III - The Call
Blood poured everywhere. The thunder crackled across the sky. Gunshots erupted in every direction.
A yellow canary chirped by the window. The light set itself on the girl's eyelids. Then, her eyelids slowly opened.
Her eyes blinked once. Then, once more and again before she realized she was awake.
Lori looked around the room and rubbed her eyes as she found the yellow canary by the window. She cleared her throat and looked at the bottle of water on top of the desk. She grabbed it and chugged it down her mouth before coughing slightly.
"Leni?" she called out. "Leni, are you here? Wait… Walter?"
The yellow canary continued chirping. Lori quickly leaped from her bed and ran to the window, scaring the bird away.
Her pupil contracted, causing her blue iris to expand, as Lori looked out the window. She inspected the parking lot and found Vanzilla. But there was no one around.
Lori grabbed her hatchet and walked towards the van. A ringing in her ear began to intrude her mind. She heard another gunshot as she slammed against the van door. Panting, she looked around for the gun. But it was all in her head.
She opened the door and found a photo of her sister Leni. She gulped and heard a desperate cry. Then another gunshot.
Lori rubbed her temple before covering her eyes. Tears flowed out like a waterfall as Lori became more aware of her time loss.
"No, Leni… I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I couldn't save you. I didn't fight hard enough."
Lori took a seat on the passenger's seat and sobbed into the dashboard.
"Lynn… how is Leni doing? I… it hurts so much…."
Then, a buzz.
Lori lifted her face from the dashboard while sniffling. She heard another buzz. Confused, she looked at the dashboard and waited for the buzzing.
It buzzed again.
She quickly opened the glove department and grabbed her phone. And sure enough, it was buzzing again. She peered at it, and saw that it was an unknown caller. Feeling surprised, she hesitated to answer it before reluctantly pressing the answer button.
"Hello?" whispered Lori.
"Yo," said the male caller. "You missed my last call. You coming to the party or what?"
Lori blinked rapidly. She was left speechless.
"Hello?" muttered the caller. "Still there? Is this a no because…?"
"I–I'm still here," murmured Lori. "It's just– how?"
"What do you mean how? You don't know where the party is? You got lost or something?"
"No– no, it's not that," sniffled Lori. "H-How are you calling this number? Who are you?"
"Lori, it's me. Don't you have my contact saved?"
"You… sound familiar… where are you?"
"At the party, bro! I mean… ma'am!"
Lori scanned her surroundings. The sky was clear and the puddles of water remained still in the pavement.
"You have… service. I have service… you're somewhere safe."
"'Course I am. Sorry… you must be lost in the… other world."
"Other world?" asked Lori as she shivered. "You're… away from this place. There's still electricity where you are. You guys are celebrating parties… tell me where you are."
"What was that?" asked the caller. "I'm sorry, we got new guests! I gotta go."
"Wait, no, no! Don't go! Please! Please, don't go!"
Lori broke down into tears.
"Please…" sniffled Lori. "We're… we're dying…"
A couple beeps repeated in the call. The other caller hung up. Lori lowered her phone down and was left distraught of what just happened.
"It's not real…" whispered Lori. "There is no party… there is no… party. Who was that?"
Lori placed her phone in her pocket and lifted her hatchet as the ringing returned inside her head to torment her broken life. She gasped and struggled to get out of her seat from Vanzilla. She screamed, falling to the ground as the ringing grew louder. She opened her weary eyes and found bloody messages in the concrete pavement of the parking lot.
GOOD LUCK GOING TO THE PARTY.
YOU WILL JUST GET EVERYONE KILLED THERE.
JUST HOW YOU GOT ME KILLED.
REMEMBER THAT?
IT'S NO WONDER YOU CAN'T GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF.
IT'S NO WONDER LINCOLN AND LUAN LEFT YOU.
IT'S NO WONDER YOU'RE ALONE AND LOST.
Lori picked up her hatchet and stormed to the woods. Her eyes were almost bloodshot from anger and madness.
In a muddy area of the woods, a roamer struggled to lift its feet as it growled and lifted its arms towards a nest of birds at a branch high above. Before the roamer could turn away from the nest and lower its arms, a swing from a hatchet knocked its damp skull out of its neck.
Another roamer nearby turned towards the young woman. He hissed and limped towards her as she stormed closer to him. With a yell and a mighty swing packed with fury, Lori split the roamer's head in half. She kicked the roamer away and swung her hatchet back, killing another roamer. Then, she lifted her hatchet and swung diagonally, cutting yet another roamer's head in half.
Her eyes had no direction. Her arms could only move like a machine. Her brain had no motive to do anything but take revenge. But there was nothing to get revenge on. She lost it.
Then she turned towards a rabbit in the ground. The rabbit was nibbling on the grass, calmly enjoying the sunlight. Then, a hatchet flew across the air and struck the rabbit in its fluffy tail. Its tail was bleeding, as she hopped away from the hatchet in the ground.
Lori ran towards the rabbit, picking up the hatchet. Everything she saw was red. She chased after the rabbit with the hatchet in her hands, shuffling through the brushes and running past the berries in the ground.
She lifted the hatchet with both of her hands in the air and tossed it at the rabbit again. But the rabbit jumped into its burrow and was gone from sight. That is, until Lori grabbed the hatchet and swung it down at the burrow, cracking the dry dirt that surrounded it. She placed her hands on the burrow and dug in, destroying the rabbit's home. Many of the bunnies hopped away, though Lori caught the one that mattered to her. She placed her hands around the rabbit with the bleeding tail.
The rabbit struggled to free itself as Lori tightened her grip around its body. She then placed her hands around the rabbit and panted. Everything was turning more red. She slammed the rabbit against the ground and screamed as she twisted her hand. She screamed until, finally, she heard a snap.
She closed her eyes before opening them, being showed a calmer world. The red was gone. She looked at the burrow, all wrecked, before looking at the rabbit. Placing her hands around her mouth, she lied down on the dirt and broke down, unable to stop herself from sobbing alone in the woods.
"Found anything yet?" asked Luan.
"No," muttered Lincoln as he opened a cabinet from inside a locked house. "Wait, scratch that. Wow, no way."
"What, you found food?" asked Luan.
"Oh yeah. A whole bag of trail mix. Look, that's an almond. And that's a walnut. Is that candy?"
"Yeah," smiled Luan. "Take that. We're going home. I'm kinda getting worried for Lori."
"Yeah… can't really say she went through worse, right?" sighed Lincoln. "You still got those water bottles?"
"Mhmm. Right here. Let's go!"
Luan and Lincoln climbed out of the broken window and left the abandoned house.
Lori returned to the parking lot with the hatchet in her hands. She tossed the hatchet into the passenger's seat and closed the van before walking back inside the motel. Her eyes were weary and her legs moved at an unsteady motion. She opened the door to the motel and lied down on the bed, sniffling as the hunger put her into a light sleep.
"I mean… it just made me angry… but do you think he saw me as his daughter?" asked Luan.
"If he did… that is sick. How could he torture someone he sees his daughter in?" said Lincoln. "He's just an evil man. Sick."
"So there was no shed of humanity in him?" asked Luan. "He was detached from everything, maybe even his daughter. I mean he called him weak… but was he just putting on a show?"
"No, Luan. He was just an evil man. Why would he be good in any way?"
"I don't know. Just tryin' to convince myself that I won't regret killing him."
"You definitely won't," said Lincoln. "Woah, look over there."
Lincoln pulled Luan behind a rusty car. They both looked at three parked cars across the street. The headlights were on for one of them. And all three appeared fresh.
Lori blinked her eyes. She stretched and wondered what woke her up. Luckily, her ears were working.
She quickly turned towards the motel window and saw two silhouettes from behind the curtains. The loud footsteps approached the door. She gulped and quickly dropped down to the floor behind the bed and away from the door.
The door opened, revealing two survivors. One of them was a man wearing a denim jacket and baggy jeans. The other was a woman wearing a leather vest and jeans with folded ends. They both had disheveled hair, though the woman had her longer hair tied up in a ponytail. Both survivors carried a small pistol with them, though the man had a shiv made with the end of a switchblade and a wooden handle.
As they took their first steps inside the room, Lori lowered herself until her stomach was flat on the ground, hidden from the light that lurked into the room. She held her breath as the footsteps marched closer to the drawer. Finding the space below the bed empty, she slowly crawled sideways to hide under the bed, being literal inches away from the survivors in the room.
Lori faced away from the headboard that extended down to the carpeting in the ground. She looked both to her left and her right, realizing that there was no escaping the feet of her survivors that surrounded her.
"Ain't nothin' here," said the woman. "Just a bunch of dirty-ass clothes that would rip the moment I put 'em on."
"That won't be a problem with me," said the man. "Lookie here."
Lori watched as the woman's legs strutted around the bed to the drawers. Her eyes blinked rapidly with each step that she took. Then she stopped next to the man.
"Oh thank the Lord!" exclaimed the woman. "It's been a whole minute since we found one last time!"
"Ain't that right? You know… I've been fightin' the urge too."
The curtains closed, the shoes of both survivors faced each other, followed by the sound of a gun being placed down against wood. Then, smooching and soft moans followed. Next, the mattress pressed against the bed, pushing Lori closer to the ground as the moans became more hurried.
The shiv fell to the floor. Lori panted heavily as the breathing became more active from the survivors and the moaning became louder. Her sweat began to drip down faster down her face as she stared at the shiv. Then, she noticed a small detail.
It was tainted with dry blood.
Lori gulped and tried to muster the strength to lift her hands and reach for the shiv. After a few more rapid blinks and racing thoughts, she decided to move her hands close to the shiv.
Her fingers crawled along the carpet, her arms slithering closer and closer to the shiv. Her nails were exposed to the dim light coming from the open door. Closer and closer it reached the bladed weapon.
Then, her phone buzzed. Loudly.
Lori's heart skipped a beat as she quickly moved her hands under the bed. She drew a couple heavy breaths as she reached for her pocket. She took her phone, but was unable to decline the call coming from a different unknown caller. She tried pressing the decline button, but it was nowhere to be found in the screen. All she did was clench the phone against her chest and muffled the buzzing.
After the buzzing stopped, the survivors continued to satisfy their urges, paying no attention to anything going on outside the bed. Lori looked around the bed and tried to calm herself down as the heat began to take a toll on her breathing. Nothing, she couldn't find anything, except a small thing by her hips. She pulled it away from her and placed it in front of her face.
A used condom wrapped by one of Dana's violet hair ties. Lori shivered and tossed it away, now facing the shiv in the carpet. She placed her hands outside the bed and pulled her own body closer to the shiv. Her face was now inches away from the small knife and was met with a glaring light peering through the open door.
A few footsteps approached the motel room. Lori gulped and quickly pushed herself back under the bed.
A bald man with a stubble and a tall and lean figure, stormed into the room. He held two UZIs in the side of his backpack and a small M1911 pistol in his hand. His sweater with torn sleeves revealed his toned arms with a skull tattoo.
"Shawn! Lydia!" yelled the man.
"Darius!" gasped Lydia.
"The hell is goin' on here? I told y'all to loot the motel, not fuck each other like animals in the woods! Do that in your own damn time!"
"Ain't a lotta time, Darius…" stuttered Shawn.
"I ain't wanna hear it. This ain't the first time I caught you two pounding each other like dogs! You know the rules!"
There was silence. Lori held her breath.
"If you let me explain..." said Shawn.
"What are the rules?" asked Darius, walking closer to Shawn with his pistol.
"Don't pile all this shit on him!" exclaimed Lydia. "I am to blame too!"
"What are the rules?" asked Darius.
"No lovin' if we're lootin'," muttered Shawn. "Or else it's a beatdown by the group."
"We got rules for a reason," said Darius.
Suddenly, a few gunshots went off in the distance. Darius turned around and looked outside the motel. Then he motioned Shawn and Lydia to follow him.
"Lucky bastards. You're off with a warnin'. Now get ya shit and follow me, go!"
The survivors grabbed their pistols from the drawer and dropped down a few unlit candles. Then, they left the motel room, heading into the woods, gone from sight.
Lori pulled herself out from under the bed, away from the door, and closer to the dirty clothing in the ground. She grabbed her backpack and stuffed the clothes inside, before finding a photo album in the ground. She opened it and found the same photo album that Leni organized and had stored in the glove department. She stuffed inside the backpack and zipped it closed before grabbing its top strap and running out of the motel with it.
The carpet remained empty except the stain that was left behind by the tainted shiv. And only a stain as a sign of the disappeared shiv.
Lori slowly made her way out of the motel room, her eyes shifting around as in a frantic search for a person, dead or alive. She looked at Vanzilla, noticing that the passenger door was still open. After one last scan of her environment, she quickly snuck to the van, tossing the backpacks into the passenger seat.
The ringing returned inside her head. She pressed her palms against her head and clenched her jaws as her head pounded against itself. She shook it off and blinked rapidly, but the world around her was still a blur.
Lori kicked the door, closing it as she ran around the front bumper of the van. She flicked her hair to the side and stopped on the tiny pebble that she stepped on.
The ringing disappeared. The woods, the van, the stranger on the ground was as clear as day now.
Lori remained frozen in place. The man who was on his knees with a siphoning tube in his hand looked at Lori in her eyes while moving away from the open fuel tank. He dropped his tube and slowly reached for his pocket.
"Hey, hey! Don't. We can talk about this," said Lori, her voice becoming low. "Please."
The man quickly used both of his hands to take out the switchblade from his pocket as he stood up. Lori ran up to the man and kicked his face as he revealed the blade from its handle.
The man groaned and staggered back as Lori ran up to him again. He swung the blade, though Lori leaned back and dodged it. She grabbed his arm and tried to grab the blade, but the man dropped it and kicked it under the van. The man grinned as he raised his eyebrow.
"Unarmed now," he snickered.
Lori elbowed his face and shoved it against the window of the van. There, Lori kept his grip on his neck, refusing to let him go. However, he proved to be stronger than her and was pulling his own face away from the blood-tainted crack in the window.
Suddenly, he groaned and was shoved back into the window as Lori pushed the shiv deeper and deeper into his lower back. Lori covered his mouth and lowered him to the ground before dropping him.
She held the bloody shiv in her hands and snuck to the back of the van, scanning her surroundings once more. She found someone.
Lincoln and Luan snuck in the edge of the road, hoping to avoid whatever survivors they encounter after spotting the fresh cars. Then, they found Lori by the van, motioning them to hurry inside. They looked at the body in the ground then at each other. Both siblings dashed to the van, opening the backseat doors before tossing their weapons inside. Then, they went inside themselves, sitting away from the weapons.
"Lori, are you sure you wanna drive?" asked Luan.
Lori entered the driver's seat and ignored her. She closed the blood-stained door and placed the car on reverse, driving back close to the motel. She switched it back to drive, and then made her way out of the parking lot before driving away into the road. She saw the switchblade in the parking line and the body that lied beside it.
Lori opened the car window and tossed the shiv out, before tearing up as she looked at her own hands. She looked at Lincoln and Luan and sighed in relief, knowing that they were still there with her.
The three siblings finally left Medway.