As I rifled through the backpack, the thoughts began to flood my head again, the ones that told me there was nothing worth searching for, that everything up until now had been for not; that this was all one mistake that was only getting larger; that surviving was the ultimate folly humanity clinged on to.
A couple bottles of water, some duct-tape, a swiss-arming knife that looked like the kind that fathers gave to sons before camping trips, and a bloodied book that I left inside the sack, everything else was slipped into a compartment on my own. My backpack was a monstrosity that when strapped to my back took up the area from my neck all the way down to the start of my ass. It had been bigger, but lugging around so much was only ever a hindrance. All those random shrapnel and nuts and bolts that I thought would one day come in handy never did. I thought that one day I would wake up and be Jimmy Neutron or some shit, but I wouldn’t. I had to come to the realization that I was no longer progressing, I was simply surviving. That everyday was not only a struggle, but futile.
As I lay there with my backpack strapped on against the pillar and seeing the desecrated shelves that once housed everything and more that one could ever possibly need, reminded me that we once had it made. Hell, we had heaven on earth. Now, earth was the hell that those pious bastards said it would one day be. They were right, but damn do I bet they wish they hadn’t been.
“Ricardo, Ricardo, where are you man?”
The shouts came from down the aisles. I froze for a second, panned over at the corpse besides the sack that I had just looted, this must be Ricardo. I grabbed up my hunting rifle, strapped it over my back, and reached down for my pistol, removed the safety, and scurried over and underneath some fallen shelves. I nestled myself in between, found some discarded cardboard boxes and other trash that I used to cover myself. I moved the shelves so I could have a view of the body and whoever was going to come find it. Feeling confidently camouflaged I waited for my prey to arrive.
The Ricardo shouts kept getting nearer and nearer, and when they finally arrived at the appropriate aisle, they stopped, silence followed the disbelief. There were two of them, both too young to be out looting, especially such a highly trafficked local such as an abandoned supermarket, so they must have been idiots, or in desperate need of essentials.
A horrified scream came next. The girl had to be no more than 16 and the boy that stood next to her had to be her little brother, or someone's little brother. My heart panged for a moment, it never gets better. Living only gets worse.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
A part of me wanted to walk over and explain myself, would they believe me if I said it hadn’t been me. That I had found him there or better yet, that he attacked me. They never do. Before I could ponder anymore iterations in which the future could deviate towards, I began to hear the sounds of others on their way to the horrified children. The children didn’t seem fazed by those coming, it must have meant that they were in a group with others and were expecting more to come.
An older man and older lady then appeared. They didn’t seem to have any apparent relation to those that stood before me, but you never know. The lady grasped at the horrified girl and the man pulled for the boy to step away from the body.
I lowered my gun, I doubt I had enough bullets to down all of them, and if I did, what would be the point? They looked as malnutritioned as any other scavenger around these parts, if the boy's sack was anything to go off of, they couldn’t have much.
“Shhhh shhhh it's okay, it's okay. Come on, we better get out of here. We don’t know who did this, they may still be around.”
“It’s okay?? IT’s not fucking okay, Mom.”
So it was her mother.
“Ricardo is fucking dead and whoever did it might be still around, let’s look around the store and fucking kill that piece of shit.”
I leveled my gun once again, aiming it at the older man. I couldn’t see any weapon on his body, but most go around concealed, so that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t packing heat.
“Yes, Ricardo is dead and I wish death on whoever did it just as much as you do, honey, I swear it. But running around this store and looking for him won’t do us any good. What if he gets the jump on us and we lose your brother or Dad as well? Then what? Was it worth it for revenge? Revenge is never worth it if it comes with a price.”
“You’re right, but damn. I’m just so fucking mad and it’s bullshit that I can’t be mad at anything, because that fuckers gone.”
“Come on, we better leave.”
The father walked over to the sack, didn’t bother to look inside, he knew what would be missing, but took the sack anyway. Before leaving the corpse, he reached over, checked his pulse one last time, then, after nodding his results, there was another tiny sob from the girl. The man produced a small bottle from his pouch, wetting the body, then produced a match, lit it, and set the boy aflame.
They left after that.
I waited for more than a few minutes and then made my way to the burning body. The smell was awful, but I hadn’t seen a fire in a few days or weeks. I reached into my bag, took out my packet of weenies and began to warm them by the fire. Each bite reminded me how much better cooked food was. Each bite reminded me of the little things we often take for granted, like a weenie cooked just right, over a nice warm fire.
For the time that I stood over the fire, eating my freshly cooked weenies, I could honestly say that I was happy.