What Walks Among Us (book one)

Suprise (Part 1)

The following week was a bit of a blur. Mabel liked to run off in the morning as soon as she woke up, and Sam told me in good faith she wasn't up to anything too bad. I didn't ask what too bad meant because in some part of me, I really didn't want to know. Being around people who genuinely seemed to care really showed me just how bad I had had it before.

The categorization of before and after had changed in my mind, I wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but it was no longer a before the zombies rose, and after they were here. No, the new before and after related to before and after I met the boys.

Now that things had settled down for the most part, the boys had me on a semi schedule. Mornings I jogged with Cody. We didn't talk, not as much as the other guys did when I was around them. Cody liked quiet, and the silence that accompanied our pounding feet on the pavement wasn't awkward or unwelcome. It was encouraged, peaceful, never empty.

After the run I would usually go upstairs and change. After that night with Chester when he had given Mabel her second night, I had been checked up on every night. I didn't bother trying to spin a story to defend why I was on the floor, why I waited until Mabel was sleeping before attempting to go to sleep myself. There was always the underlying layer of untrust in my relationship with my sister, and I wasn't sure it would ever be lifted.

I'm not going to lie, I'm no saint. It wasn't like I had never done anything bad to her- I mean, I had gotten her mother killed, and I had been the one to get her uprooted from her home. I was the reason she wasn't still with her mother, I was the reason her mother had been so hateful towards us, why her mother lectured us, kept us inside and isolated us from anyone and anything.

After the shower I would help whoever was on breakfast duty, and then I would volunteer to do dishes and be turned down. After breakfast it depended on which boy had to go where but as of lately I went with Beck and helped work the gardens. It was peaceful work, and somehow I always managed to come out of the gardens with dirt everywhere.

After that I would have some free time, and I would generally clean up around the house, or help whoever with whatever. I had learned how to siphon gas, prep meat to be smoked, smoke the meat, and fish without a fishing pole.

After lunch but before dinner I worked out with Cody again, in the gym, practicing my aim and lifting weights to better my strength. When I had questioned Beck on this he had turned away and said that if we were to let ourselves get lazy and something bad happened, we wouldn't be prepared. All this 'break time' would be for nothing, and we'd be gone before we could even see the enemy.

Sam, I had figured out, was one of those guys who always appeared super happy and joyful, because he genuinely was super happy and joyous. What you saw was what you got, nothing more and nothing less. He was the most real person I had ever met. And that's not just because before I hadn't met hardly any people.

Beck, on the other hand, had a sweet disposition, but was always pointing out the reality. He could joke and tease with the best of them, but if you ask him a question, you had better not be expecting him to spare your feelings. He was honest to a fault, but he always managed to say it in a nice way. He was usually the one I spent time with during the day.

Chester, sweet Chester, was like Sam, but not. Have you ever met the happiest person, the one who's always smiling and cracking jokes to make others smile? The one who you've never seen cry, who is a little loopy, but at the same time loved by virtually anyone? What you don't always realize about those people is they are usually the saddest, come from the worst homes and if they were to be themselves, it would break your heart at how much they fake it every day.