Better off Undead

Chapter 16: New Life

Marshall, Elaine, and Amber quickly took to organizing everyone together for specific jobs. One of the first orders of business was to set aside a plot for a garden where they could grow some fruits and vegetables. They cordoned off an area between the office buildings and the dining area and set a small group of volunteers to work digging up the ground to prepare it for planting. Most of the rest of the day was spent searching through the dining hall, the living spaces, and the generator/water tank area to determine what supplies they had and what they would still need. In the early afternoon they took a break and fixed up some lunch from the food supplies they had found. Everyone stopped by, with the notable exception of Eli. The work continued on after lunch, and then as the sun began to set in the far western skies, they took a second break for dinner. Again, Eli did not show up.

When Jay showed up for some food, Amber took him aside. "Have you seen Eli?"

Jay narrowed his eyebrows in suspicion, eyes searching her face for her true intent, but all he could make out seemed to be honest concern. "No, why?"

"Nobody's seen him all day," she answered honestly.

Jay mulled over several responses before settling on the truth. "Last I saw him he was headed for the office buildings. Might still be there. If nothing else, it's certainly the easiest place to go unnoticed here."

Amber nodded her head as she considered that reasoning. Thanking Jay, she turned and headed out of the dining hall. She looked across the empty stretch between her and the buildings, and considered whether she should be doing this at all. It was hardly her place to be concerned about this kid, but somehow she felt unable to stop.

It did not take her very long to find him once she was actually searching. Once inside she decided not to even bother with the labs and offices, but immediately made her way to the first building and the top floor. Sure enough, there was Eli, sitting on a table, his feet in a chair, arms across his knees, staring out the large wall of windows. She stopped for a moment and watched him. He did not seem to notice her presence, so she came over and sat beside him. He started in surprise, but relaxed when he saw who it was. The expression on his face did not exactly change, though.

"Hey," he greeted, his voice barely a whisper. She nodded back in response, deciding it best to not really say anything for the moment. Turning, she looked out the window, to where he had been looking just moments before. The sight of Texas in the late evening sun was actually quite breathtaking. The sky was awash in purples, pinks, blues, and oranges, the colors cascading as they fell over the tops of the trees. Clouds puffed up and faded into nothing here and there across the sky, adding to the almost surreal effect of the view. In the light of the recent horror that had overrun the world, it seemed impossible to believe such beauty could still exist. It was almost as if nature itself was trying to be ironic.

Distantly she was aware that Eli had yet to take his eyes off her. She turned and gave him an impatient look. He quickly turned away, embarrassed.

"I guess I owe everyone an apology," he said after a moment. She still said nothing. Eli looked up and out the window, trying his best not to start staring at her again. He could feel his chest growing tight, but swallowed hard and tried to ignore it. "It's just... you all have had a full month to get used to this situation. I haven't. I haven't really had any time. For the past seventy two hours or however long I've just tried to shut my brain down and run on autopilot. Just all reactions, no deep thoughts or fully conscious decisions. I think I was afraid that if I stopped, if I got the chance, I would just break down and give up."

He fell silent for a long moment. "My family's dead," he said at last. He turned and looked at Amber, and could see the concern in her eyes. For the first time she noticed he was holding his cell phone in his hands, twirling it around absently. "I don't have any confirmation, of course. But surely someone I knew would have checked on me after it became clear what was happening." He hit a button on the phone and the screen lit up, and he waved it half-heartedly. "But there's nothing. Not a single message. Not a text, not a call. Which means they probably all died too early on to be concerned about me. Which means that the only people with any connection to me left alive in this world is our little group of survivors. And given the choice, if there were no zombies, if we weren't fighting for our lives, I wouldn't be friends with any of you. I would probably have done all I could to avoid each and every one of you. But here I am. Here we all are." He stopped and let his head droop into his hands.