Fight for your life

Chapter Twelve

"I feel like I've been reborn," Scout says as we walk towards our room. "I'm clean, well fed, and I get to wash my clothes." She says happily. "And James says we can go into town one day soon, and that he saw a clothing store on the outskirts!" She practically skips down the hall, making me smile. Other than Murdoc, everyone seems relatively happy here.
"Just make sure one of us goes with you- this goes for everyone." I say, and Scout pouts.
"But Ricky," She whines.
"I think that's a good idea," Barrett says, nodding. "Until we get to know everyone."
"Does that mean we're staying?" Donnie asks, grinning.
"Well, I don't see how it could do any harm." I say, nodding and pushing the door to the top of the stairwell open. "I'll need to talk with Joan though, I think."
"What about?" She says, and I whip around, throwing an arm in front of Scout as I grab my knife. "Woah there," she says, holding her arms up in surrender as I drop my hands.
"Sorry," I say, frowning.
"No harm done, just a bad habit, it'll be broken soon enough," she says, waving away my apology and successfully pissing me off. The anger is instant, and I can feel Barrett and Scout get irritated behind me.
"It's not a bad habit," I say, crossing my arms. "It's survival."
"Well here you don't have to survive." She says, smiling. "You can relax and take it easy here."
"I-" I pause when I see Riley and Alex walking towards us. "Can we go talk somewhere else?"
She gives me a slightly confused, curious face that seems... Too fake for the world we live in.
"Sure, let's go to my room." She says, nodding as she leads me to the closest door.
"I'll be back soon," I say to the others, who all nod, except Barrett.
"Let me go with you," he says, stepping forward. I pause before nodding. He's good at seeing the things I missed, and much better at negotiating.
"If he gets to go, why can't I?" Scout pouts.
I sigh and roll my eyes. This is what I meant by him being better at negotiating. "Do you care if they come?"
"Not at all," she says, shaking her head. "Do you mind if Noel comes in too? She likes to um, record everything that goes on," she says, rubbing her neck awkwardly.
"I don't mind," I say, shrugging. She nods happily and holds her door open for us, and I notice she doesn't have her door locked. "Please, have a seat! I'll go get Noel." We all shuffle in, and sit down. The room looks exactly like ours, except she has a single king sized bed. We all sit down on the bed except Murdoc, who stands beside me, and I can't help but think of the conversation form earlier. I shake it off and turn to the others, raising an eyebrow. "Be um, civil," I say, and Scout puffs up.
"Of course we'll be civil!" Scout says, crossing her arms.
"Sorry," I say, shrugging. "I've never seen you guys with new people."
"Oh yeah," she says, frowning as the door opens.
"Okay, what did you want to talk about?" Joan asks, crossing her arms and leaning onto the desk as Noel sits in the chair.
"Well," I frown, and everyone looks at me to continue. "I want to talk about safety."
"Safety?" She asks, tilting her head. "I promise you you'll be safe here."
"From the dead, sure," Barrett says, a little annoyed.
"Well what else would we have to worry about?" She asks, looking genuinely confused. She glances at Noel, who is scribbling quickly in her notebook, not looking up. "The dead are kept out, and we have supplies, and we grow our own food and have milk and-"
"That's good," I say, nodding, "but you aren't safe from other people."
"People?" She asks, sounding lost.
Scout nods, crossing her legs. "Yeah, people. Not all the survivors are good people, Joan. You took us in without asking questions. You didn't ask us to turn in our weapons or anything-" she throws her arms in the air dramatically. "You're lucky you took in us and not someone else."
"Well," she frowns, looking disappointed. "I'm sure you mean well, but I think you may be paranoid, I'm sure there's no one out there with any goal other than to help each other survive."
"It's nice to see someone who can stay so positive in this situation," Barrett says, trying to sound nice. "But it's going to get you killed. You have to understand, many of these people died because they couldn't stand to try and re-kill the dead. Think of all the crazy people who did want to kill people before all this. They have a free ticket to kill anyone they want with no consequences."
"There are also rapists," Scout chimes in. "And cannibals. I bet there are weird religious things too, like they had on some shows."
"Well, those were just shows," she starts, but I shake my head.
"So were zombies. No one thought this would happen either, but here we are."
She furrows her eyebrows and looks down, thinking. "Well then, what do you suggest?"
"First of all, the lock." I say, gesturing to the direction I think the gate is in. "It's too easy to get past. You could break it or cut it. You need something stronger."
"You also need more ways to get in and out," Murdoc says from behind me. "If there's only one way in and out, you're setting yourself up for failure. If your one escape is blocked, from either people or the dead, you're trapped."
"And you should make your fence more secure!" Scout says, nodding. "You could cut through the fence easily. You should really have something else, like maybe a second fence, made of wood or big sheets of metal." She offers.
"And I'd set traps around the fence," Donnie says, speaking up for the first time. "Like bear traps and trip wires that make noise to alert us."
"And we should set up a watch," I say, nodding. To keep an eye on everything going on outside."
"You make it sound like we'll be under attack by the morning," Joan says, exasperated.
"You can never be too prepared," I say, making eye contact for a long moment. "Trust me."
"Well," she says, standing straight. "I'll have to think about all this... is there anything else you need?" We all glance at each other, and when we're all silent, she nods. "Okay, well, for the rest of the night, you guys can just relax. We have books, the pool, the animals, or you can go talk with everyone. We can talk about jobs in the morning."