The Dead Don't Talk (Book 1)

Chapter 11: Thank you

I woke up to find that Christian was not here and I was in a dark room all alone. The door was still locked and there was a bar still blocking the doorway. Where did he go? The room wasn't that big and you could see the full room from the light that was shining at the bottom of the door.
I was a bit scared to walk out of the door because I could hear something on the edge of the gas station that sounded like the dead walking around. I wondered if Christian was okay, clearly he had gotten out himself because the door was jammed shut, and locked and he was nowhere to be seen in the room.
I looked around one more time and then just stayed quite. I hoped that he was okay, maybe I needed to stop getting so worried about everything like he had told me.
But I couldn't forget about last night. Maybe someone had been watching us yesterday and they saw us go into the gas station. Maybe they took him in the night, I was a very deep sleeper.
The more I thought about it to more scared I became, and the closer and closer the dead was to walking up to my door.
Maybe he could hear me shivering from the other room because of how scared I was. It was by no means cold at all. I knew that the dead had amazing hearing. There was no way it could open the door but at the same time I was still thinking about it in my head. I also didn't know if it got in if I would be able to kill it. I pulled my machete out from the other side of the table and began to start pulling down the log that was in the door.
Suddenly I heard it get even closer, I knew that it had heard me at this point. I had too kill it, I had to get out of the room. If Christian was dead I would have to find my way back to the community. Shannon probably would blame it on me and I would lose my job and maybe even be cast out. I knew if I was Angela would come with me. That's exactly what Shannon would want.
"Kid, unlock the door, you gotta be up at this point... I went all the way to cook the squirrel and back." I heard Christians voice from the other side of the door. I was thankful because I wasn't too sure I could kill it if was actually one of the dead. I quickly broke the rest of the log and then unlocked the door for him.
He opened the door and then tossed me a squirrel, I was a bit hungry, all we had to eat last night were some beans, he had told me we couldn't go to burn the other 2 squirrels, the dead would see that. It made sense, but now I was so hungry I didn't care what I was eating.
At this point now that we were going to eat the final cans of beans we would have to go back no matter what. Unless Christian had other spots where he had squirrels. But I didn't want to eat all squirrels, they were really nasty I would just have to get over eating this one because I was so hungry.
"Alright kid, so you made the promise to take out my family. We are going to head in that direction and see if I can't get you to kill one of them. If not then we have neighbors, I never really was a fan of them." He said to me. I was a bit confused because we had to get back to the community and warn them. If there was really another group and they were coming after us we had to notify them as soon as possible.
"Don't we have to get back to the community? We have to warn everyone." I said to him. He shook his head and then finished eating the last of his squirrel. Then he began opening up the can of beans.
"Kid its like I said, it would probably take them months to get here." He responded to me. I guess it made sense but the sooner the better right? And we didn't know how long ago they had killed the wanderer and warrior.
I then realized I was a bit stupid, at the same time of thinking that. Clearly the lady had only been dead for a few days. But also at the same time what if the group was nearby. Another stupid thought I realized, the community searched a 20 mile radius pretty often and the other group had died at a while ago. Shannon had already sent everyone to search around in case all of the conspiracies were true.
I finished the rest of my squirrel and then got up to look around the gas station. I didn't see or hear anything nearby thankfully. But at the same time I kind of wanted to, that way I could show Christian that I actually could do what he had asked me to do.
I heard Christian get up from behind me. He then walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He was looking around the area like me but I knew that his mind, much like mine was in a different spot right now. He finally began to speak.
"You don't wanna eat some beans before we head off kid?" He asked me. I shook my head, we needed to be careful with our rations, he had to realize that too. He took his hand off of my shoulder. I turned around. "Why not kid? Surely you are hungry from last night right?"
"Well we might not get anything on the way back. Unless you have another bunch of squirrels nearby." I said looking at him. But he just shook my head and then moved out of the room. I followed him.
"Alright so we have to first, head off towards my old neighborhood. Then hopefully we find one, I don't want to have to kill my neighbors even though I didn't like them, if we have to I suppose so though." He said to me. I looked around once again hoping that we could get this done as soon as possible. "Alright kid, odds are we wont find one, so just follow me."
"Alright, I am ready, I can do this." I said out loud. I meant it basically to myself though. I had tried but I had failed everytime, Christian had shown me the areas, I could do it for sure this time though. I cleared all my bad thoughts from my head. That would make it to where I would not be able to kill one of them for sure.
We then began to head off as Christian nodded at me to make sure I was ready. I nodded back at him and then we left the gas station and began heading towards a different road that we had come from in the first place.
Which made sense, we weren't going straight to her place, hence the reason why we slept at the gas station. I felt bad for even saying yes. I don't even think I could do it in the first place, I didn't want to get his hopes up and let him down.