“…and may they rest in peace.”
We were all there, standing in front of eleven wooden crosses pegged into the ground in front of a bank. Cynthia was on her knees, weeping openly. Brett, a tall and skinny man with long brown hair, stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder. Cynthia’s fourteen-year-old son was several feet away with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face. Berm sat on the grass with his daughter crying in his shoulder. He was trying not to cry, but I kept seeing tears roll down his cheeks. Spencer stood near the back, expressionless. I stood beside Lily with my hand in hers. She was crying too, but I wasn’t.
The only thing I could think was: what next? I couldn’t think about the dead when I was so focused on the living. Where would we go? What would we do? The bus had broken down right there in front of the bank, so John figured it was a good of a place as any to do the ceremony. Our destination was Target. Lily had suggested it.
“If any place would have any supplies, they would be there, right?” she had said.
Without the bus, we would have to make the journey on foot. But it was hard enough just standing there at the funeral with all of the guilt on my shoulders. I had decided we would leave. I had come up with the plan. I hadn’t shut that classroom door tight enough. And now, eleven people were dead because of me. It was my fault, and I knew it. John knew it too. He kept giving me cold looks and intimidating stares.
Albert, who had given the ceremony, closed his little Bible and nodded at John.
“All right everyone,” he called. “We’re heading out in ten minutes. Get you gear together, and make sure you’re armed.”
Slowly, everyone migrated away from the crosses until all that was left was Spencer. I saw him kneel next to his brother’s grave and mutter quietly. I didn’t know much about Spencer, only that he had owned a gun shop with Daniel. They came to the school one day a few weeks in, and they just gave us much-needed weapons. After we had accepted them in, they immediately started to contribute to the group.
Lily and I grabbed our packs stepped in front of the group. I noticed a small boy, Reed was his name I think, struggling with his backpack. I walked over and helped him fasten his backpack.
“Thanks,” he said.
“What’re you doing out here alone?” Lily asked. “Who’s supposed to be taking care of you?”
Reed looked down. “Well, Roger used to take care of me and Chloe, but now they’re…”
We were silent. John began to walk, everyone followed him.
“Well…” Lily said. “Why don’t you stay with us? We’ll take care of you.”
She smiled down at him and took his hand. “Come on.”
I gave Lily a look as she went past. Why would she do that? We can’t take care of a kid. We’re only seventeen! She gave me look back that said, shut up. We’re doing this.
“How old are you Reed,” I asked.
“Eleven,” he replied. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“That’s a cool sword.”
“It’s a machete.”
“Oh.”
“Yup.”
Why was I so bad with kids? I can’t even keep a conversation going! What was I supposed to do? I never had any siblings or any younger cousins. I didn’t how to deal with an eleven-year-old. Luckily, Lily did. They talked and talked, and I was silent.
We were walking for about ten minutes when we came across our first few walkers. They came out of nowhere.
“No guns!” John called.
I pulled out my machete and ran up to a walker. It lunged at me, and I shoved my blade through its face. I whirled around and decapitated another. I saw John kill his own walker and Spencer kill his.
“Erik!” came Lily’s voice.
I turned and saw a walker coming toward her and Reed. It gnashed its teeth and reached out to them. I rushed forward with my blade raised, but Reed beat me to it. He whipped out a knife and rammed it up into the walker’s forehead. The walker fell forward, and Reed had to dodge out of the way or it would have fallen on him. There was blood splattered all over his face.
I smiled. Maybe we did have some things in common.
About a half an hour later, we walked onto the Target parking lot. Trash was everywhere, there were ten to fifteen cars parked in various places, and there were only a few walkers here and there. The whole place was quiet. We approached the front doors of the Target store, and the first thing I noticed was the thick, heavy chains and wood plating on the doors.
John walked up to the chains and tugged on them. They didn’t budge, and he turned to everyone else.
“All right, everyone. Be on the lookout while we try to get these chains off.”
I walked up to the chained doors, and Reed followed close behind me. There were two sets of door with chains with a padlock on both of them.
“Bolt cutters aren’t going to work on these,” I said to John. “They’re too thick.”
John looked over, but he didn’t say anything. I leaned in and put my ear to the door, and after a few seconds, I heard something move.
“There’s someone inside,” I said and backed quickly away. I pulled out my gun, and Reed pulled out his knife.
“What?!” john pulled out his gun as well. “How many did you—”
Suddenly, a door burst open about twenty feet away. It was the same color as the building, so I didn’t even see it. A girl rushed out. She wore a black tank top, cargo pants, boots, and a quiver full of arrows. She held a simple bow about three and a half feet long. She looked to be around my age and about 5’10”. She had dark black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and caramel colored skin.
Just as she nocked an arrow and stepped forward, the door to the shoe store on the opposite side, between the Target and Home Depot opened, and another figure stepped out. This one was male, and he was big. He was about 6’2 with big arms, broad shoulders, and a thick neck. He had a hunting rifle strapped to his back. In his hands, he held a 3 foot long, medieval looking, double-edged sword upright and ready. He looked older than me, maybe in his twenties, with short, light brown hair and beard stubble. He had fierce eyes that made me think he could tear us all apart.
We were surrounded.
“Drop you weapons!” shouted the girl.
“Like hell we will!” john yelled and raised his M16.
I don’t know why I stopped him, but I did.
“Wait!” I shouted as I placed a hand on his gun and forced it down. I looked at the girl and walked forward. “Look. We just need a place to stay. We’ve lost a lot of people recently, and we have to leave our home. Now, I know it’s crazy, but please. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”
A few seconds passed. She and the guy shared a look. She looked back at me.
“We’ll let you in, but your weapons stay with us. We don’t want any trouble once you’re inside.”
I nodded and slowly put my gun and machete on the ground. I looked back and saw everyone else doing the same. Soon everyone’s weapons were on the ground, and the girl kept her bow aimed at us as the guy went around, shoving our weapons into a duffel bag. Once he was done, the girl relaxed and put the arrow back in her quiver.
“Robert,” she called. “Open the doors.”
The big guy named Robert stuck his sword into the sheathe at his side and pulled out a ring of keys. He walked towards the doors.
“We’re not actually going in there with them unarmed are we?!” Ellis asked. “There could be more people waiting in there to ambush us!”
I looked at the girl, but I couldn’t see anything that would lead me to believe they were going to ambush us. In fact, I saw something else.
“It’s just you two isn’t it?” I asked.
She was silent. I studied her closely. Something about her looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“We don’t even know these…these…kids!” Ellis shouted.
“I do,” I blurted out, without even realizing it yet. I walked to the girl, and she took a defensive step back. Suddenly, it hit me. “We went to school together.”
She looked at me as if she just realized it as well.
“Yeah,” I continued. “We went to the same elementary and middle school.”
She blinked and nodded slowly.
Her name came to my lips.
“Jen—”
“Stop!” she interrupted. Her eyes went from curious to stone cold. “That’s not me anymore. I’m not the person you remember.”
She stepped in close, looking up at me fiercely.
“I’m not a child. So don’t you dare underestimate me…or I will kill you.” She softened just a little and began to walk away but stopped. “Call me Ness.”
She walked away toward the doors that Robert had just opened.
Luckily, there wasn’t an ambush waiting for us inside. Instead, we found a Target store untouched by anyone, probably since this all started, besides Robert and Ness. They truly were the only ones there.
We took our gear and set up in the outside furniture section of the store. Reed, Lily and I set up our sleeping bags in the gazebo. John took a couch. Gabriel and Spencer took a rug, and the kids all the kids took a fluffy recliner. Everyone else spread out on the floor.
Logan, Spencer and I brought over a bunch of food from the other side of the store. All of the dairy products, frozen food, fruit and vegetables had all gone bad, but there were still chips, soda, water, canned food, and candy. Glorious candy. I grabbed a bunch of boxes of Reese’s Pieces and stuffed them in my backpack. They were my favorite. I also grabbed some Red Vines for Lily and a box of Cherry Coke for Reed, Lily, and I to share.
That night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the books section of the store after everyone was asleep. There, I found Ness with a candle, reading a book. She looked up for a moment then went back to her book.
“Hey,” she said.
“Um, hey,” I replied, moving to the bookshelves.
I hadn’t read a book since I read The Great Gatsby in English class. There were books at our camp, but I never found the time to read them. I was always practicing my shooting, going for supply runs, or hanging out with Lily.
“Erik?” came Ness’s voice. I turned to her.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about earlier today.”
I shrugged and went back to looking at books. “It’s fine. I get it. You have to look intimidating to the rest of my group. Good job by the way.”
She didn’t say anything, but I saw her smile.
“I do have some questions for you though.” I continued as I sat down across from her. “Why would you let us in? Why would you have given all of this stuff when we could have just killed you for it?”
“Well why didn’t you kill us, Erik? You could have, but you didn’t.”
I shrugged. “That’s just not the way I prefer to deal with things.”
Ness sighed.
“I let you in because Robert and I used to be part of a bigger group that was paranoid of everyone. They never helped anyone we came across. They never…cared for anyone else or each other. When the biters came, no one helped each survive. It became every man for himself. They even abandoned the kids. Because of that, almost everyone was killed.” She paused. “I helped you today because I guess I just hope, if the time comes, you’ll do the same for me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I looked down at the floor and then back up at her.
“Thank you,” I said. She nodded. “Here’s my second question: what kind of supplies are at Home Depot?”
“When Robert and I found this place, there were walkers everywhere. Another guy had let us into this place. He had been manager and locked this place up from everyone else from the start.”
“Where is the guy now?”
“Dead. Anyway, he had chained up Target but not Home Depot. I’m not sure what’s left, and last time I checked, it was full of biters. But that was a few weeks ago.”
I thought for a few moments.
“If you’re up for it,” I suggested, “could you take a few of us in there tomorrow? To see what we can find?”
“Sure,” she replied
I smiled.
“One last question.” I pulled a book off the shelf. “Is this any good?”
“Never read it.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a part of a series that isn’t finished, and I know that it most likely will never be finished. It’s depressing.”
A few silent seconds passed until she picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
“Here.” She handed the book to me. “This one’s good.”
I took the book, smiled, muttered a thank you, and stood up. I went back to the gazebo where Lily and Reed were sleeping. I laid down between them and slept more soundly than I had in a long long time.
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