"Why did you run here of all places?"
"I wasn't running. That wasn't the best choice of words. I was riding a bike as fast as I could so that I could catch up with you."
"Huh. I don't get it. How did you know that I was here?"
"Until recently I didn't. Then yesterday I came across a group of people who were living on top of a big shopping centre back east. And to my surprise they not only knew you but told me what direction you went. I rode my bike at a mad pace until I ran into that stuff out there. I was trying to figure out how to get around it when you called out."
"How were they?" asked Dave even though it was only a few days since he had been at the shopping centre. It was a sign of the times. So much could change so quickly in almost no time at all.
"They were in surprisingly good spirits. Apparently you had worked some sort of miracle upon them. There's a Justin who thinks that if you hadn't arrived when you did that they would probably be all dead."
Dave was silent for a moment. "Maybe I did turn things around for them, but with things the way they are it's a miracle that anyone is alive."
"That's a grim outlook."
"Living in fantasy means dying in reality. We have to face some harsh truths, no matter how disturbing, in order to find a way forward."
"And what are those truths?"
"That's what my plans are about. But that's for the future. I'd like to know what happened to you. That's if you're okay with talking about it."
"Yeah," said Josh furrowing his brow. "I'll talk about it, but I'm not going to be okay with it."
"If you don't mind me eating while you talk, I'll listen."
* * *
Dave opened a can of soup, grabbed a spoon and a bottle of water, and walked over to the edge of the roof. He placed the bottle of water onto the top of the half wall that framed the roof. As Josh joined Dave, Josh took a drink of water from the bottle that he carried and looked out over the intersection below.
"Nothing like a warm drink of water for refreshment," said Josh.
"Sorry about that. I'll have to come up with some sort of cooler system."
"I was joking. I appreciate the fluids."
"I'm not joking. I hadn't thought about getting something like a mini-fridge up here, but it's a great idea."
"There's no power."
"We'll have to look into solar panels and a battery."
"Do you know how to set that up?"
"I don't know how to set anything up. It's frustrating to see how many basic things that I can't do."
"It's probably not a good idea anyway. Don't fridges have motors in them? That might be a bit noisy."
"Good point. I'm thinking of expanding the defences around here so that this building would still be safe even with something noisy. In fact I might want to encourage a bit of noise."
Josh glared at Dave. "You want to attract shitters?"
"You still call them 'shitters'."
"What else should you call them?"
"There seems to be three types. What you call 'shitters' I now call 'walkers'."
"I'm starting to get a hint of what you are thinking. You have more to your plan than you're letting on."
"Sorry about changing the topic so suddenly, but do you feel up to telling me what happened when we went our seperate ways?"
Josh took a swig from his water bottle. "I wish this water was something more substantial."
"I remember what you said about your grandmother. With you here then the story can't be a pleasant one. If you want to talk then I'm all ears."
The conversation paused for a moment. Josh sloshed the remains of the water in his water bottle while Dave spooned some cold soup into his mouth.
"Okay then," said Josh. "Do you remember some clown who made a hell of a racket with a car or something?"
"Yep. It certainly caught the attention of the walkers."
"Yeah. We used that as a chance to escape the city."
"I took the highway directly west."
"And I went north. It was really spooky. The streets were clear, but I could look into many of the buildings as I walked by them. I didn't see one building that wasn't a complete deathtrap."
"It's strange. The walkers don't seem particularly smart, but they quickly got into all the buildings."
"And yet they can't even climb. Every now and then I'd come across a few walkers and I'd climb onto the top of a bus or truck, lie down and wait a few minutes. They seem to forget that I was there and wander off."
"If you were heading north then you would have had to have crossed the bridge. What was that like?"
"Honestly, I was really scared about that. I dreaded getting to the bridge and seeing it crowded with the dead. Instead it was empty. There were empty vehicles scattered about, but nothing else. The emptiness was creepy in its own way. I kept thinking that stuff would jump out at me and kill me."
"I must have been in shock because I was oddly detached from what I was seeing. I was probably seeing something similar to you but I seemed to have no emotional attachment to it."
Josh nodded. "Think about what we had seen. People just started eating each and the dead would stand up and walk about. How can your brain not be messed up from that."
"I worry a bit that I might be still crazy."
"We're both alive. Maybe crazy is a usable strategy."
"Let's get back to your story. That's a long bridge. It must have taken a long time walking over it."
"Actually I did something really stupid. I found a motorbike that I could get started and rode it most of the way home."
"It was safe riding a motorbike? That makes no sense. A car attracts attention. A motorbike doesn't."
"A motorbike does attract attention. Lot's of it. I was about a block from
