Chapter 11: Stragglers
Grace Peters
People always used to tell Grace she was special. She never believed them. They told her that she was good at leading people, and she didn't believe them then either. She hated when people put her above others. She knew she was the same as her and she wanted that fact to go uncorrupted. She was only as simple as they would let her be. She enjoyed being simple. That was her.
"Let me have a look." Quentin said emotionlessly, leaning down to Leo's limp body. "If it's like you say, He could already be gone."
"What do you mean?" Grace asked frantically. "We sealed up the wound. The bleeding stopped. How could he be dead?"
"He may have lost too much blood." He replied, taking Leo's hand in his, checking his pulse. "It's a long shot. I'll do everything I can to help your friend, but I can't guarantee anything."
Noah took her by the shoulder and spun her around. "C'mon, Grace. Let's give the doctor some space."
"That would be great, thanks." Quentin said, without looking either of them in the eye. "I work better when people aren't breathing down my back." Grace turned around and exited the room, leaving Leo alone with the young doctor. He didn't look older than 30. He must be new to the job.
"She'll make it." Noah told her confidently after they shut the door. "I've seen people come back from worse. Much worse..."
"Like what?"
"Like Leo did back in that car on the road." He replied. "If he can come back from that, I have no doubt he can come back from this."
Grace smiled at him. "Thank you, Noah."
"You blame yourself don't you?" He asked her.
"What?"
"You blame yourself for him being like this." Noah asked her, stroking his beard with his fingers. "You think, since you're the one who crashed into him, you owe it to him to save his life. I'm going to tell you, you don't owe this guy anything, Grace. When you owe people things is when your life can go to shit. It's much better on this side of the river."
"It's already gone to shit..." Grace spoke, remembering Ashley's colorless eyes for one more time.
He nodded in agreement and turned around toward the hallway. The remaining five people rested in the living room, arguing up a storm. The two of them walked into the room. Grace sat down beside Laura on the couch, and Noah leaned on the wall, away from it all. Grace couldn't tell if he didn't like these new people or he was just shy.
"What the fuck?" Sebastien swore, glancing around at each person in the room. "When I say I want to get down to the city before making a stop, I mean it!"
"We need to rest!" Natalie replied loudly, throwing her hair back behind her head. "Get some food! We haven't eaten in two days."
Katherine, the old woman in the room, nodded her frail head and held her hand on her stomach. She wanted food too. "It's okay." Winston said, sweetly, patting her on the shoulder. "We'll find food soon. We're all hungry."
"My son is going to have some food in him by the end of the day!" Natalie barked. "No one is going to argue with that!"
Laura raised her hands in the air, trying to calm them down. "No one's arguing with-"
"I am!" Sebastien shouted. "Now you're gonna listen to me! We are packing up our bags right now and driving the fuck out of here!"
"We're staying here!" Grace shouted back at him, inserting my opinion into the argument. "I've got a friend injured back there and you've got a doctor with your group."
"Who said you're a part of this conversation, bitch?" He scowled. Grace squinted angrily at him and Noah stood up from his leaning position, looking angry as well. "We met you ten fucking minutes ago. Your opinion doesn't carry no weight."
"Say that again." Noah spoke through his teeth.
"Noah, I can fight my own fights." She told him, attempting to calm him down. She stood up out of her seat and Sebastien stood up close to her to counter it. He stood at least half a foot taller than Grace, but she didn't care. "Who are you to say I don't have an opinion? We let you in here. You're safe because of us."
"You think I'm going to take orders from a damn woman? Get back to the kitchen where you belong."
Grace looked back at Noah through the corner of my eyes to see him struggling to keep himself back, twitching in the side of the face. Everyone else in the room looked annoyed, but no one did anything. Grace could tell the people were afraid of the man. She scowled at him. "You think I'm scared of you? If you want food so much, you get to the kitchen. Don't hit your head."
"Heh." Sebastien chuckled. "Dumb bitch."
Noah walked slowly up into the conversation. He put himself between Sebastien and Grace. He sighed and looked the man in the eye. "What did I say about that word?"
"What are you gonna do?" Sebastien taunted him. "Punch me? Well come on! I'll even give you the first blow." He bent down and presented his cheek to the man in front of him, watching him out of the corner of his eye.
Noah sighed and looked away from the man's eyes. "I'm sorry." He brought his fist up and drove it into the man's face. He fell to the ground, clutching his face. His police training readied him for many things, but not Noah. "Stay down, asshole."
Sebastien wheezed and spit blood onto the ground below him. Three teeth splattered onto the floor. "You bastard!" He cried. "You knocked my teeth out!"
Everyone in the room sat back in their seats, staring in shock at Noah; Grace included. "What?" He said, turning around to all of us. "Fucker had it coming."
"Yeah. He did." Natalie agreed, spitting on the ground at Sebastien's feet.
"I thought you said this house was empty!" He hissed scornfully from the ground, wiping off his mouth and staring at Natalie.
"I never said it was fucking empty!" She replied angrily, leaning out of her seat a bit in anger. "I said I knew the people that lived here...Anne and Hugh. They were good people. I used to work with Hugh." She turned to Grace, realizing they were there before their group had arrived. "Do you know what happened to them?"
Grace's blood ran cold. She did know what happened to the couple, but she didn't want to tell the woman. It would break her heart. She glanced to Noah, but he only nodded to her, letting her know that she could take this one. "Well..." She started.
"Don't give me this shit." She barked. "I have had too much this week to have to deal with this. They were my friends, Grace. You understand what it means to have friends, right?"
Grace's mind began to flood with rage. The nerve of this woman was unbelievable, to assume that she didn't have any friends. Although, she was right... She didn't have any real friends. Not after Ashley... "Of course I do."
"Then you know what it would mean to lose them. It would be unbearable."
"I did lose her." She spat back. "She's gone."
Natalie didn't seem as distraught by her answer as Grace thought she would be. It seemed just to prove her point. "Then you know how I feel. Grace... What happened to my friends?"
On one hand, Grace wanted to remain honest, but she only imagined herself, and how much better she would feel if someone told her Grace was alive. It would have been hope. It would have been something. She didn't know it Natalie truly wanted to hear the truth...
[A. Tell the truth.]
[B. Lie.]
100% of readers chose to [A. Tell the truth.]
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"Yeah, I know what happened to them..." Grace answered softly. She barely had the heart to tell her what they found when they discovered this house last night. But she was going to tell her, Natalie was going to learn the truth.
"Well...?" She asked, expecting an answer.
"Yeah, we found them when we got here last night." Grace told her. "Noah and I hauled them out back. We buried them... we thought that's only what they deserved, though we never even said a word to them. I'm sorry..."
Natalie's eyes became full of disbelief. "They're dead...?" She looked to the woman on the other side of the couch, wanting with all of her heart and mind that the words she was speaking were not true. "Are they dead? They can't be."
"Dead as a door nail. You don't believe it, you can go back in the backyard and see for yourself." Noah replied, standing up from the wall and perching himself on the arm of the couch. He stood over the rest of the people in the room as if he was above their problems. But he didn't seem arrogant. He seemed...noble. It was a trait that didn't seem suiting from a man who'd spent the last few years homeless. Although, he had only said he was homeless...not helpless.
Natalie's eyes fell towards the ground. Grace could see the fear and the disbelief in them. It was fear and disbelief that was contained in them, not mourning. She looked back up, seeking more confirmation. "What happened to them?"
Grace sighed. "You don't want to know." She found it difficult to remove the image of the dead couple from her mine. It was ingrained there like the face of Ashley. No matter how many times she tried to block it out, it kept rising to the surface like rotten fruit.
Natalie wiped something off her cheek that Grace assumed was a tear before she stood up and stormed from the cabin. "Natalie!" Winston shouted, running after her.
"No, not now!" Laura caught him by the shoulder. "She's mourning. Leave her be."
"No, you don't get it!" Winston cried, tearing the girl's arms away from him. "She's dangerous when she gets like this. I've seen her like this before?"
"What do you mean?" Grace asked him, leaning down to where he stood.
"She just gets angry..." The boy replied. "She breaks things..."
"Well, either way, she's on the other side of that wall." Laura told him, patting him on the back in a comforting way. "She's got nothing to break out there except fire logs, okay?"
Winston didn't seem fully convinced, yet gave up anyway, seeing reason in Laura's eyes. She had a very persuading tone about her. "Okay..." He spoke, and hopped back onto the couch he sat in originally. He resumed talking to Katherine, who seemed very shaken up.
When Laura finished up talking to the boy, she turned to Grace and Noah and placed her hands at her sides. "Will you two come talk with me?"
"Sure." Grace replied. Noah was more skeptical, but eventually he agreed and followed the two of them. Grace led them through the hallway into the room opposite the one Leo and Quentin were in. With a hush, she closed the door behind them.
Laura sat down on the bed and Grace at the desk. Noah remained standing. "So, as I'm sure you can tell, our group, is...kind of fragile. I mean what do you expect from a bunch of people who just know each other from riding on the same bus at the wrong time?" Laura told them. "They don't like to trust anyone, but I can see you two are honest people. I don't know your friend in there with Quentin, but I'm sure you're all in the same boat."
"Yer point?" Noah replied.
"My point is, I want you to know they're not all bad." She gestured back towards the room out in the hall. "Sebastian's mouth is too big, but he's not a bad guy. He saved our lives back in Atlanta. He's the reason we're all alive right now, so don't be so hard on him. It's likely that he'll eventually save yours too. I know he comes across like an ass, but he's just loud."
"His mouth is smaller now." Noah chuckled to himself, running a hand through his beard. Grace managed a chuckle herself, remembering the teeth that had fallen out.
"Him and Natalie argue a lot, but they're generally harmless." She continued. "Jared and Kate have been through hell. They're basically all either of them have left. She's probably not going to talk to us for a while, but that's just her. She's shy."
Grace nodded. "I met Jared, out on the road. I only talked to him for a split-second but he seemed like a good guy."
"Yeah, he is. Just wait til you talk to him. He's hilarious." Laura smiled. "Anyway, Quentin...yeah... No one knows anything about Quentin. He's just as reserved as Kate is, if not more. However, that guy does not have an enthused husband to tell us all about his life. He's a doctor. That's pretty much all we know."
This wasn't anything to form an opinion off of for Grace. She hadn't gotten a strong vibe from him when he was healing Leo, yet he could tell he had a very vivid personality he was trying to conceal. She didn't know what it was. "What's Winston and Natalie's story?" Grace asked. "She called him her son... What's that about?"
"I didn't really want to ask either." She sighed. "All I know is he's not adopted. So...maybe she's the godmother? Or something or other? Anyway, Winston's a sweet kid. Don't be hard on him. And Natalie... I'm not gonna lie. Natalie's a bit of a bitch."
"Control freak?"
"Control freak."
Noah walked forward toward them and sat down beside the bed, locking his eyes on hers. "And you? What's your story, Laura Paul...?"
"Me? I'm nothing special." She laughed. "I'm just a generic girl trying to get her family back. My parents are dead. My brother is off at college. These people are all I have left. Yadda yadda yadda. Let's talk about you."
"I'm sorry..." Grace told her, looking her in the eye with empathy. "So you're the leader of your little group?"
"Nah." She replied. "We don't really have a leader. We're just a bunch of people trying to survive. Sebastien likes to think he's the leader because he's a cop. Natalie's just a control freak. I'm just a girl who can think things through. Like I said, I'm nothing special."
"You got them all here safely." Noah contradicted her. "You were in the city. Not just any 'generic girl' could think of a plan like you had."
Laura frowned. "Anyone could think of something like that if they aren't busy running from biters. Just stop and think. That's what my dad used to say. It's something my brother never excelled at..."
Grace sighed and sat back in her chair. "If you're not the leader, then why is it you in here talking to us and not one of them? You seem like the voice of your little minivan group."
"Because Sebastien's three teeth lighter, Jared's down in Savannah, Natalie's not in her right mind, Kate's not gonna talk to you, Winston's ten years old, and Quentin's fixing your damn friend. I'm not the leader. Stop making me out to be. I don't want to be the leader."
"Fair enough..." Grace replied. She didn't know what to make of the girl. She very much did seem like the leader, yet she claimed not to be. One thing was for sure. This girl was smart... Smarter than her... Smarter than Noah... She was certainly smarter than the rest of her group.
"Now, I know you guys are new, and most of my group won't trust you for a while, but they'll come to know you, as long as you don't do anything stupid." She shot a glance to Noah. He seemed a bit hurt, but then remembered how he had punched Sebastien in the face and realized it was justified. "You seem smart. You know your way around the dead. You're still alive. That's why we're all gonna stay in this cabin together, okay? You and us... It's just us now."
"You guys all seem to know a lot about these dead people..." Grace stated. "So tell me... How do you get to be so adept in the ways of the apocalypse when only a day has passed."
Laura laughed, but then realized the woman in front of her was dead serious. She turned to Noah and raised an eyebrow. "Is she kidding? Where has she been?"
Grace was confused for a moment before she glared up at the other man in the room. "Noah...how long was I in that car?"
He sighed and took off his stocking cap for a moment, cleaning it from the dirt it was soaked with. He looked directly in her eyes and that same sort of feeling of empathy resonated between each of them. "Four...maybe five days... It's been a week, Grace..."