The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Seventeen - Day 8

The largest of the buildings lay directly ahead. A circular drive passed by right in front of the main entrance, a sign posted on the bulletin board hanging by the door proclaiming that the camping season was only two weeks away. With any luck, there hadn't been anyone living at the campground yet, and there wouldn't be any nasty surprises waiting for us within any of the buildings.

Shawn stopped the car a small distance away from the entrance and the two of us sat there, neither willing to get out of the jeep until we were fairly certain that we were alone. A tense silence descended as we both looked around. I was looking over my shoulder, back the way that we had come, when a short blast from the horn caused me to jump in my seat.

Heart beating wildly in my chest, I glared at him. "What was that!"

He grinned sheepishly at me. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. I just thought that it might be a good idea to make some noise and see what happens before we get out of the car."

"Don't do that again." I grumped at him. Silently, I admitted to myself that it had been a good idea. If there were any zombies in the area, they would come running at the sound from the horn, and we could drive away. But I wasn't about to admit that to him.

"Sorry."

He didn't really look all that sorry.

After another few minutes, we decided that it was probably safe to get out of the jeep. There really was only one way to test that theory. Shawn turned the ignition off and grabbed the bat from my lap. "Ready?"

"No." But I reached for the door handle anyhow. We couldn't just sit in the vehicle forever.

The trees surrounding the camp were old. They branched out in a thick canopy, blocking a significant amount of the light. It was only mid day, but it looked closer to night fall. I closed my car door as quietly as I could and stretched muscles tight from the uncomfortable ride. My heart rate, which had calmed down from my scare from the horn, ratcheted back up. I walked around the front of the jeep and waited for my companion to meet me.

He had been looking carefully around the small clearing. When he joined me at the front of his jeep, we headed toward the main entrance of the largest building in an unspoken agreement. It seemed like as good a place as any to start.

The main door was unlocked, both a blessing, and a possible curse. If the door was unlocked, did that mean that there was already someone here? Or that there had been someone working here at the time of the outbreak, and they now waited for us in some dark corner of the summer camp?

The door pushed open with a creak, revealing a large, open room. Round tables crowded the space, each with a half a dozen folding chairs leaning against them. A closed door immediately to our left had a brightly painted wooden sign labeling it as the office. Far to our right, another closed door looked exactly like the one that we had used to get into the kitchen at my office cafeteria. It was silent and dark in the room, the light filtering in through the high windows enough to just see by. We were the only things moving.

Moving toward the office door, Shawn listened at it intently before rapping the surface with his knuckles. The sound wasn't loud, but in the silence of the building, I was sure that anything that had been inside the office would easily have heard it. There was no response, and he carefully turned the knob and pushed the door open. Inside was exactly what I would have expected from the office for a kid's summer camp.

A couple of chairs that had seen better days sat in front of a heavy old desk, the top littered with papers. A shelf along the back wall was lined with plenty of well used books that featured pictures of wildlife and plants on the covers. To the right, an open door was labeled 'nurse'. It was apparent immediately that there wasn't anyone in the office. I edged toward the darkened nurse's room, nightmare flashbacks of the zombie who sprung out of the walk in cooler at Jack plaguing my mind. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found nothing but a small desk, chairs, and a couch in the room.

We continued our search of the building slowly, afraid at every corner that we would run into someone who wanted to eat us. But after a thorough search, the entire building turned out to be empty. I sagged into one of those folding chairs back near the entrance. The day had been an emotional roller coaster, and I was exhausted. And I was pretty sure that there was still hours left before the day officially ended.

"This seems like a good place to stay for the night." We had kept mostly silent since getting out of the car, but Shawn must have felt that it was safe to speak now that we had cleared the building. "We can keep looking around tomorrow, but I think we've both had enough for today."

I didn't argue with him. It had only been a day since we had stood in that kitchen and listened to a friend die. We had spent every second since just trying to keep ourselves alive, but the loss was beginning to catch up with me. I hadn't known Jack for all that long, but he had seemed like a good guy. He hadn't hesitated to welcome me into their small group and did his best to make me feel like one of them. No one deserved to die a death like he had, and I wiped the tear away that managed to sneak past my control, hopefully before Shawn noticed. I'd never been someone who cried. I didn't plan to start now.

While searching the kitchen earlier, we had noted unopened boxes of muffins and breakfast pastries stacked on the counter. Confiscating one of the boxes of muffins, we retreated into the office. There wasn't a lock on the door, but I figured out how to wedge one of the chairs under the knob. The improvised lock wouldn't keep out a determined attacker for long, but it would slow them down. We each stuffed ourselves with as many of the muffins as we could keep down, they were the healthiest thing either of us had eaten in a week, and drank the last of the water that we had brought along in the bag. We would have to make finding drinking water a priority in the morning, but for now, all either of us wanted to do was get some rest.

"I'll take the first watch. Get some sleep, I'll wake you up when it's your turn."

Shawn had settled into the remaining chair, turning it toward the only way in or out of our refuge, and keeping one hand on the bat laying across his knees. He looked exhausted, clothes dirty, hair a mess, and the strain of the last week written all over his face. I hesitated, wondering if I should be the one to take the first watch, but ultimately gave in to my own need to shut down for a few hours.

The faux leather couch in the nurse's office wasn't the most comfortable place I'd ever slept. The material was hard and cold, and it wasn't long enough for me to stretch out completely, but none of that mattered when I curled up on it. Using a blanket that I had found folded up in the closet in the corner for a pillow, I was asleep as soon as my head hit the material.