Chapter 11 - Sunblock...

It’s been a week since we’ve arrived in Remington. Mahabi, Lattei, Terry and me stayed in that town since we’ve arrived… Sometimes we made walks through the deserted town and looked for ways to stay busy… Sometimes it was really eerie that a town like this is deserted… But, like Mahabi said, we could steal things and get away with it. It’s just so surreal… And every night, I kept on worrying about Cody and everyone else… I didn’t know where they were… But as soon Terry, Lattei or Mahabi noticed I was worrying, they talked to me. And I did the same to everyone else. Terry said he misses his family a lot and I even caught him crying in a corner one night as the others were asleep. And Mahabi and Lattei didn’t really show it, but they lost friends as well. And that’s how we looked after each other… It’s still kinda weird though, being surrounded by three guys and I’m the only female… Also, I was the oldest of the bunch, but I guess that’s what made our group so tight. Because the four of us had all different backgrounds and stuff…



During the week we were in that little town, nothing happened. No enemy soldiers, no civilians, nothing… And one night, Terry and I went out because we got bored stiff sitting in the house all day… But something was bothering me though…



Nicole: Terry…?
Terry: Hm?
Nicole: You think we’re gonna stay here for much longer…?
Terry: I don’t know… Why you ask?
Nicole: Well… Ever gave a thought that… If GUN moves through this town that we’re gonna be in a lot of trouble…?

Terry: Their not coming back Nicole. There’s nothing here for them…
Nicole: Yeah I know but… Still… It’s not like we can stay here forever…
Terry: Yeah…

Nicole: It’s just that I’m worried sick you know…?
Terry: I know, dude… Look at the bright though…
Nicole: What bright side…? I didn’t know there was one…

Terry: We got a whole city for our own… We can do what we want here… We got food, shelter, warm beds, hot showers… Couldn’t get any better for us right now, while there are thousands of people out there who would kill for the things we have right now. Better take advantage of it while we still can.

Nicole: True…
Terry: But… You’re right… We gotta keep moving at some point.
Nicole: Yeah… Even if it gets us killed…?
Terry: … Even if it gets us killed…

Not long after that, we went home… We found Mahabi and Lattei in an intense game of Chess…



Nicole: Hey guys…
Lattei: Back so soon?
Mahabi: Checkmate.
Lattei: Whadda ya mean checkmate?
Mahabi: You’re king has nowhere to go.
Lattei: …

Then Lattei used his king to capture Mahabi’s queen. The expression on Mahabi’s face was priceless after he realized he made a wrong move… Lattei taps his forehead with his index finger and grinned.



Lattei: Common sense, my dearest cousin… Its all about the mind games… Let you’re enemies believe what you want them to believe… Then strike at their weakest point…

Mahabi made his next move…



Lattei: Let the pawns do all the dirty work… Eliminate the most important pieces… Take out the pawns to avoid them from getting back up… Drive those who were responsible in a corner… Get you’re hands on what they want the most…

Lattei moves his queen so that the king of Mahabi had nowhere to go. He picks up the king, held it in his hand and looked at it for a moment… Then he crushes it in the palm of his hand and looked at the shattered pieces for a while…



Lattei: Then it’s checkmate…


Lattei wasn’t talking about the game of chess… He was talking about this whole deal, this so called war that is being waged outside. You could see his eyes were burning with vengeance and that he had a score to settle with someone… I didn’t know who though… All this time he was relaxed and mellow, and didn’t really talk much, but I guess he was tired of waiting… I guess it was time for us to take matters in our own hands… He wasn’t afraid to die for his ideals… And that’s when I realized we had nothing to loose if we wanted to make a difference… Lattei was the first one to realize it… That we rather wanted to die on our feet then to live on our knees…


That same night, we were preparing to leave. We all checked the houses and stores and every other building before we left to see if there was anything useful. The gun Terry gave to Mahabi a week earlier was never given back. I didn’t think Terry wanted it back, because he found a new one when we were in that store… At some point, we came across a shop… We never noticed this shop before… It has two doors… One door that was locking out the other, so it was impossible to get in without opening the first door. Also, the windows were barricaded… We didn’t know what kind of shop it was, but the letters were faded and it was unclear of what it said…



Terry: Whoa, I haven’t seen this one before.
Mahabi: Let’s check it out.
Terry: It’s locked.
Mahabi: Pssh, move aside. … Amateur.
Terry: …
Mahabi: … Pin, I need a pin.
Nicole: … I don’t have pins…
Mahabi: Paperclip then.
Nicole: *shakes no*
Mahabi: … Note to self, paperclips are essential for survival…

Then Mahabi went to the house next to the shop and kicked in the door. Terry followed him and about fifteen minutes later, they came back with a bunch of paperclips…



Mahabi: … Alright, let’s try…

He bends the paperclip and forced the lock… At some point we heard a click.



Mahabi: These locks are easy to crack, they’re so old they’re gonna-

He looked at the paperclip that was all bent…



Mahabi: frackin… Let’s try again…

He takes out another paperclip and forces the lock again… But no click this time…



Mahabi: shoot… Hold on…
All: ……
Lattei: Stand back.

We looked behind us and noticed Lattei was holding a huge brick. He tosses it up and down then threw with all his strength against the window. The window cracked, but didn’t break… So everyone got a brick and threw it against the window and at some point, it shatters. And then an alarm went off… But we still didn’t manage to get in because of the steel bars…



Terry: frackin’ hell, whatever they were selling here, must have been pretty expensive…

Nicole: It’s not like they were selling groceries or anything…
Terry: It better be worth it… Now how do we get in?

Lattei and Mahabi inspected the steel bars. They looked up and noticed something…



Mahabi: These bars are being held up by hinges. It rolls up. We can dislocate it by forcing it up. Terry, push the bars up.

Terry took off his jacket and sunglasses and forced the bars up… It looked pretty heavy, but Terry managed to lift it up a bit. Mahabi and Lattei took a brick and slammed it against the hinges. At some point, we heard a “clang” and it falls down, along with all the necessary havoc. All sorts of shatters were heard…



Terry: Whoa! That didn’t sound good!

Then we entered the shop through the window… It was dark… I didn’t see where I was going… At some point, I tripped over something and heard a lot of stuff shatter… Kinda embarrassed by this, I quickly crawled up and smiled nervously around as the alarm was still going off… Mahabi got so sick of it he kept on kicking the alarm box…



Mahabi: Shut up! Shut up!! Shut up!!!


Terry: … frackin hell…
Lattei: What?
Terry: This is a fracking antique shop!!

Then Terry kicked over a table were a lot of vases were standing… And it shatters all again…



Lattei: I think you’re jumping the gun a bit Terry… Look…

Lattei pointed all the way down the aisle and we noticed a huge display... It had all sorts of weapons… Knifes, swords, wooden pistols, crossbows, archery equipment, ancient weapons… As soon as Mahabi turned the lights on, we saw a lot of other stuff… Red flags, with a white circle in the middle with some cross in it. I believe it’s called a swastika. All sorts of posters in an ancient language with that symbol on it, and some guy with a funny moustache that kept on looking as if he had to shoot needles… Statues of persons, paintings, ancient pottery, and all sorts of stuff were on display behind thick windows…



Nicole: …Whoa…
Terry: What?
Nicole: Everything here is at least a thousand years old…

Terry: … You don’t say…

Nicole: … Twenty five thousand dinar for a flag with some head of a human with the funny moustache…?

Terry: … I’d be paying twenty five thousand dinar not to see it! frackin’ hell…


Terry and Mahabi walked off to look around as Lattei stood in front of the display and stared at all the knives on display. All of a sudden, he started punching the window ‘till his knuckles were bleeding. He didn’t stop there though. He kept on going until the glass shatters… He looked at all the knives and then to the swords…



Lattei: Sabre… Katana… Broadsword… Rapier… Machete… Bayonet… Jian… Tachi… Cutlass…

He carefully picks on of the swords, takes it out the sheath and stared it for a while. Terry and Mahabi wandered off to look for other useful stuff. I looked at Lattei…



Lattei: Just like my old one…
Nicole: What…?
Lattei: *sighs* Never mind… I’m just rambling…
Nicole: What is it?
Lattei: … This is a fine cutlass sword… I was taught how to handle a cutlass sword, because firearms are not noble… There is no honour in taking a life with a firearm… We only pillaged people and villages that deserved it… We were bound by a code, and the code is law…

Nicole: What are you talking about…?
Lattei: Pirates aren’t just legends you’ve heard of as a kid… Their real…

Nicole: Huh…?
Lattei: *nods and smiles* I want answers just as much as you do Nicole…

He balances the sword by the blade and inspected it. The sword was in pretty good shape though. It was all polished up and looked authentic enough… He ties the sheath to his belt and sticks the sword in it. Then he gets out another sword from the display and inspected that as well. The sheath gets tied at the other end of his belt and he was now armed with two swords. He tightens his bandana and there was a determined look on his face… He gets out the swords and made some impressive moves and placed both swords in the sheaths again. At that point, Terry and Mahabi got back and noticed Lattei standing there…



Terry: Playing pirate Lattei?
Lattei: … Aye…
Terry: Whoa, nice impression. I almost thought you’re a real one.
Lattei: Hehehe…
Mahabi: Hey Terry, how much you think this priceless ancient vase is worth?
Terry: … Priceless?
Mahabi: Whaha! Yo Lattei!! Heads up!!

Then Mahabi throws the vase towards Lattei… Lattei quickly grabbed a sword and sliced it into pieces… It happened so fast I barely knew what was going on…



Mahabi: You still got it…
Lattei: Aye…

Not long after that, we grabbed our stuff and left the city. At first, we were somewhat cheerful, but as the hours passed by, we moved slower. We were starting to get tired. The road was long and we followed signs as Terry checked the map every once in a while. On the way, we didn’t encounter a living soul and it was very quiet… And that’s what scared me the most. I rather be hearing people yell and see explosions and hear gunfire then to experience total silence. Then at least you know that people are still alive, but ever since I left, we’ve been only hearing total silence, like we were the last ones on the planet… Really scary…



Terry: Alright, so this guy walks into a bar right? He gets through the door, does a somersault and lands on a bar seat. The bartender, all baffled by what he just saw, asked him: “How did you do that?!” The guy said: “I’m a circus performer!” Then another guy comes in, makes a somersault and a double corkscrew and lands on a bar seat. The bartender, all baffled again said: “How the hell did you managed to do that?!!” “Easy!” the guy said. “I’m a gymnastic!” Then another guy comes in, does a somersault, a double corkscrew and another somersault and lands a bar seat next the others. “What the- How did you-“ The bartender stutters. The guy said: “Yeah I’m sorry, I slipped over the door mat”. Whaha!!

Mahabi: *laughs*
Lattei/Nicole: …
Terry: What, it’s funny!
Mahabi: I know one.
Terry: Do share Mahabi, because these two don’t know what’s funny.
Mahabi: How do you keep an echidna busy for 24 hours?
All: …
Mahabi: Place him a round room and tell him there’s free food in the corners.
Terry: *laughs*
Nicole: … How long do we have to keep hearing this…
Lattei: … No idea… Not long I hope…
Terry: I got another one!
Mahabi: Spit it out.

Terry: A hedgehog, echidna and a horse stand near a swimming pool. The hedgehog says: “If I let my wiener down in the water, I can tell the water’s temperature!”

Nicole: Ew!! Terry!!
Terry: Lemme finish!
Nicole: … *sighs*

Terry: Ok, so the others are like, “go ahead”. The hedgehog lets his wiener down in the water and then says: “24 degrees Celsius!” The others are pretty impressed. Then the echidna says: “If I let my wiener down in the water, I can tell how many gallons of water there is in the pool”. So he did. “10 gallons of water!!” He yelled. Then the horse said: “If I let my wiener down in the water, I can tell how deep the pool is”. So the horse lets his wiener down in the water. After he thought for a while, he looked at the others and said: “The pool is 2,4 metres deep!” *laughs*

Mahabi/Lattei: *laughs*
Nicole: … *sighs*

I thought that was seeing something in the distance. As I looked closer, I noticed there was a fire up ahead. The guys were still laughing and telling jokes, but as we got closer to it, they stopped laughing… What we saw were all sorts of wrecks, and a lot of dead human bodies incinerated to the point that they were all black. You could barely see they were humans, and the smell was unbearable as we passed by…



Terry: … Well, I guess they forgot to bring sunblock… That’s what you get for staying out in the sun for too long…

Lattei: What happened here…?
Terry: I don’t know, a bomb maybe…?
Mahabi: Le-Let’s just keep moving…

I was starting to feel nauseous... The images of the bodies and the smell became too much for me. I told the others that I had to get away from it, and apparently, they thought it was a good idea… We got over a small hill, but all we found there was the same scenario on the other side… I had to sit down; I was starting to get really dizzy, so I sat down as the others waited for me. They were all eagerly to move on, but I really had to sit for moment. I took a deep breathe. Then all of a sudden, I vomited. The guys didn’t really seem surprised that I vomited… There were more gruesome things to see then a puddle of vomit… Not long after that, Terry helped me getting up and got out a bottle of water and gave it to me. Then he stared at the puddle of vomit…



Terry: Heh... When was the last time you ate chicken wings… You ok…?
Nicole: Y-yeah…
Terry: Alright… Let’s go…

The days I’ve been spending with Mahabi, Lattei and Terry were somewhat fun, as far as you can call it that. There are thousands of people out there, who are not that fortunate as we were. And although the lame jokes and the sounds of the guys laughing cheered me up a bit, I could never escape the harsh reality that is war… Because in the end, you’ll always have to realize and face the truth… And the truth was that there’s still a war being waged outside…

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