Survival Of The Fittest

((Billie Sommerfield continued from She said, "Don't make others suffer for your personal hatred."))

The rest of the day had been pretty uneventful. Though Billie didn't really have a way to search the top floor, at this point it was pretty clear that she had the house to herself, and she saw little point in leaving. It wasn't the most comfortable building in the world, especially with no electricity or heating, but it was better than being outside. The structure brought with it protection from both the elements and her fellow classmates, and though it was inevitable that the announcements would eventually force her out, for now it was her fortress (or at least the closest thing one could get to that on this island).

Still, protection aside, she had to admit that it was pretty boring around here. The lack of power meant that there weren't any movies to watch or music to listen to, and, whoever the previous owners of this home were, their taste in books left a lot to be desired. There weren't many left to begin with, at least not in readable condition, and the few that were seemed less like the kind of books that one was actually meant to read and more of those that people would leave around the house for decoration, or some other similarly pointless reason. She had still given them a try, but with the sun beginning to set, the lack of light making it in through the windows meant that any more attempts to do so would have to wait until morning.

Billie leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. With no distractions remaining, all that seemed to be left for her was the unappealing prospect of sitting around in a stew of boredom and loneliness until she finally got tired enough to sleep. As embarrassing as it was for her to admit, the absence of her mother was beginning to feel more and more painful. Despite their conflicts, she was beginning to realize how much she had taken the older woman's support for granted, and how much of the nagging that she found so annoying was based out of genuine concern. The odds of them seeing each other again were slim, and Billie felt a pang of regret for never having made her appreciation known before the two of them had been separated for the final time.

Thankfully, a noise at the door pulled her out of those depressing ruminations and back into the present movement. Relieved but also slightly anxious, Billie began to make her way to see what the source of the interruption was.

((Salem Fox continued from Oz the gweat and tewwible))

Salem's feet were aching by the time he reached the town again, after all the running around he'd done that day. The revolver was a new, significant weight in his coat pocket opposite the one where his original pistol sat. He wanted to find a good place to just collapse and sleep until the next day, but that wasn't as simple as just finding a habitable place. He'd spent almost every night of his life sleeping in the same bed in the same house, without a thought as to how secure his family home was. Now there were who knew how many more factors there were to consider.

"Hello?" He called into an empty house. Only his own voice echoed back at him, and he left it without further conversation.

First-world-problems mode: Salem didn't want to consider it. He was tired. His feet hurt, and his stomach also kind of hurt after wolfing down most of the sandwich he'd been given and then having to climb back down the mountain. He didn't want to be alone.

Hell is other people, and all that. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em, at least until the finish line.

He had food and his winning personality to bargain with, and failing that, he had two guns. That had to be sufficient right now.

"Helloooo."

Salem had been making his way down the street, trying the front door of each house and calling into them, waiting for an answer, and then moving on when he got none. With the numbers on the island getting whittled down now, and maybe most of the dumbasses getting weeded out day by day, the most obvious shelters were returning to the empty state they'd sat in before the class's arrival. He was just starting to accept that he was going to be sleeping alone tonight when he tried the knob of the latest front door and found it wouldn't turn.

He jiggled the knob, but it was securely locked. Well, doors didn't lock themselves. Salem raised a hand and knocked, shave-and-a-haircut, and felt a faint sense of déjà vu.

"Anyone home?" He called to the locked house.

Billie came to a stop in front of the door, feeling a trickle of sweat roll down the back of her neck as the knocking continued. Under normal circumstances, there'd be nothing to worry about - even if it was an unwanted visitor, you could always just tell them to leave, or maybe even call the cops or something. There were no cops to call out here though, not out in the middle of nowhere. The thought of just asking who was knocking was met the memory of Roger L. Jackson's raspy voice, echoing so vividly through her mind that it was almost as if she was hearing it over the phone right now.

You should never say 'who's there', don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish.

Of course, this was real life, not a movie, but the idea still felt incredibly uncomfortable. She wasn't sure who the voice at the door belonged to, as muffled as it was, but knowing how many killers were wandering the island right now made the situation far more similar to one of those horror movies than she would like. Billie bit down on her lip as she looked up at the peephole on the door, taunting her with the knowledge it held just out of her reach. She briefly considered using the door handle and the nearby coat rack to lift herself up, but even if that worked, all the noise it would make would make her presence just as obvious as if she had responded with her voice.

In the end, she didn't really have much choice. As much as the locks on the doors protected her, the fact that they had been fastened from the inside made it obvious to any visitor that someone was here. Might as well see who it was. If they were cool, then it'd be nice to finally have someone to talk to after hours of sitting around be herself, and if they weren't... well, maybe the fact that someone was in here would make finding a less defended house to loot into the path of least resistance. She coughed gently before calling out through the door.

"Who's there?"

She knew she had no better option, but the phrase still made her cringe nevertheless.

Salem thought ever so briefly of lying. He didn't exactly expect a warm reception right away anyway, but it would be hard to con his way in when he had nothing to disguise his appearance, and he wasn't much for silly voices. Either way, it was going to be up to his powers of persuasion to get the door unlocked. "It's Salem," he called, trying to place the voice that had asked.

"I know what you're gonna say, so just to get it out of the way, I'm not looking to kill you. Just looking for some company." He paused for a moment to let that sink in, and then added, "I've got pie."

If growing up on the internet had taught him any one thing that he could apply to his real life, it was that everybody loved pie. If it had taught him two things, it was that everybody loved pie, and most people were idiots. Maybe his mystery host fell into the sweet Venn diagram overlap that he was looking for. "Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with, anyway?"

Salem? Billie frowned. Not really someone who she liked even at the best of times, and the name was still fresh in her mind from the morning's announcements. That was the long and short of it, to be honest. She already disliked him, and his recent behaviour definitely didn't change that, and all the same, her existing dislike of him made the odds of her accepting any sort of apology or explanation on his part fairly slim. It didn't matter what kind of pie he had with him - she wasn't opening that door.

Still, making the decision was the easy part - at least compared to actively enforcing it. She had no way of forcing him to leave, but in her experience, it wasn't common for people to stick around where they weren't wanted, and if he was looking for a target then he might as well go find an easier one. She called out through the door, deliberately dodging his second question.

"If you're looking for company, you'll have to go somewhere else, sorry. We're already full up in here."

She wheeled herself back from the door slightly, not enough to fully leave just yet, but enough to give herself enough clearance to turn around. With any luck, this would be the end of it - he'd fuck off and she'd be able to spend another night lonely and cold but at least in peace.

A smile had been forming on Salem's face, the sort that most people were used to seeing on him. It was habit, more than anything. It froze about two-thirds of the way there when the voice from the door came back with a rejection.

Well, it wasn't as though he'd sort of expected it. Still...

Maybe running into Adam had just put a sort of nostalgia in him. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the perfect moment where the snowball struck Adam in the back of the head. His ribs still ached where Adam had hit him with the pool cue.

Maybe it wasn't nostalgia, but there was a familiar feeling in the give-and-take, push-and-pull clawing over each other to see who came out on top. And maybe, if Salem couldn't have the company he wanted, he'd take that instead.

"Alright, message received." He held his hands up in supplication, though he didn't know whether the girl inside could see it. He hadn't missed her wording either, the specific use of "we." Then again, he hadn't heard any other voices chime in. "Good luck to you and all your friends." There was a bit of a point to his tone at that last part, but Salem backed away from the door and took his leave.

But he didn't go far.

Silence hung in the air as Billie remained by the door, waiting to see what Salem would do next. Thankfully, by his lack of further response, he seemed to have got the message. Of course, she had no way of checking; the peephole was a lost cause, and going out herself to investigate was probably the only move more suicidal for a horror movie protagonist than asking if anyone was there. Not the best situation to be in, for sure.

A couple more minutes passed before Billie finally managed to assure herself that the boy had, in fact, fucked off. She turned around, wincing briefly as the back of one of her wheels briefly thumped against the wall, a silent whisper of frustration escaping her lips from behind the door.

"Shit."

She raised her head again, listening reflexively for any comment before remembering that she was alone yet again. Finally, she began to make her way back down the hallway and towards the living room. It wasn't as easily defensible as the bathroom, but hell if she was going to sleep on the hard tile floor again for the second night in the row. She'd just need to find something to barricade the door with (or at least keep the doorknob from turning), which would be a pain in the ass, but surely not impossible. If only she had thought to figure this out before it started getting dark...

Night was falling. A figure crouched around the back side of the house like some strange lawn ornament, still until the dark well and truly settled over everything, and then it moved and became Salem again. The snowfall had picked up while he waited there, and he hissed softly as he rolled his shoulders and straightened up, stretching his cold muscles to get the blood flowing once more.

He didn't bother trying the back door. Maybe it was sitting unlocked this whole time, and both he and whoever was inside were idiots, but that was okay. His aims had shifted somewhat, and Salem liked a little dose of dramatic irony. Around the corner, a window that looked into the kitchen was broken, like someone in an old-timey sitcom had thrown a baseball through it. That was Salem's new goal.

The hole right now was too small, of course, but someone had already done half the work for him. Salem pressed his fingertips to one large, triangular shard still clinging to the window frame, and slowly pushed forward. The slow, steady cracking of the glass felt loud, and he paused a few times in the motion to cock his head to the side and listen.

The house creaked and settled, and maybe there were the faint sounds of movement from somewhere within, but he didn't hear anyone approaching. It was too dark to see in now, and he wasn't ready to get the flashlight out just yet.

Finally, the cracks in the glass had spread enough for Salem to push the shard out of the frame. It landed on the floor inside with a soft tinkle. He crouched back down right beneath the window, listening intently in case someone would come to check things out now, and waited.

Billie head shot up with a jerk at the faint sound of something cracking a couple rooms away. In the abstract, it wasn't much to worry about - houses made weird sounds all the time at night, especially old ones like this. There were plenty of normal and non-threatening explanations for the various noises, but no matter how illogical the worry was, each one still made her nervous. It was almost enough to make her wish she had slept in the bathroom again, the benefit of having a comfortable place to lie down somewhat negated by the anxiety brought on by the decrease in security. She glanced over at the door, the handle blocked by a chair she had slowly and painfully dragged over from the kitchen. It was a terrible barricade, and she had her suspicions about whether or not it would even hold in the first place, but it was the heaviest thing that she had been able to move in the first place.

After a moment of anxious waiting, she finally put her head down, adjusting the windbreaker that she had been using as a makeshift blanket. The sound was different from the ones she had heard before, but if she got up to investigate every single sound she'd never get any sleep. Besides, it was so quiet that there was a good chance that it was all in her head to begin with. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that she had started hearing things while lying in bed, somewhere between being awake and being asleep.

Just in case, though... Billie shifted over slightly, patting the dufflebag that lay on the floor just beside the couch. She slowly unzipped the bag, feeling around for the ice axe that lay just inside. It wasn't long before she confirmed that for the dozenth time that, yes, it was still there. Sighing, she zipped the bag back up again and closed her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep despite the countless worries buzzing around in her head.

After waiting for long enough to confirm that nobody was coming to investigate, Salem rose once more and got to work. Instead of knocking the rest of the glass in, he carefully pried the largest shards out and dropped them on the ground outside. He worked quickly and quietly, but not too quietly. Every so often, he paused and cocked his head to the side to listen for movement from within the house that would signal anybody coming his way, but there was never anything definite.

That was fine. He liked surprises when he was the one delivering them.

When he'd cleared enough of the glass to be able to crawl through the window without catching himself on any sharp edges, Salem hefted his bag off the ground and dropped it through. It landed on the kitchen floor with a soft thump, but this time, he didn't stop to wait and listen. Shimmying out of his coat, he folded it and laid it over the bottom of the window frame to cushion him from any small bits of glass that he hadn't been able to clear, and then he planted his hands on the sill and hefted himself over with a grunt.

Salem was more athletic and graceful than people might have given him credit for; he hadn't just been a pretty face on the cheer squad. It was relatively easy to climb into the house with the work he'd done already, and in just a moment, he too landed on the kitchen floor in a crouch. He grabbed his coat off the window, shook it just in case any glass was clinging to it, and then slipped it back on. He patted the pockets to make sure that both guns were still there, though he'd felt them clearly enough when climbing over them.

Both had the safety on, of course, but damn, imagine if he'd shot his dick off or something doing this stunt. That would have been one for whatever "Top Ten Survival of the Fittest WORST MISTAKES of 2021!!!!!!" highlight reel he was sure some bozo out there would be assembling on TikTok once the footage went live, like Top Ten lists hadn't peaked over a decade ago.

Inside the house, it was almost pitch-black. Salem felt around for his nearby bag and pulled it over, unzipping it to feel around for the flashlight inside. He didn't flick it on just yet, but he kept it in hand as he blindly felt along the wall to make his way to the kitchen's exit, leaving the bag on the floor. He'd come back for it later.

He crept along quietly, but not too quietly. The wind moaned outside, and the remaining broken glass in the window rattled as Salem left it behind.

More noises. Billie opened her eyes once again, a nervous fluttering beginning to worm its way through her stomach. She wasn't sure if something weird was actually going on, or if she was just being paranoid, but either way, it was freaking her out. The cold tile behind the locked door of the bathroom as feeling even more attractive with every passing moment, but there really wouldn't be a point in going now. Either nobody was there, and she'd be wasting her time, or somebody had broken in, in which case she wouldn't make it in time. The only option was to wait in here and hope that nobody was coming for her.

Still... she wasn't about to be completely defenceless either. Her arm shot down again, unzipping her bag and pulling out the ice axe, bringing it under the windbreaker, shuffling back towards the arm of the couch. She put it down next to her before grabbing her legs and drawing them as far in as she could, doing her best to ignore the muscle spasms as she made herself as small as possible under the fabric, with only her head poking out from beneath its black covering.

She couldn't stay like this forever, of course, not unless she was planning to stay away the whole night, but it would have to do until she was able to calm down and confirm that the noises she heard were actually nothing important. Billie sighed, softly. She hadn't been this nervous at night since she was a kid just starting to get into horror movies, though in a way it did make sense - no amount of desensitization could make up for becoming a character in one of those stories yourself.

Salem stumbled and swore under his breath, but there was a note of giddy enjoyment in it just like when he'd thrown the snowball at Adam that morning. He ached all over, but an exhilaration thrummed in his chest all the same.

It was so quiet, aside from him moving around and the wind outside. It was too dark to even see the white puffs of his breath in front of his face. Who else was in the house? Were they all asleep? Was there even a "they," or was it just the one girl?

Was she awake? Was she waiting scared? Or did she have no idea he was here at all?

Salem exhaled through his teeth in the faintest approximation of a laugh.

His fingers questing along the wall found an opening. Reaching further, he felt the shape of a doorway, and he moved into it, bracing his hands on the frame on either side. He could only make out dim shapes in the darkness, and he again tilted his head to listen for signs of life. Nothing, not even breathing.

Salem aimed the flashlight down in front of himself and flicked it on; the yellow beam reflected off the tile floor of a bathroom. No voice or shriek or anything else answered his presence, and a brief sweep of the light revealed it was empty.

He turned and swept the light over the area behind him. It crawled across a closed door.

Salem flicked the light back off and treaded softly across the hall, and very slowly and gently, tried the doorknob.

The gently wiggling doorknob validated Billie's fears, but in the worst possible way. Somebody really was here. She gripped tightly onto the ice axe, less out of a preparation to use it and more as a talisman of safety, the only little but only protection she could have against an intruder. Regardless of whether or not the barricade would hold, its presence against the doorknob would definitely be felt as it prevented the handle from turning all the way. It was only a matter of time before the person at the door would begin to start making their way in, or at least their attempt to make their way inside.

Not that she was going to just sit there and watch, but... what was she going to do? Her eyes flickered over to the wheelchair right beside the couch. Getting onto it from here wouldn't normally be difficult, but on such short notice, and in the dark, and with a weapon in her hand... it was going to a bit more complicated. Swallowing hard, she shifted her position, practically throwing her legs across the side of the couch, the tap of her leg against the side of the chair sounding painfully loud amongst the quiet in the air. She gripped the frame of her chair with one hand, and braced the other, holding the ice axe, against the couch. With a soft grunt of exertion, she pushed herself off the couch and began to guide her rear onto the chair, gripping the frame tightly to keep it from shifting. It wasn't that complicated of a maneuver, but the speed at which she pulled it off would have impressed her if she weren't too scared to care. Now, firmly in place, she turned to watch the door, bracing her nerves to see it burst open any second.

Now there was a noise, faint underneath the rattling of the knob, but there. She'd barricaded the door with something, but Salem could feel it giving just a little as he fiddled with the door.

He wished he hadn't already blown the "Here's Johnny" bit yesterday. Should have kept that one in his pocket. His cover was blown now though, and there wasn't enough space to stick his head through anyway. Instead, he twisted the knob as far as he could force it, turned and tucked his shoulder like he was about to do a sideways tumble, and rammed it against the door.

It stung, and the old wood shuddered but didn't splinter, but he felt the blockage give way a little more. Salem repeated the motion, feeling and hearing the furniture on the other side scrape across the floor.

Again. The chair that had been wedged under the doorknob was finally pushed past its point of balance and clattered to the floor.

Salem flung the door open and just stood, staring into the darkness of the room. The little foray with the flashlight had ruined his nightvision; everything was just black on black.

But he wasn't alone anymore.

Billie felt her breath catch in her throat as the door opened and someone began to enter. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to tell that this at least appeared to be a boy, but beyond that it was hard to make out any details. She had a flashlight in her daypack, of course, but there was no way that she'd be able to pull it out now. To be perfectly honest, there wasn't much she could do at all - no matter what weapon he had, she wouldn't do very well in hand to hand combat, and she definitely wasn't manoeuvrable enough to sneak out behind him, even if he couldn't see her yet.

However, there was one thing she could try. This guy, whoever he was, probably didn't know what weapon she had, and definitely wouldn't feel physically threatened by her. If she were to take advantage of the guy underestimating her, perhaps she could take him by surprise - her legs might have been useless, but her arms were perfectly capable to making a quick stab at a vulnerable area, provided he got close enough. It was a worthwhile plan, or at least it felt like one, given that she was completely out of options. First, however, she needed to hide the weapon currently sitting in her lap. She glanced over to the windbreaker, still on the couch where she had left it, and in reach.

The faint sound of rustling fabric travelled through the room as she pulled the garment off the bed, draping it over the front of her body as a sort of ersatz robe.