The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 10: Ben?

I looked back at the door a bit sadly, I knew that they wanted me to come back there, but there was so much that I needed to do, I was not all too sure if I would come back there. I badly wanted to talk to Sasha, believe me, about all that had been going on in each others lives.
There was much more important matters to attend to, I closed my eyes and then began walking. I was not too sure where I was at in the community, I had not been around this side of the block too many times. But I spotted something I did recognize, and I began heading towards it.
It was the store that I went to, there were 2 of them in the whole community, but luckily this was the one that I always went to. I could just head back to my place from there, and then once I was back to my house I then could head over to Lilly's.
I had a terrible feeling that neither of them were there, or both of them were dead. I still was not too sure which one would be worse. I looked at the grocery store for a little bit longer, just trying to clear all of those bad thoughts from out of my head.
I would find both of them alive, I had to keep that kind of mind set. It was always something I had learned from my stepfather a while ago. He went out of the walls, he told me, if I think positive, then positive things will happen to me, and vice versa.
He was right, it was not just some kind of made up thing. Sometimes I wondered if god had made things to be like that, if there ever was a god of course. It made sense, there had to be a god, surely right? I remember hearing something, a long time ago, that in the end times, the dead would roam the earth.
The end times had happened, now what? There were still people alive, there were still people being born. I don't remember anything in the bible about that... Of course, I never read the bible either, I knew that my dad was always deep into that stuff.
I don't really remember my dad all that much though, my mother always told me that he was an amazing man. My step father said the same which did surprise me a lot, you might think that he would get jealous. Maybe he knew my father, I wasn't sure.
I never really got to meet my step father until my mother became leader of the community, that's when he became one of my mothers best men, and then they ended up starting a relationship from there.
Which then brought my brother Liam into the world... That was what I was thinking about, and rightfully so. I needed to keep my head up and believe that he was alive and safe. If he was with Lilly right now, which was almost a 50/50 chance, she would have known what to do.
She would have locked all of the doors and she would have kept both of them safe. They might be scared to death right now, but once I got there, I'm sure that they would be okay. I kept on walking to the grocery store which was a little bit deep into the fields.
I was away from all of the dead, I knew that they did not like going into tight cornered area's like this, but I did not know it would be like this. There still was a part of me expecting one to be right around the corner, and sneaking up to finish me off.
I kept on looking around just in case, and then I walked into the grocery store. I knew that a lot of the food had probably gone bad at this point, except maybe the stuff that was in the freezers, so long as no one had been stupid enough to open them.
I don't think anyone was going into the grocery store right now anyways, I'm pretty sure the people that were still alive, were most likely hiding in their houses, until the bigger people came by to notify everyone that it was safe to come out.
If we didn't work with that fast, and we did not take out the dead that were still literally everywhere on the streets, then people might come out, low on food and run to the stores because they did not have enough on them. That would be quite dangerous.
I think the first step that we needed to work with, was to make sure that all of the dead in the community were taken out, and to repair some of the sections of the wall that might have taken a big hit. I would probably tell Shannon about that if she would listen to me.
I was still not too sure about her, I knew that she hated my sister, even if she said that she didn't. Which if my sister had really done this to the community, she had every right to hate my sister. But I still had a feeling that my sister was not to blame.
Maybe that was just a hope for me, it also made sense as to why it could easily be her as well. I closed my eyes for a few moments, then I slowly walked into the grocery store, using the side doors, since the power was not on for the electric sliding doors.
The power was out, but the light from the sun on the windows was enough to at least somewhat see most of the store, and as far as I could tell, it was empty. I walked around for a little bit, figuring that I might as well go and get some food to bring back to my place.
If Liam was still alive I could bring him and Lilly back safe and sound and have plenty of food to make it by for a while. I figured I should do that, it did not matter at this point now. It had been nearly 2 days since the attack had happened, they were either dead, or they were safe inside Lilly's house.
I could bring them back as well to my place, if they were too afraid of that, I may as well just bring the food back to theirs. It did not matter all that much to me, I grabbed 2 loafs of bread and some peanut butter and jelly. Then i got a bunch of things of water, remembering that the sink water was down, they were probably very thirsty right now.
I put all of that in a bag, and then I began walking back to the front of the store, but just as I was I heard footsteps in one of the bathrooms. I wondered if I should go in or not, I feared that it would be one of the dead, but I had my knife and my gun on me in the case that it was.
It could also be someone that needed help, it would be bad of me if I did not go in and check on whoever it might be, even if it was not someone that I knew, every life matter in the community, and it very well could be someone that I knew as well.
I walked into the bathroom with my knife out, looking around the room, it was fairly dark. It was very hard to see. However there was something that I could see, I could see the body of a person huddled up in the corner, and they looked afraid.
They were shivering, I knew they saw me, they did not know that I saw them yet, but I may as well go ahead and tell then that they were safe, I could see that the guy was scared to death in the corner, the guy had pissed himself as well.
I did not blame him, I would have done the same if I was afraid, I had not been out of the walls and I had just heard gunshots a few days ago. I walked closer to the dude, pulling my gun out, just in case he had a gun on him as well and he tried to do something fishy on me.
But I could not see a gun on the guy at all, I moved closer to the guy, he now knew that I could clearly see him in the corner of the room. He also saw that I had a gun pointed at him, he fell to the ground crying. I felt bad for him and I put the gun away.
"Just kill me! End me, I failed, my family, they are gone... I give up, do it for christ sake!" He said to me. He did not see that I had put the gone away, he just had his eyes balled up in tears. He was not looking at me, he was just staring down at the ground.
I could tell in the guys voice, though he was a bit of a bigger fella, he was still a bit young at the same time. I could not recognize the face of the guy at all, it was too dark in the room for me to see anything. I sat down beside the guy and grabbed on to his shoulder to try and make the guy feel at least a little bit better.
"We all failed brother, we have to keep fighting, your family would not want you to stop... I am not going to kill you, I can find you a place to stay safe." I said to the guy. The guy was silent for a few moments, but then he began balling up into tears once again.
I was tempted to just leave the room, leave him be, let him wallow in his own misery, but it was not the way that my mother had taught me. There was a reason why she was the leader of the community. She did not just give up on people that easily.
"I failed them, they're gone... I should have gone home, I stayed here, and I hid like a coward... I am not supposed to be one of those guys." He said to me. I looked at him a bit confused as to what he meant, but if I had to take my best guess, he did go out of the walls based on the looks of his body.
I held on to his shoulder a little bit longer, he just kept on crying. I did not know what to say to him, I was too busy worrying about my own brother on the fact that the guy had said that he had failed his family. I wanted so badly to go after and find my brother, but at this point, I had wasted far too much time, he was safe or he was gone.
I may as well help as many people along the way if I could do so. I looked back at the guy for a few moments, taking in what he said. I did not know much to make the guy feel better, at this point my brother was the only family that I had, I could not relate to him on that topic.
"They aren't all dead, get up... You can't just give up on them, Shannon said that the took out half the community... You can still have hope that they are alive." I said to the guy. He stopped crying for a few moments, much like last time, and then he began crying once again.
It seemed everything I said to the guy, only made him feel worse. I was just about ready to give up now and just go search for my brother. This was one of the most negative guys that I had ever been around. I did not need that sort of energy following me around.
Just as I was about to get up from the spot that I was on the ground, the guy then began talking to me once again, and I figured I may as well stay a little bit longer. Just try to talk some sense into him, I had nothing else to really do right now.
"If they are still alive, they know I betrayed them, my little sister was with me, we were coming here. As soon as I heard the shots, I ran inside but I did not see her with me. I was too much of a coward to go back out there. They killed everyone in here, took all their bodies out, I watched it all." He said to me. I felt a little bit sick on what he had just said to me.
I was not like this guy at all, but I could not blame him for it either. I did not know the circumstances that was going on, I did not know what went on in his head. I did not even think much of the bloody path at the front until now that he had said something about it.
"Look... I don't know what you went through... I lost a lot of people as well, I am sorry that happened. Your sister is alive though, I promise you. You have to get up, come with me now... They dead are all around the community there are still people alive..." I said to him. He looked up at me for a few moments, he looked at me dead in the eyes. And then he looked down and groaned...
"Oh no... Even worse... Ben?"