The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Twenty-Nine - Day 14

     The rain finally stopped sometime in the late afternoon. Bill and Maya had been keeping watch out of the windows, and I had to admit that having the extra sets of eyes was a big help. With only three of us, it made the shifts tediously long. But the four new additions had jumped right in with helping out, and I was already noticing the difference.

With more than twice the people now hiding out in the cafeteria, there was near constant chatter. Someone was always talking to someone else. Even Fallon seemed to be starting to thaw towards them, and she was currently sitting at a table with Devon, the two of them making use of the deck of cards.

Shawn had been talking with Carrie for a while. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation from where I was adding drops of bleach to our water supply. More people meant that we would need more of everything, and I wanted to be prepared. We didn't have much, but water was one thing that we did have in abundance. Maya had produced a few cans of fruit from the backpack that she carried, and they had readily shared with us. They seemed like genuinely good people, and after only a few hours with them, I was already glad that we had decided to let them in.

From what I had been able to gather, they had had a rough road getting this far. Their group was larger when they left their homes in search of a safer place to stay. Their group had consisted of Bill, Maya, Carrie, Carrie's husband, and another man who had also lived on the same street as the rest of them. I didn't have to ask to know that the two men being absent from their group was a bad thing.

The group had worked their way west in search of a place with less zombies. They had stopped a few times, but it never lasted long before they were overrun and had to leave. When they had run out of gas on the highway, they had planned to siphon a few gallons from a car in town, and continue on their way. But the crowd of undead had foiled their plans, chasing them in the opposite direction of their vehicle, and they met Devon in the process. They had escaped the zombies in the trees, and had been walking since, hoping to find a place to get out of the rain and decide what to do next. Then they had emerged from the woods onto the little back road that led them directly to the camp.

Shawn relayed the basics of our own story to Carrie, and she made a noise of sympathy when he told her that we lost someone, too. She was disheartened when she found out that we had been running in the opposite direction from her group, and that there was no safer place than this one, as far as we had found.

Finished with my task with the water, I walked over and pulled out a chair next to Shawn. "The water will be ready in a half an hour."

Carrie nodded to me, "Thank you. I don't know where we would be if you all hadn't decided to let us in."

Getting dry wasn't easy, and the woman sitting across from me still looked damp. Her long, graying hair was drying in greasy looking strands that lay limply plastered to her skull. The strain and loss of the past couple of weeks had left her with a haunted cast to her features.

Basically, she looked awful. All four of them did, not that I thought that we looked much better. At least Shawn, Fallon, and I were reasonably rested. I looked to Shawn, "Why don't you and I take the first watch tonight, and let everyone else sleep." I didn't add that they needed it more than we did.

"That sounds like a plan. Carrie, we've been sleeping in a nurse's office connected to the main office. There's a couch and the floor is carpeted, so it's definitely more comfortable than sleeping anywhere else."

"This is a camp, right? Aren't there beds somewhere?" Bill had wandered over to our table.

"Yeah, but they're all in cabins spread out around the area. We've stayed in this building because it's bigger and seems more secure."

Bill seemed to think before nodding in agreement. "It makes sense for us all to stay together. And this place is better than some of the others we've stayed in lately."

"Shawn and I are ok with taking the first watch, if you want to try to get some sleep."

He nodded again, and I could see his frame droop a little with exhaustion. "That would be good, thanks. Would you all be ok with me bringing in my gun? I understand why you wanted it left outside, but I'd feel better if it was back within reach."

Shawn answered him, "Yeah, go ahead."

"Alright. I'm gonna go get that, and then if you don't mind, I think Maya and I will try to get some sleep."

After hearing the rain drum on the roof for so long, and hours of talking, the silence of the night seemed somehow ominous. The chirps, croaks, and peeps from the wildlife blended into quiet background noise that I no longer noticed unless I thought about it. Perched on top of my chair once again, I watched through the window for anything that could cause us trouble. So far, the fog that had been slowly building into a white wall was the only thing that had moved out there.

I yawned and stretched before coming down from the chair. It was deep into the night and almost time for us to wake up Fallon and Bill for their turn. Maya, Carrie, and Devon were all going to get an uninterrupted night's sleep, something that we hadn't been able to do very often with less people.

I wandered over to where Shawn had been watching out a window towards the other end of the cafeteria. "Hey. It's all quiet out there, but the fog's starting to get really thick."

He turned around and leaned against the wall next to me. "Yeah. I hope it doesn't last too much longer. I don't like not being able to see out there."

"First that crazy rain, now this." I shrugged my shoulders slightly. There wasn't anything any of us could do about it anyhow. "The new people seem ok."

He nodded thoughtfully. "They do. I wonder if they will stay. Having a few more people would make a lot of things easier."

I was a little surprised by his statement. It never occurred to me that the new group might choose not to stay. Where else did they have to go? I didn't respond as I thought over the possibilities.

We stayed like that, backs against the wall, in a companionable silence for a few minutes. When I figured that it had been long enough I should check outside again, I pushed off of the wall and walked back to my window.

Back up on my chair, nothing seemed to have changed. The slow creep of the fog still concealed too much of my view. The moonlight still glinted dully off of the puddles here and there.

I sighed and settled in for more less than stimulating looking out the window. Being on watch at night was my least favorite job in this new world.

Suddenly, a deer burst from the hazy underbrush. Running full speed, the animal crossed the open driveway in a few bounds, swerved to miss the jeep, and disappeared into the fog.

As the deer bounded out of sight, I rested my hand over my now pounding heart and silently laughed at myself for being startled by a deer. But then I realized that the usual night sounds from bugs and small animals had gone completely silent.