March 13, 2016
Month 5 Day 13; 7:00 a.m.
The irritating sound of my alarm sounded, driving me out of deep sleep. I shut it off and looked out my window. The world was intensely vibrant outside, blinding me. I took a deep breath and climbed down the ladder of my elevated bed. I stood at the bottom of the ladder and looked at my roommates. Ben, Lee, Auston David, and Garret.
None of them were moving. I sighed and grabbed my gear, putting on my pistol holster on my belt.
I looked back on the sleeping victims and laughed. I grabbed my trumpet from its case next to the door and held it at the ready. I took and a deep breath and blew it as hard as I could. The sound resonated throughout the room.
The effect was as if I had detonated a bomb. All five fell off theirs cots, onto the floor. Lee, Auston, David, and Garret fell onto the floor, Ben, somehow, landing on top of David.
"Good morning!" I said as I put the trumpet back in its case. My joke was met with many threats and many more moans of drowsiness, but unlike yesterday, nothing was thrown.
I stepped out into the hallway and journeyed to the kitchen. My mother and sister had prepared breakfast for the clan of people we were.
Twenty minutes later, the rest of the guys poured out of my room. They looked like a train wreck. I held back a laugh, as did all the girls. I took a seat across from Hailey, as the guys filed into the kitchen.
My father sat at the head of the table and looked over everyone else. He bowed his head and said "Grace" for the food. Afterwards, we dug in.
While I ate the meal I thought about the others. Jeffery had led a group to Texas to find Autumn's family. Noah, Mr. Tyson, Morgan, Randy, Joshua, and Jeffrey's wife, Pam, had joined him on his quest. I hoped they were okay. I was thankful for my father, uncle, and aunt returning safely from their trip, though. They hadn't found my grandparents, though. It had torn a hole in their hearts, but they each hid it well.
We had fortified the fence last week after an attack, Nathan was getting to be a better mechanic, and we had two survivors show up in the past two weeks alone. Reese and Austin.
Reese was Scarlet's boyfriend so they had spent a lot of time catching up, but Austin had been a lone survivor who had had to kill his family after they had turned. He was devastated over it, but not too much that he couldn't still fight. Still, we never brought up that subject, for his sake.
We had also set up Wal-Mart as an outpost. It would serve as a drop back point and offsite storage. Autumn headed up that operation. A.J. was her second in command; Nathan, the mechanic; Scarlet, the medic; and Luke, Seth, Bailey, the taller Jake, Rachel, and Ciara were all fighters.
After breakfast, we had training. My father had set up a workout routine for everyone. He thought that the stronger we were the better warriors that we could be. A.J. and Luke hadn't put up fight because in football, they both had to do this almost year-round. The rest of us hadn't taken to it lightly.
Now, though, I kind of liked it. It was a planned event. Some structure in the middle of the end of humanity.
I grabbed a dumbbell and started with a set of curls. I didn't pay attention to how big or heavy they were, nor did I pay attention to how tired my muscles were from yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and so on...
After the workout, though, my father dictated that we would have a search party look for more supplies. I didn't like when he gave orders, but I was happy to get out of the house. I thought that I was going to go stir crazy from being cooped up in there for so long.
My grandfather was to be in charge. The rest of the team consisted of: Hailey; the pastor's son, Jake; William, Autumn's little brother; Merry, my sister; Kelsi; and myself.
I gathered my things and boarded the bus at about a quarter to eight. My grandfather assigned each of us a partner. (The older kids were supposed to teach the younger ones how to fight and support them as best as we could.)
Hailey was to teach William, Kelsi was to teach Merry, and I was to teach Jake. I questioned whether or not we should do this but my father saw it necessary for them to grow up and learn to fight. I, being his son, had to obey his wishes and follow his instructions, whether I liked it or not.
"Two minutes," I heard my grandfather yell.
I turned back and saw Jake stuffing cans of food into his day bag at the foot of the stairs. I walked off the bus and walked over to him and reasoned with him that he didn't need all this supplies. I helped him pack his bag with the correct gear just as my grandfather was loading the rest of the gear off the bus.
Jake and I ran for the bus and made it just before my grandpa closed the door. We were off on a grand adventure, or, at least, off the premises.