Surviving The Apocalypse *serious editing*

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I woke top the next morning on my couch. Last night I had been to tired when I arrived home that I just collapsed on the couch and fell asleep. I was so tired that I hadn't even changed out of my dirty bloody clothes. The  blood had dried and stuck to me uncomfortably. I needed to change and take a shower, anything to get the blood of my family off of me.

A small stream flowed through the woods behind my house, it would be freezing but it would be beater than nothing. I went into the stream bloody clothes and all. It was a very shallow stream so I had to cup the water and pour it over me. Slowly the dried blood washed off my body and clothes. I couldn't ever wear those pajamas again so I decided to bury them. Right there in the middle of the woods I stripped down into my bra and underwear and dug a little hole to put my soiled rags into. Even my bra and underwear had been stained with blood. 

I hurried back into my house and quickly changed into a pair of simple blue jeans and a tee shirt. Compared to the horrible roughness of my clothes from yesterday and the freezing water my new clothes were warm and soft.

I was still numb and didn't know what I should be doing. Should I go somewhere? Was my town having meeting and taking a census to see who survived the outage and deciding what we would do from here on out? At that point I didn't feel up to facing people and having them ask me where my mom and sister were. I didn't want to say that they had gotten into an accident. Instead I sat down on the edge of my bed and put my head in my hands. 

I sat there and let silent tears roll down my cheeks. My heart physically ached. It hurt so much that I clutched my chest, waiting until the pain subsided. But it didn't, it continued to hurt until there was a knock on my door. Weakly, I whipped away my tears and went to the door. I opened it to find a worried looking neighbor.

"Oh thank god, you're safe. I was so worried that something might have happened. You weren't at the town meeting and I didn't see your mom or dad either and– thank god." My neighbor, Julie, embraced me into her arms. Julie and mom were friends and Julie often came over for drinks and dinner. I didn't want to tell her that mom and Anne were dead, that they had gotten into a car accident when the power went out, but when Julie pulled away and looked into my eyes she must have seen the sadness in them.

"Oh honey, Im so sorry." She pulled me back into her arms and just held me for a while. "you shouldn't be alone for this. Come on, gather some supplies and come over to my house. I'll tell Henry that you'll be staying with us until all of this has blown over." She gave me a warm smile and released me from her grip.

Blow over? Did stuff like this blow over? But instead of saying anything I just nodded and went back inside to get some stuff. I threw some clothes into a bag, grabbed a family picture from when Anne and I were younger, and after second thought I raided our kitchen. If the power was out then all of the stuff in the fridge and freezer would soon go bad. I put all of our ice cream, milk, meat, and produce into a bag. Then I took all of the ice that the freezer had made and put it into water bottles. The ice was already mostly melted and gave off a lot of water. If I needed anything else I could just come back and get it. 

When Julie saw me loaded down with several bags she rushed out to help me carry them all. Henry met us at the door and took the bags of food to the kitchen while Julie showed me to the guest room. 

"Thank you for taking me in." I told Julie as she helped me unpack my bag. 

"Of course, honey. With everything going on we need to look out for each other and I couldn't let you try to deal with all of this by yourself, especially after your mom and sister." Her voice broke at the end of the sentence. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. "Well when you're settled here come to the kitchen. We're having a feast to eat all of perishables before they go bad."