Rather be a Rat than a Lion

[Zevon†]

(Gabriel Lee Continues from No Way Down)

Gabriel booked it for the woods the moment he had grabbed his bags. Sprinting through massive trees and tangling bushes, he didn't stop until he was out of breath and as deep in the woods as he could get. Eventually after clearing a patch of bushes squatting below a couple of massive trees, Gabriel stopped, breathing heavily, his blue duffle bag and his new black duffle bag heavy on his back. He had reached what appeared to be the edge of the forest, and about twenty yards away from him he could see trees clearing way to a thin bar of sand, then the endless ocean.

Gabriel threw his bag behind one of the nearby bushes. He sat down as he began to fish through his pockets. In his rush, he had been too busy to count the number of Prozac pills he was able to gather, and now he was going to have to count his salvage.

Of the original twenty, Gabriel counted eleven of his Prozac pills. One a day with breakfast, and they should last, Gabriel thought as he popped on of the pills in his mouth, swallowed, then pocketed the rest.

Gabriel stared at the two bags. He knew the content of his blue duffle, but what was in the other was still a mystery.

He was going to have to find out.

Gabriel started to lay out the content of the black duffle in front of him: two loaves of bread, two tins of crackers, four bottles of water, and ten of what appeared to be some sort of energy bar was all the food Gabriel could find in the pack.

There was a map and compass, but Gabriel had no idea where he was, so that wasn't going to be a big help.

A first aid kit and a flashlight, both would probably be useful later.

But the weapon, where was the weapon?

In the back of Gabriel's mind he had been hoping that he would open the bag to find a sawed off shotgun or a rapier or some other badass weapon of death he could use to defend himself, but as he looked through the bag a second time he found his actual weapon.

From the bottom of the black duffle Gabriel lifted a small deck of cards labeled with the words Magic the Gathering, which were written below a picture of a scantily clad elf chick wielding a beautiful, vicious looking sword.

Gabriel laughed, a slight giggle at first, then a full on sea of laughter left his lift, wave after wave of chuckles coming from his mouth. The Prozac had taken hold and he now found the absolute bullshit of his weapon assignment to just be funny. "Your kidding right?" He said to himself as he laughed. He couldn't believe it. This had to be the worse weapon drop in the history of Survival of the Fittest. He had never played Magic the Gathering, and he didn't think anyone around here was going to be kind enough to teach him.

Once the laughter had subsided Gabriel felt sleepy. It was an occasional effect of the Prozac. Gabriel had packed a blanket in his blue duffle bag for the flight to Disneyland, and though it was still light out, he felt like the best option right now in his new makeshift hideout would be to have a quick nap. As Gabriel crawled into a bush and lifted his blanket over him, he fingered the black collar around his neck. He hadn't really noticed the collar until he had lain down, and he doubted he would get any sleep while it was curled around his neck. He was wrong.

Gabriel awoke with a start to the sound of someone speaking in an unnaturally loud and authoritative voice. It sounded like a woman, and she began reading off names. Through her announcement, Gabriel heard the names David Russell, Gabriella Parker, Daniel Whitten, Dan Liu, Jason Meyers, Kelly Peterson, David Zimmer, and Sven Olsen, all kids Gabriel knew, if not well.

They were all dead, killed either by their own hands or the hands of Theodore Fletcher, Hansel Williams, Joe Carrasco, Katarina Konipaski or Iselle Ovaller-Vandermmer. The names seemed as hallow and unreal to Gabriel as the fact that they where all gone forever.

They had turned on each other so quickly.

The first announcement ended.

Once it was over, Gabriel climbed out of the bush where he had been sleeping to the black duffle, ate about a quarter of one of his loaves and washed the bread down with some water. He than placed all his supplies from the black duffle inside his familiar blue duffle bag, shouldered it, and began to stalk carefully through the woods.

But before he did, he spoke. He spoke to the people who where probably watching Gabriel, and had been watching him, since he came to this godforsaken island.

"I rather hide like a fucking rat than give you assholes the satisfaction of watching me kill and die. You're all just a bunch of sadistic motherfuckers, and you're not getting away with this."

He didn't even know if these invisible puppet masters could hear him, but the probably could. They could probably hear everything.

Gabriel headed deeper into the forest, he had to find a better hiding place.

(Gabriel Lee continued in Crawling To My Death)