Life After Death

Chapter 16

"We can't just make a decision here. You just killed your own guy."

"I saved him the pain. I don't know about ya'll, but I'd rather a bullet to the head then getting eaten alive."

"Well, where's your group now?"

"Somewhere in the town, checking it all out."

"How many are there."

"Now? Five. Two girls, three boys if ya want specifics."

There couldn't possibly be a way of knowing whether these people were nice, or whether they would kill us in our sleep. He didn't even know about Jade and Brooke upstairs.

"Ya'll are just kids, you aint got parents?"

"We did. They died. We grew up."

Letting people in meant more uneasy sleeping. Not sure if you're gonna be betrayed or not. But it could also mean more protection.

"Okay, so you stay here and what do we get?"

"Christ, I'm really bargaining with a teenager," He laughed to himself, "Well, we got food, weapons and two vehicles - should ya travel with us course. Or, we leave ya alone and we act like we aint all in the same building."

I looked at Nathaniel and shrugged, him doing the same. It was Jace he'd have to persuade, so Jace could decide for us. Course, there was the other side of it being that he might just gun us down if we denied him. Plus, considering we were already trying to avoid the Reapers as much as possible, we didn't wanna upset another group of people and make them want to kill us too.

But he just walked off, only giving the slight motion of a nod before turning his back completely. I'm sure it was just due to the mention of food, we were going to run out sooner or later.

"So where is your guys' room?"

Nathaniel just nodded before I told him, "Top floor. There's two more of us up there."

"And what? Your all related or something?" He asked, before realising the differences in mine and Nathaniel's literal ethnicity.

"He is. His twin sisters upstairs. The rest of us, no."

"What about you? You and that guy had the same accent," I asked.

"I knew him vaguely before the whole apocalypse started, came from the same neighbourhood."

. . .

For the next while, we didn't see or hear of him or his group. He left to tell them about their new accommodation, and we went back upstairs to inform Jade and Brooke about what had occurred, and the new visitors we could have for a while. Who knew if their plans were permanent, but from the sounds of it, they'd been travelling all the same as us.

"What, we're just gonna have strangers wandering around here with us?"

"Yeah. We could always leave?"

"Hell no, we got here first!" she cried, "Maybe they're nice. We can make new companions."

"Maybe. Maybe your optimism is right," Jace laughed, "But we also don't know what their intentions are."

Figuring we couldn't do much more than we had, and not wanting to leave the room yet at least, we stayed put. I grabbed one of the few books we had in our selection, deciding that we should be productive and teach Brooke how to read too.

We sat on the double bed, and she seemed to enjoy it. For a six year old who had been in an apocalypse for two years, she had a good grasp on it. Able to pronounce things right, and read more words than I'd have predicted.