies right after pouring the gasoline. Everyone was standing around the bodies, watching them burn. Besides Bay, she was recovering in the mansion with her messed up ankle. Stan wrapped a bandaid around it in hopes that would help it. Mark came up to me while the bodies were burning.

"Hey Jeff, do you think you could tell us about Lockwood now? People have been asking."

I sighed and looked at everybody, they were all looking back at me. Wanting me to tell my story. There was no more putting it off, it's time to tell everybody about Lockwood.

"It's the last place on Earth you would want to be in an apocalypse." I said.

Some people seemed surprised by this, they kept on listening.

"It seems good at first, but that's the trick. Once you walk in, you cannot leave. You are a prisoner at Lockwood. The leader Charlie, tells everyone that it is for the greater good. I saw straight through his lies. He was a dictator, he lied, and did horrible things. He had Samantha locked up in the basement, and he would just keep her there. I don't know why, once she gets better we will find out."

"Why was it like that?" Mark asked, "why is Charlie like that? There must be a reason."

"I think he just likes to be in control. He has Kingston almost taken over by Lockwood, there are outposts everywhere, if you walk into Kingston, there is a chance the outposts might see you. He is a dangerous man. I was lucky to have escaped."

"Where is he now?"

"Hopefully rotting in hell, but I don't know for sure. We just need to stay here at the mansion, no more war, no more conflict. That only gets people killed. Lockwood doesn't know I'm here, at least for now."

"No more conflict?" Ned blurted out, "what happened to you Jeff? Conflict is inevitable now. Even if you aren't looking for trouble, it will come your way. What about those people that let the stranglers into the mansion? The people responsible for Julie being killed. Are we just going to let it slide because you don't want anymore conflict? We have to fight back Jeff, or these people will just come back."