Search for shelter

The sun setting and the light with it growing dimmer, the evening breeze gently caressing my face and the sky slowly being enveloped by darkness. The day was fleeting and we were slowly creeping towards night. Our day being as horrible as it was, what kind of surprises did the night Have for us?

"Karl, where are we going?" I asked.

"I don't know, most of the houses right now are probably deserted. I'm looking for one big enough for us to take shelter." He replied.

"Hmmm, good idea." I said.

I was seated at the back of the ambulance, and with me were six doctors that we rescued from the attack on the hospital, their faces filled with despair. I tried engaging them in conversation to ease the tension.

"Hi my name is Mark." I said as I stretched my hands towards one of the doctors. He looked at me and shook my hand.

"Mark? Don't I know you?" He said.

"Maybe, you've probably seen one of my reports on the web?" I replied.

"Yeah, the reporter right? I've read your research papers, I'm a big fan. My name is Charles, thanks for saving us." He said.

"Oh don't worry about that, I was just doing the right thing." I said.

"No really, any other person would have panicked, thought of his own safety first and drove off, saving only himself, and it would have been understandable. But you saved us all despite not knowing any of us. That's admirable." Charles said.

Charles was a blond man with blue eyes. He looked well built and had a certain aura of authority around him. He looked like someone I should be careful of, and from what he just said, he sounded like if he was the one, he would have left us all for dead.

"No really, really, I just did the right thing. There was no way I was just going to leave you guys all to die" I said, pretending to be bashful in the process.

"But you had no issue with leaving my husband to die." A woman sitting at the far end of the ambulance said.

It was the woman whose husband had died at the hand of the aliens. She seemed bitter by the fact and honestly who wouldn't, but the fact remains that there was nothing we could do.

"I…" I tried to respond before being cut off.

"Hold on Evelyn" Charles cut in.

"What are you trying to say." He said.

"Oh nothing. You were busy praising him for being a hero and I just wanted to remind you of how Mr. Mark here left my husband to die. At the hands of those monsters no less." She said, apparently her name was Evelyn.

"I…." I tried to defend myself before being cut off by Charles once again.

"Well that's awfully selfish of you. You're saying it as if Mr. Alexander here had a choice in the matter. Your husband was shot and couldn't make it to the van in time, so he was captured. We were lucky enough that Mr. Alexander here was kind enough to take us with him, yet here you are complaining about something you can't change." Charles said.

"Well excuse me for caring about my husband." She said as she shrugged her shoulders.

"No one said you didn't care about him. If you cared about him enough though, you would have come down from the van to protect him from those things, but you didn't. What does that tell you." Charles said with a small grin on his face.

Mrs. Evelyn getting visibly annoyed, replied sharply.

"Shut up! What do you know!" She screamed. Still visibly in pain from the loss of her husband.

"Now here you are screaming. If I recall, when your husband was being sucked by those things, you were screaming in the same vein. You know if you put the energy you were using to scream at that time into saving your husband, maybe the both of you will be here right now." Charles said.

Tears streamed down Evelyn's cheeks as Charles words struck here in between the heart.

"Why you!" She screamed as she took off her shoe and approached Charles.

"Stop!" I quickly intervened before things got out of hand.

"Mrs. Evelyn, I'm truly sorry about your husband but there was nothing we could do. We had no weapons to fight the aliens with, and charging against them without any weapons would have been suicide. You hitting Mr. Charles doesn't change anything. I think you should focus on surviving first." I said.

"Skip the formalities, you can just call me Charles." Charles said.

I gave him a look to tell him "Not the time…," as I continued to alleviate the pain from Mrs. Evelyn

"Yo Mark, you just gave me a great idea." Karl said.

"Huh, What?" I replied.

"Weapons. We need to get weapons." He said.

"Sure we do, but where do we get them, and how do we know normal guns are going to kill these things, those cylinders look quite sturdy, I don't think any old gun is going to faze those things". I replied.

"I know a guy. we'll go there when we find a good enough place to take shelter for the night." Karl said.

"You always know a guy." I said with a slight smile on my face as I could finally calm down a little because of Karl's little idea.

Maybe we could finally go from the hunted to the hunter, as there was no way we could survive just running away.

Mrs. Evelyn calmed down and Charles also stopped talking, albeit with a victorious smirk on his face signaling that he won the exchange. I had my reservations about him but he didn't seem to be a bad guy.

The other four in the ambulance didn't look like they wanted to conversate as they were still coming to grips with what they just experienced so I didn't force a conversation out of them.

Three men and one woman made up the remainder of the people in the ambulance and they all looked quite disoriented so I just continued enjoying the trip to wherever Karl was taking us. There was nothing else I could do as the night encroached upon us more and more.

The full moon shining and its rays lighting up the road which our vehicle tread upon, the night wind howling and the breeze coming out in full force. We had truly entered the night.

Karl kept on driving for a while till we entered a small town. The town was deserted and all the houses empty, but the dead bodies scattered across the road told us that they had been here. They, being the harbingers of our demise.

We drove on until we found a large house that looked just big enough to accommodate us all without us intruding into our respective personal space.

"This looks promising." Karl said.

"Yeah, it does." I replied.

The ambulance slowly decelerated till it stopped and we all came down.

"Thank you again Mark." Charles expressed his gratitude once again as he departed from the ambulance.

"It was nothing really." I said with a smile on my face. The smile masking my growing wariness of the man named Charles.

"Yo Mark." Karl called out to me as everyone slowly departed from the ambulance.

"Yeah, what is it." I responded.

"It's about that Charles guy, his goody two shoes act is really suspicious don't you think." Karl said.

"Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing. Let's be careful, okay?" I said.

"Sure thing, I don't want to end up dead as much as the next guy." Karl responded.

Everyone went into the house and got comfortable. The women marked their territory and the men did too. Evelyn and the other lady stayed in one room and the other men scattered themselves around the other rooms in the house. Karl and I stayed upstairs.

When everyone had fallen asleep, Karl and I took turns keeping watch just in case of any suspicious activity. It was when I was on watch duty that I noticed something strange.

Charles was walking around, For what purpose? I called out to him when I saw him wandering around in the dark.

"Hey Charles." I said. I must have startled him because I saw him shake slightly when he heard my voice.

"Oh… It's you. You scared me for a moment there." He said.

"I did? Sorry about that. What are you doing here at this time?" I asked.

"I came to check if there was water. I'm a little thirsty you see." He replied.

"Oh…. Okay. I think I saw some water in the kitchen fridge, you can check there."

"Thanks." He said as he walked into the kitchen.

He drank his water and went back into his room. I watched him enter and lock his door. It was nearing the end of my turn on guard duty. I headed upstairs to tell Karl it was his turn to keep watch. I also told him of my walk in with Charles and he acknowledged again that we had to be careful.

I slept for a while before it was my turn to keep watch again. Karl woke me up and I headed downstairs to start my shift once again.

As I sat at the bottom of the staircase keeping watch, I pondered over the person named Charles who was currently staying with us at this house. Who was he? could he be trusted? I don't know what about him made me so uneasy but I couldn't get these thoughts out of my head.

I had this uneasy feeling that he could betray us, but maybe I was overthinking. As these thoughts filled my head, my eyelids became heavier and I slowly drifted off to sleep.

It was morning.

"Mark! Mark, wake up!"

"Huh, what…what happened" I said, still drowsy from my sudden awakening.

"It's the ambulance! It's gone!" Karl said.

I immediately came to my senses as this new information cemented itself into my brain.

"What!" I exclaimed.

"The ambulance, it's gone." Karl said.

Multiple scenarios flooded into my brain and I was immediately struck with confusion. The only thing that accurately translated from my brain to my mouth was this statement. A statement demanding for the whereabouts of a certain individual.

"Where is Charles?"