The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 17: No...

I nodded to Christian, it was the sort of luck I needed right now. I was not going to lie to myself. If that was even possible in the first place. I was afraid to go out there, I was afraid the day that I did not have Christian.
While this might not be quite like being outside of the walls and being alone, in a sort of sense, it also kind of was. The dead were everywhere, there was no where to go, and nowhere to hide. But I guess I could try to sneak my way through all of that.
I shivered and turned away from Christian. I was beginning to sort of wish that I had agreed to his help. But I knew that I should, and could not do that at the same time. It was time for me to learn a bit of what it was like to be alone, one of these days, soon, I would not have Christian to help me or guide me.
Right now, it was better than ever to learn what it was like to be alone. This was my moment, to prove my worth, not just to Christian, but also to myself. There were a lot of times that I kind of felt a bit worthless. I knew that I slowed Christian down a lot and I could tell that it kind of annoyed him some times.
I began to open the door, but at the last moment I turned around, maybe I could get a little bit of advice from Christian. I needed to know what it was like to be alone out there. Especially from the person that is supposed to be the one that is teaching me.
But as I turned around, I saw the bathroom door close on me. I looked at it a bit sadly for a few moments, sure I could wait for him to get out, then I could ask him for advice. But it was like he had told me before, some of these things I would have to learn on my own.
I nodded to myself, I shivered once again. I wasn't ready, and I knew it. I wasn't ready for so many different things. But now it was my time, I needed to learn for myself. At first, there was not a single person to look for help, people had to learn themselves on their own.
I opened the door quietly, I knew the dead could hear just about anything at night. When I opened it, just the simplest creak scared me, it made me want to close the door. Run over to the room that I used to sleep in every night a long time ago.
That was back when times were so much simpler, back when I had my mom, and my stepdad... Angela too, and... I shook my head, I had to stop thinking that Liam was dead. There was a chance that he was still alive out there somewhere, no matter how slim those chances were.
I wanted to imagine that he was holed up with Lilly, they were safe... I knew both of them were smart. I just had to hope I wouldn't find him with a bunch of dead little kids at the daycare. That was going to be the first place for me to look.
I didn't want to walk in and find a bunch of dead kids laying in there. Surely no person could be that cruel right? I shivered, and then I opened up the door the rest of the way. I looked around to make sure there were no dead within earshot to come after me. I could see a lot out there but luckily the closest one was 50 feet away.
I heard something loud come from inside the mansion and I turned around to see that it was Christian who had just slammed the door to the bathroom in the hallway. Or it at least sounded like it to me, every sound, sounded so much louder to me right now.
I looked around to make sure that none of the dead had heard it and were walking over to me, very quickly since they were a lot faster during the night. It wasn't just made up, I could tell that they were a lot faster.
Christian looked at me, seeing that I was still not fully out. He then nodded to me, and he began walking back over to the room that he was staying in for the night. At the last moment though, just before he walked into his room and opened the door, he whispered something over to me.
"Good luck kid, hope to see you back when I wake up in the morning... I don't know about you but Im exhausted." He said to me. Once again it sounded super loud to me. I put my head up to my lips for him to be quiet.
He rolled his eyes at me, and then he opened the door to his room and walked in. I shook my head and then I looked back to make sure that nothing was coming after me. I nodded to myself once that I saw that I was safe.
But I was wasting so much time sitting here, and the lights coming from the hallway might get some of the dead after me. I then walked through and I closed it, I hoped that no one locked it, there was no reason too.
I looked around and slowly but surely began walking across to the sides of the road. I didn't want to just straight up walk into the road, then the dead would be able to see me from about every direction possible. I knew they also had amazing night vision, much unlike a normal human.
I looked around making sure that I was not walking by any of the dead near me, I shivered as I saw one walking within 15 feet of me, but it was walking away from me luckily and walking towards the road. I sat there waiting for it to pass by, making sure that none of the dead were sneaking up on me.
I knew that Christian had told me, one of these days I would learn how to hear the dead. They were loud when they walked, he was right. I just was not to that point quite yet, I still needed a lot of time to start learning to focus.
I nodded to myself as the dead walked into the street, then I continued walking. I thought to myself, if I should go to Lilly's or the daycare first. I did not want to see a bunch of dead kids, but the daycare was halfway between the community house and Lilly's. It would only make sense to go there first.
I shivered once again for no reason exactly and I stopped myself as I heard something walking nearby. I turned myself over to it, it did not sound like one of the dead. But I could never be too sure, and it could also be one of the people from the other community that had not left quite yet.
I heard the footsteps loudly walking, completely carefree. I looked around to make sure that none of the dead had heard the footsteps. Then I waited for the person to walk around the corner of the house.
I saw a darker skinned man, and I instantly knew who it was. It was one of me and Jordans old friends. I always wondered what had happened to him, I knew that he had never been given a job, it must be boring to him sitting in his house all the time. In fact, it made sense as to why he was still alive.
I whispered over to him to get his attention. He obviously did not realize how loud he was, we were lucky there were no dead within 50 feet of us right now, or we would be in a lot of trouble. If one heard you, then the rest would follow that 1 dead. It was almost like they were talking to each other through their brains.
If they even had brains. I shook my head not thinking about it, I was just grateful that we were safe right now, but he needed to get back inside as soon as possible, the community was not safe at all right now.
"Phillip... Get the hell down! You are loud as fuck right now! I could hear you from a mile away." I said to him. He turned over to me a bit surprised that there was actually a living person around here. I did not blame him with all of the dead in the street, he obviously had no clue what was going on around him.
"Ben? Is that you? What's going on? Why are there a bunch of the dead everywhere? What happened?" He asked me. He was being loud as hell right now, I shushed him to be quiet and nodded to him for him to walk over to me. Once he was over I began talking as quietly as I possibly could.
I did not want any of the dead that were near us to even potentially hear us, he did not even know how lucky we had been getting so far. Luck usually was not a thing for me, in a weird sense, it seemed like the tables had turned a little bit. Even though my sister had betrayed us and I did not know if my brother was still alive or not.
"Shut up! The dead are faster, stronger, and they can hear better at night. Let me in your place, and I will tell you what happened and I'll make sure that you are safe." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments, then he looked at the dead that were all around us, then he nodded making the smart move.
He then nodded for me to follow him as we went across to the back side of his house. I looked around to make sure that nothing had heard any of our encounter. I nodded to myself thankfully as we walked over onto the back porch.
"So what the hell is going on? Why are you freaking out? Why are the dead everywhere?" He said to me. I looked at him for a few moments and then I shook my head at him. To be truthful, it was the last thing on my mind, kind of, he was being a bit dumb right now, it wasn't me that he did not need to trust.
"Open the damn door... Then I will tell you, it is not safe out here, did I not just tell you what the dead were like at night?" I said to him. He looked at me a bit apologetically and then he nodded.
He then opened the door to his place, I slowly walked in. I was still a bit afraid to be walking into houses, it seemed like every time I did, there was always a dead in there, even though I knew it was more like 1 out of every 10.
He flicked on a candle to light up the place, I nodded to him, at least he was smart enough not to have the lights on. None of the community had their lights on, at first I was worried about it, maybe they had lied to Shannon when they just said they were killing half of us.
But then I realized that not everyone was stupid, they had just heard gunshots all day. Not only that but they could clearly see that the streets were full of the dead right now, it would be like that for the next few days, we would probably not even kill the last one till we searched the houses about a month from now.
At least if Shannon was going to be doing what my mom did. They only thing that she had in common with my mom, is that they were both smart. It made sense as to where Liam had gotten it from. Everything else was different to them.
He looked at me for a few moments, I then realized why, I was so used to not being the first person to talk. I had to realize that I was an important person in the community. Christian was right, I just was not used to it yet because Christian was even more important then me.
"Sorry... I have my mind trapped in so many different things. I am worried about my brother, I need to go make sure that he is alive." I said to him. He looked at me and he nodded, I was happy that he understood me, he was one of Jordans cool friends, I was happy that he was still alive.
"It's all good Ben... You can go, I just need to know what the hell happened first... Did the walls break down somewhere and a bunch of the dead got in?" He asked me. I looked at him and then shook my head, I wished badly that was all that it was. But I knew that it wasn't.
He looked at me a bit worried for a few moments, I did not like replaying the story, that was kind of Shannon's job when the time came. But he should not be walking around the streets right now wondering what was going on.
"No... We got attacked, they burnt down the towers, then they came in and took a bunch of stuff and killed half of our people, like what happened to the other community... It was all real." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments, but he did not look all that sure still.
"We got attacked? Is that why there were gunshots? I thought there was no one left from the other community." He asked me. I looked at him for a few moments, I understood his confusion. I nodded to him and we stayed in silence for a few moments.
I shivered, it was a bit weird to my still that they took the entire community down there, but they let half of us live here. I would have to ask Shannon why that might be so, Aidan had told me that they killed everything that they could see. Why did they let us live.
I then remembered why, Shannon had made the deal, I had completely forgotten about that. I wanted to put the blame on Shannon for that, but she really had no other choice. It was either that, or let them kill our entire community.
"Shannon made a deal with them, they would kill half of us, and in return we give them half of our supplies twice a year." I said to him. He looked at me a bit surprised for a few moments, but then he nodded in the end.
"That doesn't sound like a very fair deal to me... So your saying they killed half of our people?" He said to me. I looked at him sadly for a few moments and then nodded, remembering that they had taken Angela, and there was a chance that Lilly was dead.
I remembered Shannon had also told me something else, maybe Liam was not dead no matter what. But I remembered what Tony had told me, what they did to all of the kids, it absolutely disgusted me even thinking about it.
"She had to do it... She had no other choice. They took the good looking woman, strong men, and the children as well." I said to him. He looked at me a bit scared for a few moments, I felt bad for him. I looked at the table a bit sadly.
I wanted to wake up, I still thought about all of this being fake, maybe I was in a big simulation, I remember reading a book about that one time. Either way, if I was a part of the simulation, it was not real to the people making it, but it was still real to me.
"So... Is that why you are going to go make sure your brother is still there?" He asked me. I kept on continuing to look down at the table. He probably thought that I was not paying attention to him, but I had heard what he had said. I was still just putting it off as long as I could, in the fear that I would find my brother dead.
"Yes... I need to make sure that he is still out there, I can't live with it if I don't try, either way we are going to check all of the houses, Shannon is still alive and she is looking to rebuild the community like what happened years ago. He does not know how to make his own food, I have to find him." I said to him. I was already acting like Lilly was gone.
Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, maybe Lilly was not even with Liam in the first place. But if she wasn't, the daycare was the first place she would have run to right? Maybe she did not even know what was going on. I had so many questions for myself, but first I needed to answer Phillips questions.
"My mom is not good looking, but if you said they killed only half of us... Does that mean there is a chance that she is still alive? She was just at a meeting with Shannon, if Shannon is still alive, then she is too right? Did you see her." He asked me. I looked at him for a few moments, I was a bit confused as to what he was asking me.
I then remembered what he meant, his mother was a part of the council. I shivered and then looked at him a bit sadly for a few moments, I could tell that he was reading my emotions, it was not hard to tell right now.
"No... She's gone... The whole council is gone... They killed all of them." I said to him. He looked at me a bit surprised, and I could tell he had anger on his face, not at me, I was just relaying the news to him. He was angry at the people that had done all of this.
I did not blame him for it, I was as well, I had lost my sister, I don't think there was a way of getting her back with there being 10000 of them, and less than a thousand of our worst people. His anger then fell into sadness, and a lot of pain, I could not blame him.
"This can't be true... No..."