4/11/11
Run, run! The words blast through his head like a siren. One of his only thoughts lately, and one of his only impulses. Run, kill, find a safe place, sleep. Every-day's the same. He’s alone. All he has is a sawed off shotgun, add that to the amount of ammo a child’s backpack can carry, a small supply of water and you still have enough to barley stay alive. He misses people, love ones. And as the moans and footsteps grow louder behind him he knows he has to escape. Before they couldn't climb, now they can. Nature, adapting to survive. They're climbing the fire escape, he has to go. Now! He jumps. Staggers backwards by the force, for a second eye contact is made. He sees the face, a child, half of her face... is missing. She has no hair on the blood-encrusted skull that used to be a head. He turns to throw up, nothing comes out. He hasn't eaten in two days. He's going to die in hell.

It's getting late, unless you wake them up, they’ll sleep all day. As the sun starts to set on another morbid day of existence alone, he has to find somewhere safe to hide. He doesn't look over his shoulder, he hears, seeing is too dangerous. Perceptions are too warped. If you see a child you don’t want to shoot it, but if you hear one of them, it’s just one of them. So he marches on, eyes forward, ears locked onto the silence. He had left his group two, three days ago. There were three of them and they were slowing him down. There was no time to watch after or care for anyone else. Without him they had died, he new that, he just couldn't think it.

He's down on the street again, the sun was almost gone. He has to find somewhere to sleep and fast. Church's are always safe, they couldn't enter a church it was like there was a
force field, one beacon of light in amidst the loneliness, amidst the sadness, amidst the dull hope. Maybe he can find one. He jogs around corners, potholes, past broken windows. Then he sees it, Saint Bethany's Bible Holiness Church. This will do for the night, but he has to keep going, he needs to find a pharmacy by tomorrow. He took his last dose of Felbatol four days ago. Felbatol is medication specifically for epilepsy, without it he could have a seizure, he could die.

In the sanctuary of the church, lying on a pew, trying to sleep. He hears them outside, moaning, groaning, crys throughout the night. Church, he never liked churches. They never seemed to know God, at least not the God he was searching for. Grace, forgiveness, love. The real God that his mom always talked about when he was a child. He starts to speak. “You have some sense of humor, you sick sadistic freak! You know what 'God', all my life all I ever did was try to please you, to please you for my mom, and this is what I get! I watch people die, people eat other people, I murder people! And yet in four days, my medication has been gone for four days and I haven't had one seizure. I watch so many people die and I'm still alive, why Lord”? No response. He sleeps.

It's daylight, he grabs his bag next to him and gets up, he walks towards the double doors leading to the main hall, his shoes scuffing across the burgundy flower patterned carpet. Someone's singing, it's a child's song, “Ring Around the Rosie”. Blinding light suffocates his face as he reaches the main entrance doors, the song grows louder as eagerness consumes him. “People!” Then he see's them, children, twelve children dancing around a stone angel. The angel's face is beautiful, warm, familiar. He gasps and falls to his knees. The face, he now sees it...it is his mother's! The angel's head turns towards him, eye's darken. It calls him by name. Cason, Cason, Cason. Eerie whispers cloud his thoughts. He awakens suddenly, drenched in sweat. He sits up. With his head in hands, he begins to cry.