This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

First published on my wordpress: Here

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When I woke up, I realized I still had serious problems with other humans. It was today that I was supposed to make contact with the survivors, but the stress caused by it and the butterflies in my stomach were intolerable. I drank my coffee, smoked my cigarette and did my exercises.

Then, I sat at my computer chair and watched a show about car restoration. There’s no denying it, I was trying to delay the inevitable. I ate some canned soup and canned beef stew, then began to put on my equipment. This time I decided to swap my short barrel shotgun with my 338 Lapua sniper rifle.

I exited my bunker and walked around in the garage, looking at my tools and drying dragon skins… “Sigh*…”Alright I’m just wasting time because I dread meeting with other people. As shameful as it sounds, I was hoping they were all dead in a way. Hopefully, I would be able to drop the radio off at a place where they will find it and avoid meeting them directly.

I went outside to my front yard and inspected my armoured pick-up truck that I was going to use for this adventure. Then I looked around and was pleased to see no signs of any creatures around. This was all thanks to my splendid dragon head.

Speaking of the thing, the ‘meat’ in the head had started to rot but the skin remained perfectly intact. I walked up to it and crouched for a better view. On closer inspection, the eyes which should have been the first thing to decay, were still perfectly intact.

I grabbed my ‘Rambo style’ knife, and tapped on one of the eyes. To my surprise, it made a tik tik tik* sound, as if I was hitting a glass bead. Intrigued, I pried one of the eyeball out with my knife to inspect it. What came out was a bit smaller than a tennis ball, was quite heavy and felt like a glass marble.

Some of the area around the optic nerve also had this hard shell over it, so the entire thing was teardrop shaped. I held it in my hands, trying to block the light and could clearly see it glow in the dark. How this thing can still glow after so long is a mystery, but I suspected that it was related to the red mist.

Since it was still early in the morning, I took the time to pull out two of its sharp canines as well and made a necklace. I took one of the big gold chain I had looted from someone’s house, and drilled holes big enough for it to go through. The glowing eyeball in the middle with canines on each side.

The eyeball was a bit big but it looked really cool. With a little bit of luck, this could maybe act as a monster repellent as well. With my new necklace around my neck, I began to load everything in my pick-up truck and took the road toward the centre of town.

I passed the convenience store, the industrial district and finally arrived at the shopping centre where I had met the dragon before. So far, I had only seen a small amount of creatures including a few cockroaches, but nothing in the numbers they used to be.

Maybe I was slowly succeeding in pushing them out of my town. The trick is to kill them faster than they can reproduce after all. I made a left turn toward the dragon carcass out of curiosity but was surprised by what I saw.

The dragon’s corpse had visibly been ripped to shreds by something big. The claw marks on its steel like skin were far too large to be anything I had seen so far. Most of the meat had been consumed and only bones and skin remained. The wheel loader was still there, but the bucket had been ripped off.

The sight of this made me shiver in fear. There was something big and maybe even more dangerous than a dragon out there. The thing was so heavy that it had left footprints in the tarmac. As if I needed bad news like that to start the day with. I looked around gun in hand but couldn’t see any sign of life.

I tried to have a look at the footprints but they were not deep or well defined enough to help me understand what had left them. By the look of it, the creature was bipedal and seemed to have 3 toes with sharp claws. Fact was, they were sharp enough to rip through dragon skin.

I was terrified but still felt relatively confident since I couldn’t see anything around. Everything was so silent and deserted that one could think I was the only living thing around. I quickly gathered the bigger pieces of dragon skin and some bones and threw them in the back of my truck. Could be useful later.

Once that was done, I climbed back into my truck and enjoyed the air conditioning while smoking a cigarette. All kinds of thoughts were flying through my mind and one of them was about why most creatures seemed to have left the area.

My best hypothesis was that a large predator had taken my town as its territory and made the weaker creatures leave. The state of the dragon corpse seemed to confirm this hypothesis but I wasn’t falling into despair like I would have done a few days back.

Actually I was happy about it. I preferred having to deal with one very strong monster rather than deal with thousands of annoying ones. I was well armed after all. I finished my cigarette and resumed my journey toward town. After exiting the shopping centre’s parking, I made a left turn toward an area I hadn’t gone to yet.

This was the furthest I had been from home since the teleportation event. I drove slowly, trying to be as silent as possible. I had to avoid a few cars with highly decomposed corpses inside. You could hardly see through their windows as the decomposition process create all kinds of bacteria that start to grow, and eventually cover the inside of the car with smelly brown sludge everywhere.

I eventually reached the industrial area, where all the heavy industries were located. So far, I still hadn’t seen any dangerous creatures. Past the industrial area, I arrived at a small hill, which I knew reaching the top of would finally allow me to see the centre of town. But then before reaching the top, anxiety overtook me.

I immobilized my vehicle and looked around for a while. With nothing happening, and an eerie silence floating everywhere, I pressed on and climbed the hill as fast as a slug. Once on top, I finally had my first look at where 80% of the population lived.

At first glance, the town didn’t seem in bad shape. The big grocery store seemed intact but a local pub as well the house next to it had burned down. Someone dying with a lit cigarette maybe. Then the first thing that appeared weird were giant white mounds.

They were all over and seemed to mark a border of some sort. At first glance, they looked like termite mounds made out of snow. I drove next to one and got out of my vehicle to further inspect it. It was pretty hard to the touch and looked a bit like concrete, but with my current strength, I didn’t have too much difficulty to start digging into it.

I found out that this ‘concrete’ contained hairs, scales, claws, bones… So basically this was a big pile of monster shit. A bit grossed out at first, I then noticed something black and shiny. I dug a bit and pulled it out of the mound of shit. It was part of a pair of glasses made out of plastic.

Whatever was shitting these white pylons was a man eater, and judging by the size of them, must also be enormous. Not all creatures can make two metre tall piles of shit. Seeing human artifacts in a monster excrement angered me for some reason. I wanted to kill that thing if I had the chance.

I changed to a new pair of gloves and jumped back in my truck. I went past an intersection and continued straight ahead toward the hospital. If the tanker truck wasn’t there, then I was wrong from the beginning. I crawled through a road tightly packed with two storey houses and was expecting to see things jump at me but nothing came.

I was seriously starting to worry about whatever had made them leave town. Something this size should make sounds, make the earth tremble under its feet, but it was pure silence everywhere. I reached a second intersection, only a few hundred meters from the hospital, but I turned left toward the police station instead of going straight to the hospital.

I never thought I would ever say these words, but I was very glad to see 5 roaches running at me as I approached. There appearance somehow reassured me and gave me confidence, so I stopped my vehicle and used this opportunity to purge some red mist out of my body.

I had became very good at it and could expel a severe amount of it very quickly now and as I did so, the roaches suddenly stopped. It was my first time seeing them react that way, worried I turned around expecting to see a giant monster, but there was nothing.

Were they scared of me? Or was it my dragon necklace? “Mouwahahahaha. Come play with Uncle Nathan, gnahahaha*” Now overly excited, I unsheathed my machete and ran toward them as fast as I could. With the ‘red mist doping’, my legs were a lot faster and stronger but gravity and laws of physics prevented me from using my full capacities.

I would simply slide on the tarmac and run as if I was on ice when trying to put all my strength into it. The nearest cockroach came at me but exploded under my left fist. I kept my momentum and sliced the second one in half with my machete. Seeing that I was destroying them, the other roaches turned tail and tried to flee.

I first wanted to shoot them, but making too much noise in my situation would have been stupid. Instead, I decided to stop expelling my red mist and watched them scurry away. “Sigh* My hands are covered with that blue crap again…” I switched to yet another pair of gloves and jumped back in my truck.

Only a few seconds later, I parked at the police station and stopped the engine. There was something curious about the buildings around here. I could see spots where green goo had been applied on them. I got out, gun in hands, and inspected the perimeter, but saw nothing. Still worried, I tried to ignore it and carefully walked up to the door.

Inside the police station were a few corpses as usual but nothing out of the ordinary. Seeing corpses was actually a good sign since it meant no monsters had made it in. A quick look around soon revealed what I was looking for.

It was the door leading to the armoury and was obviously locked with a combination lock. The walls were made out of reinforced concrete and the door was obviously made out of heavy steel. I kneelled in front of the door and removed my backpack.

I grabbed one of my pipe bombs and began to remove the nails taped around it. They were meant to be shrapnel but I didn’t need them to blow up a door and it would make things more dangerous than necessary. Once I was done, I taped it to the door, grabbed my backpack and pulled my lighter out of my pocket.

It was a short fuse leaving me only 5 seconds to run away. I lit the fuse and quickly hid behind a corner with my fingers stuck in my ears. BOOM!* The detonation sounded powerful and was on time which made me proud of my craftsmanship.

I had tried one back at home with only half the amount of gunpowder this one had, and was surprised at how powerful it was. With that in mind, I knew this ‘fully loaded’ one had to have created a substantial explosion. I carefully walked up to the door hidden by a cloud of smoke and dust and was first disappointed.

The door seemed to still be holding even with the damage it had received. I grabbed what remained of the door handle and pulled energetically. To my surprise, the door suddenly opened without resistance. With a giant grin on my face I entered the dark room.

I grabbed my flashlight and had a look around. Guns! Lots of them. I instantly got all giddy and fuzzy inside because of what I was seeing. I grabbed all the 9mm Glock pistols and all the boxes of ammo I found and loaded everything in my truck.

When that was done, I walked back inside and couldn’t stop smiling at what I was now looking at. Police anti-riot body armours are what I was after since the beginning. Bullet proof vests were now something precious to have so I loaded all the equipment in the truck and strapped everything in place.

I went back inside and undressed in order to put on my new body armour. I removed the police tag and began to put the pieces on. Feeling like cosplaying in this situation might sound strange but there were not a lot of ways to entertain myself anymore.

I wore everything, even the helmet with visor and even wore my gas mask. It was still an old used filter, but I had no real need for it anymore, so I was using the mask only to protect my face at this point. I looked at myself through the glass reflection and giggled. This suit made me look like a bad-ass and boosted my self confidence.

I rearmed myself but this time I added one of the 9mm pistols to my belt. I had no pistols in my gun collection at home. In Canada, you needed to do some training and paperwork just to get a licence to own one, so I had never bothered.

Now fully equipped, I walked back out the door with confidence in my steps. When I was about to open the truck door, I began to feel something. Thump*…. Thump*…. Thump*…. Thump*…. Thump*…. Something incredibly heavy was approaching.

Not wasting a second, a ran back inside the building and prepared my 338 ‘hand cannon’ sniper rifle. If it’s the thing that ate the dragon’s corpse, I will surely need this OP gun if the damned thing is coming for me. I crouched silently near the window and tried to have a look at what was approaching.

The heavy steps seemed slow and regular which could indicate that the beast was relaxed and confident. I was sweating bullets as the steps got closer and closer but eventually, the beast began to get further away before I could even get a chance to see it.

I waited, immobile, petrified as my fertile imagination went wild. Not knowing what I was dealing with was no doubt the worst thing about this situation. Eventually, the beast got far away enough so the tremors couldn’t be felt anymore. I stood up and had a careful look around.

How such a big creature could move around town without destroying everything in its path was a big mystery to me. Not knowing what the thing looked like, I could only call it by what I knew so far, so I named it, ‘Shit mound-ster’. (Assuming that it is the creature who shat those pylons back there.)

With the giant creature seemingly gone in a different direction from where I was heading, I ran back to my truck and drove off. I returned to the intersection and turned left toward the hospital. I drove past a drugstore and a school before finally seeing the hospital in the distance.

As I got closer, I immediately spotted it. The tanker truck truly was there as I was expecting. The giant vehicle was parked on the left side of the building near the ER where the ambulances usually arrived. I stopped in the road in front of the hospital and did a quick inspection.

To my left were rich looking two storey houses, to the right was a patch of grass with trees, then a big parking area and finally the hospital. Some areas of the hospital seemed to have been through a war as part of the walls were collapsed and others burnt.

I quickly turned left and entered one of the big houses’ driveway, then stopped the engine. I got out of my vehicle and circled around the house, but all the doors were locked. Spotting a wooden ladder used to go up a tree-house, I knocked it off and used it to reach one of the second floor windows.

I then broke the window, entered and knocked the ladder away from the window so nothing would follow me up here. I was in a white bedroom where the bed had white silky sheets and even the carpet was white. I blocked the broken window with a chair and exited the room.

It was a very beautiful house where everything looked crazy expensive but I ignored all that and began to look around for anything useful. The owner of this place seemed to be a guy since everything I found worth mentioning were all what they call ‘men’s toys’.

Hung on the wall of one of the room were a bunch of swords which made me contemplate the idea of replacing my machete with one of them. On a drawer was a mahogany box which immediately attracted my attention. I opened it carefully and pulled out its content on the floor.

It was a bag made out of golden fabric which contained a beautiful black katana. Under it was a piece of paper saying ‘Certificate of authenticity’ and all kind of stuff. I unsheathed the blade and had a look at it. It was visibly a brand new blade but seemed to be of very high quality.

Just by the look of the box alone, one could tell this was a very expensive sword. The blade was shining under the sun-rays, exhibiting its beautiful hamon. The box also contained a maintenance kit used to clean and polish the blade.

(Hamon: In swordsmithing, hamon (刃文 hamon ?) (from Japanese, literally “blade pattern”) is a visual effect created on the blade by the hardening process. The hamon is the outline of the hardened zone (yakiba) which contains the cutting edge (ha).)

I was totally fascinated by the beauty of this blade and my machete suddenly seemed a lot less interesting to me. I strapped the katana to my backpack and continued to loot the other rooms one by one. I eventually reached the kitchen but avoided opening the refrigerator since I knew from experience how disgusting the inside would be.

I went through the cabinets and eventually opened one containing various bottles of alcohol. I stared at them a few seconds but decided to close it back and ignore it but then something unbelievable happened. “Eppp!, elllppp! Helppp me!!!” I wasn’t dreaming? There was a small voice coming out of the cabinet.

I reopened it and saw the bottle of rum crying its eyes out and begging for my help. Not being heartless, I grabbed the bottle of rum and enacted mercy upon it by taking a few sips. OKOK! Don’t look at me like that, I know I know, I may have a drinking problem…

I went back up to the second floor and got out on a balcony offering a perfect view of the hospital. The plan was simple, spending the day here looking at it and gathering as much information as possible. I dropped my backpack on the floor and sat on a bamboo chair with my bottle of rum in hand.

I remained there for a few hours without seeing any movement. I had already smoked a third of a pack of cigarettes and finished my bottle of rum and was slowly losing patience. Were they still alive? Or maybe they never get out of the hospital?

I used the railing to stabilize my sniper rifle and inspected the hospital through its powerful scope. Many windows were broken, I could see many barricades and what seemed like large claw marks on the building walls. Clearly, these people have had a hard time.

My initial plan was simple, wait until night-time and infiltrate the area, then leave the CB radio where they could find it in the morning. That meant that I still had many hours to kill before going there but I also had other things to worry about. What if they had placed traps?

After spending a few hours without seeing anything, I began to wonder if they were already all dead. But then again, I myself was regularly spending many days inside without going out so I assumed they were doing the same and avoided the outside’s red poisonous air.

One more hour later, I finally saw some movement in the long glass near the hospital. It was a yellow horned creature I had never seen before. The creature was lizard like with green and yellow patterns all over its body. Its head was adorned with three long horns that the creature seemed to use to dig holes in the ground.

The creature was around the size of a dog and was digging nervously before eventually running back into the forest. It was the first creature I had seen that didn’t look too terrifying. It even gave me the impression of being an herbivore or an insectivore which was reassuring to see.

With nothing happening, I got bored out of my mind and decided to take a short nap. When I woke up, it was finally beginning to get dark outside. I went back out on the balcony and once again inspected the hospital through my sniper scope.

There was still totally nothing happening so I lost patience and decided to sneak over there before the sun completely disappeared over the horizon. I gathered my gear and exited the house from the front door like I owned the place.

I walked past my pick-up truck, crossed the road and carefully advanced toward the hospital. I reached the parking area and gradually made my way forward, using the parked cars as covers. I kept an eye out for traps as I finally reached the hospital building.

Many windows had been broken and most corridors seemed barricaded with benches and tables. I entered through one of the broken windows and inched my way forward, gun in hands. Wherever I went, my path would always end up being blocked by one of these barricades.

On further inspection, I eventually found a barricade which seemed to see regular activity so I tiptoed close to it and looked for a way through it, but before I could do anything, a familiar sound surprised me. “Cough cough*” I instantly froze, trying to be as immobile as possible.

Then, the faint sound of footsteps began to be heard. Someone was coming this way! I hid in a corner and listened carefully. Eventually, the person began to walk away from the barricade and went through a door. It was most likely someone keeping watch over the most critical barricades.

I was nervous but also happy, this was the first confirmation I had seen of other people still being alive. I needed to leave the CB radio on the other side of the barricade but there was no way I could go through it without making noises.

I sat in the corner and tried to come up with a plan but the only idea I got implied make immediate contact with the survivor which I had wanted to avoid from the beginning. Hearing a human voice after so long had made a brutal impact on my mental state and I now really wanted to talk with them.

I gathered my courage, placed my gas mask over my face and stood up. I decided to hide my face since I didn’t know who were these people. Maybe some of them knew who I was and where I lived so I decided not to take any chances for now. I pulled out the portable CB radio from my bag and held it in my left hand.

I walked up to the barricade and knocked on a table with my gun in a well known melody. It was the most famous knock in human history, so I knew they would immediately recognize it and realize it was done by a survivor just like them. “Knock—knock–knock–knock—knock——-knock—knock*.”

I backed away a few steps and waited. Eventually I heard the door open and steps slowly approaching. I stood there, a radio in one hand, a gun in the other. My body totally covered in bullet proof body armour, gas mask and police helmet on my head, I must have looked very intimidating.

Eventually, a whispering voice broke the silence. “Anyone out there?” It was a young man’s voice that sounded slightly muffled by something like a mask. I was incredibly nervous, hearing a human voice after so long instantly warmed my soul with a sense of comfort so I rapidly answered. “Yes.”

“Eh? A survivor? Wait a second!” He then answered with a surprised and excited voice. I couldn’t see him but I heard the young man run back through the door he had came from then yelling to other people that a survivor had appeared. I dropped the CB radio on the ground with a motorbike battery and some food supplies. I also left a note explaining how to use it and that I would make contact with them in a few hours.

As I was leaving, I could hear the sound of a few people quickly trying to bring down the barricade, so I hurried and left before they could see me. I discretely ran through the parking lot, jumped in my truck and waited for a few minutes while smoking some cigarettes.

It was now totally dark outside and I couldn’t see anything anymore. The only source of light was the glowing amber on the tip of my cigarette swirling in the air in front of my face. When I was finally feeling ready, I started the engine and backed out the driveway.

I switched the headlights on and stomped on the gas pedal. I hated being out while it was so dark so I decided to establish a new record. How fast could I go back home, considering there were no police, speed limits or obstacles in my way.

My truck roared through town as I kept my foot on the accelerator. I went through the first intersection, then the second one. I was already halfway through, already getting out of town and it had taken me only a minute. I eventually reached the industrial area, forcing me to slow down and swerve around some abandoned cars.

Once the road was clear again, I stomped on the gas once more and accelerated up to 140KMh. As I was about to reach the truck stop, something as big as a deer jumped in front of me. I stomped on the break but was going way too fast to avoid anything, so I plowed straight into it.

The truck shook as if it had hit a large rock and made me lose control. I did a 180° and barely avoided ending up into a ditch. “Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant*” What was that? I didn’t even have time to see what I had hit so I got out of the truck and looked back with my flashlight.

Whatever it was that I hit, it didn’t seemed injured by the brutal collision as I only saw a silhouette scurry away in the tall grasses. I inspected the front of my truck and was amazed to see that whatever I had hit, had bent the massive steel plow out of shape.

Fearing another encounter with such a sturdy monster, I jumped back in my truck and left as fast as I could. Luckily, nothing else happened on my way back. I parked my truck in front of my garage door and entered my house. I went down into my bunker, undressed naked and took a well deserved shower.

Feeling alive again, I grabbed a cold beer, lit a cigarette and sat naked on my computer chair. I took a puff of my cigarette and a sip of my deliciously cold beer as I rolled up in my chair toward my various radios. I entered the radio frequency I had told them to use and listened to the familiar static.

I was a nervous wreck. If everything went according to plan, they should be currently waiting for me to speak. I brought the microphone up to my mouth, took a deep breath and pressed the button. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”………………………

After a minute of silence, a reply finally came through. “Yes! YES! Who are you? Where are you? How many more people survived? Why did you leave earlier?” This time it was a woman’s voice. Not being used to speak with women, I instinctively made my voice deeper before answering.

“One question at a time, we will have ample time to get to know each other.”