The Dead Don't Talk (Book 1)

Chapter 21: The scavenge

After Christian had taught me all that there was to be taught for the day we then left the clearing. We had already walked at least 5 miles today, before now I would be so worn out. I was kind of used to this type of stuff now.
I felt good that I had actually done something with a melee weapon. A gun can only get me so far with so little ammo. I was good with it, but at some point in our runs that would only get me so much.
I realized it now, I used to think that people working these type of jobs just went around with assault rifles and shooting down anything that came in sight with them, I realized now how wrong I really was with that. Maybe at first when it seemed like we had all the ammo in the world and the dead were in small groups everywhere.
Now once they got in sight with each other they formed a deadly heard. A main reason why my mother had introduced silencers to Shannon's father. They were silent, the heards were not as large as they were now but every now and again a shot from the walls would bring a lot of them in.
If we were not using silencers now, we would all be dead, Christian had told me about how a couple years ago there was a heard of thousands that they had to pull away from the community or else they would have taken down the walls.
The walls were sturdy but not sturdy enough for something like that, even I knew that. These things were strong, I had mean pushed down by one of them the other day.
They had no stamina and they could use their full strength... The reason why we were still alive was simply because they had no brain, they were dumb. Christian sat down on a log and looked up at me for me to sit down with him. I didn't want to, that would make me lose my juice that was in my body.
"Alright kid, there's an area not too far from here that we will scavenge. Hasn't been fully scavenges or looked around in so we will grab some important things and put this in our bag. If there's anything that seems important that we can't carry, we will tell Shannon and she will send someone like your sister put to get them." He said to me. I nodded and then he got up from the log after his couple moments of rest.
I could see how he was tired a lot, he didn't sleep till late and he got up early, one night I could tell that he was having a nightmare. I didn't ask him what it was because he would probably deny that ever happening.
"So I'm gonna be founding out what Angela's job is really like out here?" I asked Christian. He smiled and then laughed a little as we continued walking.
"Sort of kid... We aren't going into full detail with my type of job, you'll find out a bit more on your own... Except for being a wanderer." He told me. I nodded to him as we continued walking to the mountains direction that had never been explored. It seemed like we had gone so far, but it looked like we hadn't caught up to it still.
I could see what looked like the place that Christian was talking about not too far ahead. It looked like some houses, which we had only gone past a couple on the way up to this point.
These houses were much larger than the other ones however. Not like the mansion that Shannon lived in but they had at least 5 bedrooms in the place. The ones before here were probably 2 bedroom places with a smaller living room. We were out in the country as my dad said when I was younger.
"So are we going to scavenge those house's or something? I thought we were going to markets or grocery stores or storage places." I said back to Christian as we continued walking towards the houses.
I had remembered that the community had found a couple but only gotten 1 which was filled with ammo. Because the other community that we hadn't found out till later had actually gotten there first.
"Kid scavenging ain't just about the big places... Or else there wouldn't be so many scavengers out here in the first place." Christian told me. It was fair enough. It made sense, I never really thought about it in that type of sense... But he was definitely right.
The houses weren't too far ahead and Christian started going a little bit fast, which was fair enough because it was already getting dark right now. We had been out in this blazing hot sun and I had gone threw nearly half a cup of water.
It was nearly the perfect time of the year for summer. Not for us, but too be fair, I would definitely take being super hot over the freezing cold. I don't even want to think about going out there during the winter times. Thankfully it would not be any time soon. Last year also luckily we did not have a lot of snow.
I knew how much Liam had loved the snow though. I never really was that big of a fan of it. I hated being out in the cold, a few moments of snowballs was fun until the cold started dripping into your body. After that I would run inside for most likely the rest of the day.
Once we were at the steps of the house Christian looked at me as if he was expecting me to take the lead. I hadn't done it before, normally it was always Christian that was the one to head into places. Truth be told I was actually a little bit afraid to head into there.
"Go ahead kid... Its about your turn, I will save you if there is one at the door. But if there was you would already here it." Christian said to me. I nodded back to him and still hesitated a little bit to open the door.
I did something really dumb though, I realized it the moment I did it. I was thinking we were going to go into a normal persons house. I knocked on the door.
"Kid... Oh my goodness, there's clearly still a lot I need to teach you." He said to me and then he slammed open the door. I knew it the second I had done it, I didn't know what was going in my thoughts at that exact moment.
Christian looked around the front entrance and through the sides of the first few rooms. I slowly followed him, trying my best to not make an even bigger full out of myself even though it was a bit too late for that.
I looked through the rooms to the right and Christian headed towards the left. I quickly pulled out my solar charged flashlight to see around the rooms. There was nothing anywhere nearby thankfully.
I turned around and saw Christian leaving the 2 rooms he had just looked in as well. He shook his head at me and just looked at me for a few moments. But then he just looked at the ceiling.
"You know kid, I know you weren't thinking about it that way, better that was the smartest dumb move I think anyone could have ever done." He said to me. I looked at him a bit confused, it just seemed straight up stupid to me, I don't know what was going through my head in that exact moment of time.
"What do you mean? I think it was just straight up stupid... I don't know why I did that in the first place... I wasn't thinking." I said to him. He smiled and then let out a short burst of laughs. He didn't laugh much but when he did it made me feel a lot better about the world.
The fact that even a guy like Christian could be laughing, before now I would have thought that this guy had never laughed a single time in my life. But as I came to find out, deep inside his mind, he had a bit of a humorous side inside of him.
"I mean... It was smart... If you knock on the door, wait a few minutes that way you don't have to look through all the rooms." He said to me. I still looked around a bit confused. I couldn't really understand what he was trying to say. He didn't want us looking through the rooms anymore because I knocked on the door?
"What do you mean? I still think it was kind of stupid... They would have heard us if there were any of them in there." I said back to him. He looked at me and then through the little bit of light through a window I could see him just roll his eyes at me. Clearly I was not catching his drift.
"Goodness kid, you knock on the door, they hear it and then head towards us and we can tell if there is any that are in the house or if they are stuck in a room." He said to me. I still didn't quiet grasp what he was trying to tell me. I closed my eyes to think about it for a few seconds and then I understood.
"Oh I get it... Knock on the door so that way we can hear them if there are any that are in the place." I said to him. He looked at me dead in my eyes and then just grunted and turned around.
"No shit kid... Clearly what you did was not done on purpose." He said to me. I didn't mean to do it so I couldn't argue with him on that in of the spectrum. He looked around then went into the other room and said something to me, "alright kid, we are going to explore these rooms through all the cabinets, and then we will explore the garage and the upstairs."
I turned around and started looking around for anything that might be useful. I opened cabinets and all I could really fine were dishes and spoons, forks, and knives. I thought about potentially grabbing one of those knives but I realized how dumb I was to even think about that.
These knives were simply just kitchen knives, the only way they could kill anything was a slit to the throat, not much of a use for that against the dead. I thought about how once in the community there was a murderer that did that to their own wife. It was a bit messed up even thinking about that as I closed the drawer.
I then began opening the lower cabinets. I had finished all of them but in the last drawer under the sink I could see that there was some sort of big bag that was locked. I pulled it out although it was sort of heavy.
It made a bit of a racket and Christian yelled from the other room to be quiet. I almost wanted to call him dumb, because if there was some in here then they would already be here after I had knocked on the door.
I pulled the locked box out of the kitchen and slid it into the hallway. After a few moments Christian then walked out with a few things. He looked at me and then nodded as he saw the locked box. He then put what he had into his bag and then went on his knees to check the box.
"Locked, we will look for the key upstairs and in the basement, if we can't find it then we will just use your axe to chop threw it. If its something important but fragile... Not much we can do about that if we cant find the key." He said to me. I nodded and then he looked at me for directions.
"So I guess Ill go in the basement and you go upstairs." I said to him. He looked at me and then nodded stepping himself back up. He then smiled at me and put out a little bit of a huff.
"I see, you want me to check for your rooms and then you get the easy way." He said to me in a joking fashion. I ignored it and we both headed down the opposite steps.
I looked around down there, it wasn't exactly a very big basement so I would probably go upstairs and help out Christian. There were a few racks with some stuff in it. I looked around and saw i little tiny bag, it might have something in it like maybe a ring or a necklace that Angela might like, I thought to myself.
I picked it up and noticed it felt a bit to heavy for something like that. I opened it up before putting it in the bag. Jackpot! It was the key, that might have even more stuff in it that Angela might like.
I felt a bit bad thinking that way, Scavengers were meant to help the community but Angela came back with things sometimes that she would keep to ourselves. Our mother found out about that, even though it was our stepfathers idea, she got very bad.
That was just a few days after her death, I felt bad that she went down without Angela saying sorry about doing stuff like that.
But I couldn't blame her, and she had continued doing it even after her death. I looked around a bit more, but besides a few tools that the community probably already had there wasn't much of anything really left.
I then noticed a small doorway when I pulled out my flashlight. It wouldn't be a doorway to a room but it could be a little attic that might have something useful stored in it.
I walked over to it and then pulled out the little hatch to open it. It was a bit hard to open, probably because a lot of dust had gotten into it, it most likely had not been opened in nearly 10 or more years in the first place as well. After a few rough pulls a finally got it to open.
I pulled it back and then i heard a few groans. I jumped back a bit scared and Christian yelled at me upstairs making sure I was okay because he obviously had heard it. I looked at it for a few seconds to see what was in there before I yelled back to him.
"Umm... Yeah, but you might want to come see this I don't think I should hide this from you." I said to him. I heard him walking around the room upstairs. He was a bit loud, but what was in front of me had no way of really getting to us even if it heard us.
"Alright, just a few minutes, there's a few useful things up here..." He said to me. I looked at what I was looking at a bit sadly, and then I just waited as Christian after a few moments quickly began to head down the stairs.
I heard him walk into the room I was in and he pulled out his flashlight before coming over to me. Once he was close enough to see he didn't have quiet as bad of a reaction as I did but he still looked a bit disgusted.
He turned away for a few seconds as if hoping it was not real. He closed the door of the room not even wanting to kill them. Normally we would do it no matter what but in this situation I kind of understood.
It was disgusting, it was 2 naked little girls, their legs had been torn off and they were chained to the wall. They had no chance of even getting to us. I kind of wanted to throw up, I had never seen anything quiet as disgusting as that.
"What the hell... I wish neither me or you had seen that... I've never seen anything that disgusting... To even see that they were undead just made it even worse... How long they'd been there." He said to me. I nodded and then looked back at the door sadly.
Clearing when the girls were still alive, their legs had been torn off and they were being raped, at least that's what I would assume. I had heard of things like that but I never truly wanted to believe that anyone was really that sick.
We then walked out of the room together.
I had almost forgotten the only good thing I had really seen today. I had gotten the key to the lock, or I think I had I couldn't really see why they'd have a key like that one laying around the house. Whatever sick person that was. It clearly was not a house key.
I almost didn't even want to use it for fear that there might be pictures or something in it that might be of the man raping the little girls. But I had already seen it all basically.
I almost had not wanted to show Christian that but if I hadn't I couldn't bare the next few days with those thoughts by myself in mind. Christian pulled out his machete as he was about ready to cut threw the box.
"I have the key, no need." I said to him. He nodded and then I threw the big key over to him. He opened the lock and then pulled open the box. Thankfully it was not a bunch of pictures, it was actually something useful, and it made me have a newfound respect for any scavengers who might have seen something like this and got stuff like this.
There was a pistol and a bunch of what looked like shotgun shells. Christian looked at it but didn't smile. I could tell he still had the thoughts of what he had just seen still inside of his head. Instead he just pulled out the shotgun that he had just found off the strap of his bookbag. I had noticed it but didn't really ask.
"Not really the best use of killing any of the dead... But still, might be sort of useful if he have too many on us. Good for killing multiple at a time, or at least crippling them. Just way too loud." He said to me. I nodded and then picked up the shotgun, I had never carried one of those in my hands before.
My mother had said she didn't really like them because you couldn't really attach a silencer to them, so she just kind of considered them as useless, and they just attract more in than you actually kill.
But if we were in a really sticky situation it would be kind of useful. I looked at it and then just nodded, there was a pistol as well, couldn't tell the exact type but Christian looked at me and then pulled out my bag and put a silencer on it.
I already had one but the ammo might be useful down the line, and if not it would still be useful to the community. There were at least 300 bullets of both guns sitting there in the box. That was also probably the reason why it was too hard for me to carry that into the hallway.
"Good job kid, probably wouldn't have hurt it too badly, but you are the one that found it." He said to me. I nodded and then looked around at the pistol, it was a nice looking pistol, different type of ammo clearly but I might use it in a messy situation with not having much ammo in my pistol and not as nice of the one I had in my hand right now.
"Thanks... Looks like its getting too dark to explore the other house but I really don't want to sleep in the place we are at right now." I said to Christian. He looked through the window and he too realized it was too dark.
I knew he understood why I didn't really want to sleep in this place. After seeing what I had just seen, clearly it was a rich guy, and obviously he had a bunch of rooms but no kid or wife, if he did she was sick for hanging around that too.
"There's a bunch of rooms upstairs we just wont go into the master room. Don't want to go into the other house with it being this dark and having to take out any of the dead." He said to me. I could understand where he was coming from in that decision and I could understand.
We headed upstairs and I looked for a room that we could both sleep in. It was a pretty big house but after seeing what I had just saw I couldn't exactly call it a nice house. The first 4 out of 5 rooms were all with pretty big beds we could both sleep in.
One of them being the master bedroom clearly with tons of trash laying everywhere in there. I would not want to be in that room at all, with any sort of aspect even if I had not seen what I just saw.
The last room I noticed had to beds, not exactly big but enough for us to both sleep in comfortably. Normally we would sleep on the ground or in the same bed, so now it was nice to have a bit of a change.
I liked Christian but not enough to really be sleeping with him. We both went into the room and put off our bags. I grabbed my can of water realizing how thirsty I was and began drinking some of it.
Christian did the same and then sat down on his bed and just looked at the ground. Clearly he was trying to clear his thoughts after seeing what we had both just seen. I was trying to do the same as well.
"Well kid wish it could say it was a good day, but it wasn't... Sure you could understand why, wasn't really the mental aspect but that was one of the worst days I've had being out here. Normally I even like being out here." He said to me. I nodded agreeing with him. Not really in the aspect of liking being out here, I only liked the aspect of being useful not really actually being out here.
"Yeah... Agreed... Honestly a good sleep will feel me up." I said to him. He nodded and then sat down as well and I picked up 1 of the 2 blankets that were there. A little bit of dust in them but they would work for now. I didn't really need it to be that hot, but always having a blanket on me just made me feel a little bit better.
"Well kid, tomorrow we will get up early, ill teach you how to be a bit more of a warrior, because that is a more useful part of our job... Then we will continue on our wanderers journey. Today however... Id have to to say was good till the end, but now you know how to do what your sister does... The scavenge."