Discernment

Chapter 13

It was a minimum of 2 hours between each shift. Washington, Fay, Sandra, and I would always switch with Devan, Kiki, Erin and Eddy. We just let Jess and Craig sleep, since they were young. My section of the group was sleeping, I woke up occasionally though. Devan then comes over and taps my shoulder. Luckily for him, I was awake. "Time to switch, Thomas." He says, as the others went to get my group. "Already on it, Devan." I say and spring up. "It's like you weren't even sleeping." Devan chuckles. "I wasn't." I say with a tired look on my face, though I smiled. I go to the corner of the building facing the eastern part of the town square, toward the forest. Sandra goes to the western part that was facing town square, and deeper into the town. Washington and Fay go to the other two corners facing the other way. "Clear." Washington says first, which seemed to start a chain reaction. "Good, it's clear over here too." I say. "Same, for me." Fay says. "I don't see anything at my part." Sandra says. Sandra then moves over to my side and looks over with me.

"Hey Thomas." She mutters. "Oh, hey Sandra. You happy to see your sister? You guys talked for hours before we started the shifts." I mention to Sandra. "Oh most definitely. We were pretty much separated a few months after the apocalypse. Thought she was dead, so I just gave up looking for her. She was always strong. In a way, I knew she was surviving." Sandra explains.

"Hey, Thomas, do you think our group will stay strong when we get to the subway and set up camp there?" Sandra asks. "Yeah, I'm sure we'll stay stable. Though my biggest concern is this group that's after us. They say great hunters never stop stalkng their prey." I mention. "Thomas, we're a group full of skilled survivors. If we can survive off of stale food, canned goods, and rotting corpses reaching out to grab a hold of our flesh means we can survive a group trying to capture us." Sandra explains. "We don't even know what these people are like. We just know that they're after us, and their leader is fucking insane. These people are dangerous, of course, but we just don't know how dangerous they really are." I reply. "You'll get through this, we've all been through some shit this past year or so." Sandra comforts me. "We've already lost one person, someone I met the night before. That was Washington's wife. Then Fay was kidnapped, even though she returned. And, of course, the people that caught Fay are after us.. If something happens to another one of us, I just don't think I can handle being leader any more. The stress of having to look after everyone is just crazy.." I say. "I just can't handle it.."

Sandra shakes her head and looks up, toward where she was supposed to be. She stares for a few seconds, then rushes over there. "Get down! There's a truck! Coming from the city!" Sandra says and gets on one knee, looking over the ledge. I see the truck too, and crouch down. Fay and Washington rushes over near me. "Go back, in case it's the Zealots and they come around your side!"  I say. I watched the truck pull up in the middle of the town square and they all get out. Three men, a lady, and a dog. Sandra readies her bow, aiming at the black man with the dog. "Lower that damn bow! You'll give out our location!" I yell at her. "Thomas, you were just saying-" "Forget what I was saying, just trust me." I interrupted her. She shakes her head and puts her bow down. "Fay, go get everyone awake." I call out to her. "Sure thing, Thomas." She replies.

Fay ran down from the roof to wake the rest. When it was quiet, I tried listening in on them. "Let's loot some of these buildings for supplies." The man that was driving says. "Elliot, we already have enough supplies though, we need to set up camp somewhere!" The woman says. "Hilda, after those bandits attacked us, we can never have too little supplies. I know what I'm doing."

Elliot.. I've heard that name before. Elliot.. Hilda.. "These people aren't a threat." I smile. I stand up and head for the stairs, leaving my weapons and whatnot in my corner of the builing. "Thomas, are you fucking insane?" Jess says, as I walked passed her. I said nothing, just walking out to the group. The dog sees me and starts barking at me. "Stay right where you are!" The man with the dog and the other man says. The man with the dog raises an old tomahawk, looking like he was going to throw it at me. "Quinton, it's been a while." I say to him. "Awh shit.. It's Thomas!" The man says with an excited tone. "Thomas? Heh, it's been.. Weeks at least." The leader says. "Same with you Elliot. But you always had the potential." I say back to him. "Hilda.. Nice to see you're still here." I say, walking over to her and giving her a hug.