A State of Survival

Becca I

Becca was still tinkering with the HQ's damaged wiring when she heard a series of knocks on the front door. She wiped her hands with a rag, leaving behind dark smudges from the grime of her work. She brushed aside her long brown hair and made her way to the entrance, her footsteps soft against the smooth concrete floor.

Who would knock on the door at this hour? She wondered to herself. Most survivors were next door in the mess hall, formally a small restaurant, eating away at what little rations they had found in the last week. (The base had long since set up a tomato garden, but its output was too meager to feed dozens of people). There were guards posted outside, looking out for the infected. But they would usually set off the alarm if a threat was coming, not waste time tapping on HQ doors to alert the group.

Becca pushed open the large, rusting metal doors to reveal a large, middle-aged man in a plain white shirt wearing a red light jacket and ripped blue jeans. His pale skin contrasted with his hard brown eyes and hair, which was mostly covered by his blue Yankees cap.

"Willy," Becca sighed as she glanced off to the side. She had learned to never expect many positive tones to radiate from this man. "If you don't have productive things to share with me, then you shouldn't knock for HQ."

Willy mumbled something under his breath before he conversed with her in his heavy Southern accent. "Geez, I ain't here to bother you. Just tellin' you that girl and her dog are at the gates."

Becca's gaze snapped to attention with instinct as a flood of emotions ran through her head, "Maddie's back? Well, I suppose it's always been a matter of time before she shows up again."

Willy gave a sigh of his own, looking a bit nervous now. "Yeah... well, the gal might have brought a bit of a pickle with her."

Becca locked eyes with him. Willy could be described as a lot of things. Stubborn, apathetic, and cynical, yes. Most people would just call him a bumbling idiot, though Becca was not most people. But anxiety was not an emotion he often felt, and even when he did, the guy was not one to display it.

"A pickle? What are you getting at?"

Willy shrugged, suspicion filling his eyes. Now that was the fellow Becca knew.

"Well... brought a random guy she calls 'Sarge' with her. Big one too, muscles, personal M4. Looks about two decades or more in age older than yourself. Seems to be his early 50s."

Becca tried to guard a sea of frustrations behind a poker face, which was hard when you had little experience doing one. Willy leaned up against a wall and began mindlessly tapping the ground as a brief silence spoke in place of words.

"Bring her in; tell her to wait near HQ while I finish up my morning chores."

Willy raised an eyebrow at her. "You're still fixing that wiring problem from this morning?"

Becca nodded while thinking in silence about that last annoying copper wire still malfunctioning after multiple attempts at fixing it. "The electricity in the main room will take a while to turn back on. I'll work a bit longer, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and then I'll come out to say my choice words to Maddie." For the third goddamn time, Becca thought while she closed the door behind her.

Working on the HQ's circuits gave Becca time to calm herself down, clearing her head of adrenaline-fueled anger and focusing on the task at hand. But as she continued to tweak the small copper wire lines, Becca couldn't help but think about Maddie and this "Sarge" person the girl brought with her.

Becca knew Maddie considered her to be overprotective, not letting the latter leave base with Frank alone and instead making her do menial chores like clearing up the settlement. Becca loved so much about Maddie, the girl was a joy to have around at any time. But she knew no eleven-year-old girl, not even Maddie, would be skilled enough to go out into town alone. Not to mention bringing in another survivor. Becca thought Maddie would at the very least learn to not trust people she just met after the world apocalypsed all over the place. Apparently not.