The Unfortunates: Ridley’s Story Part III

Catch up from the beginning here!

In the early hours of the morning. . .

Cyndi couldn’t stop itching. The rash she developed around her wound was driving her insane. Her body was getting hot, and she was feeling uncomfortable in her clothing. She would wear less clothing but was afraid to let the others see where she was bitten. She was on the last watch waiting impatiently for the others to wake. . .

Stirring awake, the first few moments felt as though I was waking up on any regular day. Thinking about getting coffee ready, taking a morning piss, and looking forward to the workday ahead. Instead, the realization of the current state of the world hit me like a ton of bricks. I sat up and reached for my gun which was under my pillow on the bed that belonged to Cyndi. Feeling a little relieved that it was there, I got up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. It felt good to be able to sleep on a bed but for how long would that be manageable? 

I walked into the living room finding Cyndi sitting on the couch. 

“Good morning,” I said to her.

“Morning,” she replied.

I walked into the kitchen and flipped the switch, relief flooding across my face that the electricity was still working, for now. I looked through the cupboards and found some coffee and a drip pot. I set some water on the stove to boil and heard Marc walk in. 

“Morning,” he said groggily, looking worse for wear but managing to give me a small smile as I turned to face him.

“How’d you sleep?” I asked as I poured the boiling water into the drip pot. 

“You know, I’ve slept better but I really can’t complain, considering.” He replied as he went to look for three cups for us to pour the coffee into. 

Cyndi was still out in the living room just sitting on the couch, not making a move. Just simply staring straight ahead. 

“You okay?” I asked as I walked towards her with a cup offered out to her. 

Caught off guard, she looked taken aback but quickly refocused upon seeing my outstretched hand. 

“Thank you,” she said as she took the cup, ignoring my question completely. 

We all sat in the living room enjoying our precious cups of coffee, even though it had only been two days since everything went to shit, coffee felt like such a treat. I’m sure we were all thinking, how long would this last? How long would the world be mad? How long would coffee last? How long would we be able to stay in this house? There wasn’t much to eat at the home since Cyndi just moved in, so supplies were already limited. We would need to go out but to where? 

“I hate to say it but I think Marc and I will need to go out to look for supplies and to see what the situation is out here in these parts.” I said as Marc groaned loudly, I knew he would. “You can stay here and get some rest; we should be back by nightfall.”

“Okay,” she acknowledged, taking another sip of her coffee. 

After our coffee and using the restroom, Marc and I loaded up into the car and headed out. Looking around in the daytime, there really wasn’t much to see around Cyndi’s house beside a few houses way off in the distance. At the end of Cyndi’s road, I looked to the right and the left, to the left, was back to the gas station, and to the right was what I expected to be a small town. I turned the blinker on to turn right and instantly felt foolish, knowing full well that turn signals no longer mattered. 

A few tense minutes later we approached the outskirts of the small town, the sign outside of it stating, Welcome to Pine Cove Pop. 1,453. I momentarily stopped the car to scan the area and saw nobody milling about outside and slowly proceeded down the main road. 

We parked in front of the small ma-and-pop grocery store that was supposedly named after them with the sign Jasper’s hanging over the front door. Putting the car in park, I sighed and looked over at Marc who looked worried. “Alright, let’s make sure the coast is clear first inside and then fill up a shopping cart for each of the essentials, sounds good?” I asked.

“Sounds like we have to,” Marc replied, checking his pistol. 

We got into the store and slowly made our way down each aisle, thankfully there were only a few. We got to the store’s backroom within a few short minutes. I placed my hand on the back door and looked at Marc who was giving me the go-ahead. I opened it slowly and the smell hit us instantly. I wanted to gag but kept my composure as I walked through the doorway looking around for any signs of movement. There wasn’t any but Marc and I found what the smell was coming from. There were three bodies hanging from the ceiling that had soiled and wet themselves after becoming deceased. There was no air conditioning either, so the heat magnified the smell intensely. If I had to guess, I would say that this was the Jasper family taking the only way they knew how to get out of this mess. 

We walked back into the main storeroom and closed the door behind us. “Well, at least the coast is clear,” I said with some uncertainly, feeling sick to my stomach. “Let’s get this shit over with.”

Marc and I each took a shopping cart and some bags along with us and started to walk around, grabbing anything of use; water, canned goods, toilet paper, coffee, cigarettes, rubbing alcohol, band-aids, etc. 

After we got everything loaded into the car, we got into the front seats and took long deep breaths. “Shit, that was probably the most intense thing I’ve ever done,” Marc said as he fished out a bottle of water to sip from. 

“I agree, I’m just thankful there were no more of those things around,” I replied as I started the car up and turned around to get back to Cyndi’s house. I found it odd that we didn’t encounter any of those things here today. Where were they hiding? What the fuck was going on?

Pulling into the driveway, I turned the ignition off and stared for a second at the front window, noticing that the curtains were moving slightly, as though someone were pressing up against them. That’s odd, I thought as I got out of the car. 

“Marc, do you see that?” I asked as I walked closer to the house. 

“Yeah, that’s odd. What do you think Cyndi is doing in there?” He responded. 

I walked up to the door and opened it slowly, walking over the threshold and looking towards the living room. Cyndi was up against the window as if she were trying to claw her way out of it and uttering a slow guttural moan. My hand went to my gun reflexively as I called her name out softly, “Cyndi?”

She turned towards me, her eyes giving me a blank stare but her mouth was opening up to moan even louder upon seeing me. She came towards me with her hands outstretched, continually moaning. Fuck, I thought as I drew my gun up and aimed at her leg, firing. She went down fast but after only a few short seconds, she started to get back up to the best of her ability. She dragged her shot leg behind her, reaching out towards me while moaning ever louder. I raised my gun higher this time and shot her in the chest. She kept her footing during the blow but continued as if she was never shot. Finally, I aimed for her head, fired, and this time she didn’t move again. 

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