The Stranger

The knock at the door stunned the room to silence. Hushes echoed around as the voices dissipated and all that was left was the crackling of the fire. Everyone looked at each other with solemn eyes, and they knew what they had to do. Alice ushered the little children into the bathroom. The damp smell indicated the presence of mould, and the little ones tried complaining; desperate to return to the fresher air back in the living room. But Alice gave them a stern look, and they knew to be quiet. Huddled together in the rusted bathtub, Alice could feel her heart racing and she silently cursed. How stupid they had been. Nothing of the outside world had changed, but everything had been going so well lately, they’d slipped up.

In the living room, the fire was still crackling. The warmth and light had been a comfort moments ago, now it was a death sentence. A signal to the outside of their presence. John made a move to put it out, but Luke stopped him. Gripping John’s arms to prevent him from chucking the bucket of water. A look of confusion was all John gave and Luke began to whisper.

“You put that fire out, they’ll know we’re here.” He hissed, with venomous eyes. All John could do was nod and lower the bucket to the floor. Then Luke pointed to the corner of the room. There, next to the discarded bones of rats, lay an old double-barrelled shotgun and a rusted shovel.

John and Bea nodded and as silently as they could, they armed themselves. Meanwhile, Luke pulled a handgun from behind his back and checked that it was loaded. He looked at the others and held a finger to his lips.

“Please let me in!” Came a cry from outside, knocking more intensely against the rickety wooden door. Bea and John looked at each other and a dark sadness was etched across their faces. It was hard enough to survive with four adults and two kids to feed. But they still couldn’t handle the pains that came with condemning someone else to their death.

Tears welled up in John’s eyes and Luke could see, even in the low light of the fire, that the man was never built for a world like this. Bea went to reassure him, and Luke, shaking his head, turned his attention back to the man outside. How likely was it that this man would leave? He thought. Could it be a trick? There was no way to know. And that meant no one got let in. No more adults. No more kids. It was safer that way.

“I can help you,” the man’s voice was cracking, “please let me in! I’m so cold.”

Silence.

But it wasn’t working. He started knocking more frantically, his voice and desperation growing ever louder.

“Please,” he cried, “please! Please! PLEASE!”

Luke started to worry. The noise was going to draw even more attention to there presence. He couldn’t let this continue. Bea went to stop him and he turned to look at her.

“What are you going to do?” She whispered hysterically.

“We can’t have him out there, making all that racket,” Luke responded, “I’ll do what I have to” and Bea’s eyes dropped to the floor in complete fear. Her face was a picture of despair. John, still crying, turned away. He couldn’t bear to watch.

Luke approached the door with his handgun raised. One quick pull of the trigger and then there would be silence. He placed his left hand on the decaying door handle, readying himself. It all happened in a flash.

As Luke went to pull the trigger, Bea, possessed by an episode of madness, grabbed him. She shook her head profusely, her eyes now full of anger as she raised the shotgun to Luke’s chest.

“Bea what are yo-”

“Not another one,” she was still quiet but it sounded like a shout, “I can’t do it, I’d rather die than have another death on my hands.” There were tears in her eyes; she moved, keeping the gun trained on Luke, as she opened the door.

Slumped outside was the broken and beaten husk of a man. He looked up at Bea with pleading eyes and she motioned her head to indicate that he was allowed in. Practically crawling on all fours, he came through the door and Bea quickly shut it.

“Oh, thank you,” he gushed, a look of relief in his eyes. Then Bea moved the shotgun, and he was back to cowering on his hands and knees. “No, don’t shoot,” he whimpered.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“Dean,” he choked it through his tears, “please don’t shoot me.”

Luke trained his gun on him too now, still looking at Bea with disbelief. John had hunkered away into the corner, looking not so dissimilar to the traumatised Dean. His head lay in his hands, the shovel now at the floor by his feet.

“We have to kill him,” Luke stated, “we can’t trust him. We can’t feed him. It’s the only way.”

“I refuse to believe that,” Bea responded, her heart pounding as she questioned where she should really be pointing her weapon. “The world is in disarray, but we can still be human”

Meanwhile, cuddled close to the children, Alice could only hear what was happening. She had heard the scuffle and the sound of an opening door, but no gunshot. Questioning what was going on, part of her was desperate to go back into the living room. But the kids needed her, and she wasn’t about to leave them. Closing her eyes and holding them closer she whispered a prayer and hoped it would not be her last.

“There is no humanity in life now,” Luke retorted, “only the need to survive and we can’t survive with him here.”

“I’ll help,” Dean interjected, “really, anything you need, I can hunt or cook or something.” Luke looked the man over. He was nothing special; paper-thin with a gaunt face and a deadness in his eyes.

“You can’t do anything,” he raised the gun to Dean’s head, only for Bea to turn the shotgun back on him.

“You kill him, I kill you.” She spat, “this is not okay.”

“Where does it end, Bea?” Luke asked, “today it’s him, tomorrow another. We’ll be dead within a week if we start letting people in. Starved or murdered.”

Bea was silent, she knew he was right. He was always right. She cursed at him, but still, she didn’t waver. Her mind was made up.

“No more killing. We can’t become monsters, otherwise, we really have lost.”

“We already are monsters,” Luke moved his gun from Dean. He and Bea were now locked in a standoff. “You’ve been complacent this whole time, but I’ve killed them all. Everything that comes to this door dies, that is how we live. How we survive. You taking a stand now doesn’t change what’s been done. It never will.”

“Stop!” came the cry from Dean, getting to his knees. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry. If you have it in your hearts, today you’ll change your ways. We need each other to survive. Humans need each other. Now more than ever. Separated we struggle. I have struggled for so long. But together we can thrive, we can have something reminiscent of the lives we’ve all lost. Please, take a chance today. Take a chance on humanity.”

Luke and Bea looked at the forlorn man in front of them, and back at each other. For Bea, the words had resonated with her. She lowered the shotgun to the floor and moved to hug Dean. John, awakening from his corner of despair came to join them. Huddled in a group, they cried together.

“We have to accept him, Luke,” Bea said, looking up at the man towering over them all, “you know it. All that we’ve built in this little shelter, we can’t just keep it for ourselves. It’s not right.”

“It’s true,” whispered John, through his tears as he cried with Dean. “Please Luke, let him join us.”

“No,” was the reply.

And in the bathroom, the dripping noise of water from a leaky tap was covered for a second. A deplorable noise boomed throughout, sounding for the first time in weeks. Alice and the kids cried; the inevitable gunshot they had come to dread so much had taken its time. It never changed though. It came eventually. The tears running down her cheeks felt numb to her. Crying over the same thing over and over again had begun to eat away her soul. She wished it could be different. She wished for better. But it never changed. It never would.