The first that occurred to my mind to do right away was to look at my watch, even though there was no more light. My eyes could barely saw the time of exact 06.00 p.m. as heavy rainfall keep on dropping on my whole body, as well as on the glass of my watch. I could still see my surroundings although perhaps for only four to five feet in front of me since it was nearly complete pitch dark. Fortunately, it was not until about more than ten minutes of walking before I was able to catch up right behind Billy and Jessica.
"Travis, you get any word on us turning the flashlights on now?" Billy asked me just as I stepped my feet behind him, with a little louder tone.
"Personally, I would say it depends on how far we are still from the village." I responded to him with the same tone, implying that I would turn them on if we were already close enough to our destination.
"Well I would say that we have covered at least two kilometers by now, perhaps two and a half, even." Billy said to me, as he looked towards the dark sky but I could not see his expression clearly.
I closed my eyes for a little moment, before I took a deep inhale while I considered carefully that we roughly had less than half of our needed journey left. I eventually decided to take out my flashlight, signaling Billy that I believe it would be better to use them then. He quickly proceeded doing the same thing, and Jessica also followed but was interrupted by Billy, saying that she would be better stay on guard with her pickaxe instead.
"Eh, no no. Elu tetep megang kapaknya." Billy said to Jessica, pointing his right hand to hers which was inside her backpack just as he had turned on his flashlight, telling her to equip her pickaxe.
"Hah? Tapi gue-" Jessica responded, doubting what he told her as I cut her words.
"Best for us to save the battery of all flashlights we carry. We really need you to be on guard with your pickaxe, Jess." I told her, convincing her to not use her flashlight.
She finally complied what both me and Billy suggested, and finally we began to proceed to the village together again. As we ventured forward in the dark forest of the night, the heavy rainfall kept us awake by drenching our whole bodies and the noises made by the rain.
That being said, I suddenly remembered about something that had attached itself on my back earlier inside the swamp. I had yet found the right moment to remove whatever it was, and if it indeed turned out to be a leech, then I would definitely need to use Jessica's lighter to remove it. The other option would be to pour salt on it, which was exactly something that neither of us had, and therefore we had to quickly arrive at the village since it would be very difficult to remove it in the middle of a rainfall.
In a brief moment, I recalled that Jessica also seemed like she was shocked all of a sudden back inside the swamp. I had yet to ask her if she felt like something had latched onto her body or that she was just almost out of breath back then. However, since she showed no discomfort expression whatsoever I also could not be sure if she was just holding it or that I was the only one to have something attached on the body.
I force-shrugged all thoughts of leech off my mind shortly after that, and focused back on the wet ground ahead of us, realizing that it would not result any of us any good if I were to keep thinking about it. When I came to again, I noticed that I had been going in a quicker pace, with me at the front of the line, Jessica in the middle, and Billy on the last. The ground was slippery, but only a little and probably it was because of the rainfall and that the ground was nothing but a fertile soil.
Then, all of a sudden half of my feet sank into what seemed to be a mud. In reflex, I pointed my flashlight on my left hand to the ground, and found out that I had been indeed stuck in a muddy ground about half of one foot deep. Jessica then quickly helped me to get out from the mud, and I turned to Billy right after that.
"Is this the only way? We really have to cross the muddy ground?" I asked him anxiously.
"I was not informed of any other way than this one…" Billy responded to me, with an uncomfortable tone as he shook his head.
I gave out a loud sigh as I turned my attention back to the muddy ground, and lighted it with my flashlight. From what I had seen though the limited light, the muddy ground covered quiet far of an area since I could not reach the other end of it. Shortly after, I heard some a rather loud branch cracking sound, briefly surprising me that it made me pointed my flashlight towards the noise source.
Jessica, who was standing near Billy, then gestured with her left hand towards his direction. It turned out that the sound was coming from what Billy had done all along. He had broken a tree branch, rather sturdy, thick, and with a length of roughly 3 feet. I quickly guessed that he had done it so that I could pointed out which direction had more shallower depth later on when crossing the muddy ground, and was quickly confirmed with Billy's words just as I was about to ask him about it.
"I guess this may help us in traversing the mud ground." Billy said to me as he gave me the tree branch.
"Resourceful as always, are not you…" I praised him, as I smirked a little and received it.
I rushed back to where I stood earlier, and slowly stuck both of my feet inside the muddy ground before I proceeded straight again. I had not turned back, but somehow I was completely convinced that both Billy and Jessica had been following me right from behind with a very close distance.
I had a little difficulty on balancing my body when I was about to stick the tree branch inside the muddy ground since it was very slippery. However, after the third time I could begin to get used with my current condition and within about fifteen minutes after I had first stuck my feet again inside the muddy ground, I felt like I could walk a little faster than before.
It really was pretty tempting to look at my watch to know how long we had been traversing the muddy ground, but nevertheless I was in no condition to do so since both of my hands were occupied with essential equipment. Thankfully, perhaps it only took about ten minutes before I could feel that the depth of the mud started to get shallower.
I carefully stuck the tree branch inside the mud before each of my foot steps to make sure that I did not chose the deeper spot instead. By five minutes, I managed to get out completely from the mud, stepping on the slippery fertile soil once again. I quickly put down the tree branch on the ground before I lend my right hand to Jessica, who was indeed standing very close behind me and helping her got out from the mud. I proceeded in helping Billy once she had gotten out.
"I wonder how long it would take us to clean ourselves inside one of the house in the village after this…" Jessica said to me.
"Well, if there was still any place left to take a bath in there, let alone any houses left standing…" I responded to her as I lifted both my eyebrows and lifted the tree branch again.
"Although… I would also much prefer that we could find a place to do it since this mud on our shoes will definitely leave footsteps later on…" I continued, sighing as I began to walk again.
Billy suggested that he led the group for the rest of our journey, with both Jessica and me agreeing since I was pretty exhausted from leading us in crossing the muddy ground earlier. However, I had not expected Billy to walk with a very fast pace that I could be completely sure he was half-running when he led us, although it was not that I could not catch up to him.
I was not sure if I had to be grateful or to curse what I had experienced so far when we finally saw the signpost for the third village some while after. On one point I was kind of pissed off to have to traverse along a dirty and sticky ground in order to reach the village, but at the same time I was also relieved to realize that our hard journey for the day was reaching its end. When I came back focusing on the road ahead of us again, we had reached what was supposed to be the village's main gate.
The main gate stood about roughly seven feet tall with about thirteen feet wide, and was made almost entirely out of wood except for the barbed wire on top of it, already badly rusted away. The gate was locked by a couple of chains forming two 'X' formations and locked with a rather large lock, but it only posed us a little problem since they also had rusted away. Without any words, Jessica readied her pickaxe, swung it three times to the chains before they broke down and enabling us to enter the village.
I could only look with limited details on the houses inside the village, but I managed to count the rough numbers of the houses as well as the overall condition of the whole village. The first thing that I noticed was that, unlike the first two villages, it did not seem like it had any traces of electricity usage, an indication that it indeed had been abandoned long ago.
The second thing that I noticed was that at a glance, the number of houses was only seven to nine, much less than the total number of the first village. Aside from that, the architecture of the houses also had the style of the buildings built before the 50s.
The first four houses that we approached were in a very bad condition. One had all of its windows broken and the main door had collapsed, two had their roofs caved in with rather large holes, and another one had some part of the wall destroyed by a collapsing tree. However, apparently they could be still in a better condition than the rest of the other three. I even began to think if we could find a decent house to rest for the night.
Fortunately, Billy spotted the fifth house which was the closest house to a small river, and when I turned to look at it I believed that it had the best condition compared to the rest of the others. We quickly rushed to that house, opening the door hard as we came inside it, and closed the door as I could hear everyone's hard breathe inside.
We had finally arrived at our third save haven, but we were not to lax ourselves just yet. I decided to look around the house from the second floor, still with my flashlight turned on, and Billy decided to look for the place to take a bath.
There were only two rooms on the second floor. The first one was supposedly where the bedroom was, since there was a weathered double bed there, with a badly molded wooden cupboard across it. I did not waste any more time inside the room and decided to take a look at the other room, which was perhaps where the children bedroom was since there was a small single bed there, less weathered than the double bed earlier and with what seemed to be few wooden toys scattered around the floor.
Since there was nothing else on the second floor, I went back to the first floor and found that Jessica was the only one there. When I asked her where Billy was, she told me that he had found where the bathroom was and decided to take a bath first. She also said that he had cleaned up his clothes and armor at the spot just in front of the bathroom.
She then pointed me the direction of the bathroom, which turned out to be outside the house, but still under a decent roof. I rushed to that direction, and I quickly removed my body armor and t shirt as I saw the appearance of the bathroom with my own eyes.
Instead of a bathroom, I would say that it was more a bathing shed, as it was only several metal sheets joined together, creating a makeshift wall and with another sheet as its roof right beside the small rushing river. The river might be shallow, but somehow I was pretty sure that the water was completely clean. There were also three lines of clothes hanger right in front of the bathing shed, made from nylon threads.
I noticed that all of Billy's clothes and armor were there, and so I also proceeded to hang mine there as well as putting my backpack down on the floor. When I had finished, I slowly began to reach my back, in order to guess what the thing that had latched itself onto my back. As I finally had touched the thing, I became completely sure that it was indeed leech. To make matters worse, I did not touch only one, but three on my back. It seriously made jumped when suddenly Jessica called me right from behind me.
"Travis…" Jessica called me.
"Yeah." I responded and startled at the same time while I noticed that she somehow had a lighter on her right hand.
"Um… you have those… on your back…" she said to me, stammering as she pointed her finger towards me.
"Leeches, are not they?" I asked her, resulted in a nod from her. "Look, I need your help. Can you please burn them one by one with that lighter?"
"O…okay… I can try…" she said as she approached me.
I first held my body against the wall with my hand and faced it, before I could hear her lighting up her lighter. I somehow could feel that she was nervous as well since I could feel her short breaths. Shortly after, I felt that one of the lumps on my back slowly gone, and then the second one, and finally the third one gone. I wondered if the leeches would leave some marks on my back, but I just ignored the thoughts about it completely as I was just relieved that the parasites had been completely removed from my body.
"Thanks. I appreciate it." I said to her as I briefly smiled before I wanted to continue by removing my muddy shoes and washed it at the river nearby.
"Um… Travis, I also need your help." Jessica responded, with a lower tone and looked down.
It took me several seconds stoned at what she wanted to ask, since she did not say anything at all after that, until I suddenly realized that she also had leech latched onto her body. I immediately felt awkward upon my realization as she was waiting for me to respond to her request.
"Okay, if it hurts, let me know." I replied her with a softer tone as I gulped once.
She first gave me her lighter, before she then proceeded to put both her hands on her t shirt, and began to lift them up slowly as she turned her back on me. It was then when I saw the leech, latching itself right on the middle of her back just below her sports bra. I then began to light the lighter, and slowly moved it closer to her back to burn the leech.
"Travis, please be gentle, okay?" She told me with a soft voice.
"I will try…" I responded to her, with my heart somehow pounding a little faster.
I might be wrong in admitting this, but it was extremely hard for me to not get distracted by her smooth back as I was still burning the leech with her lighter. I had to admit that I had a really hard time in not trying to touch and feel for a brief moment of that golden brown skin of hers. I just hope that she could not read my expression, let alone guessed what I was thinking there. Shortly after, the leech finally fell down, not moving anymore, indicating that it had most likely died because of the burn.
"There, all done." I said as I muttered a 'phew' sound as well.
"There is… one more…" Jessica responded to me, as she turned her head towards my direction.
At first, I had been thinking that it must have been impossible for the other leech to latch itself on the area of her chest, and would probably somewhere on her waist or any other lower part of the body, although somehow deep inside me I was kind of hoping for the former. As it turned out, the leech was indeed latching itself on her left upper chest near her neck when she had completely turned around and facing me.
I instantly had my heart pounding fast, obviously not because I was scared but rather because I was nervous to look at it without getting distracted with the features of her body. Somehow I felt like she was staring at me and waiting at me to help her one more time, and so I tried my hardest to not bring my mind thinking of something else, aside from concentrating on removing the parasite. It only took a short time before the last leech was removed from her body.
"Thanks…" she said to me, somehow with a nervous smile before she put on her t shirt again.
Not too long after that, Billy came out from the bathing shed, already looking all clean and only with a towel wrapped around his waist down. I was wondering if he had brought a towel with him all along, before he mentioned that Jessica had also stuffed a towel inside our backpacks, which was something that I did not realize yet since I rarely opened it up. He also muttered that he had to thank her for her consideration earlier as he put on his clothes again.
Jessica then came back, and proceeded to get inside the bathing shed with her backpack as Billy headed back inside to the house. With me the only one waiting for the turn to clean myself up, I wondered if the heavy rainfall would stay all night long. I looked at my watch again, and saw that the time was 07.17 p.m. Time seemed to go fast that day…