Lilith and Ben short story

An abandoned convenience store sits along the road as two figures approach it. “A medical kit is what we need the most, I think,” Lilith said as she searched through her backpack to see if they needed anything else.

 “Gotcha,” Ben replied. 

They step through the broken glass doors and start their search. As Lilith goes the look for what matters, Ben looks through the magazines. He flips through the dusty magazines, picking up the occasional science and automobile article. After enough searching, he finally joins Lilith. She was digging around what was left of the pharmaceutical aisle. 

“I’m surprised they have this many pill bottles left,” she says.

Lilith scoops the bottles into her arms and into the backpack, everything from “natural herbal tea” to a bottle of permanent hair dye. Unfortunately, all of the snacks and drinks seemed to be gone except for some expired milk. Good thing I’m lactose intolerant, though Lilith as she gagged from the distinct smell wafting from the milk. After enough searching, Lilith was ready to head out. Ben and she started their walk back to their base.

 “Hold on let me take a photograph.” Ben stopped walking and pulled out his camera. 

Lilith rolled her eyes. 

They quickened their pace as the sun began to set. Ben, ignoring the setting sun, read about geology and the dated news about an ecosystem in Mexico from a National Geographic article. Ben was so distracted that Lilith had to drag him along. It was getting dangerously dark and soon enough, they would be in trouble. Lilith pulled Ben up the stairs of the side of an orthodontist’s office. She never considered herself as a dynamic person, quite the opposite actually but her life was starting to depend on it. 

“Come on Ben you have to move quickly!” “Aw but I haven’t finished reading the micro-life section yet” he wined in protest.

 “We don't have time for psychology, gangs are going to be out looking to loot people like us, you know that.” 

What? Psychology has nothing to do with bacteria? Ben was about to say but kept to himself as he put away the magazine and focused on getting home as Lilith had urged. 

Ben and Lilith hopped building to building, periodically stopping to take turns drinking out of a large thermos to stay hydrated. Ben looked down to see multiple groups of people spread out in search of resources as they had done earlier. Lilith and he were careful to stay quiet as to not be seen by any one of them. 

“Hey!” a stranger yells at them from behind. 

“Oh crap!” Ben and Lilith say simultaneously as they start running. 

Lilith’s adrenaline gave her almost superhuman strength as she gripped Ben’s hand tightly and ran as fast as she could. She jumped across a building into an old pot of substrate slowing her and Ben down just enough to stress Lilith out even more. As her adrenaline ran out the run was starting to become taxing on her and Ben so she had to think of something quickly. 

Lilith scanned the horizon and saw that the next building was an apartment. Perfect she thought.

 “Hold on!” she yelled at Ben. 

She jumped with all of the strength left, the soles of her feet burning, onto the fire escape staircase on the side of the complex. She landed on the stairs and let go of Ben as they tumbled down the stairs until they stopped. Despite being badly bruised they managed to stay quiet and still enough until the stranger (or strangers) following them left, assuming they were dead. Lilith groaned as she sat up, her vision blurred as she stared at a set of quadruplets, all being Ben. After a while of groaning, they finally were able to get up and access where they were. Lilith brushed off a centipede crawling onto her backpack and grabbed her phone to look at a GPS to see how far they had really strayed from the beaten path. They were able to get back on track home, careful to be more cautious this time. 

Ben sighed of relief as they closed in on the post office, home base. Lilith shrugged off her backpack and fell into a state of semi-consciousness on a makeshift mat, it was going to be hard to fully fall asleep after what happened. Ben was going to do the same but opted to stay up a little more as a lookout, after all, he did feel a little guilty after what happened so it was the least he could do. He pulled out the same science magazine he was reading earlier and started to read facts about the hemisphere as the moon reached midnight.