The Strong Will Survive

Chapter Thirty - KC

I woke up to a rustling of sheets and then pages. Lilith was up and reading again. I silently slid out of my bed and stretched. Her blanket was gone. She must have been cold. I crept to her light, softly swearing once when I stubbed my toe on a shelf.

Lilith jumped when my shadow loomed over the light. "Hey! It's just me," I said soothingly. "How's it going?"

"Alright. This is actually really interesting. There's something in one of the later entries that's really important to our cause. When the others wake up, I'll hold a meeting."

A small shadow darted past. We both started, and Lilith started to scream. I covered her mouth with my palm. "It's just Lydia, up to go to the bathroom."

"Huh. I haven't seen her in a while." Lilith said, her voice muffled by my makeshift gag.

I quickly withdrew my hand. "Lydia has been keeping to herself these past few days. Being alone for months, you kinda get used to it. But I have no idea how she's so stealthy all the time. But hey. If it works for her."

"I guess. But she should at least come to the meeting this morning over breakfast. It's really important."

"Whatever floats your boat, fille. But you should get back to bed."

"No. The nightmares..."

She trailed off. I nodded, remembering my own night panics when I was in middle school. "So how about you come into my bed for the night and I can watch you until you sleep?"

She looked uncertain. "I don't need protection. I'm tired of being the weak link. Just leave me here. I'll be fine." Her expression changed from scared to resolute. "I'll be fine," she repeated, sure of herself this time.

"Alright, but if you need anything, you know where I am. Or Jared. Or Benji. So pretty much anybody here save Lydia." I walked back to the sleeping area with its odd "beds" (more like couches and cots), and Lilith was already nodding over the diary.

The next morning, we had our meeting. It was like a war council, but with reheated stale pastries and dry cereal. We all waited with bated breath for Lilith to come back from finding Lydia. When they arrived, we sat on the picnic-style table in silence. Jared cleared his throat. "Well, you said there was news, Lilith?"

"Yeah. Lemme get the diary real quick."

She quickly returned, diary in hand. Lilith flipped through the dog-eared pages and stopped at one near the end. She read aloud, "The doctors and chemists who are still alive did some testing. They ended up finishing the development of a cure for the 'zombie disease.' If anybody finds this if and when I die, it's still in the hospital, in the refrigerator that holds the refrigerated medications. Good luck finding it. Bye for now."

We sat in complete and utter silence, thinking about what we had just heard Lilith read. "Heavy stuff, that," I said. "I never thought that there would've been a cure right under our noses. We have to go back."

"Not yet," Benji and Lilith said at the same time. "We have to plan it out and--" Lilith cut in. "We have to recover from last time as well. We almost got killed!"

"Alright, alright. We should plan. But I'm half-awake and I am HUNGRY. Let me eat my cereal and then we'll work on it," I said with my mouth full of dry (going stale) off-brand Cocoa Puffs. We had work to do.