His Cure

New Leader in Town

I woke early the next morning to Tilly and Mary-Beth. I didn't sleep much but it was fine. I could function on an hour of sleep.
"Elizabeth! Wake up!" They urged. "What's wrong?" I asked with a face full of concern. "It's Karen."
I instantly jumped out of bed, or the blanket on the floor that I was calling a bed, and followed them outside to see that Karen was unconscious and lying on the floor.
Since Sean's death she'd fallen heavily into the bottle. It wasn't so bad at first but over time it got worse, and now it was awful.
"Shit... Karen? Karen?!" I exclaimed as I ran towards her. "Is she...?" Mary-Beth asked with tears in her eyes as I felt Karen's pulse. "No. She's fine. Just unconscious. Help me get her inside."
We lifted her off of the floor and began to carry her towards the house but as we did, she threw up all over me. "Great..." I mumbled before continuing towards the house.
"One of you needs to keep an eye on her." I requested as we laid her down inside. "I will." Mary-Beth replied. "Great. Make sure she doesn't choke on her own vomit."
I barely had time to change out of my vomit covered clothes before someone else needed something.
"Miss Elizabeth, we need food for tonight's stew." Pearson said. "Alright. I'll get Charles to go out hunting."
As I made my way over to Charles, someone else got my attention.
"The roofs sprung a leak." Molly said as she walked towards me. "Alright, I'll fix it just give me a second. Charles, can you go out hunting?" Luckily he agreed.
After I had fixed the leak in the roof, and by fixed I mean shoving a spare blanket in the hole, Abigail came sprinting over to me. "I can't find Jack!" "Okay, okay. Calm down. When did you last see him?" I asked.
We found Jack pretty quickly, he was climbing the tree right next to the house but it took longer than you would have thought as he was enjoying 'hide and seek'.
This continued all day. All day everyone was coming up to me with problems and I was expected to solve them. I could barely get one job done before someone wanted something else. It was exhausting. I now understood why Dutch was always so stressed. It made sense why he was so controlling. It made sense why he would always argue. All it took was me to walk a mile in his shoes to figure that out.
I was so busy that the day went by in a flash and everyone was soon asleep and I was about to join them. I was exhausted. This was going to be a rough few days. All I had to do was ride it out for a couple more days. Or so I thought...

[One week later]
"Sadie, we need to talk." I instructed as the sun went down after another exhausting day. "Of course. Let's go outside." She replied as we walked out of the house and over to a tree. "What's up?" She asked as she plopped herself down underneath it. "It's been a more than a week, Sadie." I groaned as I sat down next to her. "They ain't coming back, are they?" I asked as I put my head in my hands, deflated and defeated. "I really don't know." She replied honestly with a sigh. "What are we gonna do?" I questioned. "There's nothing we can do. We're safe here. We stay here." She replied. "We have no money, Sadie." "We'll find some. We can't just give up." She tried to convince me. "Please Liz, don't give up. I can't do this without you." "I know, I know. I'm not giving up. I'm just tired." "Me too." She replied sympathetically as I placed my head on her shoulder.
I was so tired. So confused. So... empty.
"Liz, if they ain't coming back... we're fucked, ain't we?" Sadie asked after a moment of silence.
I didn't want to admit it but the truth was, yes. We were fucked. No one was coming for us... we were alone.