Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Eight

     I wipe the sweat and rain from my face after bringing all of the plywood boards from the roof down to the armory. Once I had about twenty boards left to carry it started raining hard. My clothes are soaked at this point. The wind nearly began to blow the boards off the roof by the time I grabbed the last few.

"Thank you." Jane says as she walks into the armory. "I uh... I brought you your clothes from the SUV." She sets them on the table. I thank her with a nod as I catch my breath. Without even thinking about it I pull my wet t-shirt over my head, taking it off, then grab my bag.

"You want me to give you a minute?" Jane asks with a smirk.

"Oh, sure." I reply. "Sorry, I didn't even..."

"It's OK." She says, backing out of the room. I chuckle as I change into a dry outfit.

"Sammy still doesn't agree with staying here." Jane says as I leave the armory. "She's been trying to talk Johnny out of it for the past hour." She stands there beside the door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

"I guess at this point we'll just have to prove it... we'll have to show her we can make it work here."

"Yeah, I guess." She looks down at the floor a moment, then starts to walk off toward the front of the store.

"You think it'll ever come...?" I stop her with a question. "Help, I mean. You think help will ever come?"

She turns and looks at me as if those thoughts are now far fetched dreams.

"You really want my opinion?" She asks. I give a single nod in reply. "I think the world might be too far gone already... it's everybody for themselves now." Then she walks away.

"Yeah..." I mutter to myself. "Maybe you're right."

It's about 10pm and the gun shop is nearly an ice box. The wind pushes and prods against the building, testing it's strength. I can constantly hear debris colliding with the building, car windows frequently shattering, and through the midst of it all the snarls of the undead that are trying to fight the viscous winds of the storm. This storm has to be the most brutal this area has ever seen. My teeth tremble as the rain is being viscously whipped at the boarded up windows from the wind. Johnny and Sammy are huddled up together behind the display case. David is sleeping in his corner with several jackets on top of him, I sacrificed my warmth for him so he can sleep peacefully. Jane walks up to me through the darkness of the store as I sit up against the front wall in my usual sleeping spot. She sits down beside me and covers us both with her blanket, then lies her head on my shoulder, pushing her body against mine to keep us both warm.

"Thank you." I say through my trembling teeth. "But why are you so nice all of a sudden?"

She's silent for a long moment, but then speaks.

"I was scared when you guys first showed up. I've seen...unspeakable things since the outbreak... I've seen who people really were. People that I thought I knew. When you guys showed up I thought you were the bad guys... because in the end it seems like only the bad guys live... because bad things need to be done to survive through something like this." She tilts her head, looking up into my eyes. "But you're not bad... I see that now." She looks over at my jackets that I gave David, then returns her head to my shoulder.

"You hungry?" I ask after a couple minutes.

"Mm...I could eat." She replies.

"OK, back in a sec." I get up and head to the armory.

I open the armory door and click on my dim flashlight, illuminating the room. My stomach grumbles with hunger as I open the food box that's on the table.

"What's for dinner?" I mumble to myself as I browse through the cans of food. I end up walking out with a bottle of water, two cans of applesauce and canned ham that is precooked.

As I shut the door to the armory I see many shadows passing over the window that looks out into the back alley, behind the alley there are trees that gradually thicken, creating woods behind the gun shop and pizza parlor. As I slowly approach the window that's below the stairs that lead to the roof I see more silhouettes... biters. Luckily it's too dark in here for them to see me. There's a large group of them shuffling down the alley, slow but thick in numbers, at least a couple hundred. A train of biters trying to fight through the storm. My heart pounds, not fast but hard. I begin to feel a massive amount of anxiety, fear, and nervousness. I slowly walk back to Jane but can only think about the herd of biters. It seems like they're... migrating.

"What's wrong?" Jane looks up at me. As I become aware of the expression on my face I realize I look like I seen something ghastly...which is because I did, but I don't let her know that.

"Nothing..." I reply with a slight smile as I try to force it through my fear. "Just hungry." I hand her one of the cans of applesauce and give her the ham, along with a can opener I brought from home. I sit back down beside her and she covers me back up. Suddenly I have lost my appetite. Now I just sit there, staring through the shop, down the corridor to the armory and out the back window. I can still see the shadows but they are faint, fortunately Jane doesn't notice. The sounds of the storm overpower the herd: the wind, the debris, the rain, the thunder. But if you sit there and clear your mind, focus on the sounds of the storm, it's sort of relaxing... soothing.

. . .

My eyelids slowly peel themselves open, when I see there's already daylight creeping in through the boarded up windows I fight through my weariness. With a yawn I look over and Jane is still asleep, her head still on my shoulder. I don't want to wake her so I just sit there, peacefully waiting while I inevitably deal with all of the thoughts that are still on my mind.

My dad, he was always hard on me but that's just because he wanted the best for me. He was ashamed of me when he found out I sold cars for a living, I was good at it too but that didn't change anything. He thought I could do better, he tried pushing me further, tried to get me to go on to bigger things... but I didn't listen. I thought that being a car salesman was good enough, but that's the thing. My father didn't just want it to be 'good enough', he didn't want me to just get by in life, but the more he pushed me the further I pushed myself from him.

My mom, she was the sweetest, most kind hearted person. She would always put a smile on my face even in the worst of situations, I wish she was here now so she could put one last smile on my face. The more I think about the good times I had with her the more the lump of sadness grows in my throat.

My sister, Zoe, she was always on my side and ready for anything. I remember when we were in sixth grade together and we beat up the school bully and two of his bully friends. I remember when I was nineteen and I had woken up late after partying and had fifteen minutes to get to work, she left work to give me a ride because she knew if I got one more strike that I would get fired. She sped past three stop signs and blew through a red light to get me to work... I was on time, she got a ticket and her license was suspended for six months but... I was on time. Before the outbreak happened Zoe and I had met up and were headed to the city to meet up with mom and dad because we hadn't seen them in almost two years, but after only a few minutes of hugging and catching up that's when the infection hit. People ran through the streets aimlessly as hundreds, if not thousands of biters roamed freely, chewing on anything that had a pulse. That's when the biters got my mom and dad, Zoe had ran in the opposite direction as I did but after a few moments she was lost in a crowd of panicked civilians.

"Are you okay?" Jane looks at me. I hadn't even noticed she woke up.

"Yeah, I'm just... just thinking." I mumble.

"About what?" She questions with a concerned expression.

"It doesn't matter." I say, my voice starting to sound a bit raspy. I clear my throat. "Wanna take a look outside?" I ask her. She nods, so I help her up.

We open the side door and walk out into the alley. We slowly walk toward the fence, looking out into the street at the horrifying and depressing scenery.

"Oh my god." Jane covers her mouth, her eyes slightly tearing up.