Episode 4: “no turning back”
...creak.creak.creak. The owner of the voice came down the stairs and into view… they were a kid. A little boy with tousled brown hair was standing at the foot of the stairs looking back at me. For a moment we stood in silence, until he spoke up. “h-hey, i don't have anything else for you and your... ‘gang’ so please just leave me alone!”. The boy began to sniffle, my grip loosened. then I speak up, “gang?? I'm not part of any gang. And I'm not gonna hurt you”.  I set the baton down on the floor, and Nixon sniffs it. “See, I put down my weapon. And again I don't want to harm you”. The boy’s expression softened, he looked me up and down and said “Now that I think about it, you’re not wearing one of their jackets. What's your name?”. ‘wow.. That sure was a mood change’, i look at the boy and smile softly “my name is emily, emily blight. And this is Nixon”. The dog trots over to the boy and circles him while sniffing. “May... I know your name?” I ask. The boy looks up at me, “my… My name is alexis.” “Well then Alexis, it's a pleasure to meet you” I say promptly, the boy smiles at me and kneels down to pet nixon. I look around the wrecked remains of what once would have been a cozy living room, I look back to the boy and examine his clothes. They seemed a bit dirty, one of the sleeves of his shirt had a rip in it. “Hey… alexis?” he stops petting nixon and looks up at me “yeah?” he asks, “how… How long have you been here.. by yourself? I mean like, where are your parents?”. The boy's smile fades as he inhales and sighs shakily. “I…”, he pauses and his gaze drifts to a calendar on the wall. I walk over to it and take it off the wall, the year was at the top of each page along with the month. ‘February 2016’ . I flip back to the page that says January on it, a date was circled in red marker with the words “business trip flight” written inside of it. “My mom and dad have been gone for a while… They left me with a babysitter.” he says quietly. I look at him with a puzzled look and ask, “if your parents left you with a babysitter… then where are they?” his gaze lifts from the calendar in my hand to my eyes. “I.. I don't know… when she left she told me that she would be right back, and that she was going to buy something from the corner store”. I stare at him for a moment with the silence of the house and the sounds of the undead outside being the only main noise. “Alexis.. H-how long ago was this?” I ask with the urgency rising in my tone, “... it was four days after my mom and dad went away”, i look back down at the circled date on the calendar. ‘If it's still the fifteenth.. This kid has been alone here for…’  I count the days starting from the day his parents left and minus the days the babysitter was here. “So you're telling me that you have been alone here for sixteen days?”, I say without raising my voice too loudly. “I.. I guess…” Alexis squeaks out, he looks from the calendar in my hand to my eyes. “When do you think they’re coming back..?” he says in a small voice. That broke my heart, this little boy was just here alone with some gang terrorizing him all this time. He doesn't  deserve this… nixon seems to read the room and rests his head on alexis’s lap and lets out a whimper. I opened my mouth to speak when I heard the sound of what seemed to be an electric zap. The light bulb above us emits a low buzz and a warm glow and the TV screen lights up and a loud static fills the room. I rush over to the tv and look frantically for the remote, I suddenly hear a haunting of snarls and groans coming from outside, and it was close. ‘oh god…they must be near the gate’, i spot the remote on the floor i reach down and grab it. I point it at the tv and click the off button,....CRACK! THUD! “Shit!- Alexis, we gotta get out of here!” I turn to face him and he's already bolting up the stairs. I quickly snatch up my baton from the floor and bolt up the stairs after him with Nixon right behind me, BANG! BANG! BANG!. “Those things are gonna break in! Alexis, do you have some sort of exit up here? Or did you just come up here without a plan??” I let Nixon go in front of me and I turned around to move a table dresser in front of the stairway and let it lean a bit off of the top step. I whip back around to see an open door, I run toward it and see Alexis shoving some things into a small backpack. “Only take what you really need, we'll need space for supplies if we ever come across it”, he looked up at me and nodded quickly. BAM! ‘The door downstairs must've given way!.’ Our eyes widen in horror, “there's a way out of here from the roof, but we have to drop down onto the trampoline out back” Alexis quickly notes as he snatches up a gold watch from off his dresser. He brushes past me as he opens a window and looks out it. I adjusted my bag, scoop up nixon, and hurried over to the window. Alexis heaves himself through and stands on the slightly slanted roof, i take a breath and pull me and nixon through as well. “Follow me” alexis beckons as he walks along the roof, i reposition nixon in my arms and press on. “Look down” says Alexis, and low and behold there was a trampoline down at least 11 feet down from where we stood on the roof. I draw back a bit from the ledge of which we stood, “woah,woah,woah. Slow down now, how do you know this is gonna work huh?” I say in a startled tone. He looks and me and flashes a smile, “trust me, i've done this a bunch of times in order to get out of the house.” he says as he turns back toward the edge and jumps, my heart nearly sinks and i look over the edge to see him looking back up at me “see? I'm fine, now jump down so we can get out of here!” he says with urgency in his tone. I took a breath in and jumped, I made sure to hold Nixon in my arms in a way so when we would hit the trampoline below us, I would take the impact. I open my eyes and me and Nixon are ok ‘huh! It really worked!’ . I look down at nixon and give him a kiss on the head, i get off of the trampoline and look for alexis. He was fiddling with a bike lock attached to three bikes “cmonn… 3…4…7…1!” he mutters this combination and yanks down on the lock and it opens. “We can use these to try to get out of here… you can use my mom's bike, but don't ruin it ok?” he says as he puts his kickstand upright. The bike in question had a dark purple and black design on it and it had what I guessed was a basket meant to hold extra baggage. I set Nixon in the basket and held the bike by the handlebars and walked the bike over to Alexis, “do you know someplace around here or something? Because I know we could get away from those guys in there but… no doubt there are a heck of a lot more of those things out there.” i say with an unsure tone, he looks back at me with a puzzled expression “i… don't know… but, maybe we could try to find my friend's house and see if he's there with his parents.” he says this as he flips up a latch on the back gate. He walks his bike out and I follow close behind him, he gets on his bike and looks back once again “i know where his house is, just follow me” he says as he gets started forward on his bike. I mount my borrowed bike and start forward as well. I let out a sigh as we began to ride into the night down the street, “I guess there's no turning back now.”