Apartment 905 by Sahin, Ned (readnow .TXT) 📕

The curtain on the little window of the food cabin is rolled down from inside. It’s impossible to see through it, though.

We walk to the rear door. Kathleen grabs the door handle with one hand while holding the shotgun on the other hand. Toshi positions on the opposite side of the door with the hammer in his hand. I stand a few yards away across the door with the bow ready to release.

The Rica inside seems to feel what is about to happen. He thumps on the door with a shrill groan.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Always!” Kathleen says.

“Let’s do it!” Toshi says. I wonder if it will be worth it to put ourselves in danger by opening the door. There is one way to find it out.

“Now!” I say.

As soon as Kathleen opens the door, a young woman with long red hair and a breakout of reddish holes on her face. I don’t know why I assumed the Rica inside was a man. The gender wasn’t what shocked me, though. It was what I saw when I lowered my eyes down to her waist. She is pregnant or was.

I hesitate to release the bow. She jumps off the truck, taking advantage of my hesitation.

Kathleen hides behind the open door. The Rica turns to Toshi. I release the arrow but miss. I pull another arrow from my belt and place it on the bow. Toshi tries to defend himself with the hammer but the pregnant woman already wrapped her arms around him. I can’t target her head. She is too close to Toshi.

I shoot the second arrow to her chest. It hits her abdomen. She looks down the arrow for a moment. Then she turns her head to me. Her eyes are blazing, and she looks at me as if asking why I did that to her.

Kathleen leverages the woman’s distracted moment and pulls on her shirt. She falls on her back. I get the last arrow ready to shoot, but she stands back up and stares right into my eyes with her bloody eyeballs. With her red hair, red holes on her skin, glowing eyes, and blood around her belly, she looks like a starving zombie coming for our lives.

I release the last arrow. It destroys her skull right in the center of her forehead. The arrow leaves her head and sticks into the back wall of the food cabin.

“You okay?” Kathleen asks Toshi. She checks his body for any wounds.

“Yes… I think…so.” Toshi tries to catch his breath.

I feel like I let him down one more time. “I am sorry. I hesitated when I saw she is pregnant,” I say.

“I hesitated too...” Kathleen says.

Toshi ignores our apologies. He turns his head to the truck. “Let’s see what she was protecting in the truck,” he says. He climbs in the cabin as Kathleen opens the other half of the door to let more sunlight in. I get closer to see inside better.

There is grilling equipment with some utensils and empty plastic bags around. I see lime juice and salsa bottles on the counter. Toshi takes one of the salsa bottles and tries to weigh it. After he is convinced that it is not empty, he opens the cap and pours it in his mouth. He turns to us smiling.

“It’s not bad at all,” he says. He throws the bottle to Kathleen. She takes a few sips and gives it to me.

Salsa helps us to get some extra calories, but it makes us more thirsty. We check every drawer and container in the truck. The only liquid left, apart from the lime juice, is canola oil. I am not sure if it was worth risking our lives by opening the rear door.

I consider going for the alternative source of water that every human can produce. I once watched a guy in Hawaii drinking his urine in a reality TV show. After all, urine is 95 percent water. It also contains nutrients, such as folic acid, iron, magnesium, and zinc. It may help us survive until we find a better quality of water. They say that drinking the unfiltered urine of a healthy person can keep someone alive for two days.

A car driving toward us wakes me up from my daydream about alternative water sources.

We get out of the truck and stand there looking at the car approaching us. It’s an old blue sedan. I can’t see the people inside.

“Is that help or new trouble?” Kathleen asks.

I collect the arrows and place one of them in the bow. We take cover in front of the food truck and wait for the sedan. They must have seen us already. There is no need to try hiding.

The car pulls over a few yards from the truck. A wacky-looking guy with long messy hair extending over his beer belly and an older lady in hippie clothes get off the car and look at us with a wide smile.

“Mellow out, friends! I am Rowan. This beautiful lady is Harmony,” the guy says. I am not sure if this is a hallucination. I glance at Kathleen and Toshi.

“You see what I am seeing too?” I ask. They nod and smile.

“How y’all doing?” Harmony asks. She extends her arms out like she wants to hug us. Despite wearing a tulip print mask, the wrinkles on her forehead and gray hair reveal she's at least in her fifties. The guy looks at least ten years younger than her.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“We are the flower children!” the guy says laughing. He opens his arms too.

What the heck is flower children?

“Hippies…” Kathleen says. She read my mind.

The lady holds her breath for a moment like she has just got an idea.

She goes back to the car and comes back with two bottles of water. Seeing the shiny water flowing in those bottles, I lose my guard and unintentionally lower the bow.

“You must be thirsty. The sun’s been trippy today,” Harmony says. She has gotten our attention now.

Toshi steps forward to get the