The Dead Don't Talk (Book 1)

Chapter 20: Forever

I looked back at the gates and the lady that was just watching us with her eyes squinted as we continued. I hadn't gone in this section yet, so I didn't really recognize the area, but Christian and Shannon had both said that there really wasn't any cities and houses out there to explore.
I believed them, there weren't any trees really either, I could see a mountain far away in the distance but it was all flat and there were no houses or anything of that sort of matter.
Shannon had a map, she knew where she wanted to explore and where were the best places. She was the leader, I thought she was a great one with a few mistakes... But in the end, no one really is perfect, we all have our flaws and strengths.
When I had first gotten into this role, I had thought that I had no flaws but I was wrong, I could hear the dead from further out then Christian did, and I walked so perfectly literally nothing could hear me.
I knew when to wait and not waste ammo, and I also knew when it was absolutely necessary to do it. Since Jordan saved us that one day, we had only had a few rough encounters... Nothing nearly as bad as we did that one day.
I was in better shape now, I was eating better, even the squirrels sometimes. And I was out here all day, it seemed as if I had lost so much weight, even tho I was never fat in the first place.
I enjoyed Christians company, I could see why my stepfather liked him so much and was such great friends with him. At first I was a bit iffy and I had thought he didn't care about anyone... And that was a sad life to live, but I could tell he did.
"Alright kid... We are going to be heading out towards those mountains... Im sure you already saw them up there. There shouldn't be that many, the dead don't like going up heights or trees. We will see what they have up there and scavenge it... We might go a bit further and then we will head back. My best guess is less than 2 weeks if we are in a sturdy schedule... Potentially more or less." He said to me. I nodded and we continued heading up. I had assumed that we were heading towards that, Christian had told me about what the dead did and didn't like.
He was going to teach me to become a better warrior as well. He said there had been a few times when he was needed or wanted for that job, and the same would likely happen to me.
"So... We know what's even up there?" I asked Christian. He looked back at me and then began nodding his head. As we continued walking.
"Ill tell you a bit later... There ain't much but there still is some stuff." He told me. Then he began slowing down, not a stop but so that I could catch up to him so that he could tell me something. "Today Im going to help you become a better warrior though. If you are good people will request you to follow you in a journey, warrior is the easiest job out here not the hardest."
I nodded, I had always heard it was the hardest because you were always saving peoples lives. But there really wasn't much to save.
"The reason is, while there may not be as many it seems of the dead out here. There is still a ton... They are in huge heards. There was one over a thousand a couple years ago... Im sure there is more now. But if people walk into them they usually head in a different direction or stir them away from the community." Christian told. I nodded listening to every word that he was saying. If there was a heard we would pull them in another direction. We hadn't even nearly killed the heard that Jordan had saved us from that day a couple of weeks ago.
I had heard that they were speeding up but I wasn't sure, maybe they used to be really slow I don't remember... But they seemed to still be pretty slow, just about an average walking speed. You would only get caught if you had a wound and were in terrible condition.
I remembered that Christian was going to teach me how to better myself with melee weapons today. I was good with a gun, but ammo wasn't something you could just spray around you. We had a factory that resupplied ammo, but Christian had told me we were super low and slowly having less and less.
He had told me that they could barrel make 100 bullets a day...
That day we were attacked by the heard, Jordan and the ladies he was with probably used that much in less than a minute. I couldn't imagine everyone else in the community.
The reason why we couldn't restock ammo that fast was because of the power we had generated and the amount of room we had to work with. The last community that had died out had tons of ammo and power generators... We had eventually gone over and taken a few but a lot of it had been torn apart.
Which was a reason why everyone in the community thought they were attacked... And now I didn't understand why everyone was taking the threats we had gotten so lightly. Even Jordan and his dad had given up looking for his mother and had just settled down at this point.
There was still a chance she was alive somewhere and being held captive. Christian had told me that the wanderers were still out there in that direction looking for her. But there was only so far we could look. As time past there was only so much of an area we could explore. The further out you went, the further out you had to look in every direction.
But honestly most people thought that she was dead at this point. And I had given up really thinking about it now. If we were getting attacked it probably would have to be with at least 200 to win. And if they were far away how would they have enough food to fill everyone up?
I closed my mind from those thoughts and then headed up to Christian who was nearly 100 feet ahead of me at this point. He always seemed to walk fast, he told me the faster you walk, the faster you get stuff done.
A lot of wanderers, gatherers, and even scavengers didn't have that type of mindset. The slower, was the better for them, Jordan had told me that he had been upset at a few people who were doing their job so slowly they weren't even getting up to 3 miles per day. And they would always stop to rest for long periods of time.
It didn't matter to me that much anymore, if I was completely honest, even though I was one of the people working out here, we really didn't need the jobs besides the walls. We had enough food and energy to get by in the community.
It was still useful, because there was still hope that we could and we even do sometimes find other people. But the main reason I had heard was hopes of potentially finding even another community. We had only found one and they had never found another community themselves.
But I knew somewhere out there, there was someone else. I couldn't blame the community for not worrying about an attack, because even me, myself wasn't even thinking through the possibilities. I heard that Angela had come over and picked up Liam though.
Lilly had told me that she seemed fairly upset that the community wasn't taking it more harshly. She knew that her boyfriend might be in there. He was going towards the other community around the same time that it had all gone down.
I couldn't blame her, at the same time I always liked Tyler and Angela's old bf always seemed like sort of a prick. He didn't really want her going around Tyler. Couldn't blame him because he was worried something might happen between them.
But Tyler was a cool dude and they knew each other before Angela and him had even started dating. Tyler still had a huge crush on her but she didn't seem to even notice it, even when he told her about it. She tended to shy away from it and pretend it was some sort of joke. Tyler had told me about it a few times and I had been with them one of those times.
I finally caught up to Christian, and him having such long legs I kind of had to run at a sort of slow jog to even hang with him. I knew I was 5'6 and he was 6 feet tall. But his legs were always way bigger than mine.
It reminded me of a time when Jordan was laughing about my legs. Telling me, bigger legs meant... Well you get the picture.
Christian then turned to the right in a sort of big flat clearing. Which would be smart, since I knew he was about to train me to do better with melee weapons. That way if anything even remotely came in our direction he could get me to try his method on one of the dead.
I had to think of them as dead, even though for a while people didn't really think of them as that. They thought of them as sick. Until that night that killed my mother and stepfather. It also killed nearly 1/4 of the people living in the community.
The people had no idea how to stop those or what they really were. But that night they sure as hell did find out what they truly were. I remembered my mothers last words that she had said to me.
"Close this door, and wait for someone to come pick you up. There's some supplies, if its been more than a week... Everyone is dead, you have to get out, and run, take all the supplies with you... The map, tells you where the other community is, just run... Don't stop..." She told me. I had nodded and then she closed the door to the shack.
I didn't know what happened was going to happen, I thought it was just normal and some had gotten in. I didn't know that Angela was going to be the one to find me in there after 2 days... She told me everything.
My stepfather did his best to save her, taking all the bites a tears and still fighting. But in the end they took him down, and they took her down as my sister watched from the roof with a newborn Liam.
She was the one that had to end them, she couldn't let someone else do it, she couldn't live with herself. It took a while for the entire community to reassemble itself. We had to take out any of the dead still around the community and had to check all the houses.
Then they had to rebuild a bit of the wall. The people on the watchtower were the first ones to go down. Because of all of it, people thought that it was the exact same thing that had taken out the other community.
No matter how many people had tried to tell them that it could possibly be another group, but people still thought of the planet as sweet and innocent. I had been told that it never was in the first place.
Christian stopped in a good part in the clearing and haulted me to a stop. I looked at him and waited for what he was about to tell me.
"Alright kid... So im going to teach you how to kill them fast and get your blade out fast. That way if there's multiple and your out of ammo... Which has happened to me before you can still fight off the other ones." He said to me. I looked at him for him to continue.
He pulled out his machete and then looked at me to make sure I was looking and paying close attention. I couldn't blame him, my mind wandered into different spots during the day. One time he had told me, my head should be called a wanderer. I laughed at the joke, but at the same time it was actually kind of true.
He whistled as loud as he possibly could and waited for something to come. I waited as well. It had been a few minutes but nothing came. Christian had told me not to do that several times in a short period because that might draw to many in. But he was only doing it just to train me.
Nothing came, not even an animal, speaking of animals... I always wondered how animals didn't get the virus themselves. At this point all the cats and dogs that were out, besides a couple in the community were wild now.
I shook my head to clear all of those thoughts as Christian then whistled again to try and bring one over. After about a minute I saw one come from the clearing and I nudged towards Christian that way he could see it.
He pulled out his machete and nodded towards me. I pulled out my blade and waited to hear what he was about to tell me.
"Alright kid... Watch what i do, just make a soft swoop, unless they were recently killed their bones are rotten, just aim for that perfect spot not too hard like I see you do and then you can pull it out sometimes in less than a second... Some day your gun wont be able to save your life... But this will." He told me. I then watched as he ran towards the dead and then took his shot and quickly pulled his sword out of its head.
I kind of just thought he was only able to do that better than I was because he was stronger but I would take my shot.
Christian nodded towards the other direction showing me that there was another one coming. For a second I felt bad, and didn't even want to kill it because the dead was obviously a kid.
But I had to stop thinking that way. It wasn't a kid anymore, it was dead, it didn't think the same way about me, because the only thing they thought was food. No matter what kind of meat.
I pulled out my knife and did exactly what Christian did, the exact same way, it easily went through the skull and the thing fell over. I pulled it out before it pulled me down with it.
I stumbled a little bit but then got back to my feet and looked at Christian to see what he would say next. He had no sort of emotion as per usual.
"Not too bad kid... This is just the beginning of the end for you... Trust me, its going to feel like forever."