The road is a long and wide slab of gravel. Large cracks let green plants sprout up in the absence of road. A deer sticks it's head up at the sound of our footsteps approaching. It runs away as we reveal ourselves, disappearing behind the forest wall. The deer had probably never seen a human in its life. Or maybe it had and instead ran from experience or instinctual knowledge of humans being the over arching apex predator.
The metal encasing of a car rests a few feet in front of us. Vines entrapping it in its place. A single sign is raised above the ground. It's words unreadable by the spray paint coating over it. The road goes on endlessly, an end not visible to the naked eye.
The sun beats down heavily without the trees to shade us from UV rays. We reached here without any issues and with over an hour left of light. I guess William made the right decision, since we still have time to try and find a sort of shelter.
"So, what now?" I hear Kevin ask behind me. I can tell our lack of a solid plan left him anxious.
"Keep walking until we either see a building or the sun sets." William says. I fall behind the rest of the group, back to where Jacob is walking with Sabrina.
"You feeling okay?" I ask. Her face, instead of being pale, is flushed. All of the blood seems to pool at her cheeks making them red in irritation.
"I'm okay." She says simply. She seems to be pulling her own body behind her as she moves in a sluggish way.
"Do you know what's wrong with you?" I question because maybe if it's something I've heard of, I could help.
"I- I don't know. I just need to not be left alone okay?" She yells suddenly. I flinch, but don't make any moves of going away. I hope that her yelling and irritation is a good sign.
I turn my focus on the people in front of us as Sabrina moves hers to the ground. Caleb and Lily are walking side by side, a little closer than normal. Their hands brush against each other's every so often and I catch both of them stealing glances.
I look over at Jacob, to see if he had noticed. Though, Jacob is oblivious to what is happening in front of me. I begin to question my earlier judgment of him being interested in Lily. But I didn't quite yet throw it out of the equation.
In front of Caleb and Lily is Kevin, Marcus, and William. They seem to be discussing something heatedly, but I can't hear what they are saying. Suddenly, they stop. Whatever discussion seizes and they instead just stare at the ground, like a bad sci-fi movie where the robots shut down. Once Caleb and Lily caught up, they do the exact same. I nudge Jacob and point at them.
"There's something on the ground." He says and I can see it now. White paint on the ground, strategically placed as if to try and spell something. I run a little to catch up and the closer I get the more defined the letters get.
"What does that say?" I can hear Marcus question. Each letter on the ground is faded, barely visible.
"It must be so old." Lily says.
"Not 150 years old though, it can't be more than a couple years." William states back and he is right, if it was that old it'd be gone by now.
"So you think there's people around?" Lily asks back to him. I study on the letters in front of me. A defined E, C, and Y. I let my finger trace the letters in the air, closing an eye to focus on it. It is like that old game show, Wheel of Fortune. I smile and let out a little joyous yes! I am never more thankful for spending money at the movie theater back at the facility.
"It says TENT CITY." I say and everyone turns back to trying to read the letters, checking if they saw that too.
"What does that even mean?" Jacob asks, not knowing what the term meant.
"A tent is something people used to go camping in." William says. "You sleep in it."
"So, it's a city of tents?" I say slowly, saying it out loud didn't make it make any more sense than it did in my head. I know what tents are of course, but the words 'tent' and 'city' don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
"I guess we'll find out. The arrow points straight ahead." Jacob answers, pointing out that faded arrow.
"I guess we will." William says, as we get to walking again, I instead walk in the front of the group. I want to know what William, Kevin, and Marcus were arguing about just before.
"What were you guys so heated about, you know, before the tent thing." I ask, curious. They look at each other and then back at me, like it was a secret they can't tell.
"Trying to figure out where we're going to stay the night. We've been walking for a while and nothing has come up." I realize very quickly that it isn't any type of secret, they just don't feel comfortable making decisions with me. I hadn't even noticed before because everything seemed so open to discussion, but that's all it was, discussion. Words that I was letting out for no reason, since no one would listen to my opinion anyway. Or maybe I am just reading too much into the situation.
"Wait." Kevin says stopping us. He then points at something and I watch as everyone's eyes widen before turning around myself. There, in the distance, is a building appearing just in time for the sunset. As we get closer I can see the sign titled REST STOP and a building that I'm not even sure if we could use. Half the building was collapsed and the other half looks like it could any moment. It's covered in vines and tress grow through it. It's completely overtaken by nature.
Outside of it were a couple more shells for cars and a single metal contraption that I knew to be a gas pump. It seems to be the only one to survive since no others are in sight.
I step towards the building in an extra cautious manner in fear of it collapsing onto me. The door of the building is long gone, instead it is just a gaping whole to be used as a entrance. I step through it to see metal shelves still standing, but other than that, there is nothing inside. While half of it is exposed, three walls are still better than none.
"It looks okay." I yell out into the road. Marcus enters next to take a look around before nodding at the others to come in. Though I can see Kevin standing hastily on the other side.
"Oh come on man. You'll survive." Marcus says, annoyed at the older man's skepticism.
"Listen, I get that your annoyed, but have you thought of why all of you guys are so young?" Kevin asks, throwing everyone off.
"What?" Marcus confusingly asks.
"They chose young people because you guys don't have kids or a wife to go home to. You guys are the people that yes, are good, but mostly have no family to miss you. But, I do. So, sorry if I second guess decisions because I want to make it back to see my kids grow up." He rants and suddenly it all makes sense.
"Oh." Marcus says quietly. "Sorry man."
"It's okay. Just thought I'd explain myself."
"Why'd they choose you then?" I ask, wondering about why they would choose a man with a family. "I mean you have kids, it seems cruel."
"He's one of the best." William answers for him. I look back at him sitting down on the ground, resting against one of the metal shelves.
"But couldn't they just choose someone else?"
"When the leaders chose us, they chose people that were the second best. They wanted to keep the best in the facility of course, so they put forth people that came close. In the third floor Michelle is the best and then comes Kevin. No one else comes close after that."
"So they had to choose me." Kevin asks, intrigued.
"Pretty much." He answers and silence falls onto us after. I sat down and placed my bag on the floor, letting my legs rest.
"Should we light a fire?" Jacob asks, breaking the silence.
"It'll attract something." William says simply, shooting Jacob down.
"Or it'll scare everything away. Animals don't exactly like fire." Lily argues. William stares at the ground, deep in thought. For the first time, I notice how his forehead crinkles when he is thinking. I always thought that he had very little emotions, but the more I study his expression, the more I notice the underlying stress. His eyes are more sad than serious and his lips point down in an unhappy frown.
Suddenly his hand is in his bag and he pulls out a gun. I lift my hands out of instinct, fear coursing through me. It isn't until I notice he is looking outside that I put them down.
"Wha-!" Jacob starts to yell but William cuts him off.
"Shh!" He places his finger on his lips and points to the door. A low growl is emitting outside, so quiet I'm surprised he could hear it with our talking. I reach into my own bag and lift my gun, Marcus does the same.
We stand there for several minutes, waiting for the animal outside to make some sort of move. The sun is almost completely set and the light seems to slip away with every second.
"Light a fire." William whispers at Jacob, tossing him the matches from his pocket. Jacob furrows his eyebrows, thinking deeply before moving steadily and silently. He gathers tree branches and twigs that had fallen into the building and places them into a strategic pile. With the spark of a match, we had a fire.
For a while, there's no reaction. Then, there, out of the corner of my eye. I see movement in front of the gaping entrance. The animal looked to be some sort of large dog. Maybe, a wolf or coyote. In the darkening night, it's impossible to tell. It paces several times causing my heart the best hectically, but finally it runs away.
Whether to get help or leave completely, I'm not sure. All I do know, is that the tension seems to alleviate just a little.