The Dead Don't Talk (Book 1)

Chapter 8: Goodnight

"Im sorry I don't know what really got to my head. I knew what to do but all of the sudden something just changed that." I told Christian. He then walked over to me and put his arm around my shoulders. It felt a little weird, it was something my parents used to do when they were about to tell me something important.
"Kid, it's alright, like I said, unless you were a police officer or part of the military, odds are then you didn't kill one your first day... I didn't and now just look at me, do I not look like the biggest badass in the community?" He asked me. I never understood why they military had been taken down so easily. Where they told not to kill anyone that looked like they weren't dead? That wouldn't make sense. Right when they first died they at least semi looked alive... Who could really tell?
"Um not really..." I said to him. He frowned and then I chose my next words very cautiously realizing my mistake. "But you act like it, if I didn't see you from far I wouldn't notice it."
He then smiled, and I knew I had made a good decision to switch my words around a little bit, to a way that wouldn't piss him off.
"See that's what you want, out here a lot of people will kill you on sight... If you look weak, like you... Then they wont kill on sight to waste a bullet, something we have been spare on for a while, another reason I don't like Shannon's decision to just shoot them on sight if you are manning the walls." He told me... I never really heard when someone shot but I had remembered that Angela had told me that they had silencers. I thought it was smart but if we were low on bullets than it probably would not be smart to use them in case a heard came by.
"Im not weak... Im stronger than most, mentally and physically... A lot of people in this community still have their family... I don't." I said to him. I was a little disappointed that he thought I was weak too, but I would soon prove everyone that I was strong. I would get buff and I was already strong on the mental aspect, most people knew that about me already.
"Whoa kid... Chill, I thought you were a smart one like you brother... I didn't say you were weak, I just said you look weak. Surely you agree with me right? I just said what you had, just the meaner way... You gotta be mean to get it to peoples heads." He told me. To be fair I had said basically the same thing to him. Still Jordan used to always call me weak and pathetic while everyone laughed and agreed. It was another reason why the girl that I had liked and always assumed as my best friend had chosen him over me.
She was basically my only friend when I was younger, and she would always agree with me when we both called Jordan a prick and to leave us alone. But I guess that's what girls were into nowadays, "the bad boys." As Jordan used to call his group of fake friends... And to be fair the one friend that I did have was also fake.
I turned around, looking away from the community looking down sadly. But I saw something in the distance. A heard, I had to tell Christian! He was about 50 and they were about 300 feet behind... I knew if I yelled they would hear me so I quickly began running over to him.
"Oh so now were racing? You think that Im slow? Mentally and Physically?" He said to me when he heard me running. I almost wanted to laugh, but I had more important matter to attend to.
"There's a heard right behind us!" I told him. He spun around quickly and pulled out his only gun on him, this one didn't have a silencer. But then surprisingly he then began to laugh. I didn't find it funny at all! If we didn't hurry up and get in we would die... And the community might die if there were too many and they broke down the walls like they had once.
Luckily it was on the other side of the community and not many people had died... Maybe about 15 or 20. After that instance we had bells about every 500 feet for incase there was another thing that happened like that. We also had more people on the walls and had bells on the walls. That was another reason I thought that Shannon was a good leader but I still had no respect for her.
"Kid calm down, thats only like 6 of 7, it would take a while for that to be a heard... A heard is 50 to at least 100." He said to me. I hadn't looked that closely, but now I seemed a bit stupid and like a bit of a coward. I hope he didn't think of me the same way that I was.
"Alright we are going to head back through the gates and they'll be able to get through those pretty easily." Christian said to me. They were heading right towards the direction of the gates that's why it scared me so much in the first place. I went ahead and nodded and we kept on walking.
At this point we were no more than 500 feet away, I still couldn't see anyone near the towers but the gate was easy to see. I looked around in case more of those monsters were nearby. I had always been told that if they snuck up on you and bit you, you would be dead. The infection would get through you so fast.
Finally when were within 100 feet someone opened the gates. I noticed we were in a different section than we were before and I looked around a bit confused. But once the gates were open I realized where we were. We were at the center right near where Liam was and I could easily pick him up and take him too the house.
I suppose that Christian had done that ob purpose but I wasn't too sure. Of course I didn't even know if he knew where we lived or knew anything about Liam in the first place.
"Alright, its around 4 or 4:30 so I assume I'll go ahead and so goodnight." He said to me, I said goodbye because it wasn't really anywhere near night time. We had walked really slow for 1 mile in each direction but we had also been moving around in different areas and we had took that "lunch break" with the squirrels for at least an hour.
"Goodbye Christian, also... I thought you said we were learning to be a scavenger..." I said to him. I looked for a second then spit on the ground. It was a bit nasty, it wasn't like he was chewing tobacco or anything so I wasn't sure why he did that.
"Well the first day I realized that you would have to learn how to make it, and we are going to do that for the next few days, but each day after that I will teach you how to do those other things, it might actually take us 2 weeks... I've never done this training stuff before." He said to me. Fair enough, I couldn't really blame him, to be fair I wouldn't want to be training anyone either if I got this job and neither did my sister.
Most people that got trained, got trained because they were family, or they got trained because they were friends of family, or they were just really buff. I didn't have any of those besides friends of family, and Shannon had tried to take that from me.
I used to have respect for her, but she had lost that from me and I was starting to think that she had begun losing that from a lot of people. 2 months from now when the election came in I bet that someone takes her job from her. But Angela had told me that she might be taking people down who might have that sort of opportunity.
I didn't want anything to do with that, and I would vote for anyone that went against her at this point.
"And go pick up your brother, I brought you here for this reason, you're walking in the wrong direction, Ill see you Benny. We are going to go a bit further out tomorrow so you might not be able to see him tomorrow." He told me. I had realized that I was going back to my house. It gave me a smile that he had finally decided to say my actual name rather than just calling me kid all the time.
But at the same time I did agree with what he had said earlier, if you learned peoples names, odds are you would lose them and feel hurt. I wonder how hurt he must have been to see his own wife kill his newborn child. Not to mention having to kill his own best friend Peter. Sort of killing him, I mean, he was already dead.
I then began to walk towards where Liam would be staying for basically until he was 10 and when me and Angela were here. I would try to stay for a few days when I came back rather than doing what Angela always did and just spend the night and leave in the morning. I felt like I never saw her when she was here, she was always out there doing other things.
I felt bad for Liam, that's why I would be staying with him a few days at a time, but I also had to be careful Shannon was known for removing people from their jobs because they had taken to much time off over and over again. And I guaranteed that she would be a lot harsher on me knowing that I was Angela's sister. Angela had spent 2 days one time and Shannon had tried to remove her job but it was denied by her own council. It wasn't really that big of a surprise, they all knew that Angela did her job amazingly.
I just opened the door to the daycare center and the lady nearby said hi.
"Hey I'm looking for Liam." I said to her. She smiled and then shook her head. Which confused me, surely Angela didn't just leave Liam at the house did she? I mean he was smart but he still needed someone to look after him.
"Your sister came in this morning and said he would be coming in tomorrow." She told me. It confused me a bit because she normally wouldn't be staying back, but I guess it made a bit more since the more I thought about it. She would more than likely be wondering if I had a good first day or if I wanted another job other than that.
I had somewhat enjoyed the day, I had gotten to know Christian a bit better. He wasn't really a dick, but he had just gone through a lot of shit, so he seemed that way, which I couldn't really blame him.
The girl that was a daycare teacher was just looking at me smiling, I then realized what I was doing and seemed a bit stupid. I was looking right at her boobs, even though I wasn't thinking about them she probably thought I was.
"Sorry I just had a lot of my mind after my first day, I wasn't doing, um yuh know." I told her. She then laughed and then turned away. I was thankful, she was no more than a few years older than me.
"Your name is Ben right? Hope you had a good first day, Im Sasha, I'm usually here everyday, so just call me name if you come in and need anything." She told me then turned back around and then began attending to the children with the other teachers that were there.
I could tell she kind of liked me, and I felt bad because she probably thought I was just staring at her and thinking of her like she was some sort of nasty snack for me. Who knows, maybe she would have liked that. I shouldn't be thinking these thoughts as a 14 year old, she was at least 17. I doubt she had any sort of feelings about me through the 1 minute we were together.
I began heading back towards my house which was less than half a mile away thankfully. I would have had to head at least a mile if we went through the other gate, I felt kind of bad for Christian, he had to walk at least a mile back to his place, but I knew he had done it on purpose.
I was wondering why I didn't remember the way we were going when we were heading back towards the community. I should have realized that when we ate the squirrels and then went back in a different direction.
I must have not been thinking that much at the time. I also then realized that I still had Christians bag on me and his machete. I guess he probably wanted me to keep all of that, surely he would have noticed that I had it on me when we were together.
I was right beside the house when I heard Liam say my name from not too far away. It didn't sound like he was in any pain so he was probably fine. I went in the direction that I heard him.
He was sitting on a little blanket and there was a bit of food, while my sister Angela was sitting there asleep on a chair. I saw that Liam had about 5 books which didn't surprise me. He was better at reading then I was. I never went to go to school just like him, and I only learned a bit from some of the school teachers but Angela had started teaching him at a young age, and he was also very smart.
"Angela! Ben is here get up!" He yelled pushing her arm from side to side. She groaned and then opened her eyes to see that I was here with them. She smiled and then got up to give me a big hug.
"Hey Ben, sorry I wasn't up, I was so out of it. Liam pick up the blanket and your books and lets go back into the house." She said to both of us. Liam picked up the blanket and then folded it up. He then put his books on top of it and we began to head to the house which wasn't too far away.
Once we got in here we all sat down on the couch together. Angela was smiling and so was Liam, I was a bit confused like they were about to pull some sort of prank on my or give me something really nice.
"I stayed back today to make sure you had a good day, hopefully it doesn't piss off that little bitch Shannon too badly." She said to me, I nodded and then she continued talking. "How was your first day, did you eat some squirrels in the woods like Peter did for me the first day?"
"Yes actually, and it was disgusting, Christian ate 2 of them and took a 3rd for apparently later." I told her. She then began laughing, it was the worst thing I had ever eaten, I had eaten some dog crap when I was really young but I don't remember any of that. We had dogs in our community though, even though they had got bitten some times they seemed immune to the virus.
"That would make sense... I thought they were absolutely wretched the first time, but you get used to them at some point." She said in all seriousness. I don't think I really could get used to something that disgusting, I would rather eat raw chicken even though that made people sick.
"You're telling me I have to eat more of those?" I asked her. She laughed and then nodded. I would never eat another one of those again, she was crazy if she thought that I would eat one of those.
"Christian made lots of nearby outpost for those, puts them up high in case one of the undead gets one of them, if you're nearby and don't want to waste food then you'll eat it... Most of your pack needs to be water if you're going to be going out there for a long time." She told me. It would make sense but I don't think I could ever get over that. I would rather starve then eat another one of those things.
"That's disgusting, I don't want to eat any of those." Liam said, and we all began to laugh. Then it all fell to silence and I just smiled. This would more than likely be the last time I would be getting to spend time with my family.
We were all just sitting back thinking inside our heads, probably all thinking the same thing.
"Im going to go by Christians real quick and tell him to wait a little bit, we are going to Lilly's in the morning and eating some pancakes." She said to us. Liam began to shout happily and then smiled. He loved pancakes, we actually got to eat them surprisingly often because we had wheat fields. And then fruit vines and fruit trees in case we wanted some sort of sandwich or something. It was another job, not ad bad as a farmer but I wouldn't want to really be working those factory jobs.
I nodded and then lowered my head and stared at the ceiling as Angela closed the door behind her. All I could really think about was those undead that I failed to kill earlier.
No matter how many times Christian had told me it was okay, it still felt like I had failed everyone because I wasn't able to kill either of those undead. Christian had told me it took him forever to do that and I knew he was smart and strong so I just had to clear those thoughts from my head. I kept my mind off of it and then quickly fell asleep.

I woke up to see Angela and Liam were sitting beside each other eating dinner. It was potatoes, corn and chicken. They always killed the chickens when they were older, and everything in our farm seemed to taste better than the food that I had gotten when I was younger.
"Glad someone finally decided to wake up, we got plenty left in the kitchen, was going to wake you up in just a few." Angela told me. I had a pretty rough day and that was definitely the most I had ever walked since I was 4 and I was way bigger and stronger than I was back then.
"Thanks..." I told her. I then walked into the kitchen and saw a plate laid out for me. Half of the very large plate was Mashed Potatoes and gravy just the way I liked it.
I sat down with them and began to eat, we usually didn't talk much when we were eating but Angela finally decided to break the silence about halfway through my meal.
"So you didn't tell me how the first day went besides the Squirrel." The said to me. I had forgotten about it, but part of that was her own fault, and sort of mine since we all went quite earlier and she had decided to go to Christians to tell him to hold off a bit tomorrow morning. I knew I would still be heading out semi early.
"Yeah sorry, I forgot all about that." I said to her. She smiled and then nodded at me to continue telling her my story of the day. "So I almost got 2 if them but my machete got stuck in their heads."
"Yuck!" Liam said and Angela began to laugh. It wasn't funny to me, it was kind of nasty and I sort of agreed with Liam's reaction. I hated having to kill these things that were once human, but I knew I would have to do it.
"You gotta hit them in the right spots, there a few spots to hit, but there's one spot that is perfect." She pointed to a bunch of spots on her head but then the last one was the spot that Christian had shown me. He probably showed me that spot because it was the best and fastest way.
"But I mean that's about it, we were out there for a while. Thought I saw a heard but it was just a few on the way back to the community." I said to her. She nodded and then we finished eating in silence. Liam finished first and he continued reading his book.
Angela then got up from the couch smiling at us and then began to head towards her room.
"Welp Im kind of tired, Ill see you beautiful boys on the morning, Ben don't stay up too late, it'll be pretty early. Goodnight."