Survival Of The Fittest/By Taran

Chapter 9

"Where do you think you're going?" The men had their weapons out at us, Carter clenched the back of Isaac's sweater, terrified.

"Up north." Isaac's voice deep, his eyes staring directly at the three men.

Isaac signals us to hold our weapons up at those men too, so we do as he tells us.

"You let us go our way," Isaac moves closer to them as we stay behind with our weapons still out. The man in the middle holds his hand up at Isaac and Isaac stops walking.

"This is our territory. 'The Fort'. You can not leave now," five other men rush to us, snatching our weapons, as they drag each of us to their side of the gate.

Isaac stands his ground. We watch him from the inside, He cocks his gun, "You let them back out, now!" He yells at the man in the middle, pointing the gun directly at the man's chest.

"You control yourself or none of them will be alive in the next two minutes. You either come in or one of these men shoot you down," The man grabs a hold of Isaac's gun and snatches it from him.

"For their leader, you aren't showing much leadership," the man grins at Isaac still who stood, glaring at the man, not avoiding eye contact.

"Isaac, just come in!" I shout back at Isaac who holds his ground. The men held onto us tight. None of us could get away. Each of them had their guns at our heads.

"Raphael. Leave them alone," A older man calmly says to his men. His gray hair outgrown, and he had a long white beard. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans. He wore boots which were covered in mud.

The men lower their weapons down, making space for the old man to walk up to Isaac.

"I'm Xavier," his grin much nastier than Raphael's.

"I don't care. You leave my people be and we will head back." Xavier shakes his head, laughing.

"I'm afraid I can not do that. For, your people are now mine. So, it's either you stay or we kill you." Isaac didn't speak.

"We have everything you will need. People like you could possibly be infected. More likely than any of my people. People like you, think they can just come up here, seeking someshit that the doctors have said. And what? Get all of my people sick."

"You know about Alaska." Isaac tenses up and towers over the old man.

"Everyone does, son. It's all bullshit. Outsiders have come here and died while all of my people have been alive since all this shit hit the fan. We get you all checked up for symptoms and if you're good. We keep you. You are one of us." Xavier looks at us, giving us a smile. Then he turns back around to Isaac.

"What if we aren't good?"

"Well then, son... We kill you. There's no way you go through these gates toward Alaska without being checked. Alaska is bullshit. Take that out ur head."

We all wait for Isaac to make his move.

"Don't worry. You're all safe with us," Xavier smirks at him. Xavier takes his hand out to shake his, but Isaac just ignores him and walks into the gate toward us.

"Stay calm." He whispers to us.

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As we walk inside The Fort, I notice the front yards of the houses planted with vegetables. Little girls and boys were helping their parents out with the harvest. Some men and women march around with bullet vests and guns in their hands, in a singular line. There are two signs in big bold writing labelled as nursing home, and hospital. They all seemed to be doing well for a growing population.