Survivor

Trigger Warnings: Sexual violence is discussed, though not shown. Violence and gore are shown.

Survivor

He sighs, packing up his limited supplies. This has been a good safehouse, but it’s time to move on. After packing his bag, he dons his gear, shoulders the pack and picks up his rifle. The straps of his facemask keep his shoulder-length hair back, keeping the unkempt mess out of his eyes. He checks out the peepholes he installed, all around the cabin, making sure it’s clear before he leaves. He still exits with his rifle at the ready, moving quickly and efficiently away from the building before stopping and scanning the area again.

Satisfied he is alone, he begins to walk through the brush and trees, quietly picking his way through as he keeps his eyes open for any signs of life. There are none. He eventually finds the road but stays inside the treeline, keeping close enough to hear anything and respond before he can be surprised. He chooses his direction carefully, still intent on finding his quarry, even if he doesn’t know where their camp is.

A couple days later, he is drawn to a commotion from the other side of the road. It’s pretty far away, but the people over there aren’t being quiet. He sneaks over, and hears a woman yelling. As he gets closer, he can also hear a man talking to her, but can’t make out the words. She is telling him to stay away, and so on.

He finally gets close enough to see, and there are two men, facing off against a lone woman. All of them are armed, but the two men have their weapons in a neutral position and seem to be trying to convince the woman they mean her no harm. That’s when he sees another woman off to the side, approaching the whole thing.

“Hey,” the new woman calls, startling the lone woman, who points her gun at her. “I’m with them too. We’re not gonna hurt you. If you really want us to, we’ll just leave you be and walk away. But we’d love to talk, maybe bring you to our camp, have you meet the rest of our group.”

“They didn’t say nothing about no group,” the hysterical woman shouts. “Stay back!”

“That’s because we hadn’t gotten that far,” one of the men says. “This is Sharon. I’m Bobby, like I said before, and this is Eric. Why don’t you tell us your name?”

“I’m, uh,” the woman stammers, wavering back and forth between the two men and Sharon. “I’m Maggie. Just stay back. You don’t need to come closer to talk.”

“That’s fine,” Bobby replies, still holding his hands up. “We’ll just talk.”

“Yeah,” Eric says, nodding his head. “We have food and water. We were just about to rest when we saw you. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

“Yeah, I’ll start a fire,” Sharon says, moving a short distance away. “I was building a firepit when I heard the commotion. Come over here.”

The two men follow Sharon and Maggie hesitantly follows behind. He decides to move closer, to see what the deal is. But, like they said, they were planning to rest and eat. Sharon cooks some meat they had, while Bobby passes around a waterskin. Maggie clearly doesn’t trust them, but they outnumber her and haven’t tried anything yet, so she seems to trust them enough to join in the food and water.

“We’re heading back to our camp soon, no reason to stay out after dark. We were hunting and scavenging, but you kind of derailed that,” Sharon says, then hurriedly adds, “Which is great, finding normal people is always the best outcome. You’re welcome to come with.”

Maggie hesitates, looking at the sky and the group, before asking, “How far is it? How many other people?”

“It’s not too far, we can make it before dark. We got three others, another girl and two more guys,” Sharon explains. “It’s a cabin, hidden in the woods.”

“Okay, I’ll come check it out, but I’m not guaranteeing I’ll stay,” Maggie says.

“That’s fine,” Bobby says. “Just follow us.”

He shakes his head in disdain. This woman is letting herself be led into a trap. He isn’t sure exactly what the point is, probably to rob her, maybe rape her. But, if they really did have a camp and that many people, it’s worth investigating. It is just too easy, they wouldn’t just lead random strangers to their camp and still let them walk away after. And this group is not subtle, making them easy to follow without alerting anyone. He kept his eyes open for traps or other sentries that might be posted to watch for intruders, but found nothing.

A couple hours later, still a decent time before dusk, they did indeed arrive at a well maintained cabin. Another girl alerts the camp to the return of their hunting party; he sees two men and a girl, as advertised, but he keeps a lookout for anybody that might be hiding out. He knows he’s probably just being paranoid, but he feels like Maggie just walked herself into the lion’s den. He finds a good spot to watch, noticing someone come back out a bit later to keep a lookout.

He sees smoke begin to rise from the chimney, a sure sign these people are amateurs, but nothing else out of the ordinary and he dozes off. He’s woken by screams a short while later - he assumes it to be Maggie. He shakes his head, hating that he guessed right. The sentry moves back inside, then her screams cut off abruptly. He moves closer, trying to see if he can figure out exactly what is happening, but freezes when the two women come back out.

“She’s a good one,” the camp girl says. “Lucky day today.”

“For us, yeah,” Sharon responds, laughing. “We’ll eat well and the boys have someone else to play with.”

“I can’t believe you not only found one with so much meat on her bones, but also stupid enough to just come here. I’m glad we still got some of the good stuff, put her right out, didn’t even have to fight, she never expected it.”

They both share a laugh as they walk around the small, unlit firepit. A minute later, one of the unknown men who stayed at the cabin comes out, buckling his pants.

“Done already?” Sharon mocks.

“I hate it when they’re lopsided, it’ll be better when we take the other leg.”

“You’re a fuckin’ weirdo,” the other girl says.

“What?” he says, shrugging. “I know what I like. Bobby and Eric are in there tag-teaming her now. They’re the weird ones.”

“At least they shut her up,” Sharon says.

The other girl laughs cruelly, adding, “Kind of hard to scream around a mouthful.”

“She was tender. Most we get these days are all stringy and tough,” the guy says. “Good catch, Sharon. I heard you were the real ringer today.”

He crawls away, finally realizing what they mean and not wanting to hear any more - they were eating her. Apparently they were cutting off parts to eat, and keeping her alive to keep the ‘meat’ good, but also using her as a plaything while they had her. He briefly considers attacking, but it sounds like she is already messed up - and there are six of them, all armed. He can probably handle it, but it’s a dangerous gamble.

He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. He knew they were leading her to a trap, why hadn’t he just moved on? Now, he feels obligated to do something about these monsters. Which means he has to hang around, while they torture her, until they go back out, since he isn’t willing to face off against six at once.

He knows it’s a thing that happens now, but this is his first run-in with cannibals. With civilization moved on, there are no rules anymore. As penance, he decides to fast, only drinking minimal water, until the time to act comes. It comes quicker than he expected, only two days later. Bobby, Eric and Sharon stay behind at the cabin this time, with the other three (Cindy, Reggie and Robert) head off in search of more ‘rations’ and he starts drinking water. He also eats some jerky, not wanting to get light-headed or not have the strength once he leaps into action.

He lays out his gear, making sure everything is ready and selecting his tools. This needs to be a quiet job, don’t want to alert the three who left. Once he has it all prepared and his plan ready, he waits for his opportune moment…

— — —

He isn’t sure how these idiots get so lucky, but they come back only a day later, carrying a struggling, but bound young woman. They arrive, but no one comes out to greet them, so they throw the woman down, and leave Cindy to guard her. He takes her out exactly the same as he killed Sharon - sneaking up behind and slitting her throat before she even knows anything is wrong. He wipes his knife off quickly, resheathes it and pulls his rifle up; the men won’t be so unprepared, given what they will find within the silent cabin.

Reggie flies out first, without his weapon ready, yelling to warn Cindy; he takes three rounds to the chest, dropping like a stone. As the body hits the ground, he moves to a different spot, knowing Robert will be expecting an attack, and he goes prone. A second later, Robert bursts out the door, spraying bullets on full auto, his AK spitting them out in an arc as they chew up the brush around him. But, they are all well above where he is, so he aims and fires, his first shot taking out the right shoulder, while his second goes through the left kneecap.

Robert goes down, the AK sliding away from him, but he wastes no time, rushing over to where Robert lies and slamming the stock of his rifle into his face several times, until the injured man goes limp. He checks him over, taking away a pistol and hunting knife, before using rope to secure him. After that, he goes over to inspect the bound girl still struggling against her bonds. When he looks down at her, her eyes go wide - a side effect of the mask he always wears. He realizes she has to be young - not much older than him - and definitely not someone who should be out here on her own.

He pulls her gag out, saying, “Don’t scream. Not that it would help or anything, I just don’t want to hear that shit. I’m not with them, if you hadn’t noticed, and I have no interest in hurting you.”

“Who are you?” she asks, hesitantly.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s just say, I’m not a guy who’s going to cut parts of you off to eat, while keeping you alive to rape over a period of days, until there’s nothing left. Because, that’s what those people were going to do.”

Her eyes widen, as she says, “Bullshit.”

He shrugs, responding, “Whatever. I saw it with my own eyes. Where are your people?”

“I don’t have people.”

“Now that, is bullshit.”

“It’s not…” she sighs, and a look crosses her face. “I don’t have people… anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m gonna untie you. I hope that you won’t do anything stupid, like try to attack me. Because I would hate to have to kill you, after I just saved you.”

“I won’t.”

“Fine,” he says, cutting her free. “Why don’t you go sit by the firepit, get a fire going. We’ll need it. I’m gonna search these bodies and collect everything that’s useful.”

“They took my gun.”

“You can have it back then, just do what I asked.”

“Okay.”

He goes around to the bodies, collecting everything they have, keeping an eye on the girl as well. Then he goes inside and grabs all the stuff he had laid out earlier. When he comes out, the girl has a fire blazing, sitting on one of the logs and staring into it.

“Which gun did you have?” he asks.

“That pistol there,” she says, pointing.

He sets it to the side, then strips all the other guns of their ammo and any useful parts. He sets aside one other rifle, but is finished quickly.

“Here,” he says, handing her the pistol and rifle, both empty. “Take these, I’ll give you the ammo before I leave.”

“Not very trusting, are you?”

“I’m still alive, so no.”

Without waiting for a response, he goes over to the guy he has tied up and drags him closer to the fire. He goes and gets some of the dirty water they were using, dumping it over his head. He gasps awake, immediately groaning in pain.

“Shut up! Now, I’m going to give you one chance. I know you have supplies hidden nearby. Tell me where and I’ll let you live, for what that’s worth. Don’t and I’ll kill you slow.”

“Look man, I -”

He slaps him, then pulls his knife, saying, “Strike one. Try again.”

Robert begins crying, but he waits, and eventually Robert looks up, saying, “It’s buried out behind the outhouse, at the roots of the tree. Come on man, don’t leave me like -”

He doesn’t wait for him to finish speaking, just shoves the knife deep into his throat, then rips it out, spraying blood to the side. The girl jumps up, stumbling away from them.

“Holy shit, what the fuck dude?? You said you would let him live.”

“Yeah. I lied. Let that be a lesson: never trust somebody’s word; words are cheap.” He looks at her as he wipes his knife on Robert’s lifeless body, adding, “Like I said before, he wasn’t a good guy. He deserved it. Come on, let’s go see what they got.”

He has her come with him, now that she has her weapons. They dig up the stuff together. It’s some MREs and other non-perishables, along with some water purification and ammunition. He carries it back to the rest of the gear he has set out. It’s more than he is expecting. He can give the girl some supplies too, which makes him happy.

He is separating the supplies out when she walks up to him and he steps back, grabbing his rifle. She holds up her hands at him, surprised by his reaction.

After a second, she says, “I was just gonna ask if I could travel with you for a bit. Like I said, I don’t have people anymore. I know how to survive… but, I’ve never been alone.”

He stares at her, but eventually shakes his head, sighing, and says, “I guess.”

He continues to deal with the supplies, building her a pack. After he’s done, he drags the bodies into the house, putting the three who returned with the three who stayed behind, then grabs a lit log and tosses it in after them, lighting the building on fire.

Apparently, this also surprises the girl, as she shrieks, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Burning it down. It was evil.”

“You’re gonna burn the forest down!”

“No. There is clearance on all sides of the building. It won’t spread.”

They watch the building burn in silence, which takes several hours into the night, but sure enough, it does not spread to the nearby trees. Once it’s down to embers, he grabs his gear and motions for her to do the same.

“What are we doing?”

“Leaving. I’ve spent enough time in this cursed place. We’ll find somewhere else to camp.”

“Oh. Okay,” she hesitates, then adds, “My name is -”

“I don’t care. You’re just another dead person who doesn’t know it yet.”

“That’s… a pretty fucked up view of the world.”

He looks her in the eyes, his own hard through the holes in his mask, saying “We live in a pretty fucked up world now. One where, just half a day ago, you were about to become a meal for a group of six people, among other, less savory things. You want me to know your name? Prove me wrong. Show me that you’re a survivor, not just a victim who was lucky enough to be saved by a true survivor.”

With that, he walks away, not waiting for her to respond or follow. But she does follow.