[T: 1 Day 20 Hours]
The group starts packing up. Some people within the group do have purses and packs of some kind. They empty out some non-essentials, some move their stuff in the packs of others so that they can have an empty pack or purse, stuff leaves along the bottom of the pack/purse then stuff cooked meat in them so that they can carry food with them. There’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to find a location to make either a fire, a monster to harvest meat from, nor the time to even make a fire and cook meat. And since the monsters provide more than enough food for everyone it felt like a waste not to carry the extra meat, ready to be consumed for the journey ahead of them.
To note, some people had not eaten any of the meat, giving the reason that they are vegetarians. They look hungry and awful. They have all tried eating leaves.
Frank approaches Johannes (Red), La Fonte (Black Military Man) and Jose.
Johannes: Ok I think everyone is just about ready. They’ve all eaten, drank and packed up the food we prepared during the night and morning. They should’ve had the time to rest plenty but I don’t think they did.
La Fonte: We can hike along the stream and rest if we need to, if we find a good enough place, where the ones who did rest can guard those resting. But we can’t stay here. We need to go.
Frank nods. Gold and Fit Woman in Sweats joins.
Fit Woman in Sweats: I think we’re just about ready to move out. Anything else we need to think or worry about?
Jose: No we’re good.
He scatters the fire.
Jose: Let’s go
The group hugs along the stream, once again going in a sort of column. La Fonte and Johannes are at the front leading the way. Frank is around the middle of the column with his family. Gold, Fit Woman in Sweats, Alice and her boyfriend are more towards the end. The two asian men in suits and the black man in glasses are behind the front of the column but in front of Frank and his family.
[ T: 1 Day 22 Hours]
The stream they are following has met with another stream. The stream divides into three directions. The main stream, which they have just found, runs towards the north. The stream they had initially followed runs toward the north as well, but at the divide heads a little to the east before going northward and emptying into the lake they had camped. The stream is streaming from the south.
There isn’t a real debate on what to do. They still plan on following the stream. They also figure that any of the streams that head northbound and divide into several other streams have a higher chance of emptying into a dead end. They want to go somewhere. And so they decide to follow the stream in the opposite direction that that stream is heading. They want to go closer to the source.
[T: 1 Day 22 Hours]
After around half an hour they come across another fork indicating that the stream they thought was mainstream was only a tributary stream. The stream is turning more and more towards the west, but still heading south.
On the other side of the fork, towards the west, is a bed of rocks and boulders, with a steep hill behind it. The stream can still be crossed. They cross the stream. And they sort of take a small break there, to see how things are looking.
They have a group of around fifty people. Around twenty people are armed. No one got lost. Many are struggling. They are not used to hours of hiking. They are not even used to walking.
La Fonte and Johannes just sit atop a giant boulder, looking at everyone. Frank is with his family. Alice is still with her boyfriend. They do nothing, but sit and watch the water. Gold and Fit Woman in Sweats approaches La Fonte and Johannes.
Fit Woman in Sweats: Where’s Jose?
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La Fonte: He went ahead of us. Just gonna scout a little.
Fit Woman in Sweats looks westward, her eyes following up the stream. She sees Jose in the distance. She looks up back to La Fonte and Johannes.
Fit Woman in Sweats: We were at the back just following everyone. We might need to rest frequently like this. Everyone seems to be out of shape.
La Fonte: It’s not a big deal. As long as we take even baby steps to getting out of here, we’re going somewhere.
Fit Woman in Sweats squints up at him. She doesn’t say anything. She puts her hand overhead her eyes, covering them with shade so that she doesn’t have to squint up at him.
Fit Woman in Sweats: Ok, then.
She shrugs.
Gold hadn’t said anything. He’s looking up the steep hill. There are bushes atop the steep hill. The bush seems to be moving, rustling a little, but there’s no wind. At least no wind they can feel down there.
As Gold watches, a monster sort of rolls down the extremely steep hill bouncing down a little. It comes down with a crash as the floor that is made of white pebbly rocks hit each other from the impact. The sound is like a cascade of small rocks bouncing in a jar.
Everyone turns toward the sound, a few of the jumpy ones getting up fast, readying their weapons. The monster doesn’t get up. It doesn’t move. It’s facedown in the ground, its face buried in the rocks. Frank approaches it, his machete ready. He goes around it, to its behind.
Frank pokes at it. It’s not moving. It seems to be unconscious. Frank motions at his son to come, while he points his machete at its neck, ready to cut open an artery if it moves. “Lucas, come here”.
Lucas removes himself from the side of his wife and approaches the side of his father, who now has his left foot stepping on the left arm of the monster and his right foot next to the right side of the monster's torso.
Frank hands his son the machete. “Kill it”, he says. Lucas looks at the machete. There’s a pause. “Kill it”, Frank says again and beckons with the weapon to indicate for Lucas to take it. Lucas wordlessly takes it and stares at it. “You gotta aim at the neck”, Frank says, “only way to kill them short of shooting them in the head with a bullet. They don’t seem to register pain like we do. So they just keep moving till they die. So we gotta make them bleed out- ”.
Frank stops talking as he realizes that Lucas is not moving, just staring at the weapon. Frank is now just looking at Lucas. And waits. Lucas is unmoving, still staring at the weapon.
Frank asks, his face the embodiment of a deadly killer, “What are you doing, Lucas? Your son just died. Kill the monster”.
Lucas is still in a trance when Frank forces past the barrier of that trance. “Lucas, are you going to lose another child?” Lucas breaks out of his trance and turns his face to his father, who nonchalantly asks seriously, “Am I going to lose another grandchild, Lucas? I’ve already lost one grandchild.” As Lucas’s emotionless face intensifies into shock and horror, Frank then asks with his eyes cold and dead, “Are you going to let another one die?”
There is silence. No noise, only the sound of running water. Lucas looks at his father, unable to bring a single thought to run in his mind. Lucas can not feel anything. He doesn’t know if he is feeling anything. Lucas is in shock, his eyes wide, his lips almost parted agape.
Nobody does anything, nobody says anything. The silence continues. Lucas’s wife is looking at Frank, Lucas and the monster on the ground, wordless, face frozen cold, her eyes mad.
Frank looks deeply into the eyes of his son, “What happens when I’m gone Lucas? What happens then? Are you still going to be doing nothing? Is Timotheus gonna die? Is Angela going to be the monster's next meal? What happens then Lucas? Tell me”.
Lucas’s response is slow and drawn out, the life of the words deflating as he utters them, a sort of hiss. “Fuck you”. There is silence and no one moves. Lucas’s wife walks to the plumber. No one notices. She grabs the hacksaw, unhooks it from the plumber's belt and walks away with it.
Lucas and Frank are still staring at each other. Lucas says another “Fuck you” to Frank, this time more sure of himself, the words this time slightly with rage. There is a wordless battle of eye contact, one cold and serious, the other filled with rage after recovering from his shock and horror.
Unbeknownst to them and also escaping the detection of all other eyes, due to how intense the situation is between Frank and his son, Lucas’s wife gets to the monster, her presence only barely being registered by the peripherals of everyone’s gaze. Many switch their attention to her. She is low on the ground in a sort of half kneeling half squatting position. And as the hacksaw touches the tip of Frank's pants, Frank looks down, alerted of her presence. Lucas looks down as well and sees his wife sawing at the neck of the monster, wordlessly determined. She saws at the monster no longer in tears or shock. Prompted into action at the words Frank previously uttered, she is determined to kill this monster and prevent any other monster from killing her children. Lucas has no words. He is overwhelmed. He can do nothing but watch as his wife chooses and decides to walk a path that he now has no choice but to follow.
His wife’s hands are bloodied, blood also spraying onto her clothes. Her shoes are in a stream of blood. She is breathing heavily. She stops. She looks up at Lucas. She hands him the handsaw, stands up and takes a step back. Lucas proceeds to saw at the monster.