"The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts." – Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
I never confronted Kyle about what happened with Annie, about how he shot her despite my promise to Forest. I never talked to him mainly because he decided to isolate himself and not talk unless he was giving out order or answering a question. Albeit, he only answered the questions concerning zombies and the necessities rather than his own actions or himself for that matter.
It was like it never really happened, except it did.
Forest didn’t talk about it either. He didn’t ask questions. It was like he forgot about Annie completely. Strangely enough, he also seemed okay with shooting zombies, if not with more vengeance than before Annie died. It was like he was getting back at the zombies, getting back at them for their zombie friend biting Annie, which resulted in her getting shot.
We’d been in Fred Meyer for a little over a week, and it was like we’d never met each other before. Another survivor could walk in at any given moment and think that we’d just arrived and haven’t had time to get to know each other yet.
The only person who dared to try and talk about what happened was me, and both Forest and Kyle would usually just brush it off as nothing. On occasion, I’d get a reply, but it would never be anything short of ‘whatever’.
Kyle constantly reminded us every single day that we needed to get out of Fred Meyer and get back on the road with a new car, but every time he would say that, Forest would respond and say, ‘whatever. Do what you gotta do’.
I could never tell if Kyle realized what Forest was referring to each and every time or if he even cared.
Eventually, I’d had enough of the silence, ignorance, and rudeness of them. “Alright, guys. Knock it out.” Kyle and Forest stopped doing whatever it was they were doing—separately, of course—and looked up at me with blank expressions on both of their faces. “The silence . . . ignoring each other . . . it’s gotta stop.”
No answer. Nothing. Nada.
“Seriously,” I said, begging beginning to seep into my voice. “All of this . . . no more. I’m growing sick and tired of it. We’ve known each other well over a month now, and we’re acting like we don’t know each other at all.”
Zero. Zip. Zilch.
“Re—“
I was cut off by Forest. “Maybe we don’t really know each other as much as you’d like to think we do.”
At first, I was excited that Forest decided to take a stand and speak, but once I’d heard what he said, my hopes and dreams were crushed yet again.
“Don’t think like that,” I snapped, pointing at him with my index finger. “We’re a group, okay? A team. We support each other. We take care of each other. We’re there for each other. You guys are acting like you’re an individual. Like you only support yourself. You only take care of yourself. You’re only there for yourself.” I took a deep breath. “But that’s not true. You’re not alone. Stop acting like it.”
Kyle scoffed. “We are alone in this, Elijah. Don’t you see?”
“You’re acting like Annie was the linchpin, which she wasn’t.”
“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.
“Hey,” I said softly, walking up to him. I laid my hand on his back, moving it on soothing motions. I was surprised that he didn’t jerk away. “It’s alright. It’s in the past. He didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” he said lowly. “But that still doesn’t account for him killing her.”
I sighed. “You’re really torn up about this, aren’t you?”
“How would you feel if Kyle got bit, and I shot him because he was a danger to us?”
My breath hitched. To be truthful, I wouldn’t be so happy about that. This whole survival thing was for Mom, Dad, and Kyle. That was the only reason I strived to stay alive. If Kyle died, then I wouldn’t have a reason anymore. Mom, Dad, and Kyle would be gone. My entire family would be gone.
“Honestly,” I told him, ceasing the movement in my hand and pulling away from Forest, “I’d shoot you back.”
He let out a humorless laugh and looked up at me. “See? That’s exactly my point. If you’d want to shoot me after I shot Kyle, shouldn’t I be allowed to shoot Kyle after her shot Annie? It only seems fair.”
I winced, knowing that he was right. “No, please don’t shoot Kyle. He’s my brother. He’s all I got left.”
“Yeah,” Forest spat bitterly, “and Annie was all I had left, but he took her from me.” Forest moved, and I thought that he was getting up to retrieve his gun and shoot Kyle, so I grabbed his arm and held on tight. He looked back at me. “What are you doing?”
I looked up at him, begging him silently. “Don’t shoot Kyle. Please.”
Forest sighed and sat back down. “I’m not going to shoot Kyle,” he assured me. “I just wanted to get some food.”
“Odd time to get food, if you ask me.”
“Look,” he said sternly, “I’m not going to shoot Kyle. Isn’t my word enough for you? It’s not like I’ve ever lied to you before, and it’s not like I’ve ever had any reason to lie to you before. So why would I lie now?”
I shrugged, finally letting go of his arm after I realized I hadn’t released him earlier.
“Exactly. So I’m not going to kill Kyle, alright? Just believe me. I won’t do it.” He then stood up and walked away, over to the pile of canned food we had stocked up. True to his word, he popped the lid of one of the cans with his knife and grabbed a spoon to eat it. He came back over next to me and sat down.
I saw that he had a can of pears, which was what he had been eating for the past week. He refused to eat anything other than pears, so we were lucky to have found enough cans to tide him off to that he didn’t starve to death.
The sound of Forest’s plastic spoon scraping against the metal of the can was all I could hear other than our steady breathing. It was nice, just sitting there with Forest, no zombies to disrupt.
“I’m sorry,” Forest said all of a sudden.
I turned my head toward him. “For what?”
He shrugged. “For everything, I guess. Being rude, telling you that Kyle should die, getting mad at you for Annie’s death, suggesting that I was going to shoot Kyle, being ungrateful—just about everything that I’ve done since we started this little trip or whatever you wanna call it.”
“So you’re sorry that you saved my life? Twice?”
Chuckling, Forest set the can with the spoon inside down onto the ground. “No, I’m not sorry about that. It’s good that you’re still alive.”
“You’re talking a lot more now.”
“Huh?”
“Before today, you kept to yourself a lot. Even before Annie . . . you know . . . you weren’t the outgoing one in the group. Sure, you asked a hell of a lot of questions, but that was about it. It’s not like you tried to make conversation a lot.”
Forest was silent momentarily before sighing deeply and answering. “This is eerily sounding like the conversation I had with you a little over a week ago, about you not letting your emotions show.”
“How?” I asked, remembering the question clear as day.
What’s your purpose?
I still hadn’t found my purpose, then again I didn’t really think about it much in between surviving and getting it through my companions’ heads that it wasn’t okay to blatantly ignore each other.
“You know,” he said. “It’s the same except this time you’re trying to figure me out, opposed to me trying to figure you out.”
I laughed. “Is that so?”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“No,” I said honestly. “Not really. Although I want you guys to take this seriously and all that and to get up off your asses and get a move on, I’m just not finding this particular situation or conversation serious one bit. We’re talking about a conversation that you had with me over a week ago. You’ve changed a lot in a week, and I’m pretty sure your views on what you said have too.”
Forest slowly nodded his head, comprehending my words. He looked away for a minute or so but promptly returned his gaze back to me. When he looked at me, it seemed as if he was inspecting every inch of my face, taking note of every little detail, committing it to memory. It was like he was reading my emotions and assessing each one individually.
To say the least, I felt exposed.
Suddenly, he spoke. “You know, I think you’re right. I’m different now. I’m taking this zombie apocalypse thing seriously. It’s not something that can be brushed off as a stupid video game come to life because it’s real. This is real, and it’s not going away until we make it go away.”
“Wha—“
Cutting me off, he abruptly stood up. “This whole situation isn’t a joking matter. In fact, it’s very, very serious. Kyle’s right. We need to get a car and get to that quarantine before it gets breached just like all the others. At least to enjoy peace while it lasts.”
But it’s peaceful here, I wanted to tell him, but he was already headed out the door where Kyle went only moments before.
Three hours after our not-so-deep conversation, we were back on the road. Kyle and Forest had packed up everything we needed—food, blankets, clothes, water, and all the other necessities that we could pack in the car—then drug me along, shoving me in the back seat.
That was right. The back seat.
Forest had hopped into the driver seat and Kyle into the passenger seat. Somewhere along the way, they had already rearranged the driving schedule, and I wasn’t included.
Kyle said that since it was midday and the zombies seemed to be hiding somewhere, it was safe to drive. I wasn’t going to count on his word so soon, but the minute we hit the road and I saw no zombies whatsoever, I couldn’t do anything other than believe him.
It was odd though. I was so used to seeing zombies every which way, and the no zombies thing was just plain weird. I was fairly happy though. Finally, I had some quiet in my life, and I didn’t have to worry about zombies ambushing the car every second of my waking life.
Our plan was to drive until we reached Missouri and then cross over into Indiana. We weren’t exactly sure where the quarantine was in Indiana, but we assumed that there would be someone who could point us in the right direction. Or a sign or something.
“Why does Forest get to drive?” I asked, not realizing how annoying my question was. “I always get to at least sit in the front seat, Ky. Always.”
Kyle turned around in his chair to look at me from over his seat. “Do you have a problem with Forest driving?”
“Actually, I do.”
Forest scoffed. “Get over it, sunshine. I’m older. Therefore I get to drive the car.”
Kyle laughed, and I ignored the both of them. It seemed as if over the three hours it took to get on the road, they bonded greatly and started teaming up on me. The last time I recalled, it was me who got them on speaking terms and me who gave us that little extra boost that got us back on the road again.
In retrospect, if it weren’t for me then we’d still we sitting in that dingy Fred Meyer ignoring each other and pretending that we didn’t exist.
“Eye spy with my little eye . . . “ I trailed off, leaning on my hand and looking other the window.
There wasn’t much outside, really. Just a couple bushes and a few dust patches like in those old western movies. There weren’t even cacti. We were past that state.
“We’re not playing that game,” Forest stated blandly from the front seat. Well, it was good to know that his bitter attitude still existed and wasn’t worn down after his sudden turn toward seriousness.
“And why not?”
“It’s for children.”
“So what? Eye spy with my little eye something green,” I said, not caring whether or not I was being annoying. They weren’t letting me drive, so I found it fair that I got to annoy them like Forest used to annoy Kyle and I. “C’mon guys,” I prompted. “Something green. What is it?”
“A bush,” Kyle replied.
I paused for a minute. “Which bush?”
“The only damned bush out there,” Forest said, obviously growing irritated. I opened my mouth to speak again, but Forest seemed to know what my plans were and he interrupted me by speaking again. “Stop it, Elijah. I know you’re being like this just to get in the front seat, and it’s not working. Just accept that we’re on a long drive, and you finally don’t get what you want. The sooner you get that through your head, the better.”
“Don’t be mean to my sister,” Kyle added in, not sounding angry with Forest one bit for being snappy with me.
“You’re right,” Forest grumbled. “I’m sorry, Elijah, for being right.”
I sighed, looking out the window again. “I’m just bored.”
Again, Forest apologized. For what? I didn’t know.