Battle of Ash

Chapter 13

"It's what the world did you know.
For months it felt this coming on;
the flu, the stomach aches, the rashes...
and then one day, all at once, everything went to shit."
Dillon Reid

2017.04.27 10:16
It had been a long, slow, exhausting few days. Dillon had since lost track of the actual date; time had become an abstract idea. There wasn't a single person to be found during their trip. The world had become a depressing, terrifying landscape of abandoned houses and wandering infected. Nature had begun taking over in some of the places they stayed; bugs and rodents were everywhere. Mold was running up walls and in all the dark, dank places of the houses. Plants had begun sprouting where windows had shattered or been left open. Some of the dark, damp corners had begun sprouting fungus like that in the infected. Wallpaper was peeling; paint was becoming stained and faded from disrepair of the houses. Once upon a time he had romanticized these things. Dillon had talked with his schoolmates about what their roles would be; they would talk of how they would survive together and protect their families and build a community for those who were lost and afraid. Because, of course, whatever it was that had been plaguing humanity in their fantasy worlds could never touch them.

As though McDonald's would still be open after the Apocalypse.

He straightened a photo on the wall of their current sanctuary; a small apartment duplex nestled beside a golf course. The infected that prowled the uncared for green were slow and proved little difficult to dispatch or evade. The mice and feral cats that had scurried when they stepped in told them it would never be a fit place to settle down- just like all the other places. Ash was rattling through some cupboards, the soft clunking of cans and cooking utensils alerted him to her position. He should have been helping. He knew he should have been but ever since that day, out at the fallen checkpoint, he had been struggling with everything; the amount of bodies, the feeling of hopelessness, and the black maw of uncertainty that stretched before him every time he tried to think about what the future could possibly bring.

Would there ever come a time when infected didn't pose such a hazard? Would they ever find a place to live and thrive? Would the world ever be what it once was? Even Ash couldn't answer his questions.

Moreover, he missed his parents. He wanted to talk to his friends again. He wanted to do stupid teenage things like throwing eggs at the neighbors car or racing down the street past curfew riding on the handlebars of a friend's bike. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare. He didn't want to see blood anymore. He didn't want to have the echoes of gunshots playing in his head when he closed his eyes. He didn't want to feel that adrenaline pike every time he stepped out into the open air. Hell, he would be happy just breathing in the open without worrying. However, all the eggs in the grocery stores had gone bad and the chickens kept in their coops had died from starvation or been consumed. Bikes weren't used for fun but survival, jerry-rigged to support various weapons and ride as silently as possible, and all his friends were infected.

He felt a surge of anger as tears, hot and stinging, welled behind his eyes. He pulled a fist back and sent it flying against the wall. He watched as the picture he had just fixed fell to the floor. The glass that had been protecting the image of the family, three and a baby on the way smiling in the sunshine, shattered faintly. Numbly he moved his shoe and stepped on the broken pieces. The noise somehow satisfied him and he repeated it.

For a few minutes, he crunched and ground the glass into the hardwood floor. He knew Ash was watching him, he could feel her complacent worry. He didn't care though. Everything in him was focused on this delicate noise. Then Socks mewed.

He raised his gaze, catching Ash's eye. The worry there was tangible.

"Are you doing alright?"

He looked at her hard. The silence between them stretched for a while as he warred within himself. He knew if he told her his burden wouldn't be so consuming but what right did he have? She was constantly saving him; from infected, raiders, his own stupidity... did he have any right to trouble her further?