ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)

Chapter 1 - BLOODSHOT

Another sound, Doyle didn't think could be forgotten. One that still rang in his memory...

That excited shriek from the hungry dead, the dying chopper blades, and poor Abby in the back screaming out of his reach...

Since then, they've been the freak kids sitting alone in the cafeteria, the "new kids" they had little intel on. The elite lived in "the mansion" where Russell and his team lived, chosen by city District 4 to run out here in the boonies for their supplies. The likes of Sophie and Doyle lived on the other side of the colony in bungalows. The colony elites generally kept to themselves. Only did they emerge when it came to enforcing the intense, bizarre rules of this place:

1 - No one is allowed out after dark except for The Guard.

2 - No visitors can visit other civilian's cabins unless approved by The Guard.

3 - No weapons of any kind are allowed within civilian quarters or shops.

Rules one and three mimicked the rules of District 1, so they weren't that strange, but the elite didn't have the same rules, it seemed. Now that the laws applied to Doyle as a civilian here, he didn't much care for them. More so, Doyle had a problem with the extreme punishment if anyone dared break a rule.

Anyone breaking colony rules are subject to being shot on sight. In lesser extremes, civilians may undergo a trial, with the penalty of imprisonment, death, or exile.

Also disturbing was the treatment of those who couldn't take on the same workload. Everyone had to work, from children to the elderly. Enough so that backs broke, and fingers bled to keep the mother District fed.

Harsh, a little too harsh. Yet, Doyle wasn't the one in charge here, much to Sophie's dismay. She'd voiced it often to him that he should be in control, that he knew more, that he had the experience.

She held him in high regard, and maybe that was because he'd saved her life, and they've been inseparable ever since. The pedestal she kept him on would one day come toppling down. If only she knew. If only she knew the real him and all he'd done...his own secrets.

Her eyes lit up in a certain way whenever she looked at him. They did now, and he avoided keeping eye contact for too long so as not to give false hope.

He nods to himself at his thoughts, as he often did. It led those around him to wonder what he was thinking. It never had anything to do with his last thoughts whenever he spoke next. Like everything, his thoughts and emotions had to have a diversion. Let anyone see the real him? Never. They couldn't bear it.

"They won't break down the wall," Doyle says, his nod carrying out. He adds, "you're going to find yourself in trouble if you keep sneaking up here to visit me during my shift. You're risking it with curfew coming soon...."

She grins in a forgotten way, where a faint red hits her cheeks. Doyle tries to ignore it, as the woman over a decade his junior carried that blush whenever he teased her. The same blush, he'd caught himself returning from time to time when he'd forget where passing blushes lead...

Disappointment. Heartache. Betrayal. Doyle wanted no more of it.

Sophie replies, "It's not in his rules. This isn't a house or a shop. It's a watchtower, a roof pretty much, there's no rule about coming up to the watchtowers."

Always finding a loophole, Sophie had a constant rebellion in her that irked him. Doyle often wondered about Sophie's pre-zombie past that she usually avoided disclosing. While he wasn't for story-time either on wars from his past, Sophie tended to avoid the simplest of questions. He still never received a direct answer on where she was from or what she did for work before all this.