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Voyager: Chapter 6

Morning couldn't come fast enough. I spent the night, sleeplessly waiting for the first rays of light to drizzle into the subway. I admit that it wasn't just my loyalty to a friend that kept me from simply going off, it was fear. I was reliant on Crane, he was essential my guardian. I was never a fighter or even a survivalist, the best I could do is tell you is if your water had e-coli in it. The jellied remains of the collector that had come down into the subway was a fluke, something I had done out of blind rage and desperation. I doubt that I would be able to do a repeat performance with a clear mind. Maybe a single hit, but after that, I would simply run off. It was what I was good at, running, not fighting.

When light did reach my bleary red eyes, I got up from the corner in the corner I had guarded selfishly. I didn't know if other collectors were going to come down and drag away the body of their fallen comrade or not like they always did, but they didn't. The body just laid right where I had stopped beating it with the crowbar that sat up against the wall next to me where I put it just in case. The flies had already begun to swarm around the red mess and I could see the maggots wiggling and squirming around on it. I had already puked out everything I had eaten a long time ago and I just didn't care about the gruesome sight anymore.

I picked up my crowbar and shouldered my backpack. Stepping around the body, I walked up the steps of the subway, back onto the street.

It was Times Square all right, just shittier. The once towering skyscrapers that assaulted everyone's view with neon ads were charred and mostly lying on the square. A few of the digital and holo boards were still up, but remained dark.

Turning in a slow circle, I tried to see any sign of Crane. All I saw were the blood splotch of the one collector who was coming at me. I remembered how part of it just disappeared so cleanly, not the rest of it was gone. The collectors had one thing going for them, they cleaned up when they weren't burning cities. There was also signs of fighting down the street where Crane and I had initially come from.

Clutching the crowbar tightly in my hand, I went over to investigate.

One car seemed to have been the center of attention. A neat circular ring of blood surrounded it and several massive bullet casings were on the ground by it as well. I picked one up and looked at the bottom. There was a little engraving saying .50 Cal and the small primer had a small little dip in it. It was Crane all right and I would bet that each time he fired, something fell. I just hoped that he didn't fall soon after his last target did. Mindlessly I pocketed the casing and kept looking around.

There was no sign of him and it was impossible to tell if he was captured or not. The collectors didn't seem to have much of an interest in his kind, but there were barely any of his kind around to begin with so my observation could be based on flawed variables. Where would they have taken him? The last time I tried to find out where they took us, I nearly got caught.

"What am I going to do?" I rubbed my reddened hands. The blood caked off in small bits and fell to the ground. I was still a mess. All the blood on me had dried and stained everything I touched with a red smear. I needed sleep and to clean up, but my worried mind had too much going through it to focus on such things.

I did the only thing I could do, wander. Crane had the map last night and I had never taken the time to really memorize any part of the city. I lived near work and just knew the way there and to a few locations nearby.

A few stores nearby had some food in them which I quickly wolfed down. My body was begging for energy giving nourishment and I did my best to oblige. It still bothered me how well stocked some of the places I came across were. There were times when food was literally within view from the road, just sitting happily on their shelves.

I ended up in an office building. It looked steady and the lower levels were pretty well intact. It wasn't even midday when I got there. The front doors were partially blocked by debris which had come from the higher stories when those came down. It would help somewhat in keeping collectors from investigating if they did come back later.

The main lobby looked nice enough. There was a thick layer of dust covering everything and empty plant pots where some sort of shrubbery had rotted away a long time ago, but it looked just like any building would after being abandoned for so long. I walked past the reception desk, there was a cup that had a nasty amount of black mold growing out of it and a sign in sheet with the names and addresses of various people scribbled on it. I didn't care for it and instead focused on the painting on the wall, it was of a sunset in the mountains. Rays of light cascaded over a snowy mountain that hovered over the fields below. Soothing, but a false now. I knocked it off its hinges and it fell to the ground where the plastic frame shattered on the corner.

There were elevators behind the reception desk, but those wouldn't work. I took the stairs instead. It was tougher than it should have been, each step drained me more and more and I gave up trying to get to the higher floors where it was safer. The second floor would have to do.

It was row after row of cubicles. The signs of disaster were more evident here. Papers covered just about every square inch of ground and the walls of the cubicles were often overturned or damaged. Must have been a sight to see, roughly two hundred people trying to get out as lasers poured into the city around them like rain. There were no bodies, collectors had been here at one point.

I found refuge in the back corners in the floor managers office which was separated by some windows and shades. A neat golden name plate was on the door.

"Mr. Thernam." I read it out and then entered without a single thought about it. He didn't need his office anymore. I locked the door behind me and closed the shades as well. Enough light came in to allow me to see the room.

Pretty standard, a desk and some chairs. There were more empty pots and more silly paintings that weren't worth noting. There were some photos of a man in his late forties and some children on the desk which I promptly turned face down.

Those eyes looked at me and all I saw were the eyes of a collector. It's what they were now, staring from distorted faces that held random expressions of ignorance to their current situation. I hated them so much. They were mocking me each time I saw them and I wished that they would just go away. The way they looked at me. The faces of the collectors may be random, but I swore I saw that glimmer in their eyes and I was afraid of what that meant. Probably just my imagination, but what if there was something behind it all. If? It was a silly question that drove philosophers mad and now it was doing the same to me.

I put all of my gear onto the ground and pulled out a bottle of water and a rag. I needed to clean the blood off of my hands.

It came off easy enough, but my hands were left a shade of pink that just wouldn't go away no matter how much I scrubbed and some was buried into my finger nails. It would have to do for now.

Tossing the now red rag aside, I laid down on the thin grey carpet. There was no comfort, but I could finally get some sleep. Darkness took me quickly.

I didn't feel much better when I woke up, it was cold and dark. It was actually supposed to be late winter right now. There was a time when snow would have blanketed the city, but that was a long time ago. Now it just got chilly at nights.

Every muscle and joint ached as I lifted myself from the hard ground that I had used as my bed. I couldn't see and felt around for my bag since it had my flashlight. I stopped and thought better of it. It would just attract them and I would have a repeat of last night except without someone to cover me... and get abandoned. Was it my fault? I did just run, but it was hardly the first time that we had to run. He was always right behind me, or right in front of me.

I shook my head. It was too late to change things, I knew that.

I found my bag and put it on and then grabbed the crowbar. I peeked out of the blinds, but just like in here, it was pitch black. I put my ear on the window to listen for any noise. There was nothing, for now.

The cubicle room was quiet when I opened the door. I wasn't planning on leaving the building, I just wanted to be out in a more open space in case something was in the building. I used my hands to stop myself from walking into the wall and skirted around the edges of the room until I found a window.

There was the tinniest sliver of the moon visible. It gave off barely any light. It would be a few more days until I could actually navigate by it if I was ever forced to travel at night again.

Why would I travel? I didn't need to go anywhere. I could just stay right here and survive like before. Go out during the day and be back before the sun went down. Set something up so the collectors wouldn't come in and investigate. I could live here if I wanted.

And what of Crane? I can't just leave him out there. I owed it too him to go out and look for him. It wasn't guaranteed that he was caught, he could have been forced to flee in a different direction.

Wouldn't he have come back by now if that was the case?

The debate in my head went on for hours and took up so much of my attention that I didn't notice the lights in the square below. They were scanning the area and it was only when one flashed across my face that I did see them.

I ducked behind the wall and the light continued to move across the building. It came back for a moment and stayed fixated on my window.

"Oh god." I prayed into the crowbar that I held to my chest.

Shouldn't I be elated? They were people, actual people. Yet, I was afraid.

The light moved on to scan the other windows and then elsewhere. I could still see some light coming from outside. It was possible that they were simply other survivors forced to go out at night, but this seemed too good to be coincidence. I barely ever saw others and just one day after all of those gun shots, here they were. They had come to investigate and had come at night. Any survivor who had lasted this long would know not to go out at night.

I began to hear some yelling from outside. I raised myself to look outside again. All of the lights were focused on a few collectors that were waddling towards them. Now that I had some time to observe, I counted the lights. There were four of them out there.

One of them raised their arm and a flash along with a bang came out. One of the collectors fell over and the other one who was right behind tripped over the body.

The people outside didn't waste any time, they began to run. They began to run towards the building I was in.

"Damn it." I whispered to myself. Again, what I wanted didn't seem to matter. Those people were coming to me.