The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 14: Thank You

We all looked at each other in silence wondering who was going to take the first step out of the shed. Personally I did not want it to be me, I just wanted to stay in here and sleep this all out, maybe I would wake up and this would all be a dream.
I kept wanting so badly for it to be a dream, even though I kind of knew that it was not a dream. I still had this false sense of hope in my mind that it could be. I looked at the ground sadly, I did not want to find my brother laying somewhere dead, that was the main reason that I did not want to go out there.
Andrew finally decided to break the silence that had settled in the room for quite some time, and I was thankful for it, the silence was kind of putting my mind into a dark place. I did not want to think like that, but I also did not want to take Christian's advice in notting thinking about things at all.
To a certain sense, I knew that Christian was sort of right. He was telling me if I did not think than I would be more likely to pay attention to things around me. But even I knew that there was a bit of a darker meaning on to what he had meant by that.
He knew that if I lost my brother or my sister, I would lose my self. I always loved talking about my brother on our little trips. He shook his head from time to time, I thought maybe he was just a bit upset that I still had family and he had lost his.
I felt a bit sick still thinking about that day that I had cleaned up his baby child. I knew that it was not a human anymore, there was no way it could possibly be a baby for that long, but I still kind of felt sick even thinking about it.
"Tyler are you sure you are ready to go out there? I might have given you a concussion, there is a lot of the dead out there." Andrew said breaking the deep silence that was in the small little room. Tyler nodded, notifying that he had heard and was paying attention to what he had said.
It did not look like that Tyler might have a concussion, but what did I know? I had never even come close to having one of those ever before. I looked at him, he still was not talking, but after a few moments he finally responded to the question that Andrew had asked him.
"Yes... I don't have a concussion, just a pretty bad headache, that was a rough hit." He said to Andrew. He then smiled at him, Andrew managed to crack a smile back. I could not smile right now, and I did not want to break the news to Tyler quite yet, I might as well give him a little bit of time to have some sort of happiness, even though I did not quite see how he could possibly have that with all that had just happened to the community.
"Alright, Ben... When your ready, you know how bad it is out there, you take the first steps and lead the way for us." Andrew said looking over to me. I looked at him a nodded to him, I was happy that for the first time I was going to be the one taking the lead.
Normally on occasions like these, it was always Christian that took the lead, but I never blamed him, he knew what to do a lot more than I did, even though I had been out if the walls for what seemed like forever, I still did not know how to do a lot of things.
But a lot of that I would have to learn for myself I suppose. I looked at the others that were around me and then nodded to them. But Tyler still looked a bit confused and I nodded to him to let him express whatever it was that was going on in his mind.
Maybe he did have a concussion, it would not surprise me, I had not been there to see him being hit. He did not even remember it clearly, and he seemed a bit off kilter. But finally he managed to speak what he was thinking about.
"How bad is it really out there? Just so we can be prepared. I saw the walls burning down, and saw Angela but that is about all I remember." He said to me. I felt bad for him, I winced at the part that he had said Angela but he did not seem to notice.
It seemed as if he had something completely different that was on his mind, but I did not ask anything of it, at this point I would let someone talk if they wanted to talk. I would not force something out of them.
"It is pretty bad, but the walls are not destroyed from what I saw, they are just a bit burnt down, we are lucky to have good walls." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments and then he nodded, he clearly had something else on his mind but I did not ask, and Andrew did not seem to notice.
Andrew did however step up from his spot that he was sitting beside me on the bench though. He then looked at me and then nodded for me to step myself up as well. Tyler then realized what was going on, and he too got up from the spot he had been sleeping at on his own bench.
"Alright Ben... I trust what you say, if you got into here without any scratches than I am sure you can get us out." He said to me. I looked at him for a few moments, I almost winced when he said the part about a few scratches but I then nodded to him.
It was almost as if he was reading my own thoughts that were going through my head, I did not want to even lost at the cut on my shirt and then bruise that was swelling even deeper now. I just had to hope that it would not kill me, Christian always told me thinking too much would be the reason that I got killed.
I knew he was right, and I was doing myself on that aspect, but it might have been too late. I just had to hope, had to pray that it would not be the end game. I shivered but then I nodded to the others that I was ready.
"Alright guys, just follow my lead, if any of the dead get near us, kill them, we need to clean the place up anyways if we still want to live here." I said to them. Andrew nodded but Tyler looked a bit confused as to what I was talking about.
I looked at him for a few moments waiting for him to speak to whatever it was that he had on his mind. After a few moments of silence and Andrew looking at both of us a bit confused Tyler then finally decided to speak what he was thinking about.
"Live here? Did they not kill all of us? If not then why are you guys acting like it is all over." Tyler said to me. I looked at him, it was a good question, I had to realize that he had heard the full story that me and Andrew had talked about in great detail.
"No... Shannon had to make a deal with them, they kill half of us, and we feed them every 6 months... That way we get to live." I said to him. He looked at me, he looked a bit upset, not at me clearly, but he was upset at what I had just said.
"Shannon made a deal with them? They get our food? Why didn't we just fight back! Hell! I killed one of them!" Tyler said to me. Andrew stepped in front of us to seperate us. I did not blame him, it looked like Tyler wanted to fight with me but I knew that he was just like that when he got upset.
It now made sense as to why Tyler had such a strange look on his face now, I noticed that he had something on his mind. I knew that unlike Angela who would tell him stories about it, he had never actually killed a real person before, that must have been a first for him.
"Tyler calm down, she had to do the deal. The community did not see it coming, there were hundreds of them, maybe even a thousand. She had no other choice." Andrew said to Tyler. Tyler still looked a bit upset but he did not say anything more about it.
After few more moments, we just stood there in silence, all of us looking at different places not sure what to say to each other. Finally Tyler was the one to step up out of all of us, finally we were getting somewhere rather than sitting there and talking.
"Alright Ben, open the door, lets get out there and bring hell to the dead, and then we will bring hell to the people who did this to us." Tyler said to me. I looked at him and then smiled, he smiled back at me and then I walked over to the door to open it.
First I opened the hatch and then I opened the door. By the time we had finally gotten out, it was fully dark at this point, it would not surprise me if the others were back at the community house waiting for me, probably a bit afraid for me at the same time.
They had been thinking that I was going to go find Liam and make sure that he was okay, or still alive out there somewhere, but I kind of got side tracked. I shook my head and looked around, it was already dark in the shed besides one little lamp that Andrew had brought in there so it did not take long for my eyes to adjust.
Luckily, there seemed to be not as many of the dead as there normally were, but I also knew that the stories about the dead at night were also true. It was not just a myth to try and scare kids to never leave the gates, I had seen it myself several times when I was outside with Christian during the night.
They were a lot faster, and a lot stronger and more aware of their surroundings during the night. They were scary, I never even wanted to think about having one of the dead near me during the dark of the night, but now I suppose I kind of had to because it was about to become a reality.
I looked at the others to make sure they were following me, and then I began walking, making sure that we were not making any loud footsteps in the case that some of the dead that were nearby might here it. But we were lucky to not have hardly any around us.
I sighed and then gratefully kept walking, but then I heard a gun click at the same time. I instantly put my hands up, not wanting to get shot at, I had no idea where it might be coming from so there was no way out of it.
Andrew and Tyler both looked at me a bit confused and I nodded to them to put their hands up as well. If one of the people from the other community, or potentially more than one was still here making sure the deed was done then I did not want to be one of the ones that were dead.
"You okay there Ben? Who are these people? They got you held down what's going on?" I heard the voice of Aidan ask me. I sighed a bit thankful that it was just him and not anyone else. I was at least having a little bit of luck coming my way today.
"Yes... I'm good Aidan, they are a part of the community. Andrew is the bigger guy, he is Jordan's dad." I said to Aidan. Aidan then un clicked his weapon and he put it to his holster. After a few moments of silence I saw him walking over to us.
For a moment I thought I had seen a scar on his eye. The moment disappeared just as soon as I had seen it though, and I shook my head to make sure that I was not going crazy. I had just had a really rough day, that was all.
He nodded to me and put out a little bit of a smile, I did not smile back this time but I did manage to nod back to him to tell him that I was okay. He then looked at the other's still not too sure, but eventually he nodded to them as well.
I looked at the other's to make sure that they were not afraid or did not have a gun out like they were about to try and shoot at him. They eventually nodded back to him, and then Aidan looked back over to me. It still felt a bit weird to be having such a special role in the community.
"Well... Let's get back to the council house, and make sure Jordan knows his dad is safe. I am Aidan, don't know if he told you guys about the other community, we too got attacked by them, we weren't as lucky as you guys though." He said to them. The other two nodded to him, they felt a bit safer and Tyler put his hand away from his gun.
I heard Tyler say something but I only managed to catch a couple of the words, Andrew shook his head at him, and Aidan did not seem to hear it or he did not seem to care about what Tyler had just said.
"You want to call this lucky?" Tyler said to him. I shook my head at him for him to be quiet, to be truthful none of us really knew what had really happened to Aidan's group quite yet, and based off of what he had been saying, it was not better than what happened to us.
Aidan then nodded to all of us to make sure that we were all ready, and then he took the lead for all of us, which I did not complain about, but I did want to catch up to him to ask him a couple of questions however.
As I caught up to him, he looked at me a bit surprised but then he nodded when he saw it was just me. Then he waited for me to start talking, whatever it was that I really wanted to talk about.
"So... Do you trust Tony? What happened to your group?" I asked him. He looked at me for a few moments, but then he just kept on walking. For a few moments, I thought that he was not going to talk, I knew it was a bit of a sore subject to him.
We kept on walking in silence for a few more seconds, I could hear the footsteps of Tyler and Andrew from up the rear, but luckily the dead were not close enough to notice any of it. Aidan then finally decided to speak as I was looking back at the other 2 to make sure none of the dead were sneaking up on them.
"They came in, they took all of us, a few managed to hide, but we regrouped with what was left, like your group we had people go outside the walls. We were not ready for it." He said to me. I looked at him and then nodded, I kind of thought he would say something about his parents but I did not blame him for not wanting to bring that up.
"So where exactly are they at? Is there any way that we can work together and fight back?" I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments, then he looked at the ground and shook his head. He then laughed, it was more of a not so sure laugh but it still was a laugh.
"We have no idea, we have tried searching, but if we found them there is no coming back. We did manage to sneak some things in about it to that guy, the one we had locked up." He said to me. I nodded to him, I badly wanted to hear if we had any sort of a chance.
The look on Aidan's face was telling me otherwise, and it was getting my hopes down, if there ever was any hope to begin with. I shivered and then I finally managed to add a couple of words out of my own mouth.
"So... Is there any chance? Is there any group's that you know about?" I asked him. He looked at the ground for a few moments a bit sadly. But then surprisingly in a bit of a plot twist he then nodded to me, but the look on his face only seemed to spell more trouble and I kind of did not want to hear what it was.
"There were other groups, we have not searched as far as we would have liked to, we have not had time, or the people. There have been talks about a safe place somewhere out there by a few people that we brought in, but it seems more like a fantasy to me, if I must say so myself." He said to me. I looked at him a bit sadly and then nodded.
I was guessing what he had meant by, there were other groups was they were taken down by the same people that had taken down both of our communities, I shook my head and then we kept on walking. I could see in the distance, the bodies on the floor and there were a few people walking around as well.
"Well... We can only keep hope up, maybe if we find others, we will be able to fight back against them." I said to Aidan. He looked at me for a few moments, but I could tell that he did not believe what I had just said. I did not blame him, I had not seen the attack I did not know how bad it was.
"Every time they take down our communities, they take our best people with them. There have to be at least 10,000 of them. Maybe even more, I don't even want to think about it." He said to me. I looked at him for a few moments and then nodded.
I did not blame him for that, in a sort or sense he was right. I shook my head and then we kept on walking up to the point where I could see the other 3 and count them face by face. But they were not alone, I could see two others as well. I recognized them as well as Eric and Milly.
They must have come back around the same time that Jordan did, Jordan looked over and noticed who was behind us, his frown turned into a smile right away. He looked at me and then he nodded.
"Did you find him Ben? Thank you..."