"The more we lose, the more we become the survivors." – Carrie Ryan, The Dead-Tossed Waves
The next morning, Forest was taking extra care in ignoring me. He would only speak to me if he absolutely had to, and he avoiding me at all costs. I got that he wasn’t too happy about me losing the car, but he didn’t have to be a jerk about it. If he were the one who lost the car, he wouldn’t want us to ignore him, would him?
No, he wouldn’t.
“Elijah,” Kyle said, waving me over. He was standing across the campsite with one of the tents in his hand. “Look at this.” He stuck his hand into the tent and pulled out a cell phone.
“Wow,” I said, surprised. Who had a cell phone? Annie? “Whose tent was this?”
Kyle looked at me with a grim expression on his face. “Forest’s.”
That changed things. Forest had a cell phone the whole time, and he didn’t tell us. Kyle and I trashed our cell phones in the beginning because we discovered that they didn’t work. Does this mean Forest’s cell phone works or was he keeping it because of pictures or something?
“Wow,” I said again. “Why do you think he still has it?”
“Beats me.” Kyle sighed. He handed the phone to me, and I took the time to inspect it further. It was weird that he would still have it, unless he was waiting for service to come back. I was pretty sure that it was never coming back.
Unsurprisingly, Forest had one of those new smartphones that did just about anything. He was such a spoiled brat. I turned it over, didn’t see anything interesting, and flipped it back to the front. I clicked the lock screen button on the top of the phone, and it lit up, coming to life. I nearly dropped it in shock, but I regained my composure before it left my hands.
Holding a phone after such a long time was weird, but the feeling didn’t last long because it was snatched from my hands. Looking up, I saw Forest’s glaring face.
“What the hell?” he questioned. He shoved the phone into his pants pocket and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why do you have my—I mean, this?”
He probably thought I hadn’t caught his slipup, but I did. “So it’s yours,” I concluded, raising my eyebrows at him. “Why—“
“No,” he snapped. “It isn’t mine.”
“Then whose is it?”
“I don’t know.”
I started walking away and said, “I think it’s yours.”
He followed me. “Well it isn’t.”
I walked over to my tent and started folding it up. Earlier this morning, we decided that we were going to bring along the necessities and pack light since we didn’t have a car anymore. Ironically, it was Forest who pointed that fact out for the umpteenth time. “I think it is.”
I could feel him standing next to me, anger radiating off his body. “Well, you’re wrong, because it isn’t mine.”
“Then why did you put it into your pocket and correct yourself when you said it was a phone opposed to your phone?”
From my peripheral, I saw him roll his eyes and begin to walk away. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. But it’s not my phone. I swear.”
And for some reason, I believed him. But it was still odd—having a cell phone at this time. I was under the impression that every cell phone didn’t work, and it pissed me off that Forest had access to one this entire time. How did he even keep it charged? Even if he never used it, it would’ve been dead by then.
Pushing the idea of Forest having a cell phone to the back of my mind, I resumed packing up everything. It took the four of us a little over an hour to decide what to bring and what not to bring.
In the end, we had food, water, two tents, and the clothes we were wearing. I thought about asking Forest if he had the cell phone, but I decided against it.
“Right,” Kyle said. “Well, let’s go.”
It shocked me how much he’d grown up from the last time I thought he had grown up. That wasn’t even half of it. I guess that when your big sister almost died, you saw a dead body, you saw a man being eaten by another man, and you lived through the apocalypse, you grew up a bit.
“Who made you the boss?” Forest asked Kyle.
“My sister,” Kyle said shortly.
That earned me a glare from Forest—one of many—even though I hadn’t said anything.
Annie, like always, was silent and standing next to Forest. They’d grown a bond since she joined apparently, and I found myself at times jealous of the friendship they shared. Sure, I had Kyle, but I didn’t have a friend here. I was jealous of Annie because Forest actually took a liking to her and wouldn’t insult her every chance he got. He treated her like a real friend, and I wanted that.
Thinking about friends and family made me wonder if we’d survive the apocalypse. So much had happened, and it made me so incredibly tired. I didn’t know what it was—the adventure, the death, or everything—but I was just tired of it all. I wondered if this was how suicidal people felt. That they were just tired of everything and wanted it to end.
After walking for a while, we realized that we had quite a ways to go before we came across any type of civilization. Whenever we got the chance, we needed to find a CVS since those had food, water, and a map.
We passed a sign that said ‘WELCOME TO COLORADO’, so we knew that we had just passed from Nevada into Colorado. The sun was scorching, and we were nearly out of water. Things were looking pretty bad for us until we saw the sign that said ‘5 miles until gas station’.
I hadn’t even known that there were signs like that in the first place, but I thanked God for them. I certainly would’ve given up if it weren’t for the motivational sign that told me that we were close to civilization.
Finally, we saw the CVS in the distance.
“Is it . . . is it real?” Forest asked, clearly parched and out of breath.
“I don’t know . . . “ Kyle said, trialing off. “I think it is?”
“Only one way to find out,” Forest said, jogging at a snail like pace up to the CVS shop. He pushed open the doors and went inside only to come back out five seconds later with a gigantic smile on his face. “It’s real, guys!” he hollered. “It’s real! It’s freaking real!”
For a split second, I had hope.
When Kyle heard what Forest said, a big grin appeared on his face. “At least now we can get more food, right?”
“Yeah,” I said sarcastically. “Because there’s not a chance at all that the CVS could be invested with zombies and dead people and just . . . you know. Dead people.”
Kyle scoffed. “You’re hilarious. We check it out, of course. If you’re too scared to go inside with us you can—“
“No,” I snapped before he could completely offer to go in first. There was a chance that there was a hoard of zombies inside, waiting for their next victim to just walk in and become a free buffet. He’d shot too many zombies to be normal for a fifteen year old boy. Then again, we passed normal when the man on the road sprang to live and chomped on Daddy. “I’ll do it.”
And so I did. Cautiously, I snuck into the CVS. I was on my toes and prepared for just about anything, except that was what I told them. In reality, I was on end, waiting for something to jump out and eat me. I wasn’t ready to die, but there was no other way around it. I didn’t want Kyle having to kill yet another zombie if he didn’t need to.
There was a rustling toward my right, and I swerved in the direction of the sound and aimed my gun. There was a shadow being cast across the walls, but it didn’t look . . . human. But zombies weren’t even human, so I wasn’t quite sure what—or who—it was.
A few seconds later, the thing casting the shadow came into view, and I saw that it was a squirrel. A harmless forest squirrel.
I waited for other sounds to occur, but nothing happened, and so I ran back outside. “It’s all clear, guys,” I told them, leading them into the CVS.
The only reason there was a substantial amount of light in the shop was because the sun was still shining high and bright outside. The sun’s light projected itself into the CVS and allowed us to see what was inside.
It wasn’t as gory as I had originally thought, and instead it was quite cleaned up and looked simply abandoned. It was as if nobody had been here in weeks. There was only a splatter of blood on the counter. Because of that, I was afraid to see what was behind the counter.
“I found some food that isn’t rotten,” Forest called from the other side of the CVS. “The expiration date is next month. Should we take it?”
“Yeah,” Kyle answered. “Shove it in the backpack.”
Apparently, Forest had conveniently picked up some backpacks and book bags from Target as well. I wasn’t aware of the fact until this morning. I wondered if he had gotten the cell phone from Target as well. Maybe it wasn’t his or anyone else’s but instead a brand new phone never opened before.
There was a scream, and it sounded pretty girlish. Annie had made her first sound to the entire group, and it was a scream. Not a good sign.
Kyle and I rushed over to where Annie was even though I suspected that Forest already had her protected. She was peering over the counter—the one I made sure to avoid—and tears were streaming down her face. When I looked down, I saw nothing that I hadn’t seen before.
It was a man who had blood falling out of his eye sockets just like tears, and some of the blood had already hardened, creating something that I liked to call crusted blood. It seemed to be the typical trait of a zombie. But the man had something else going on also, just like the zombies that stole our car had going on.
He was foaming at the mouth.
Whatever the hell was going on, I was scared. Blood crusted eyes and foaming mouths didn’t spell normal whatsoever. We were way past normal, and I didn’t like that.
I felt Kyle’s presence beside me. “You gonna shoot it, Elijah?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to shoot another infected human being. This one looked fresh and too human for me to kill. He wasn’t posing a threat to me or anyone else, and I didn’t feel the need to off him. “Nah. You?”
“Sure,” Kyle said simply before shooting the guy straight in the head.
I sighed. “Heart, Kyle. Not forehead. Heart.”
“Right. Gotcha,” he said before aiming again, but this time at the heart. The bullet met its target, and the man slumped over, dead. “Some more down, millions more to go,” Kyle murmured, sounding all dismal and gloomy.
“We got this, Ky,” I reassured him. “They’re not gonna get us.”
There was a clap from behind us, and when we turned around, we saw Forest. “Now, I hate to break up the family time between you to,” he said, looking between us and not feeling apologetic whatsoever, “but we gotta skedaddle.”
“Wh—“ I started to say but was cut off by none other than Forest.
“While Elijah was playing squirrel hunter in here, I spotted Walmart from across the street. I say that we scour the area and look for a car. I don’t think we should raid Walmart just yet. Unless we want some place not really safe but kind of safe to say. In that case, let’s raid Walmart.” He began to walk away but suddenly stopped and looked back at Kyle, Annie, and I. “But I’ll only raid Walmart if there’s a light switch this time.”
We decided to raid Walmart.
So just like for Target, Kyle, Forest, and I all got guns. Kyle and I went our separate ways while Forest and Annie both went together. Something was going on between them, and I didn’t think that I liked it. But apparently, I wasn’t in charge anymore. Forest had sort of taken control, and as long as he wasn’t complaining every second, I didn’t have a problem with him in charge.
Okay, so actually I did have a problem. I feared that he was going to get us all killed. But that was beside the point. I agreed with this little plan to raid Walmart, so I didn’t stand up for Kyle and I, asking Forest why he got to make group decisions.
If it were up to a vote, it would be split down the middle anyway. Annie would obviously side with Forest, and Kyle would side with me. Nobody would win, and it would be either a tie or a stalemate. Knowing Forest, he would say he won.
“Left or right?” Kyle asked, pointing with his gun.
I shrugged. It didn’t really matter. “Right.”
As I walked down the Walmart aisles, I pulled my gun tight against my chest, not daring to let go for even a second. I learned my lesson last time about leaving my gun unattended.
I was lucky to even have a gun to protect myself. In the parking lot when we were devising a plan (it was more of Forest controlling us and telling us what to do with no room for disagreements), Forest tried to take my gun from me but Kyle told him that he was an annoying prick and that he would shoot his face off if he tried to take my gun from me.
Oh the joy of younger, yet protective, brother.
Suddenly, the lights came on, and I knew that Forest had found the power operative room and switched on the lights. After all, he only said he would risk his life for us again if there was lighting.
“Let there be light!” he shouted, and the sound rang throughout the Walmart.
I sort of wanted to whack him across the head for being such an idiotic moron.
“Zombies, come out, come out wherever you are!” he taunted. “We want to play with you!”
I groaned, stopping short in my walk. Right in front of me was a zombie, and by the looks of its eyes and mouth (blood crusted and foaming) it seemed to be about a month old. It was so mutilated and torn up that I couldn’t tell whether it was a male or a female.
Now that gave me the heebie jeebies.
“Okay, zombie,” I said to it. “I’m going to shoot you now so stay sti—“
It didn’t listen nor let me finish. It simply sprang toward me, and I froze up, not able to pull the trigger. But before it could land on me and infect me or eat me, it fell to the ground, dead. Somebody shot at it and hit their target—the heart.
When I turned to see my savior to say thank you, I saw that it was Forest. He was grinning. “Twice,” he informed me. “I’ve saved your life twice.”
I didn’t want to say thank you anymore, nor did I want to call him my savior.
“Right. Whatever. I could’ve handled it,” I told him tersely. “I don’t need saving. Especially from you.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Forest said, still grinning at me. “You could at least say thank you for saving your life. Again. For the second time. The second time, Elijah. Second.”
I pretended to think about it, saying thank you. “Hmm, no.”
“Okay,” he said, a scowl growing on his face. “But next time a zombie’s about to jump on you and eat your brains, I won’t shoot at it. Oh wait—“ he paused, a grin spreading across his face once again, “—I don’t think zombies will want to eat you anymore. Want to know why?”
“Sure . . . “
“They specialize in eating brains, but oops, you seem to be lacking a few brain cells, which just so happens to be their main course. I guess the two I saved you from had to settle for a side of Elijah. Don’t worry,” he said assumingly, “I’m sure that they’ll get to Kyle next time. At least he’s got a few brains. I bet they’ll find him absolutely delicious.”