Wordlessly, Nate climbed into the truck, hummed the engine into life, and we came home. He never said a word, but he didn’t need to. Just him being there was enough for me.
I couldn’t write yesterday after that, hence why I’m doing it today. I needed peace, and I needed Particles, and I cried my fucking heart out in my room for two hours straight until I was borderline dehydrated myself.
That house makes me feel absolutely shit, Freya. It had been within our power to help those people, but we just never knew they were there. We’d driven past those houses so many times, and never thought to stop there.
Yesterday and today, I said, “if only,” so many times. Freya, those two words alone don’t have much of a punch, but when you stick them beside each other, they gain a power that can fucking break you if you let them.
I’ll cry for them, I’ll feel every stab of guilt for what might have been, but it only makes me more determined to do something about this fucking mess. To make something of it for those who are left.
There will be many more days when I feel like this, that much I know. There will be more days where I struggle to collect the shattered fragments of my heart, and I feel like I can’t go on.
However, I also know this truth.
You might see me weak, but you’ll never see me quit.
PART 2
FAMILY AFFAIRS
OCTOBER 21st, 2010
NO REASON WHY
I’ve been thinking a lot these last few days.
I know, dangerous right?
But seriously, I’ve taken a few days to consider the weirdness with the undead. Why the change after your death, Freya? Why the sudden shift where the undead focused entirely on me, then after the builder’s yard, everything reverts back to how it was?
I decided that last night I would throw it out to the rest of our little community as we had our evening meal. Mark and Alicia saw the evidence themselves at the yard, how they were largely ignored once I was on the scene, and how the dead crowded round my voice coming through the radio like dogs hearing their absent owner’s voice over the phone. Alicia was also with us when the wall of undead marched towards us downtown.
The prior couple of days we did some house clearing for supplies, and to give Isaac, Maria, and Alicia more time in the field. Mark was busy with the generator housing and wood stove prep work – which incidentally gets full installation tomorrow, as we’ll need lots of hands to get it in place - and he’s best left doing useful stuff like that. Mark is best coming out beyond the gate when there’s stuff we might need his engineering brain for. He’s just got too much skill and know-how and there’s always stuff he can be doing on the home front. We’re going to convert the double garage next to the bungalow into a workshop for him, and find a table saw, and some other tool stuff I stopped listening about when he and Nate were chatting.
Isaac, Maria, and Alicia came out with me and Nate, and we rolled in two vehicles; our trusty pickup, and the white van we took from the convenience store what seems like a decade ago. Our plan was to start hitting houses on the outskirts of town to give Maria and Isaac some live trigger time against small pockets of undead that could be easily managed. It would also serve to bed Alicia in as part of our new fully fledged security team, and to just generally take it easy, doing simple resource gathering without venturing too far from the lodge. If we’re going to take the fight to the undead and clear large areas of town, best to start small and work in a pattern.
We ignored the cul-de-sac of housing where I shot the little girl. I wasn’t ready to go back there just yet, so we moved on to the next fancy-pants housing area a little way down.
We found some good stuff, but I won’t list it as inventory bores the shit out of me, as you are all too aware, Freya. It was interesting having Maria along though, as she took stuff that Nate and I never even think of. Clean bedding sheets, pillows, towels; that kind of stuff. We’re always looking for food, tools, cleaning supplies, and useful clothing, but never even thought of stuff like bedding and towels.
Nate had to put the stoppers on her a few times though.
“Maria, we can’t take everything,” he chided. “Our space is limited, and we can’t empty every house in the town into that lodge. Think of it like a triage.”
She laughed at his medical analogy, nodded, and started being more selective about real essentials. Medicine and vitamins, however, she wouldn’t be moved on and Nate wouldn’t fight her on those anyway. If we found any form of medicine or vitamin supplies, we took it all. That stuff always tops our list.
Isaac and Maria both took down their first zombies with a handgun. Isaac did okay, but Maria… I mean, shit, I’m sorry I ever thought her caregiver nature would be a hindrance to her. She palmed her Glock slow and smooth, both hands solid, feet planted, and squeezed off a single round to drop a zombie stumbling out of an open door like a stone-cold pro.
I looked at Nate in surprise, and he just had a half-grin on one side of his mouth reminiscent of a teacher’s pride in a star pupil. I am pleased to announce that our caregiving medical professional is officially a zombie-killing bad ass. So cool.
Isaac did fine, but he was still a nervous amateur. You could see he was thinking of everything
