A Life Sentence

August 19th, 2026

August 19th, 2026

So far Kate has not done anything that makes either one of us want to shoot her. She spends most of her time so far taking care of the dogs, which has been a huge help. Except for Chonk of course, he is still always by my side like an overgrown fuzzy potato.

The one thing that neither Lucas nor I really like was the fact she saw how much food we had stashed away. Lucas still had some canning to do and since we were not going to throw her out waiting until she decided to just leave really wasn't an option.

We gave her a room and let her get settled in and watched her. Part of me is almost disappointed she hasn't given me a reason to shoot. I guess I always expect the worst of people and I suppose I need someone to validate by assumptions. One thing though is I think Lucas is getting a little annoyed with her. I think it is because they are both smart asses. I think in time Kate might start getting irritated with Lucas. Who knows, maybe she already is, but won't say anything because she's the newbie.

At any rate all three of us were starting to get cases of cabin fever again and we decided it was time to go and see what we can salvage. This time we decided to go back to the city for the first time since we left. Lucas and I thought it would be risky, Kate thought it was just plain stupid, but she never asked to stay behind.

So early this morning we loaded up into the car and headed off. Kate asked about gas, but we both kept quiet. Lucas had already gone to the barn and tossed a full can and a couple of empties in the trunk. It may sound bad that we still don't trust her completely, well we don't, but such is life nowadays.

One person that was really angry with me was Chonk. Once he realized that we were leaving him behind all he did was whine. I will never forget the look on his face as well pulled away, boy was he pissed!

During the drive Lucas thought he would be funny and turn on the radio, of course all we heard was static. I'd be lying if the cynical side of me didn't giggle a little. I am not sure that Kate thought it was all that funny.

It didn't take too long for us to get close to town. We did have to dodge a few more dead cars on the road. It looked like more people came through here than we thought. Our hometown is close to the Interstate after all. Another thing that we noticed was a few plants were beginning to spring up through the cracks in the road. We even saw a sinkhole, I assume it was from a water pipe that broke, which is weird. I would have thought they all would have run dry, but I could always be wrong, I often am.

The first place we decided to stop was the old stomping grounds Helping Hands Hospital, my former employer. Of course going to the grocery stores or WalMart or something like that might make more sense, and we planned to hit those places, but we were more interested in medical supplies. Of course none of us thought the hospital would really have anything and it would definitely be more dangerous.

When we first saw the place, both Lucas and I were pretty stunned by what we saw. The place looked far worse than most of the rest of the buildings in town. Most of the windows were broken, there were biohazard signs all over the place. There was plastic draped near the entrances. I did remember hearing about them setting up tents by the doors for triage.

The most disturbing thing though was the graffiti all over. Some of it was people calling for prayers, some saying the typical end times are here bs. The worst were those that blamed the hospital for spreading it, like we were the ones at fault. Maybe idiots like these were in Idaho when Omega started and thought they just had COVID but didn't want to tell anyone.

We parked in front of the door and walked inside. When we went in, we looked at what we would see if we were playing one of our FPS zombie games. There was trash everywhere, ceiling tiles had fallen in and the place reeked of mildew and rot. All in all the place was a complete disaster. As soon as we saw what the inside looked like we all figured we wouldn't find too much of anything.

After a couple hours of searching that is exactly what we found, a lot of nothing. It wasn't from lack of trying we tore the place apart. We did manage to get some sutures in the OR and some surgical tools that might come in handy, but the place had been picked clean of practically anything that was of any use.

The excitement came when we tried to leave. The first shot hit the wall right by my head. Lucas opened up with his shotgun and we heard someone scream. Whoever it was they were right by the front door and our car, which means they cut off our only escape route, or so they thought.

Kate reacted quite a bit differently than we did. She spotted one of the guys shooting at us and she freaked out.  After seeing her fear I realized these were these same guys that were chasing her. I handed her a pistol.

I pointed down the hallway and Lucas understood immediately. There was a side door in the hallway nearby. We used to use it all the time when we came and went. It wasn't for the public. It was boarded up when we still worked there to keep people from bypassing those that checked for anyone showing symptoms, but the door was still there all we needed to was pry off the plywood.

As soon as we ducked away from the front door Kate's friends chased after us. They shot as they ran, thankfully they were awful shots. We took a couple of shots back at them ourselves, but just to make them slow down. They found out pretty quick that shotguns were pretty useful in the close quarters of HHH especially since there was no light and we really didn't need to aim them. God I love shotguns.

Once we got to the door Lucas tore off the plywood pretty easily. The door was jammed and we had to force it open, but once we got out we saw that they had left car completely alone. We jumped in as quick as we could and as we pulling out one of them shot the car, that kind of pissed me off. Lucas was driving and I rolled down the window, but before I could do anything else Kate opened her door while the car was still moving and put a bullet between his eyes. That helped us trust her more.

Since we figured they would be looking for us we decided to head back, we don't want to be in a fire fight. Before we left Kate let slip a little secret, why they were after her. She had been living in town the whole time and stashed away a lot of supplies. Everything from food to medicine to weapons.

Kate led us to a small doctor's office that was half destroyed by fire. No wonder she chose here to set up shop. No one would have ever thought about staying here. The idea was stupid.

As it turned out there was a basement in the building that she expertly hid. After seeing this it made me wish we had a basement we could hide. Once she let us in we found all sorts of things. This was just like the house that Lucas and I stumbled on that had everything hidden in a basement. I suppose a little known secret of surviving is to have a basement and know how to hide it.

We ended up having to hotwire an old piece of crap truck we found to get it all out. The whole time while Kate and Lucas loaded I kept watche. I expected those idiots from HHH to show up at any time, especially since Lucas shot one and Kate killed another. We never saw them. I hoped they were too shaken up to chase after us, or we were just lucky.

Fortunately our luck held and we decided to check one small store on the way back and found a bunch of dog food and treats in the stock room. We tossed it into the truck Lucas was driving and headed home.

As our little convoy pulled in I knew I had one last thing to deal with. This would probably be the worst thing of all. I had to get Chonk to forgive me for leaving him behind. It wasn't too hard. All I had to do was offer him some Milk Bones and do a little groveling. It seemed to do the trick. He is at my feet snoring and chasing a squirrel in his dreams.

Thanks for reading! Please vote and leave a comment. The chapter is coming soon!