Silver Horizons (Silver Horizons #1)

Silver Horizons | 11

            “What the hell is a linchpin?” Kyle asked, his voice demanding and crude

            I glared at him and replied, “The person that keeps the whole group together.” I saw a flash of hurt in Forest’s eyes, probably from talking about Annie. “I hate to break it to you boys, but she wasn’t the freaking linchpin, alright? Just because she’s gone doesn’t mean that we need to fall apart. If anything, we need to be stronger now. We need to survive.”

            I was beginning to think that my speech was becoming more inspirational than reprimanding.

            “Surviving is for losers,” Forest muttered. “Let’s just run outside and die.”

            “Forest!” I exclaimed. “No!”

            But then Kyle agreed. “Yeah, let’s just go out there and, like, give ourselves up so that we don’t have to live through this shitty life anymore.”

            “It’s not that shitty,” I pointed out. “I mean, we haven’t had to kill zombies that much in the past week.”

            “Yeah, but we’re leaving. Which means more zombies. Which means more killing. Which ultimately means a shitty life.” Forest was never the optimistic type, was he?

            “That’s beside the point though . . . “ I said, forgetting what my actual point was in the first place.

            Kyle sighed dejectedly. “Give it up, Elijah,” he said. “It’s over. Zombies are taking over the world. It’s only a matter of time before they breach our walls and we die. There’s not much to it, really.”

            “Dying is a profound kind of thing for me,” Forest added. “I mean, will I know that it’s the end or will I die and be like, ‘Oh I didn’t know this was going to happen so it’s coming as a really big shock to me, yada yada yada’?”

            “That’s . . . a really weird question,” Kyle commented, looking at Forest with his eyebrows raised. “Obviously, you’d want to die a hero, saving someone’s life, right? That’s how I want to die.”

            “Then dying for you is obviously out of the equation then,” Forest sneered. “Unless you think somewhere in that puny little brain of yours that saving someone else’s life will make up for the one that you took.”

            We were all silent then. Forest was glaring at Kyle, and Kyle seemed to not be paying attention. He had a stony expression on his face, and I could only imagine what was running through his head at that minute.

            It was clear that Forest was still holding a grudge against Kyle for offing Annie. I just wished that we could let bygones be bygones and get on with our lives. We were in the freaking zombie apocalypse for god’s sake. We don’t need to be distracting ourselves and destroying ourselves over one thing. Even if it was a big thing, we couldn’t let that be our demise.

            “Well,” Kyle said, finally standing up. “I guess that concludes our little conversation.” He looked toward me. “Thanks for bringing that up for the fifth time this week. I think I’m just going to go hot wire a car. Bye.” He grabbed his gun before stalking out of the store.

            When I looked at Forest, I saw him sitting down with his hands on his knees and his head bent down toward the ground. He was breathing heavily and it was then that it struck me that Annie’s death was taking a larger toll on him than I originally believed.