Company

6/14/2012 2:27pm

When I first heard the noise it was distant and hollow, like a quarter being knocked on a pipe, but as I sat up, the janitor’s closet coming into focus, I realized it was gunfire. Somewhere, off in the distance there were guns firing, erratically and frantically as if trying to run and gun. Yesterday was a bust, I hid in the closet the entire day for fear that someone had come in the school the other night, but after much deliberation I decided that regardless if someone were in the school or not I needed to shut that door across from the library, otherwise whatever situation I may have in the school may be worsened.

The one benefit I can say by being in the closet all day yesterday was that I devoted a large amount of my time into building a weapon. Although it took much longer than it should have, having only one hand makes even everyday things extremely difficult, I now have a semi satisfying weapon to defend myself. Essentially it’s a mop handle unscrewed at its base with a rakes’ head attached to it so that it’s flush with the handle. I’ve reinforced the hand with bits of leather and duct tape so it should be fairly study. I’ve also taken spare paint remover and filled a few jars with it, a makeshift Molotov cocktail never hurt anyone, so I have five of them as well; also I’ve made a sort of harness out of an old jumpsuit and spare belt I’ve found. Quite the cyber punk look, but it’s more out of necessity: firstly I don’t want anyone to know my age, I’m not a child, but 24 is young enough that I may be seen as a non-threat, and I can’t have that, secondly because my civilian clothes, while stylish, serve no alternate function, so save my leather jacket, which has plenty of pockets, I’m putting the rest away for now. Finally in the janitors closet was a thin paint stripper, sharp enough to hurt, but too thin to do any serious damage, but regardless I slipped it in my right boot.

My left stump is killing me, I had the foresight to bring a bottle of aspirin and I can say for the most part it feels alright, just a dull throbbing. Sometimes I’ll even forget that it’s gone, to look down and have my heart sink again, occasionally flashbacks of a few days prior, with the iron……it’s not something I want to recall again, so enough about that.

Either way I headed out a few hours ago for the door near the library half expecting to find the school overrun by a malicious biker gang from Dawn of the Dead, half expecting to see kids going back to class as if nothing ever happened. I was wrong on both accounts. When I arrived at the door, it was shut. At first I didn’t know what to make of this, but very quickly I had my decision made for me.

What I’m going to recount is to the best of my ability, mind you I’ve seen my share of violence, but what I’m about to say was beyond describing, I’m still shaking.

As soon as I saw that the door was shut I turned around to see three men- boys more like it, maybe 13-17, wearing masks. The one sitting on the steps, holding a pair of brass knuckles was wearing a gas mask, the one leaning in front of the library was holding a baseball bat and had a kerchief over his face and the last one to my immediate right leaning next to the bathroom door was wearing a hockey mask and was holding a very large, very sharp machete. My survival instinct kicked in and I went into the non-threatening mode-there is no reason to fight, as there is nothing I have that they would want.

“Thank god, there are others alive!” I said

The one on the steps stood up with such casual regard it could have been as though he didn’t see or hear me, he slowly walked over to the man in front of the library and said something to him in a quiet voice. Then motioned to me.

“Where are you guys from? How did you guys get here? Are there others alive?” Again I attempted at pacifistic conversation, but nothing.

It was then that I realized the situation as it truly was. When I looked over at the man on my right again, i realized he was holding something in his left hand, below his belt: a chain. Not a heavy chain but almost like a dog chain. Which led to the bathroom, he tugged on it hard twice, and the chain grew slack, out walked a young girl, maybe 11 or 12 with the chain around her collar. He face was beaten beyond recognition and she was in her underwear, blood covered the inside of her legs and the corners of her mouth. This young girl was the prisoner of these boys, and they were raping and torturing her to their delight. I’m not much of a fighter, or an evil person by any nature, but as the two men walked towards me from the library and the one with the girl just kept leaning watching me sweat, something snapped in me. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing, or something that I will never be able to get back, but regardless of how this seems, I want you to know, that I am not proud of what I did.

When the first one with the kerchief around his face entered my reach I swung the rake with all my might at the side of his head. The sound was like the cracking of a heavy bowling ball and pieces of skull and brain went flying all over the other man. Without a seconds hesitation I pulled my rake out of his skull and turned pouring every ounce of my strength into swinging my rake into the back legs of the other before the, now dead man, even hit the ground. The minute he was on the ground I dropped my knee with a speed and force I’ve never experience into the small of his back, cracking his spine, he screamed like a stuck pig and writhed in agony as I turned my face to the last man still leaning against the bathroom door with the girl by the collar. Her face was that of fear and pain and my blood boiled to it’s brim. He ran towards me, his two friends now on the ground, one bathed in a pool of his own blood, the other immobilized and dying. He grabbed my neck and threw me to the ground with such force it nearly knocked me out, I felt a cracking beneath me and my back began to sting. The haze of my anger was like a fog, I saw nothing but the veins in his head and neck. Slowly my lights began to dim and a sharp pain entered my mind as his large machete pieced the meat between my ribs, the pain sharpened my focus and in a fury of blood and anger I grabbed the thin blade from my boot. I struck his neck and he tumbled off me, but before he could move I was on him, sawing at his neck while the cartilage popped and the blood vessels broke filling his mouth with blood and vomit. I continued to saw long after he was dead, until his neck was nothing but a gaping hole filled with blood.

I sat back on his body, looking down at the life I’d taken, my face covered in blood and sweat. Then I turned my attention to the one in the gas mask; whose spine I’d broken, he’d been crawling for the door. I stood up but before I got to him the young girl was on him, choking him with her chain, I pulled her off screaming, took off his mask, and rolled him over,

“More of you?” I asked almost monotone.

His eyes were filled with fear and tears, his mouth filled with blood and I knew that he had bitten off his own tongue after falling from my rake to the back of his leg. I shook my head and slit his throat.

“I wanted to kill him,” said the young girl.

“you don’t want what I feel.” I said.

I took his gas mask, and a few of their supplies and me and the girl dragged them into the ladies bathroom. She took a few of their clothes and got dressed. After that we washed off the blood and she helped me with my cut, although not deep it’s wide, she was able to sew it up after a bit of coaxing, but that’s the last of my thread. Also one of my Molotov’s broke when the last guy was on top of me, so she helped pick out the spare bits of glass that were stuck in my back. Also…….she thanked me, and I told her I was sorry for what they did to her. Her name is Sam. I shut the door across from the library and locked it tight, we ended up moving to a small classroom in the lower halls of the school, because I knew the Janitors closet wouldn’t fit us both. She’s asleep now so I thought I’d update. We talked about it and I promised I’d keep her safe, so we’re gonna stay together for awhile.

I feel like something is different in me now. Maybe this is what life will be like from now on. In any case it’s nice to have someone to talk to, my fear now is that there are more of them, and that they’ll be looking for their friends……I can’t hear gunfire in the distance anymore.

-Ron & Sam