Staying Alive

8

Somehow, John had made it down four flights of stairs. He figured he was at the ground floor now. He’d done it on his butt, with his hand on the guardrail, moving blindly. The entire time, he could only hope that there wasn’t anyone in there with him. The screams he’d heard over the last two weeks were still fresh in his mind.

His briefcase was now slung over one shoulder, and the thin leather strap dug painfully into him. His kitchen knife was in his free hand.

He was still in the pitch-black darkness, but within minutes he’d found a door.

His hands gripped the solid steel metal bar of the door and he pushed.

Light came bursting in, shocking his darkness-adapted eyes.

John looked outside cautiously, sticking only his head out.

Shit, he’d found the wrong door. Maybe he’d lost count as he made his way down the flights of stairs. The truth was that John couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken the stairs, if he ever had at all. He was an elevator man, as were most of the building’s upscale occupants.

Well, it was the wrong door. But it was a door.

John shuddered at the thought of heading back into the darkness.

He stepped out the door and found himself behind the building in an alley.

John was already exhausted from the trip down the stairs. Maybe it was because of the hunger he felt like a pit in his stomach. Or maybe it was because he’d never worked out those muscles before. Not that he worked out much at all. His brother, Max, had always been the physically fit one, while John was more content to save his energy for his investment schemes.

Despite his fatigue, John started off down the alley. So far, everything looked normal.

Rounding the alley’s exit, John found himself on Broad Street, which some called the pulse of Center City Philadelphia.

His jaw dropped as he gazed down the once-bustling city street.

Then again, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

There were cars parked everywhere, abandoned, some with their doors open, as if people had fled quickly. Most of the cars were in the lanes, but some had been driven up onto the sidewalks before being abandoned.

The entire street was packed full of cars. There must have been a huge traffic jam to get out of the city. By the looks of it, most people had been stuck and never gotten out.

There wasn’t a human in sight.

The street was desolate.

Except for a dog barking somewhere in the distance, there wasn’t a single sound.

This wasn’t what John had expected to find. He’d heard the noises, the screams. He’d heard it all. It had sounded like a complete madhouse, complete violent chaos. It had sounded like humanity turned completely savage and ruthless.

Maybe the flame of violence had burned bright, and then burned itself out. Maybe people had taken shelter in apartments and business buildings, waiting to starve together, too terrified to leave.

John didn’t know what to do, so he started walking.

He walked along the sidewalk slowly. His mind was a tumbling mess of stupefaction. He was too hungry and shocked to have many thoughts.

The shop windows he passed were shattered. There was nothing inside the shops, when he looked.

It turned out John’s first impression, that there were no people here, was wrong.

He saw his first body on the sidewalk. It was a young man, with his skull caved in. A bloody brick lay nearby.

John had no reaction. He was already too numb. He just stepped over the body and continued walking.

John headed west, towards the Schuylkill River that ran through the city.

In the first fifteen minutes, he saw many more bodies. He looked at them all. Afterwards, he didn’t give them so much as a glance. Gradually, he stopped even noticing them. Call it shell shock or numbness, but John certainly wasn’t himself. He’d been changed, perhaps permanently.

John wasn’t even paying attention to where he was. He knew that he was walking west, and that was all that he cared about.

“Whoa, whoa, what the hell are you doing out here?”

The voice came out of nowhere.

John felt so out of it, so numb, that he didn’t even look to see where the voice was coming from. His brain only half registered the sound.

The kitchen knife was still in his hand, but he had no intention of using it, even if the voice came from a threat.

“Hey there,” said the voice again.

It came from a man, who scurried to catch up to John.

The man wore khaki pants and a button-down striped shirt. His hair was disarranged, and his once-respectable clothes were torn in various places.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. Can you hear me?”

Finally, John looked at the man. But he didn’t stop walking.

“What do you want?” said John.

“I just want to help you,” said the man. “I’m Lawrence J. Hekels. I was a social worker, a therapist, before this all started… all this chaos… I figure I’m still alive for a reason. And that reason is that I might just be able to help someone… What are you doing out walking around?”

“Got to get out,” muttered John.

Lawrence Hekels walked alongside John.

The countless dead bodies had numbed John intensely. Maybe it was just too horrible for his brain to really comprehend. So it had started to shut down. But here was another human, alive. He was named Lawrence and he was speaking to John. This seemed to start waking John up a little.

John picked up his pace, walking faster, and Lawrence increased his own to keep up with him.

“I see you’ve got a knife there, but trust me, that’s not going to be enough. We’ve got to get inside before the sun goes down.”

“Why?” said John. “I’m getting out of the city. I don’t want to starve to death.”

“Trust me,” said Lawrence. “I should be dead. I’ve spent too much time out on these streets. I’ve seen stuff you wouldn’t imagine. Or maybe you can. I don’t know what you’ve been through. The military has fallen. The police have fallen. It’s just vicious gangs now. Really more of just a huge mob. And they mostly come out at night…”

John shrugged. “I don’t really care,” he said. “If I can get out first before I die… then that’s fine with me…”

Lawrence spoke like a trained therapist. He spoke in easy-to-understand phrases. He kept his tone calm and level despite the situation.

“You say you don’t want to starve,” he said. “But trust me when I tell you it could be worse… Much worse…”

“What is this?” said John. “You’re like an out-of-work therapist now or something? How are you going to help people at all with just mere words? I don’t need words. I need weapons, or food, or water. Hell, I shouldn’t even be talking to you. I should have just stabbed you when you came up to me. Now you don’t seem like much of a threat. I can’t believe you’ve lasted this long.”

“I can’t either,” said Lawrence. “The truth is, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m going to die soon anyway. I figured… Well, I might as well do as much good as I can now. And I don’t have anything to offer except my words and advice. My whole life, I’ve tried to help people. I’ve taken the worst jobs in the worst areas… I’ve… Wait, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” said John, stopping in his tracks. Despite what he said, he’d heard it too.

It was a deep rumbling off in the distance. It sounded like chanting, deep and ritualistic and terrifying.

“They’re coming,” said Lawrence. “Come on, we’ve got to get inside.”

“What?” said John. “They don’t go inside or something?”

“Oh,” said Lawrence. “Of course they do, but if we’re inside, at least we’ve got a chance of surviving. I’ve been lucky so far.”

It was remarkable that Lawrence somehow spoke in his calm, professional tone, despite the situation.

John didn’t know why, but something had changed within him. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he knew that he wanted to survive. He knew that it was an impossible goal.

But maybe it’d be better to at least try for it…

He’d already decided to leave his apartment. He’d known that it’d be better to die trying to get out of the city, than waiting to starve to death.

But now he really wanted to try.

Despite his intense hunger, despite his thirst, despite his weakness, he was going to do everything he could.

“Come on,” he said, jumping into action. He grabbed Lawrence’s hand. “I know a place we can go.”

“We’ve got to get into a building,” said Lawrence.

“I know of one,” said John. “Come with me.”

The chanting was louder now. It sounded like a hundred voices mixed together. It almost didn’t sound human. But as John was learning, humans could be more animalistic and intensely cruel than he’d ever imagined. Especially when driven to extreme ends, in extreme circumstances.