Amnesia

Trust

They came back with nothing. It was a short wait for their return, but when they appeared from behind the wall, their faces were masked with exhaustion and their bodies slumped from effort.

Brenda immediately sat down and opened her water bottle, taking a large gulp. Jose kept walking past us. We watched him and turned our heads as he continued to walk along the wall, away from us all. Then he sat down next to a tree facing away from us.

"What the hell happened?" Anne asks.

We turn to Brenda, but she says nothing. Her eyes are wide and horrified, staring straight ahead into a land beyond our visions. Her lips start to move but we can't hear anything coming out of her mouth.

"Brenda?" I say her name quietly, almost scared that if I talked louder it would startle her.

Her head snaps sideways and she looks at me, as if snapping out of a trance. "There are still men in there," she whispers as if they can hear her. "They are still in there."

"What?" Johnny asks in shock. "How?"

"Don't ask her how!" Jose suddenly appears from behind Johnny and grabs his shirt, pulling him up. He has him pinned against the tree in moments, staring him down. "Those sick men are still there. You lied."

"I didn't know!" Johnny cries. "I was only here for a few days, I thought for sure if there were any of them left after the infected came that they'd all come together to try to kill you guys. No others came out after the gunshots. If there were still people, they would've tried to kill Anne because she stayed back with Dawn!"

"Shut up!" Jose screams. "We could've died. We were careful enough to keep low just in case."

"They didn't see you, did they?" Anne asks.

"No," Brenda answers. "They were exploring the damages, no one really looking out. One was messing with Captain as if he was still alive."

"Yeah, well another was messing with Dawn," Jose spits.

"What?" Anne asks, her face a mask of horror and disgust mixed in one.

"Shut up, Jose," Brenda says through clenched teeth. Her eyes are shut again.

"Well why they hell did I leave you with Dawn?" Jose asks Anne. "You didn't do nothing. You didn't carry her some place nice. You left her on the ground, right where she died."

"What was I supposed to do?" Anne asks hysterically. Her face turns as red as her hair. "I can't carry her! Where would I have even put her?"

"Anywhere away from that place," Jose spits. "That ain't right."

"Nothing in this world is right anymore," Anne hisses. We all watch them argue in silence, none of us ever witnessed Anne snap until now. She's furious and emotional. "I've tried so hard to keep this group intact. Now everyone is dead or dying. Are you blind, Jose? Do you not get that? I've tried my damn best to keep everyone alive. No one ever appointed me to leading. I just was looked up to as knowing all the answers. You know what? I don't have all the answers. I don't know a damn thing I'm doing. I don't have experience in leadership. The only thing I've ever been a leader in was a group science project! And guess what I got on it? I got a D for a grade. And here I am trying to lead a group of people. Trying to inventory and give orders and organize everything. So don't get angry at me for not burying that girl."

Jose stares at her for a moment, speechless. We wait for him to reply for a long, silent minute. Finally he drops his shoulders and licks his dry lips. "I'm just real sick and tired of people like that," he says as he points his thumb in the direction of the wall. "The sick people behind this damn cement barrier."