Chapter 5 -  Heading to a Food Store

Alexander eyes widen and he and Bob once again started running, weaving their way through the buildings to help get out of the snakes line of sight, eventually they lost sight of the giant snake.

Alexander leaned up against the fence of a house, puffing and exhaling with Bob. He turned to Bob.

"Can you bring out one of the bottles of water?"

A three liter bottle appeared in front of Alexander. He took a large drink, while looking around, and found a bowl lying in the nearby yard. He grabbed it, and poured some water into the bowl, asking Bob to take back the bottle. The bottle disappeared, and Bob started lapping up the water from the bowl.

Eventually, having caught his breath, Alexander looked around the dark seemingly deserted street. He recognized the street. He was three houses away from a food store. Alexander looked at the nearby door to a house, and contemplated, before settling on going to the store, making sure to pay careful attention to the surroundings to avoid running into any mutated creatures. Ultimately, if the house had another scary inhabitant, he may have to run past the food store, and he didn't want to do that, when the food store should have more food in it.

Eventually, he reached the small food store, standing outside the entrance. Two large, thin, humanoid figures with massive eyes, a flat nose, and an angular mouth, with flowing back hair, were mulling outside the store, around the single entrance. The stores clear, see through glass had a wooden barricades inside, pressed up against the glass.

Alexander's eyes lit up as he inspected the barricade inside the one floor shop on the opposite street, a little further away down from the street. There had to be humans in there. The problem was the creatures standing in front of the store.

Alexander shuddered at the sight of them as he redirected his gaze towards them. They were in the way, and if he wanted to get into the store, he would have to get them to move or kill them. He thought about when he had last seen one, the speed it ran at as it chased the person on a motorbike as it fled away from the creature.

It was fast. He couldn't out speed them. He would have to try lure them away. Alexander considered walking away, but the lure of finally seeing another human was too tempting for him to pass up. He turned, to look at the house nearby. The metal picket fence surrounding the small house was intact, and the gate was left open. There was no car inside the small undercover area for the car at the end of the tiny, concrete driveway too.

Alexander hesitated once again. What if their was a terrifying creature was inside? It looked like the people who owned this place had deserted it, but one never knew. Eventually, he caved in, and decided to walk to the door of the small, red bricked house. One of the windows had a perfect view of the food store. He could sit in this house, and observe the attempts to try to lure the creatures in front of the house away.

He hesitated at the wooden brown door with a dog door on it, then tried knocking. He listened for a couple of seconds, ready to leap away if he heard anything, but he could hear nothing. He drew his katana, and got Bob to store the sheath away. He tentatively opened and pushed opened the door with his left hand, then gripped his katana in his shaking, sweaty hands, raising it over his head, ready to sweep downwards with his katana if a creature rushed at him.

The small house was a mess. Random items such as CD's, photos, and paintings were lying on the ground, but despite the mess, the wooden shelves were mostly absence of items. People had hastily packed and thrown what was not needed to the ground on the floor.

Alexander slowly crept into the house with Bob behind him, katana raised, ready to slash downwards if anything went to attack him. He slowly checked the three bedrooms, the laundry room, bathroom, and the kitchen, before he lowered his katana, heaving a sigh of relief. There were no holes, or marks around the house, they could allow any creatures to sneak in, unless maybe they silently sliced open a fly screen and went through an open window, or opened one of the two doors.

Alexander went around the house, closing up all the widows, and closing doors at the front and back of the house, locking them. He then made his way into the kitchen.

He inspected each of the brown shelves, in the small, cramp kitchen and found no sign of any food. He also noticed the absence of any sort of pot and pans and there wasn't much cups lying around.

Eventually, having fruitlessly looked around, he made his way to the fridge, opening both doors.

Nothing.

Alexander heart sank at the result. He didn't hold much hope, but nonetheless, he was still disappointed. He eventually made his way to each of the rooms, inspecting the house for anything useful.

He came away from the rooms with a red pen, empty notebook, and binoculars. He sat down at the kitchen table, brainstorming methods to use to lure the creatures away from the bakery store. Later, he got up, and tried to implement them.

First, he got Bob to run a distance away from the house, and loudly bark twice before coming back. Alexander wasn't to sure the dog could understand what he wanted when he explained his idea to the dog, in fact, he felt a bit stupid as he said the words out loud, but Bob nodded, and started doing what he asked. As Bob barked twice, then ran back, Alexander watched the creatures through the binoculars, looking out a window. They looked in the direction of the barks, but didn't move.

Alexander rubbed his chin and thought about the snippets he had seen of the creatures occasionally, looking outside his home before. They were attracted to vehicles, and screams. Perhaps they were drawn to any noises that humans would make? Or maybe whatever was in the store was more tempting to them then a dog.

Alexander mulled through the issue, lost in thought, until Bob let out a low bark at the door. Alexander jumped back, leaping off the green plastic chair he was sitting on, startled, before making his way to the door and letting the dog in. After closing the door, he lowered his hand to pat the dog, saying out loud "Well done."

Bob's eyes closed in contentment, mouth slightly parted, tongue hanging out slightly, as Alexander considered his options. He could think of two options. One would be to go somewhere away from the house, and scream loudly before running back. The second, was to try and search houses in the vicinity, nearby for a cars and try to find the keys in the house, and turn the car on.

Alexander hesitated. Using a car to draw the attention of the creatures was obviously less risky, and more effiecnt. But that was someones property. He could barely bring himself to intrude on a house to look for food, which is partly why he knocked on the doors. If not for the pure necessity, of the need for food, he wouldn't intrude. There was a very real chance that whatever he chose to use as a decoy would be torn apart.

Eventually, the desire to see someone else, to see another human, won out over the objection of deliberately destroying someones property. He made his way outside, consoling himself that doing so would help the people inside the store. He left the house, carefully walking through the eerily deserted streets in the black light.

Twice, as he made his way to a location of houses in front of the store, separated by two houses, he could occasionally see creatures around the houses, and occasionally on the street. He took a detour around them, to avoid being spotted by them.

Once he reached his destination, he could see three different groups of creatures mulling about on the street in pairs, the very creatures he had seen and killed outside his house. Alexander observed the groups for a moment, and after steeling his resolve, he took a deep breath, unsheathed his katana, and got Bob to store the sheath as he walked forwards to the first pair, trying to approach them from behind quietly, with Bob following him.

As they crept towards the first pair of gaunt humanoid figures, approaching them from behind, one started to turn, and caught sight of them. It hissed, as Alexander started to close in quickly with Bob behind him. As the second one was turning, Alexander's katana swiped down, splitting the creature in two, and Bob pounced on the other, pinning it down and biting it's neck. It stiffened, and eventually stopped struggling. Bob started to move towards it's chest, but Alexander stopped him.

"Bob, don't. Wait till we finish the other creatures."

Roughly ten minutes later, after clearing the creatures he wiped the bile off the katana. He watched Bob tearing into the corpses and gulping the black things down. Afterwards, he looked at one of the houses with a silver car with a dent on the hood.

He crept up to the red bricked house, first knocking on the wooden door. Hearing no sounds, he proceeded to make his way into the house, opening the doorknob with his left hand, keeping his katana raised, ready to strike down as he searched each room, with Bob behind him.

To his relief, Alexander could find no creatures inside. Locking the doors and windows, he retrieved his sheath from Bob and sheathing his katana. He starting looking for the keys in the orderly house. He started in the living room, as Bob lay down on the carpet in the center of the living room. He first checked around the black television on the stand, then checked the shelves around the computer. Eventually, after shifting through the shelves, and moving around a couple of magazines, the silver keys glistened in the pitch black room, shining like a beacon in the darkness. Grinning, Alexander proceeded to pick up the keys, and made his way to the car outside, calling for Bob as he did so.