The Dead Don't Talk (Book 1)

Chapter 27: Stand Down

It was fun, it had been a while since I had played a board game with people. Even if it was a boring game like Monopoly... My dad had a bunch of games that none of knew how to play. They were all really confusing, I remembered my mom trying to teach me one called Egizia.
I had no idea what was going on in the game, my mother went and gave us some games fron the Library, but once Angela had turned 14 she had to become one of the scavengers... Well maybe not, some women did sit back and not take any jobs.
But most women would, they would get bored just sitting around all of the time. Lilly would tell me that she got bored a lot, she would tell me how happy she was that I was with her. I missed her, I was happy that she took care of Liam, I felt bad for him at his daycare that a couple of the kids were messing with him. I knew what it was like, they hate him because they know he is smarter than them.
He told me he had asked Angela if he could just stay back at the house. But she had told him no... I had to agree with her no matter how hard I knew that it was for Liam. Lilly picked him up from time to time and he said that he was happy with her.
But Lilly could not take care of him all of the time for the next 6 years... She was happy to take care of him a couple of days in the week but Im sure she would get a little bit tired of it pretty soon. No matter how sweet that Liam was I knew that she liked being alone.
I missed him so much and I was even more worried than before that we might get attacked. I had been told that they took in little kids and raped them. Even the men, Tony had told me, my body just shivered even thinking about those types of thoughts.
It was cruel the world that we lived in now. Christian told me it was always like this, there's just no laws anymore. I had to believe him because of the little girl that was in a storage room in that one guys basement. He was clearly hiding her from any sort of law enforcements.
I thought back to what Angela had said to Liam, I felt bad for him. Angela didn't really know what it was like to be made fun of, she wasn't one of the people who did that. She was pretty popular at her school when she was younger and even now.
She was the best looking out of all of us, not only that but she was very talkative to even people she did not know. Me and Liam were not like that at all. I tried telling Liam that, he was smart, but he was young and I don't think he really understood.
He is the age that I was when it all went down, back then I really did not know what the world was, and how the world had changed through all of this. Based off of what Tony had told us, I wasn't even at the beginning of finding out.
I shivered thinking about it, and my mind went back the the presence. Light was beginning to rise up in the sky, we had sat down for a little bit after a long game of monopoly, they usually were, but this one was even longer than the others.
I felt a bit stiff and tired but I would have to make it through the day to get in the right sleeping schedule. I remembered just a few months ago how terrible my sleeping schedule was, I would read and watch movies over and over again all night, and then I would sleep all day.
I didn't talk to anyone nor did I want to. I hadn't really talked to any of my somewhat friends since a couple of them including Jordan had began their jobs. Jordan was nearly a year older than me. He was used to it at this point, but I don't think even him knew what the world was really like yet.
Honestly, everyone in the community was and even some of the people with jobs outside of the wall were. Shannon was not but she didn't want anyone talking about it because it would scare people in the community. The community stopped working and everything went bad when everyone was scared.
Christian opened the door and nodded for us to follow him, he had told me a few minutes ago that today I was going to finish up as best as I could about how to use melee weapons. Shooting guns I was always good at, but some times that was not the best tactic when you got in a fight with the dead.
I got off of the chair that I had been sitting at near the table for several hours, my body was stiff, I had not moved at all today so this would be a little bit rough for me for the next hour or so. Especially later I was going to get really tired. I kind of felt tired just right now.
"By tonight we should be near the mountain, we will stay there for about a week since no one has explored it and we will gather as many supplies as we can. If there is anything good, which there most likely will be I will tell Shannon about sending some scavengers near that area." Christian said to the both of us.
Scavengers jobs were sort of like Wanderers, but they were a bit different, scavengers usually had a cart with horses on them to gather the supplies that the Wanderers had found.
Angela had told me how many of her horses that were with her had all died sad deaths, usually to one of the dead, she had to hide them in somewhere for the night, because they would die if they were out there.
The poor horses didn't really know what the dead was in the first place, I felt a bit bad for them, they didn't die from the infection, they usually were torn apart and eaten by the dead. Angela said there was one horse she had for a long time that she took in most of her journeys. We had that horse in our backyard in a sort of a stable.
Lilly would usually come about once a week to refill its food and water in case Angela felt like not taking him on her mission, it was her special horse, if she felt her mission was too dangerous she usually would not bring him.
Most of the horses were repopulated in the middle of the community where all the animals were. They had this huge thing nearly half a mile in each direction for all of that and then they had the fields outside of all that.
The community was smart, they tore down the roads early on in case the needed that area to make new crops, out side of all of the community was the houses, and right outside of those was the walls.
I worried about them, if they were bombed they most likely would not hold up, no matter how strong they were... All it took last time was one bolt of lightning to tear a big section down.
The dead heard the lightning strike nearby and they all ran in that direction and got into the community... Many lives were lost that day and the next couple of days.
We began heading further down the road that we had been on and found the houses yesterday. They were nice houses and the bed was fairly comfortable as well. I would much rather sleep on that one than the bed that I had in the community.
Sometimes the scavengers would come back with a couple of mattresses for important people to sleep on. Otherwise you had to make do with the bad mattresses that the community made themselves.
I shook my head to pay attention to where we were going. Christian shook his head when he looked back at me to see that I was lost in my own world again. He hated when I did that, it happened so often though.
"There's 2 right there he can get right now." Tony said to Christian and me. Christian nodded and then looked over to me to make sure that I was paying attention. This time I actually was and I pulled out my knife and waited for Christian to tell me what to do.
"There's only so much I can teach you as a warrior, you will save peoples lives, what happened the other day was probably the best you could probably learn, just do what you did the other day with your knife... Right in the perfect spot so you can pull it out fast for the next one." Christian told me. I nodded listening to every word that he had told me.
Tony watched me and nodded as well, I wasn't the best with Knifes but I was getting better as Christian was telling me the best ways to take them down. This time I was attacking to and not just one so I would have to be quick.
I knew I would not die, they would save me if it was absolutely necessary, but I steal had to keep it in mind in case I was not with either of them.
I had gotten attack once when Christian had gone in another room and one hopped up on me, I had used my pistol though as a quick reaction, Christian shunned me for that because of how low we were on ammo. He said he didn't like how the wall guards wasted to much and missed half their shots but there was really no other way they could take them down.
I smashed the first one on the head with my knife and then I pulled my knife out easily just in time for the 2nd one. Once again I did the same with that one. I looked over to the both of them and Tony had a bit of a smile on his face.
"I know you got those guys the other day, but you have definitely changed a lot since I knew you years ago..." Tony said to me. I smiled at the complement and Christian just shook his head. We then continued walking towards the mountains which I could not see through all of the trees ahead of us.
"Don't get his hopes up too much..." Christian said to Tony. He was right, I had learned a while ago that Christian was right to be a little harsh on me. If he complimented me too much I might start becoming a little bit soft, there was always room to improve in my training and get better.
I continued walking making sure that I was not thinking to much in my head.