You Can't Survive Alone

Part 16

Some time later
I wake up on the floor in a small room I don't recognize. There's a single flickering lightbulb above me, but other than that and a bar about five feet above the ground, the room is empty. I go to the single door in the room, and try the knob, which doesn't move. I start panicking.
I bang on the door frantically, hitting it with the palm of my hand. "Hey? Hey! Where am I? Let me out!"
"She must be awake," I hear someone say through the door. It sounds like Zack, and I hear footsteps walking away.
"Zack! I can hear you! Let me out!"
"Ash, we can't. You told us not too."
"Why would I tell you to lock me in a goddamn closet?!" None of this is making any sense. I stop hitting the door, and sit down instead.
"You attacked Mark."
"I-I did? But I don't remember!" I close my eyes, thinking. I remember a horrible sensation, as though I was falling, and then... "I don't remember," I say again, softly.
"What's the last thing that you do remember? I'll tell you what's happened since," he offers.
"Okay. We had just gotten back from getting stuff for the party, and we were standing on the steps, talking to Mark."
"When we were standing on the steps, you started to look really confused, and looked... almost... angry. Then you ran at Mark, and I tried to pull you off him, but you were too strong. He hit you over the head with the butt of his gun... We took you inside, and into your room. A bit later, you woke up, but you remembered what had happened. You called through the door, we heard you moving around, and told us to lock you in the closet, in case you attacked again."
"Oh, my god." I feel wetness on my cheeks, and put my hand up to my face. Somewhere during the story, I started crying. "What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. That's what the others are talking about now; I didn't want to be a part of the discussion, and stayed here instead to watch if you woke up."
I'm still crying. I'm trying to stop, but I can't seem to will myself enough to stop crying. He must hear me crying, and asks, "Are you okay?"
"Who the hell would be okay with this? What am I supposed to do? I wake up, locked in a closet, and am told a story about how I tried to kill one of my friends. Who would be okay with that, Zack?" I whisper, then laugh bitterly. Talking louder now, I say, "in the past few months, I've seen both my parents die; no, worse- become zombies. I've been abducted by a megalomaniac, become a weird hybrid zombie thing, and tried to kill my friend. What should I do?"
He sounds almost lost as he says, "I don't know."
Spitefully, I reply, "I don't know. Great response, Zack. Very helpful. I'm just wondering whether I'm about to get kicked out of the group of survivors because I attacked one of the other members, and your only comforting words are 'I don't know.'"
He's starting to get angry now too. "Well, what else am I supposed to say? I've never done this before, nobody has. Nobody's gone through this. Before, we had our perfect lives, and then somebody came along and screwed all that up. So, what do you do? What should we all do?"
All of a sudden, I'm calm. "Survive. That's all I can think for anyone to do now; with billions of people gone, dead- or worse, zombies- that's pretty much all we can do." I sag against the door, putting my back to the outside world.
"Seems as good a plan as any, right now." We don't talk for minutes after this, but I hear and feel him sit and lean against the door also. Instead, we listen to the tick of the seconds in our heads, the clock counting down until the messenger will come to share with us my fate.

Later
I wake up some time later, to the sound of someone knocking lightly on the door. I must've fallen asleep while Zack and I were waiting. "Ash? You can come out now," Zack says. I hear the sound of the door unlatching, and footsteps walking away, then the squeak of bedsprings collapsing as he sat.
As the door creaks open, I look through to the other side and see Zack and Jess sitting on the bed. I lean on the side of the doorway, waiting for them to talk.
"Hi," Jess says awkwardly. I just look at her in response. I'm sure my eyes are still red and puffy from the crying, and I'm not sure that my voice would be stable. "So, um... We've decided what we're going to do." She tries to make it sound civil, but I still cringe at the thought that they might decide to make me leave. I wouldn't be able to stand being alone for this.
"And what is that?" Zack asks, after about half a minute. Apparently, he had waited until I was awake to hear the news as well.
Jess stands up to continue. "You're going to stay here. We're not going to make you leave; that would be cruel. We're going to work through this together, and not just abandon you. Besides, we're like a family, right? We can't just leave someone behind like that."
I let out the breath that I hadn't realized I was holding. I wasn't going to be kicked out, they were going to help me. I wouldn't be alone.
My voice sounds small, even to me, as I say, "So you guys will help me?"
She looks shocked I would even ask that. "Of course we'll help you! What else would we do?" My heart warms at the prospect of help, instead of abandonment. I was worried they'd go all 'survival of the fittest' on me- I was a weakness, a liability, and should be kicked out.
Zack smiles warmly, and gets up from his place on the bed. He walks over to me, and wraps his arms around me in a hug. I lean against him and hug him back, grateful for his being there. This burden would be impossible to bear without him.
When he releases me, he turns to Jess and says, "Thank you."
She looks at both of us and says, "There wasn't any other decision. We only did what was right," but I can tell she was more moved from his thanks then she showed.
Zack turns back to me and touches my cheek, wiping away a tear I hadn't realized was there. As he pulls his hand away, by hand comes up and touches my cheek also, right where he touched it, and wipes away the remainder of the tear.
What a great birthday this has been, I think sarcastically. Going psycho, nearly getting kicked out of the group. Just... great. I frown, and then silently vow that I will make Zack's birthday a thousand times better than this one has been. He'll have a party, a cake, presents- all the things that were absent today.
After a moment of silence, Jess suggests that we join the rest of the group in the game room. Zack looks at me, and I nod. I probably look terrible- eyes red and puffy, hair a rat's nest, clothes covered in dirt- but I don't care. Appearances don't matter anymore.
We walk down the hallway in silence, listening to the sound of the others in the game room. They're being incredibly loud -or at least it seems to me that they're being loud- their voices together creating a blurred chorus, with Nick's high tenor and Mark's low baritone loudest amongst them all.
Jess and Zack go in first, me trailing behind slightly. However, instead of staring at me as I was sure they would, they look up then go back to what they were doing. This was the greatest gift I could ask of them; for them to ignore what had happened and to leave me peacefully alone.
However, instead of continuing to ignore me, Nick got up and went to the small fridge in the corner. We usually didn't keep this one running because it took too much energy, but I felt the puff of cold air it released upon him opening it. He grabbed a Diet Coke from inside, popped the lid, and passed it to me on his way back to the table. "Thanks," I say to him.
"Of course." He isn't looking at me, but he isn't looking at the game either; he's looking at some in-between space, where he could, conceivably, watch both of us at once. I don't know whether I want him to look at me or not. A glance in my direction could hold understanding and forgiveness- but it could just as easily hold hostility and wariness of me. I would kill to see some understanding right now.
When he finally does look at me, I realize I've been staring at him. We lock eyes for a second, and turn away at the same time. A few brown curls bounce into his eyes as he turns away, and he brushes them absent-mindedly away with a hand. I look around the room, at Zack, holding hands and laughing with Kat; at little Maya, smiling and chatting with Mark; at Jess, sitting off to the side with Liz. Finally, my gaze drifts over to Kyle and Aaron, chatting in one corner.
Seeing everyone happy, I find myself smiling as well. Everything is peaceful, and I feel as though nothing in the world could go wrong.