Two Summers Ago, the World Went to Shit

Chapter 12: A Rudy Awakening

Chapter 12: A Rudy Awakening

     When Bailey ran out of the room with Ryan, they'd made their way to the entrance that stood completely flooded with a community, or army, of people—it was hard to tell which. They were dirty, sweaty, heavily armed, and extremely intense in all aspects of their presence from their stance, to their facial expressions, to the atmosphere surrounding them. They weren't any of the people that we'd been living with at Opfer; these people were from another group.
     There had to have been around thirty-some total of them—men and women and one teenage boy. They stood, guns in hand, directly across from Bailey and Ryan. They did not look friendly; they were actually very intimidating. Each of them held a straight, emotionless expression that seemed serious, maybe even threatened or on edge. We hadn't come across any good people in a while, so who knew if that was going to change now.
"Can we help y'all with something," Ryan asked, his voice audibly shaking.
After a pause that lingered for what felt like an eternity, someone spoke.
"I think we need to be asking y'all that question," a rugged, middle-aged man said from the center of the front row.
He stepped one foot forward to isolate himself from the crowd.
"I'm sorry," Ryan asked anxiously, his eyebrow crinkling at the situation as he swapped nervous glances with Bailey.
"This is our home. I'm not sure how long y'all have been here, but I think it's time to clear out," he said sternly.
"We've been here for over a week; it was empty when we arrived," Ryan said with both confidence and confusion.
"Didn't you notice that there's solar panels, clean rooms, and a stocked pantry? We did all of that," he said lifting his arm to give credit to the others behind him.
They both stood, staring blankly as they started understanding how this place had been so move-in-ready in the midst of an apocalypse.
"I'm sorry. We didn't realize," he began as the man interrupted.
"We're going to expect y'all to pay us back for all the supplies you took while you were here," he continued as he casually inched closer.
"We worked hard to get this place to this point, and we're not about to let y'all ruin it."
Ryan and Bailey looked at each other once more, concerned as to how they would manage to replace the water, energy, food, and medical supplies we took during the week spent here. They also knew leaving couldn't be an option; Grace and I would jeopardize their safety, and leaving a facility equipped with medical resources would jeopardize ours. They'd never admit that to me though. They didn't think I was mentally stable enough to handle bad news. That's probably why Ryan wouldn't elaborate on the problem at hand when he came to my room to find Bailey.
Tension was high in the lobby of the hospital as their big group stood against our two people. 
"I'm sorry. We didn't intend to create problems. We—we'd like to stay if we could. We can pull our weight. But if you make us leave, we, well, we've got a newborn that is in critical condition; she will die if we leave."
"You brought a baby here," he asked.
"She was delivered here a little over a week ago. She's my daughter," Bailey said calmly.
"My girlfriend was shot multiple times, so we had to find somewhere safe to deliver our baby and to save her from bleeding out. She's still healing. She's not ready to go back out there. We will pay you guys back and earn our keep, but please, we have to stay at least until they are both stable," Bailey said, turning towards Ryan.
"So you managed to save both of them," the man asked.
"My friend, he's—he's a doctor. He's done some amazing things. He can help any of you whenever you need it if you let us stay," Bailey said as if bargaining for our petition to stay here.
     The older man looked back at the others surrounding him as they gave unreadable looks. None of them spoke, but they were silently communicating with each other behind their cold eyes. After a lingering pause, the man cleared his throat.
"Okay," he finally said, calmly.
"Okay," Ryan asked, wondering if he'd heard correctly.
"We're just playing hard ass; you never know what kind of people you're going to run into these days. But, you can't be too bad of people if you're caring for a newborn in all of this mess," he said in a friendly manner.
Bailey lit up just a little, still cautious to the situation.
"I'm Rudy, and these are all of my friends and family."
The group of people waved at many intervals in a welcoming manner, finally smiling and showing a hint of emotion within them. Suddenly, Ryan and Bailey's faith in humanity was temporarily restored as we'd met, what seemed to be, a nice community of people. It was refreshing to them to finally be reconnected with others, and these people just had better energy than those at Opfer.
     We weren't sure how many people survived after everything went down at the temple, and we really didn't know if any of them were trustworthy after turning blind eyes as members were disappeared, ending up murdered—sacrificed. I didn't care to ever see any of them again. I'd never gotten close enough to any of them to form relationships, except with Ryan. Fortunately, he was one of the good ones, and it paid off big time with me and Grace. He'd saved our lives.
Ryan relaxed for the first time in a while before giving an introduction on behalf of the two of them.
"I'm Ryan, and this is Bailey," he said gesturing towards Bailey who waved back nervously, pursing his lips into a tiny smile.
"Nice to meet y'all," Rudy said with his strong southern accent.
"So, have y'all been out on the road all this time," Bailey finally asked.
"Yeah. We've been out scavenging across the state for a while, but we ran into some trouble. Our bus broke down, and the other vehicles couldn't fit all of us. We had to look all over for another big vehicle and gasoline," he began.
"This place is pretty stocked, but we want it to stay that way. With all of us using the supplies, it can run out quickly. And there ain't much left these days. You gotta travel to bigger cities to find the places that haven't been raided," he continued.
"That's smart," Bailey pitched in.
"Yeah, but it's not smart if you don't go with enough ammunition to kill all of the dead bodies roaming the streets. We lost some good people out there, but that was one of the reasons we went out there, to get more weapons and ammunition."
"I'm sorry to hear that," he paused, "well, we'll let y'all get settled back in. I'm sure y'all are probably exhausted and hungry. Please let us know if there's anything at all that we can do. We don't want to intrude, but we really would appreciate it if y'all would let us stay here permanently or at least until our girls are fully healed."
He nodded in approval.
"I'm sure we can work something out. We can talk more tomorrow. Y'all just make yourself at home," he said, walking past Bailey and patting him on the shoulder.
     After what felt like hours of lying in that hospital bed waiting, Bailey came back to the room as the crowd of people scattered amongst the hospital. I'd been waiting anxiously for his return, fearing the worst. I felt a huge sense of relief when I saw his face in the doorway.
He let out a huge sigh as he eased down into the bed beside me, placing his arm around my back. The warmth from his body soothed me as I inhaled the scent from his clothing. Somehow he still smelt the same as the night at the bar; it made me feel at home. He gently brushed a strand of hair behind my ear before I turned to face him.
"What happened," I asked anxiously.
"You know how I told you this place was untouched?"
"Yes," I said nervously.
"Someone else claimed all of this before us which is how the solar panels and supplies got here," he said half frowning.
"They've apparently been out on the road looking for more ammunition and other things for the past few weeks or so. Now they're back," he said.
"So, we have to leave," I asked sadly.
"No, they've agreed to let us stay, for now, but we're going to talk with the leader, Rudy, to decide on a permanent deal. It's okay; we're okay," he assured me with a calm smile.
He gently rubbed my cheek as I looked into his eyes. I leaned in and kissed him for the first time since our night in Nashville. Our eyes closed, our lips met, and it was the softest, gentlest kiss I'd ever had, much different than our first. I was seeing a slightly different side to him, one that was soft and sweet—I didn't mind it at all. It was comforting, and it wasn't overbearing. It was a good transition into this new start between us.
For the remainder of the night, the two of us cuddled in the small hospital bed until we'd both drifted into a deep sleep. Bailey was in and out of sleep from being anxious about the trustworthiness of Rudy and his community of people. We still weren't in a position to be comfortable or at ease, so our sleep often reflected our thoughts and worries. A worry free conscience and world didn't exist anymore, unfortunately. It would be hard to fully trust anyone and their intentions, especially after Opfer.