Just Survive

Chapter Eight

- Ashley Gray -

"We've been here a week - at most, and we have already eaten all our food? What happened to rationing?" Juliet gripes, her annoyed howl making my ears ring. My two slim hands instinctively rub at my temples, scrubbing at the headache I feel coming on.

The group of ten, thinning survivors (including myself) stand around a round table in the canteen of our current abode, everyone on edge as our eyes scan each other's faces. As if we're sizing each other up, we stand tall like werewolves, our teeth like daggers and hands like claws. I keep reminding myself that we're not savages.

"Well, who's the one who suggested to have a feast the night after we moved in here? Huh, Juliet?" Megan questions, her innocent and soft voice not fitting with her snide remark. She uses her fingers to quote Juliet's words, amusing some of the group and myself.

Megan was never one to speak out against people, she chooses to go with the flow of what Alex says because let's admit, he's usually right. Megan is a quiet one, she goes unnoticed a lot of the time but her contribution isn't scarce - she can take down a corpse any day without a sweat but her voice isn't quite as courageous. So, when she does voice her thoughts aloud, it's interesting, to say the least.

"Megan's right." Charlie defends the young girl as he wraps an arm around her. Megan's hazel eyes mingle with his as she thanks him with a bob of her poised head. Charlie then shrugs at the rest of us, avoiding any conflict.

He is also a placid member of our collective group; they're both very intelligent though. I learnt that he went to Stanford University and just finished his final year, travelling back to his home in South Carolina when the world went to shit - I guess his career did too. But with a degree in some sort of technology and a part-time job at a delivery place - he knows his way around, even now.

Megan was, or perhaps still is into music. As far as I am aware, she studied just that. She learnt the piano, the trombone and a few other instruments I had never heard of before. Megan knows her way around technology too, it was a hobby of hers. I should've seen the relationship between Charlie and Megan blossoming sooner, they are fitting for one another - quiet, caring, clever and gutsy when they want to be. They'd be unstoppable if they chose to be, but they like the simple life.

"Ugh," Juliet complains: that's her way of giving up, she can't do it without some drama. But then when does she ever give up without a long-winded fight?

"Can we all stop, please?" I raise my voice to a stern snarl just as Juliet's head rises to argue once more, her small mind transfiguring something to say. I raise my right eyebrow, daring her to say something to me, to say anything at all. She slumps over, her features agitated.

"Why are we fighting over this?" I ask with genuine bewilderment over the reason why everyone's arguing over food. Is food really the basis of attachments?

Alex places the palms of his muscular hands on the table in front of us, a small whack echoing throughout the hollow room. He looks around at the group, his eyes examining us all - but not like the way everyone was before, he wasn't challenging us, he was trying to pick out a couple of us.

"I'll take some people on a run tomorrow, we'll get food. Charlie, you said there was a mall nearby?" Alex asks, running a hand through his greasy hair in a moment of stress.

I admire Alex's will to keep strong despite the ever-growing pressures placing themselves on his shoulders. Anyone in his position would have given up by this point, especially by the moment one person in the group died. But he hasn't given up, and that's the bravest thing anyone could commit to in this fated world.

"Yeah, a couple of miles down the road, I'll guide you there," Charlie answers, his voice soothing as Alex relaxes, enjoying the quiet after everyone shut up. Alex approaches the lower windows with a stride of only four steps, he pulls back the quilt of thick material we pinned up to block any view for skin-eaters. He glances out for a moment, his mind running a marathon of thoughts.