Free Haven (The Breadwinner Trilogy) by Stevie Kopas Page A

at Michelle through wet eyes.  
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I don’t know, it’s all bullshit now on the news.  Scrolling messages, prerecorded emergency warnings from earlier.  I don’t know what’s going on.”
    “How safe is this building?”  Zach wiped his glasses clean with his gray t-shirt.
    “Safe from what?”  Michelle asked him, her hands on her hips.
    “I don’t know, like, from the psychopaths we saw on the TV?  Or the people shooting guns next door?”  
    “Well I don’t know.  If somebody wanted to get in here badly enough they could find a way.  We’re upstairs, so I guess that makes it a little safer.”  She rubbed her temples.  “Look, I don’t like hearing the sound of gunshots in my apartment complex okay?  To me that’s not very fucking comforting.”
    “What are we gonna do, Michelle?  We don’t have a landline, we can’t call the police.”  Lulu’s voice was muffled as she spoke.  She was curled up on the couch with her face resting between her knees, her small stature made her look like a child.
    “Should we go check on your neighbors?”  Zach got up from the couch and walked toward the front door.
    “Fuck no!  What are you stupid?”  Michelle ran to the door and stood in front of it.  “This isn’t really one of those situations I want to be the good guy in.  That kind of shit is gonna get you killed.  Did you not hear me say I heard gunshots?”  She was raising her voice now, with every word she was angrier with him.  She didn’t understand the situation, she had no control over it.
    “Well what do we do then?  Do we just stay here?  Do you even have anything in this place other than coffee and beer?”  Zach folded his arms across his chest.
    The trio were startled by a blood curdling scream from outside followed by gunshots that Lulu and Zach heard for themselves this time.  Lulu jumped up and rushed to the window, pulled a shade to the side.  A low moan escaped her lips followed by more crying.  The other two joined her at the window and looked out into the courtyard.  A woman carrying a child was running toward the parking lot, three psychotic looking people chased after her.  Michelle and Lulu recognized the woman from the building next door.
    “It’s Janice!  We need to do something!”  Lulu cried out.
    “No, shut up!”  Michelle put a hand over Lulu’s mouth and held her still.  The child in Janice’s arms was screaming at the top of his lungs.  Janice kept frantically looking behind her and didn’t notice the two that had come running up in front.  She collided with the first of the attackers and they bounced off one another and fell to the ground.  The child went flying out of her arms.  “Oh my god.”  Michelle whispered and watched with horrified eyes as the first three attackers ripped the child apart.  His screaming ceased as blood shot up into the air and onto the assailants.  Janice wailed and kicked at the two men who were literally biting chunks of flesh from her body.  She tried desperately to get to her son but was soon eaten alive.
    Lulu dropped to the floor and vomited between sobs.  Zach backed away from the window, shaking, his hands on both sides of his head.  Michelle stayed at the window, the shade drawn, her eyes fixated on the scene in the courtyard.

 
     
    III
    No one spoke.  Lulu curled up on the couch and stared at the television, awaiting an anchorman to appear on the screen and inform everyone that the situation was under control.  Zach cleaned up Lulu’s vomit and joined her on the couch.  Michelle had retired to her room and sat in her computer chair by the open window.  She was serenaded by the sounds of the chaos outside.  A Diet Coke can sat on the window sill and acted as her makeshift ashtray.  She thought of her parents, her sister, all of her other family members and friends.  She couldn’t help but wonder if they were safe, but decided that worrying about