They are dead

Chapter 6

Noah steered clear of the old, rotten bodies that lay scattered in the parking lot. It didn't look like the typical day for the place. It seemed that there was some kind of emergency by the looks of everything. Besides the bus that seemed to have been from a university in Johannesburg, there was an ambulance. Two decaying security guards' bodies also lay stretched out in the sun.

"Looks like a shit storm went down here!" James said loudly. If it was 2 years back he would have scolded him, telling him to keep his voice down because he would draw the dead ones. However, that time has passed. The outbreak had happened so long ago. It was crazy just to think about it. To him it felt like it had happened so long ago and that it didn't matter anymore. Like something bad that happened to you long ago but that was just something that happened now. He couldn't say the same for everybody else. When it came to him, he didn't have much family when the outbreak happened. He had been abandoned by his parents, more emotionally than anything else. His father was a drunk and he had to fund his own studies. He knew that he wasn't alone in that kind of life. He knew that other people had it worse. However, that didn't stop him. His mother had died way before the outbreak from cancer and he was too young to really remember it. He knew that she was there, and now and again a vivid still image of memory would pop up into his mind, making him remember the smell of her perfume or the smile on her face. Other than that, the remembrance of her could only be found in badly taken photos.

The three walked the long trails towards the entrance of the caves and were silent in their trek.

His father, on the other hand, was not difficult to remember. He was abusive and rash, strict and drunk and most of the time absent from any important part of Noah's childhood. Noah had realised, at an early age, that his father would not willingly help him with his studies. When he was of age, he had found odd jobs here and there. He had become somewhat of an Entrepreneur, creating things and selling them for a profit. Later on, when he was out of school, he would help high school students with their exam revisions and charge just under a tutors rate for it. Later on, what was a hobby became a passion and he had found no greater reward in seeing students overcome the subject that they once didn't comprehend. He realised, despite all the negativity that his father and even other adults spewed, that teaching was a passion for him. After he had worked hard, saved and completed his studies, he went into teaching at a small school near his hometown. Not only was it amazing to help kids, these young minds that could sponge up heaps of information; but it was rewarding. More rewarding than anything he had ever done before.

To him, it didn't matter.

To see children succeed and surpass things and understand concepts that he didn't even truly understand at that same age felt exhilarating. To help them overcome fears, struggles, challenges and obstacles. Not only in the classroom but on the sports field as well. To be there for a kid when he or she had no one else to turn to; he had known exactly what that felt like.

Those days were gone.

All that life was about now was survival and a selfish survival at that. He thought about joining the villages or farms. Helping out and actually doing something towards the country's improvement is a fairytale in his mind. He had taken to just surviving and that's all that he could manage. He also thought about going to the cities and helping out in their schools. God only knows what they were teaching the children of today. To teach kids who were in the thick of things and helping them cope in today's aftermath of a world was one thing, but it was just more propaganda bullshit that the new government had tried to feed them and he knew it. Once upon a time, he had a passion for teaching, yes. However, he had lost all hope.

When he saw all those children suffer and when he was helpless to be of any aid.

A teacher is there to serve and help children. Children, who cannot give anything in return but seldomly say thank you. When all you do is help students and then... on that day, to feel totally helpless. On that day that everyone went crazy and the disease took over. To be helpless as savage undead tear into and kill innocent children in your school. The survivors guilt had nearly brought him to the brink of suicide before.