Chapter 10: Among Strays
Grace Peters
Grace awoke to screams of agony. They were distant, but nonetheless present. As they faded away into the morning, she sighed. As much as she didn't want to believe it, this world had taken another life in its clutches. She wished she had woken up to her own circadian rhythm, but she knew that such a feat wouldn't be common anymore.
Grace liked to sleep. The last time she had slept for less than five hours was during college. She had never wanted to go back, but with the way things were turning out, she really didn't have any choice. She ran her hand through her thick brown hair and attempted to scrub out the dirt and grime. It was no use. There was more there than she could ever brush out. She swung her feet off the bed and onto the ground. Yawning, she glanced to the left. A small digital alarm clock sat there. The face was blank. The power was out. It was never coming back on.
Last night had been a disaster. With Leo almost dying from blood loss, and finding a dead couple in the house, Grace tried as hard as she could to forget yesterday. Noah and her had hauled the bodies of the man and the woman out of the house shortly after they found them. It was only then she realized how tired she was and passed out on the floor. Noah must have put her in the bed. She looked to the ceiling. A length of rope hung there; the rope that had previously hung the bitten woman.
She reached to the other side of her bed and grabbed her phone. She turned it on momentarily, half-expecting there to be some sort of notification. When there wasn't, she felt a bit empty. This was the first time in a long line of mornings that she woke up with not so much as a text. It was still at 87% battery. She knew it wasn't going to have much use now, but she kept it anyway. It reminded her of home.
She swung her feet off the bed and onto the floor. With her drowsiness, she found it difficult to hobble to the door and creak it open. She walked slowly through the hallway. Now that the sun was up, Grace could see that the floral wallpaper was peeling off the sides of the wall. The floor creaked under her. This was a fine piece of land before the dead got up.
She passed the bed where Leo lay resting. She strode into the room slowly and watched him breathe. His skin was pale and Grace could see the veins beneath his skin, but with everything she had been through, just the fact that his breath remained constant was a miracle. The blanket tied tightly around his side had effectively stopped the bleeding. She could only see a slight stain of blood in the top layer. Grace smiled. She felt terrible for chuckling, but she found it ironic that this was the first she had slept away from her bedroom for years. Leo was going to make it. We had come too far to stop here.
Ashley's death felt like a million years ago. It had only been a few hours, but after the night's rest, her death only felt of a faint memory. Grace felt guilty for giving her up so early. She was still sad, mourning every time she thought about her, but now, she no longer had tears streaming down her face. It made her feel dirty...
Noah was gone. Grace walked into the living room and noticed that the makeshift bed Noah had crafted out of couch cushions was empty. She found it rather sweet that he was willing to to let me sleep in the bed while he was out here with no way to keep warm. He told me her was used to it, that he slept like that every day. His time in the forest had taught him that he doesn't need a blanket to sleep. "Humans have been sleeping for thousands of years." He had said. "Just because I ain't comfortable don't mean I ain't gonna go to sleep."
Grace sat down in the chair the dead man had shot himself in. It seemed to be the only comfortable chair in the house. Only a portion of the fabric was soiled with blood, so she leaned to the left in order to avoid it.
She glanced out the window at the trees flowing in the wind. The drops of rain that had filled the sky during last night's storm now sat on the leaves as morning dew. The sun sat behind them, greeting the morning. For a moment, things felt peaceful. She almost felt a twinge of...happiness...an emotion I didn't think I was ever going to experience again after gazing upon the face of her dead friend.
