The day was finally coming to an end.  The sun, though still visible, was beginning its descent behind the tall buildings that neighbor my humble abode.  My current residence is not but a small two bedroom apartment, complete with the last occupants furniture, clothing and personal effects.  The sun slanted through the greased up windows, alighting the dust in the air that floated like spores.

I sit on an old faded and somewhat torn overstuffed chair facing the window, my butt of my rifle resting against the inside of my shoulder.  I peek through the scope, though I have no trouble finding the source of my agitation with naked eyes, it gives me comfort to line up their heads with my cross hairs.  It reminds me of who has the power.  I can see them, but they can’t see me.

I smile to myself, with my secret hiding place, blended so well into the rest of the buildings, they cannot suspect I am here.  There are four of them, one woman and three men.  My only real observation of them is that they look rough, as if they’ve been through a lot, and overcome it with flying colors.  Whatever life they lived now, must suit them.

I pull the tip of the rifle back in from the narrow slit in the window.  I can only hope, that whatever their intentions are, that they are gone by morning.  I turn to my stockpile of trash.  I should have thrown it out days ago, but I figured there was no need.  And now, that I have no way of safely leaving my quarters, it bothers me more than it has before.  I am running low on food and will need to go hunting tomorrow morning.  If they decide to camp out here, they will be most difficult and I risk my small hiding place being exposed.

I sigh, and set the gun down on the sun bleached carpet just underneath the window.  I am on the second floor of the apartment building.  The first three floors of the six story building are cleared of anything that may harm me, and likewise, of all things that could feed me.  But hunting was always an option.  I may be in the middle of the city, but it was overrun now.  Nature had taken back her territory and often I found squirrels and rabbits.  One time I managed a dog, but my biggest score to date was a full grown buck.  

I could only hope for such luck tomorrow, though I would have to change my living situation if the people in the streets didn’t take off.  I make my way through the decrepit living room and into the miniscule kitchen where I find a half-eaten can of pineapples from earlier and quickly scarf down the rest of it.

I give the space a good look around.  There were marks on the walls where the family photos once hung.  Upon taking up this place, I took down the pictures and turned them over on the table or floor so I didn’t have to look at the faces from whose house I stole.  Not that they needed it anymore, they were very likely dead, but I hate seeing pictures of them.

As much as I try not to know, I do know that they had a daughter.  I know because of the acutely decorated room, filled with pink and purple everything.  I keep that door closed now, but I know she was here and I hate knowing it.  I pushed those thoughts aside, should guilt or sickness overcome me, I might not make it till morning.

I toss the empty can into the garbage pile and decide to take another peek out the window before I retire for the night.  I look out and the sun is touching the tops of the buildings, so the street is now bathed in shadow.  The people who had been idly standing around in the street for the last hour had, it appeared, moved on.  I heave a sigh of relief, but decide that I will have to move tomorrow anyway.  Getting too comfortable for too long was not the way of the world anymore.

I take my leave of the living room and walk through the small hallway and through the open door on the left, never the one on the right.  That was the purple and pink room.  I glanced at the door as if it was some secret I was loath to discover, and proceeded quickly into the master bedroom.  

The bed was messed from when I had risen this morning.  Why bother making the bed?  It’s not like anyone is going to judge me on my housekeeping.  Fully clothed, I toss myself on the bed.  The springs creak horribly under my weight, and I’m no heavy being.  I pat my pocket to check if my knife is still there and quickly realize that it is not.  I lay there for a minute, wondering if its worth the trouble to get back up to retrieve it.

I decide it would be best.  I sleep easier knowing I can ward anything off, if I happen to be surprised.  I pull myself lazily out of the bed and back down the hallway.  My knife is sitting next to the sink where I’d left it.  I pick it up by the blade and flip it around carelessly so I take the handle and slide it easily into my jeans.  

I turn to the dark, windowless hallway and for a moment my hair stands on end.  I freeze in place, though I’m not sure why.  I quiet my breathing, listening hard.  For a moment, I hear nothing but my own heart pounding in my chest, before there is a creaking sound.  I cannot determine its origin.  I don’t know if it’s coming from inside the apartment or outside, whether its from upstairs or down.  Maybe the hallway?  I listen harder but hear nothing.

Now, I am unsure if I had heard anything it all.  It was so faint as could be mistrusted of my imagination.  I listen for a few minutes more, but there is no other sound and the reality of my paranoia sinks in.  I almost laugh at myself before remember why I must be so careful and I go to bed without another thought on the subject.

I am tangled in a mess of… I’m not sure… but I can feel it pulling at me, trying to rip me limb from limb.  I grab hold of something and yank hard and out of the dark, I pull a dismembered arm.  I choke on my scream, trying to rid myself of the flesh and bone, but my throw is obstructed and it falls on me, the pale, bloodied fingers reaching for my throat.

    And suddenly, the tangled mess becomes more clear to my eyes.  I am swimming in bodies, all reaching for me and trying with all their infamous strength to pull me down.  I thrash against them in vain, for they are overpowering in their might.  I turn over, hoping to better ward them off, and come face to face with death.  White, milky eyes turned green at the edges stare up at me.  I can hardly comprehend my terror before the thing opens its long mouth to reveal rotted teeth and a missing tongue.  I throw myself backwards, away from it, but it persists.

The thing sits up with more ease than I can currently muster and tilts its head sinisterly.  I open my mouth to scream and the thing lunges at me.  It grabs me with slimy fingers and holds me in place.  I kick and hit, anything to get it away from me.  I am screaming now and I can’t stop.  The thing opens it’s mouth and bugs of rot start pouring out, falling on me as I thrash wildly in place.  

Then something else comes from it’s mouth: laughter.  A deep, gut wrenching laugh that turns hysterical and I stop from confusion.  I am caught completely off guard, but somehow, I know this can only mean something worse.

There is a sudden, shooting pain in my face.  I open my eyes and I am back in the room of my little apartment.  I am blinded by tears that I shake away and as soon as my vision is clear, I am face to face with four strangers, all laughing at my nightmare.  There is sweat on my brow and as far as I can tell, every other part of me too.

I throw off the tangled covers trying to reach some sort of defensive position but before I am the least part successful, my own rifle is pointed in my face.

“Hold on, cowboy,” The woman smiles at me and i wonder if she can see the dread on my face.  Her three male escorts are still recovering from their fit of laughter.  “Would you guys shut the hell up already!” she snarled.  One of them, perhaps the largest of the three swung his hand around and smacked her in the shoulder blade.  She winced, lowered the gun away from me and quickly dealt him her revenge.  He smiled at her and she appeared to be glaring back, though in the dark of this little room, it was difficult to tell.

“Sorry,” he finally said as he leaned back against the dresser, crossing his arms over his broad chest.  I had never been very large.  I was tall, but strong, never.  I could take care of myself in most cases.  But each one of them was bigger and stronger looking than me.  Even the woman showed more muscle in her arms than he had.

The other two finally came to their senses as well and the situation around me became very serious.

“So,” the dark man to my right begins with a relaxed smile, “How long did you think you could point your little gun at us without us noticing?” my heart was pounding in my chest and words came out before I could stop them.

“I didn’t shoot.” I say indignantly.  He nods and presses his lips together.

“We’re going to take this,” the woman says, indicating my rifle.

“No way, that’s mine…” My last word trails off as she lifts the gun back to my head.

“I’m sorry, I feel like we have some kind of misunderstanding about your position here,” she sneered.

“Fine, take it.” I snap.  I can feel my blood beginning to boil beneath my skin.  If she wasn’t holding that gun, I’d slap her across the face.

“Thanks, guy.” she smiles at me as if we just made some sort of business deal.  And perhaps thats exactly what she was doing.  It made me want to hit her all the harder.  My heart is beating angrily against my chest and through clenched teeth I manage:

“You’re welcome,”  She laughs, and then they all laugh.  And in their moment of abandoned malevolence, my hand finds my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the handle of my blade and I slip it out and slide it easily into the neck of the man on my left.  

Everything turns to chaos in less than a second.  The man goes down under my weight and I yank the blade from his throat but in vain.  In the dark, I could not distinguish one body from the next.  All I know is that someone came down on my right elbow and knocked the blade from my grasp.  I fall into the dying man and try to find the blade with my hand, but someone hits me and my vision and motor skills take the toll.  There is bumping and they’re hitting me and dragging me upward and then I hear my own gun fire and I am so confused as to which way is up.

I don’t feel the pain of a bullet, but I know it must have been intended for me.  I am half dragged out of the room and I become aware that I am in the living room, face down on the carpet.  I don’t move and no one is hitting me, so I feel no reason to encourage them further.  I lost my one weapon, my one advantage.  I lost it because I’m not nearly as fast as I thought I would be.  But I killed one of them.  I got one, the one that never said a word.  I got him.  And now, perhaps, they would be more inclined to get me.

There is stomping and running and one of the men is emotional, though I can’t tell if it is the biggest one or the darker one.  I don’t hear the woman and I wonder why she’s not acting hysterical.  I take my chances and decide to look up.  The woman is standing over me, my gun held firmly in her hand, though her eyes are directed towards the hallway.  

“Just leave him.  He’s dead anyway,” she snaps.  The darker man come out from the hallway and in the almost no light that night time offered, I can tell that his hands are bloodied by the way he holds them palm up and away from his body.

“We should kill him,” he says, looking down at me.

“No.” she replies simply.

“He killed Zach…”

“I know what he’s done,” she snapped.  The bigger man came out from the hallway just then and pushed past the darker man and the woman.  Without hesitation, he lifts his arm and hits me in the side of my face.  The sudden pain blinds me and there is a sharp ringing in my ear.  The room spins around me and I am afraid I will fall off the edge of the earth.

My fingers grab hold of the carpet, trying desperately to hold on to reality.  But it’s a lost cause and I drift into insufferable silence.

“Pull him up.” I can hear her say it, but I don’t understand what she means.  I feel like I’m floating.  My stomach turns over and I’m afraid I might puke.  I clench my teeth together, as if that would somehow stop me from losing what little I had for dinner.

    “He’s still out.” Someone complains.

    “Why the fuck did you do that?” She is very condescending to them.

    “We should just kill the fucker and get it over with.”  There is a brief moment of silence and the spinning room seems to be slowing down.

    “That would break protocol.” she says and I think her teeth are clenched.

    “Who the fuck cares about protocol?”

    “We could lose our jobs!” This time she sounds almost alarmed.  I try to focus on the voices.  My head is aching and my body feels as if its been stampeded.

    “No one would know.” he said it almost with a laugh, but with a hint of something else, something sinister.

    “I would know.”  There was silence for a few minutes more and I wonder what they are doing around me.  I can hear their footsteps.  Someone is pacing.  But the others must be standing still.

    “Sit him up.” she commands again and I think she must be close to me, maybe even standing over me.  There are no objections and two sets of hands close on either arm and pull me up.  I keep my eyes closed and let my head droop.  They don’t seem to be as interested in hitting me if I am unconscious.  They set me down against the couch and I let my head loll down over my chest.

My overgrown hair is hanging down, shielding my eyes.  Carefully, I open my eyes and without moving my head, I look around.  The woman is sitting is my overstuffed chair, my gun laying across her lap.  Her hair is down and held back, away from her face with a broad material headband of some kind.  She is tall and fit with square shoulders.  

She is their leader.

I look around and the darker man is standing in the kitchen, flipping through empty can that I hadn’t yet added to my little garbage pile.  The man she had been arguing with was somewhere out of my line of sight.  That could be dangerous for me.

I move my arms ever so slightly and realize the reason they seem to be so well stuck behind me, is that they have restrained them there.  I am filled with frustration at their common sense.  I squeeze my fingers together as tight as possible, trying to make my hand smaller to slide it through what feels like handcuffs.  Without making a scene of things, I cannot pull my hands free.

Anyway, I don’t have my knife or my gun and I have no way of fighting them off on my own.  But I killed one.  And if I can kill one, why not kill them off one by one.  Currently, that was impossible.  I could take her first, but her little henchman in the kitchen was sure to raise the alarm, and at the moment, she might be the only one keeping him alive.  

“We should wake him up,” the man in my kitchen suggested.  My heart lept into my throat.  I close my eyes instantly, feeling their eyes on me.

“Is there any more food over there?” is all she replies.

“Nah, he’s pretty cleaned out.” he sighs.

“It’s not worth keeping him alive.” The big man says from somewhere near the opening to the hallway, I think.  There is more silence and I can only guess that she is giving him some kind of warning look.

“Wake him up.” She says finally.  No, no, no.  My heart is pounding so rapidly, it’s a wonder they don’t know I’m awake already.  I hear sudden movement all around me.

“No.” she says and the movement ceases, “Rodney, you do it.”

“What you don’t trust me?” came the bigger mans voice.

“Right now, I have no reason to.” she snarled.

“The fuck…”

“Hey, man, cool it.  He’ll get what’s coming to him.” Rodney consoles him.

“Easy for you to say, Zach was my brother!”

“If you were worried about keeping him alive, than you should have picked a better profession for him.” She pointed out.

“You bitch!”

“Sean,” there is movement around me, hurried, angry, decisive steps, “Sean, Sean, calm down man, don’t do something you’re gonna’ regret.”

“No, let him!” she screams. “I dare you!  Come on Sean,” and her voice is higher than it has been thus far as she eggs him on.  “Come at me.  Do your worst!” and then she lowers her voice, “Just don’t expect there to be a place for you anymore.”

There is silence and I’m hoping he will try to kill her anyway.  Whether or not he succeeds, someone will die and it will be one less person I have to kill.  I realize my teeth are clenched and how not-unconscious that must look so I hurry to relax my jaw and just as I do, a hand connects with the side of my face that had already been hit.  

Unexpectedly unprepared, I take the blow and am unable to maintain my facade any longer.  I fall to the musty carpet unable to catch myself.  I turn on my back, my hands pressed to my lower back and I lift my legs and kick, blindly.  My foot connects with something hard, something that falls backward as it pushes me closer to the window.

“Stop him!” I hear her scream and before I know what’s happening, there is a body on top of me.  My hands are pinned underneath me and my feet are too far south to do me much good, but I thrash as the weight is suddenly lifted.  I try to force myself up to regain control of my situation.

In the dark, I can see the woman and Rodney forcing Sean onto the ground.  They are both pressed against him in some mess.  She reaches for something in her back pocket and the light of the moon glints off it for a fraction of a second, hinting at handcuffs, before it disappears into the mess of people.

I slide my hands down under my ass and slide my legs through the circle tied together with my own set of handcuffs so my arms are no positioned in front of me.  I get up, finding that my balance and control is returning with the reposition of my arms.  I go around the wrestling group and find the front door.  

My hands grab the door knob and theres a clicking, but not from the door, from behind me.  I freeze.

“Don’t even think about it.” Her voice was winded from her brief entanglement.  I clench my teeth together as hard as I can.  What are the chances I could simply pull open the door and run for it.  It’s dark.  I could hide out there somewhere.  Or I could ambush them.  Turn the hunted into the hunter and all that.

But instead, I raise my hands away from the knob, palms open to show them my surrender.

“Turn around, slow.” She snarls, and I do as I’m told.  I face my enemies, one is handcuffed and lying on his stomach, much like I had been only moments before.  The woman is holding my rifle, and Rodney approaches me and grabs my forearm shaking my forward slightly.

“On your knees,” he commands and I do so.

“Fix his cuffs,” she hardly moves as she barks orders.  Rodney gives me a long look.

“Don’t be stupid.” he says and I don’t respond.  What am I supposed to say to that?  He takes my silence as confirmation of my intelligence and bends down to undo my cuffs.  He, delicately pulls my hands behind my back and clicks them back into place, this time, tightening them so hard, I can feel the metal digging into my wrist.

“Gee, tight enough?” I spit at him.

“This time, yeah.” he smiles and gets back up to help deal with their buddy.  He comes to stand by Sean who is looking sour on the floor.  

“Are you going to remain calm now?” Rodney asks him.

“Don’t bother.  We’ll take those off,” she nods at the handcuffs, “the moment we return to the city.  Maybe then, he’ll remember his place.” she steps closer to me and I instinctively lean away from her.

“You’re very lucky.” she says to me.

“Am I?” Is all I can think to say.

“He would have killed you.  And perhaps I should have let him.” she says.

“Perhaps,” I shrug.  My lack of sleep was beginning to wear on me.  I wondered what time it was and how much longer I was condemned to be here with these kind.  I look up into her face and I can see the exhaustion in it.  She is young.  Perhaps not too much older than myself, maybe younger with the lines of stress etching into her skin.

“When dawn comes, we leave here.  You will stand trial for your crimes.”  As soon as the words are out of her mouth I am outraged.

“Crimes!?” I scream at her. “You three, oops sorry, I mean four, came at me!  You attacked me!  I was merely trying to save my own life.  Imminent threat and all that crap.”  Her eyes meet mine with pure loathing and her lips press together.

“None-the-less, you will stand trial.”

“Good to know.  Anything else I should know?”

“They will probably find you guilty.”

“I schucks, and here I thought that whatever judicial system you answer to was going to be fair and just.” Every sarcastic syllable hits her in just the right way, but she says no more to me.  She and Rodney take seats in the living room.  Rodney plops easily down on the couch and she takes the overstuffed chair.

And now, all there is to do is wait for dawn to come, and my trial.  But, surprisingly, none of this hits me as hard as it should.  I don’t feel afraid, merely tired and I wonder vaguely if they will mind me faceplanting into the carpet to sleep.