You Can't Survive Alone

Part 15

The Next Morning
I walk into the kitchen to get some breakfast, and notice that Aaron is the only one there. The others must already be helping the new group to set up.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi," I say, pouring myself some dry cereal. I would kill for a glass of milk, but we haven't had milk since everything started. The fridge works, but there was still about a week's period where there was no power here. So, no milk for us.
I remember my question from last night. "Aaron, what day is it?" I ask.
He pulls out a small calendar book. He flips to a page, and looks at it. "It's January. January 18th."
There's no way that that much time has passed! I think a little bit, and then I realize: today is my birthday. I start laughing, and Aaron looks at me like I'm going a bit crazy until I explain: "Today is my birthday."
At that, he bursts into the happy birthday song- just as Zack walks in. Zack listens to the end of the song, and claps at the end.
"Is it January 18th already?" He asks.
"Yup," I say as Aaron makes a note in the calendar. I look over at what he is writing, and see that he is drawing balloons around my name. "Birthday balloons?" I guess.
"Yup, so I won't forget for next year." He looks at Zack, then asks, "When's your birthday? So I can write it down."
"Four days after Ash's. January 22nd."
Aaron makes a note in his book. "Thanks."
He sets the book down, and looks at the clock on the wall, which stopped ticking a while ago. The hands are forever frozen at 3:14 PM.
"How shall we celebrate?" Aaron asks.
"I wasn't really thinking about celebrations, you know, in light of the current events," I reply.
"I don't think something stupid like a zombie apocalypse should stop us from celebrating birthdays. Maybe we should have a combined party for you two!"
"We could get cake mix from the grocery store, you know, the box kind where all you need is water," Zack says. "I'd be glad to run down and get some!"
I'm starting to get excited. I really hadn't expected that we would celebrate birthdays after everything that's happened, but, why not? There's something to be said for people who will go out of their way to have fun in the face of danger. "We can get balloons and decorations too," I add.
"This is going to be awesome," claims Aaron. I'm inclined to agree- it will certainly be quite a bit of fun. "I'm going to go tell Nick," he says, and rushes out of the room.
"What do you think of the party?" I ask Zack.
He laughs a little bit, and says, "Sounds like fun. We're going to have a blast!"
"Want to go scavenging with me for some party stuff?"
"Sure, when were you thinking about going?"
"As soon as possible," I reply, smiling. Aaron sprints back into the room and yells, "It's party time!" then runs back out. I decide to take this to mean that Nick has given us the go-ahead on the party.
"Shall we?" I ask, holding out my hand.
He takes my hand and says, "We shall," and we run out of the room.

At the store
I walk through the aisles, a plastic shopping basket in hand. The store has already been looted, not by us, but in the post-apocalypse chaos that preceded the true survival, but they didn't take anything we need.
Zack and I agreed to meet back at the entrance, and I'm glad he's not here right now because I'm picking out his present.
I already have a chocolate cake mix is the basket- all we need to complete it is some water, which we have plenty of. I also grabbed some canned icing and candles, to make it even more festive.
Instead of getting something that would actually be useful in this time for Zack, I've decided I would get him the next book in the Game of Thrones series, because neither of us had finished it yet and recent events kind of threw a wrench in our reading plans.
As I throw the book in the basket, I wander over to the birthday card section. Someone else has gone through and thrown some cards on the floor, and I wonder why. Zack and I are both turning 17; I'll get him a card for a 7 year-old as per our birthday tradition. Every year, since we were 12, we would get each other a card from the decade earlier. This started when he got me a Dora card for a 2 year old, and wrote a 1 next to the 12 in sharpie marker. I intend to continue our joke, for as long as we still can.
When I finish shopping, I stand by the front doors, and wait for him. Zack wanders out from the candy aisle, a huge grin on his face that he quickly conceals. I wonder what has him so excited.
"Did you get the decorations?" I ask.
"Yep," he replies, smiling. "Did you get the cake?"
"Of course. Ready to go?"
"Yeah, let's go. I'm really excited for the party!"
"So am I," I say as we walk out of the store. "This is gonna be lots of fun."
The walk home was uneventful- the only thing that happened was a single zombie, stumbling down the street away from us. Zack sighted it with his pistol, but I said that we should leave it be. It wasn't attacking us, and a gun blast would simply draw more of them and make the survivors back at the house worry.
As we walk up the steps to the door, I wave at Mark who's keeping day watch. He waves back, his gun sitting on his lap.
"So I heard there was gonna be a party?" he asks.
"Yeah, we were just out getting stuff for it," Zack says. "Want to help with decorating? Almost nothing ever shows up on day watch anyway."
Mark thinks for a minute, then nods. "Sure, I'll help." As we haul the stuff up the steps in the plastic bags we took from the counter, I look around at the White House lawn. The grass is slightly overgrown; we're lucky it hasn't snowed, but it's fairly cold. We each have our winter coats on I notice as I look at the others. When did we get those? I wonder. As I stand on the step, I feel something change in my mind. My head begins to ache, my thoughts slow as though they were swimming through molasses, and I can't seem to move. I see spots, and the colors begin to fade; I feel as though I'm falling, falling through the ground, and then I know no more.