Dakota's Suite

More Survivors

Before I could move, a gigantic shovel had borrowed its end into the boy's skull. It went so far that it nearly decapitated half of its face. The upper part of my jeans had been stained a dark crimson red. Streams of coagulated blood had made a river down the half of its face while the shovel had stopped low before the boy's left eye. The heavy breathing had stopped, and the boy had stopped moving. A leather boot had pressed itself against the corpse's head, with four tugs, the end of the shovel rips out of the skull, a mushy sound followed suit.

The boy had finally collapsed on my knee. Blood continued to seep from the cavity of it's head, I could even see the dark red matter on the inside. If I wasn't mistaken, they even lodged the blade through a good portion of the brain.

"Are you gonna keep starin' at this biter here, or are you good enough to stand?" A different voice had retorted.

I silently stood up, dusting the pine straw off lower half of my body. An elderly man, shorter than I was, stood with the shovel over his shoulder. He had wispy white hair brushed back in a bun, and wrinkles adorned his terracotta colored skin. He wore a white button-down shirt with brown corduroy slacks. Stood beside him, a younger black man in a police uniform, he looked to be in his early forties. He had short, curly pepper colored hair. He stood with his arms folded across his chest.

Bryant had practically stumbled forward down the heel to approach the two men, "Thank fuck! It's the police-"

"Shut up, boy!" The elderly man hissed through gritted teeth, his grip tightened around his shovel. "You'll attract more than dead little boys with the way you're yellin'!"

The officer raised his hand in front of him, halting him from speaking. "Are you alright?" He asked me.

"I'm fine." I shrugged. I wasn't going to tell the officer that I thought that I was going to lose my leg to a kid half my age. I gazed down back at the child that the elderly man had killed. The boy was shirtless, dirt had blemished nearly his whole body. The other half of his body was still under the heaps of pine straw.

"You should take a step back, boy." The elderly man pointed at me. I silently do so, watching him use his shovel to move away the pieces of pine straw away from the kid. It was revealed that the boy's leg had been caught by a massive bear trap underneath, hence why he was lying down on the ground when Hannah tripped over him and when he attacked me. "What a damn shame." The elderly man sighed.

"Do you guys know what's going on?" Bryant asked.

The officer knelt towards the body. "Not quite. We're as ignorant as you guys are." The man spoke. He made a pause as he rose back up.

The elderly man glanced down at the officer. "What is it, Wayne?" He asked as he burrowed his other hand in his pocket. They both seemed to be more interested in the dead body than four strangers wandering about in the forest.

"It's hard to tell what happened to him. Fortunately, he's no one we're familiar with." The man I presumed to be Wayne answered. "I just wish kids wouldn't have to be subjected to this shit."

The elderly man lowered his bushy white eyebrows and frowned, reaching out to gently pat Wayne by his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Wayne."

Hannah shuffled herself next to me. "Do you guys stay at a shelter? Our truck broke down in the road, and we honestly have nowhere to go." Hannah politely explained the situation. "I heard that there's still evacuation camps out here."

The elderly man had removed his sunglasses, revealing his cool dark brown eyes. "Sorry, lil' lady, we haven't been able to contact the other routes due to the power being' funny. But we do have a nice house not too far from here. You're all welcome to stay. It's under my name, after all." He beamed.

Hannah nodded vigorously with a faint smile. "We would really appreciate the help."

Wayne nodded, and he exchanged glances with his friend. "Is it just you four out here?" He questioned us.

"Yeah, it's just us." I answered. Wayne turned to look at me once again. His eyes did a swift top to bottom examination, as if he was looking for anything off-putting about me, then it transitions to the rest of us. Another wave of awkward silence had filled the forest, other than the chirping birds and outgoing cicadas.

Wayne took a step forward and extended his hand towards me. I decided to reciprocate the handshake by gripping his hand firmly. He grinned and introduced himself. "I'm Officer Wayne Bennett, but you can just call me Wayne. The man that saved goes by the name Baez."

I nodded. "Dakota. Dakota Graves." I paused and glanced over to the elderly man, I best let him know that I appreciate his help, as unexpected as it was. "Thank you, Baez."

Baez nodded and smiled. "Nice manners, kid, but I wasn't gonna watch you turn into jerky."

"Let's hope you don't get grabbed again anytime soon, Dakota." Wayne half-joked.

Ha ha.

"We can get to know the others on foot, but we're wasting time and daylight standin' out here because of idle chit-chat." Baez whisper-announced as he gazed up at the sky, then down the hill. "You'd do best by following us back. There's more of us at the house."

The two men had already started to head back down a path perpendicular to the slope we were traveling down. Hannah had grabbed Daphne, who still hasn't been able to form a single sentence and guided her along with everyone else.

I followed Baez and Wayne, ignoring the glares that Bryant had shot my direction before I had turned around.

I definitely realized that compared to strangers, my family (excluding Hannah) would've simply let me die right then and there.

Especially my step-brother.