Chapter Fourteen
I stepped outside, a gun holder strapped to my waist. I stepped back out into the eerie quiet, the once busy place where I grew up, where I lived, where my life was at least tolerable until that one day.
My group went on its way, first to scan the island for any more survivors, afterwards if no one was found, to the supermarket for more food.
We walked towards the beach, passing by once beautiful shops and turned over vendor carts. The pier, where Landon and I first shared a purely intimate moment between us had collapsed. Flashes of old, distant memories from an old life appeared before my eyes, disappearing within seconds.
The park was ruined, the benches and the fountains were crushed.
There were barricades placed within each block, which were meant to keep the hoard of bots from destroying anything more, but those were crushed as well. We climbed over cars, barricades, and decaying bodies as we made our way around the island.
The café, where I would go to escape the daily stresses I used to face was destroyed, tables thrown everywhere, the stage crushed with the curtains thrashed everywhere.
We took some ground coffee beans from there, nothing more.
We made our way back to the residential area, looking in windows and knocking on doors when we passed a corner into a place I knew well.
I couldn’t place my finger on it, but the strange feeling of deja vu crept up my back, its chilling hand leaving me trembling.
As we walked down the boulevard, that seemed to be once beautiful, filled with flowers and life that now was cold and desolate, colorful flowers now overgrown and gray, chipping and falling apart, their vines stretching across the sidewalk, pushing into the dirt roads where cars once hovered, climbing up houses and tapping on windows, asking for entry into now deserted houses, fleeting memories crept into my brain.
A girl learning to ride a bike, a child’s first steps, a fight between mother and father that was “nothing to worry about.”
I stopped in front of one house, a modest little house with a small lawn and vines crawling up to the porch. Its white paint was chipping, rolling and peeling downwards, with the once smooth steps up to the porch rusting. The pillars and fence surrounding the porch were a soft blue, matching the window panes.
I stood, staring at the modest little house, with its fence hanging off by its hinges and the door boarded up.
“Are you okay, babe?” Landon took my hand in his.
“Yeah, why?”
“You’re crying,”
I wiped a tear off my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I had been crying. What was I even crying for? It was just a house. A plain, old, stupid house.
But for some reason, it pulled me to the front door.
I pressed the small button next to the door.
“Hannah,” Milo cautioned, taking my hand in his.
“Voice Recognition.” A computer voice relayed, slow and the voice warbling to life.
I pulled my hand away from him, glaring.
The button glowed a pale, flickering green.
“Hannah Steele.” I spoke, hearing my voice shake and stutter to the small speaker.
“Retina Scan.”
The button became clear, a small red laser flickering to life. I leaned to let the ray of light penetrate my eye, my hands balled into shaking fists.
