The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 11: What The Hell?!

I looked at the person that had said my name, I did not recognize the person at all. That was also due to the fact that it was just so dark in the room, it was extremely hard for me to see anything none the less.
I looked at the guy for a few moments, the way the guy had said my name it seemed as if he was embarrassed about something. I got up, I did not have time for all of this non sense. I really had to go and look for my brother at this point.
The guy grabbed on to my arm, not in an attacking fashion at all. It did annoy me for a bit as I pushed the guy off of me. He was much bigger than me, so I knew that it would do no such luck, not only that, but it was also probably a bit stupid to pick a fight with a big guy in a closed in area like this one.
"Get off of me, I have to go... If you don't want help, I can't give it you. Your so damn negative, keep thinking like that and your sister is dead. I have to go find my own brother, you aren't the only person here that lost someone." I said to the guy. The guy just stared down at the ground in silence.
I shook my head, and then I began walking out of the bathroom, picking my little grocery bag that I had left at the front. Just before I left through the exit, I head the guy say one last thing to me. I then recognized who the guy was.
"Ben... I am sorry for being a dick to you for so long, I hope you can forgive me for that, even if I don't deserve to be forgiven." He said to me. I turned my head back to the guy, and then blinked a couple of times to make sure it was the guy that I was thinking about.
It was so dim and dark in the room it was too hard to see exactly who it was, but the way he was talking, I was pretty sure I knew who the guy was. He was a lot bigger than I remembered, that was for sure. I stared at the guy for a few moments, I wondered if I should say anything, or just leave.
I closed my eyes for a few moments, and then reopened them, now I could see his face a bit more clearly. Yes, that is who I thought it was, he still had a bit of a baby face, if you subtract the beard from it. He was one of Jordan's closest friends, I hated the guy quite a lot.
I was tempted to just say nothing back to him, now that I saw who it was. His apology seemed actually genuine, much like Phillips was. I knew Phillips apology was for sure though, but the way he was talking, it seemed like he had grown up quite a lot.
Maybe not, in different areas, I thought to myself as I looked at the piss on the floor and still in his pants. I could tell that he was embarrassed about it. I looked away from it, and then just kept staring at him in his face, trying to gage what exactly he was thinking.
He was still just staring down at the ground, I could tell that he was a bit embarrassed at the same time. I figured I should try to teach him something, it was something that he clearly needed to be taught.
"Chester... If you are really sorry, prove it right now... Stand your ass up, and come with me. Fucking help me, I don't know how far I can make it on my own." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments, then he stared at the walls behind me.
It looked like he was about to piss himself once again. I knew the exact thoughts that were going through his mind, almost to a tee. He was afraid of going out there, he did not know all that had gone on. I knew that he was scared, he did not know what to do.
Eventually he looked back at me, looking me dead in the eyes for the first time since we had started talking to each other, and then he nodded to me. After a few more moments, he eventually lifted himself up. I nodded back to him, I now knew that he was serious about his apology.
"You are right... I am a warrior, I am supposed to be strong... I was a coward, let's keep going, where are we headed off to?" He asked me. I looked at him for a few moments, trying to remember what I was doing, until I heard the footsteps in the bathroom.
I then nodded for him, waiting for him to follow me to the exit of the bathroom. Once he was nearly over, I thought that he might run at me seeing how big he was. But I realized how stupid I was for even thinking a thought such as that.
He made fun of me, he didn't attack me, sometimes he might punch my arm just to piss me off from time to time, or get his other friends to laugh at him, but he never actually tried to fight me. I was not sure why I thought he was about to do it, maybe it was just because of how big he was, and all of the dreams that I had been having lately.
"We are going to my place, I am going to need to get some food. After that, I am going to my god mothers, I have to see if my brother is alive, or if they took him like they took the rest of the kids." I said to him. He looked at me for a few moments, he was a bit confused and a bit surprised at the same time.
He did not ask any questions thankfully, he just nodded and then we walked out of the bathroom together. I walked out, expecting there to be dead everywhere like I had been seeing all of the time lately, but I suppose that I had forgot that we were in the store, they could not get in, and even if they could we were in the crop area of the community.
"Do you want me to carry some food for you?" He asked me. I looked at him for a few moments, I thought about saying know, to leave some for the others, but I had forgotten that we had lost over half of the others, so it would not matter all that much in the end.
I nodded to him, and then he began to head off on his own to a different section of the store. I watched him go, expecting him to do something stupid, kind of like he used to always do, back when we were younger, and we were kids, but I could tell he had grown up, we all had...
I realized where he was walking to however, right towards the meat section. If he opened the freezer, all of the cold air that was left would disappear and it would not matter anyways, because the stoves and the freezer at my place would be shut down as well.
"Chester!!! Don't get frozen stuff... It needs to stay cold here, the power is out all around the community." I yelled to him, to stop him, thanking myself at the same time, that I had actually been watching him. I could only imagine him opening up all of the freezers and walking back with a shopping cart.
That would ruin all of the cold food, sometimes I forgot how dumb Chester could be, he definitely was not the smartest out of all of Jordan's friends. I watched as he began walking down a different isle, I just figured I would wait for him, I had basically gotten all that I needed that should last us a few days.
He would just be getting extra to provide for himself, I suppose he did not plan on going to his actual place any time soon clearly. I did not complain about it, even though I never did like Chester all that much, if I lost my brother I would need someone to be with, besides Christian who would just tell me some dumb shit.
I sat down at one of the registers on one of the chairs that they had, the grocery stores were often not that busy. It was definitely one of the easier jobs to have around the community, that was one thing that I knew for sure. It was all the guys dream job if theirs was not to go outside the walls.
I looked down at the register, and then I looked at the papers that they had written for all the recent names. I saw my sister higher at the top, from a few days ago. There should be plenty of food left in there clearly, but it did not hurt to add a little more.
No one would be coming to the grocery stores any time soon I doubt, so most of the food would go bad soon. I turned my head around, as I heard Chester's loud footsteps coming my way. I was surprised no one had taught him how to quiet his footsteps.
I would hate to be the guy to have him as my warrior companion on a mission, it did take a fair amount of time as well to teach someone how to walk around like that. The footsteps seemed louder to me since I was so used to being around quiet footsteps all of the time.
Even Sasha had semi quiet footsteps, but it seemed like a lot of women were almost born with that ability. I got up from the chair that I was sitting on and nodded to Chester, I did not say anything about the choices of food that he had made, clearly a lot of him being big was not all muscle to say the least.
Once I figured that we were good to go, I picked my bag up from off of the counter. Then we headed off to the front of the store, I wondered if the community would ever be the same, we had lost half of our people, maybe even more none the less.
Would things ever be the same? Would people be okay with them coming in and taking half of our shit every 6 months? I was not sure about it, I figured there might be a lot of conflict, we might have just gone through the easier part of all of this.
Hell... What was I talking about, it could not get much worse than losing over a thousand of our people, I am pretty sure this was a lot worse than the day the walls had been struck down by the storm. I closed my eyes for a few moments, I heard the door open but I just kept them closed.
I heard Chester cough to get my attention, I opened my eyes to see him just standing at the door, waiting for me to follow him, as if he knew where I lived at. Maybe he did, but I stopped talking to all of those friends around the time that my mother had die, we moved into a new place, he could have spotted my sister around the area few times, I was not out much.
I began walking to him, he looked at me for me to take the lead over him, which told me he did not know where I lived. I nodded to him, and then I began walking across the opposite section through the fields to where we had come in the first place. It was not the big of a split in between the sections of the community, we were about half a mile from my house right now.
Just as we were about to get towards the end of the crops, I crouched down and put my hand to stop Chester as well. I looked around for a few moments, I did not see as many of the dead as I had the first day, so that was good, they were probably slowly being taken out by people in the community.
I then turned my head back over to Chester, he was looking at me, as if I was the leader. Which to be fair, in this situation, I suppose I kind of was, I just was not used to it. At some point I did need to get used to it, it was like Christian always said, after he was done for me I was one of the big boys in the community.
"Chester, you got your gun on you? Make sure you have a silencer, otherwise don't shoot anything, or we will have a massive heard coming our way, like earlier." I said to him. He looked at me a bit confused for a few moments, I had forgotten that he had not be there to witness the mayhem earlier.
Eventually he nodded to me, understanding what I had meant. Then just as I was about to get up, he began talking and I turned my head back over to him to catch what he was about to say.
"I don't have a gun on me right now, it was supposed to be a day off... I grabbed a knife from the grocery store, it should be-" he began saying, but I cut him off putting my finger to my lips to get him to be quiet. He instantly noticed why...
I heard footsteps coming through the crops right beside us, I pulled out my knife, I could not tell the exact direction it was coming from because of all the corn it was brushing through, but I could tell that it was coming from the right side of us.
Both me and Chester both pulled out his knife, I looked at his knife, it was not practical at all. It looked almost more of a kitchen knife, but if it came to it, Im sure he had been out of the walls long enough to know how to finish off one of the dead.
I was too busy looking at his knife, to notice that the dead that had been going through the crops for some weird reason, was right up on me now. I fell to the ground as it tackled my down, Chester looked a bit surprised that I had not seen it coming.
He was a bit slow to make a move to try and help me do to that fact, and it was partially my own fault for not paying attention. Christian had always told me to listen to the footsteps, and never turn my back on them. He was right, and because of me not listening, it may very well be the downfall of me.
The dead tried biting into the hole in my shirt that I had forgotten that I had even had earlier. That was another problem that I really should not be thinking about right now. I pushed the dead off as much as I can, giving just enough time for Chester to finally react and come save me.
The dead tried biting into me a few times, but I had my arms held to its neck, so it could not get close enough to my body to even try and get a bite on me. Chester stabbed it in the head, and its body grew limp and I easily pushed it off of me, shivering a little bit at the same time.
"Thanks man, I should be a goner for sure, I need to pay more attention to shit like that." I said to him. He looked at me a for a few seconds, looking at the cut on my shirt, but then he looked away, clearly not thinking to deep on it.
Now that I had noticed that he had seen it, I was beginning to grow a bit more worried about it, but I figured I probably shouldn't be, it usually took a few days for me to turn into one of the dead, but certain parts of my body should be shutting down right now if I had been bitten, I am sure I was okay.
I figured I might as well not tell anyone about it, they would freak out if they knew something about it, or they might kill me for all I know. I looked back at Chester who was looking at the road that was in front of us, and the houses that were on the left and right sides of the path to the road.
"I think we should go ahead and go, before it's too late... If you want to go and see your brother before it's dark at least... We have maybe 5 or 6 hours of daylight left I'd say..." He said to me. I looked at him and then nodded, I suppose I was not paying attention how long I had been in the store.
It was noon when I had left Kim's house earlier, I must have been in the store for at least an hour. I suppose it would make sense as to how, now that I thought a little bit deeper into it. I had been getting food for when I went back over to my house.
Then after that, I had found Chester in the bathroom, and I had talked to him for a fair amount of time. Then he had gone to get his own food once we were out of there. I closed my eyes, trying not to have my mind on that, and then I reopened them.
Chester was looking at me, he could tell that something was up with me, maybe I had slept in too much, or maybe I had not caught up enough on sleep. Either way, it was now or never that I needed to go and find my brother. I could not waste another day.
"Let's go... I'll take the lead, you stay behind, if anything sneaks up on me, you tell me, and we will kill them." I said to him. He looked at me for a few more moments, and then he nodded to me. I nodded back to him, and then I took the first steps down the gravel path that led to the main road.
I heard his loud footsteps behind me, but I should not worry to much about it, we were less than 10 minutes from my place as long as it all went according to plan. He would take care of any of the dead if he was loud enough for them to hear him.
I figured I would try to teach him how to not walk so loud, when I found my brother and had the time while we were just sitting in the house, waiting for Shannon's people, that were left at least, to come by and notify that we were free to come out and that there was going to be a community meeting.
Once we were on the main road, I saw a couple of the dead around, but none of them were close enough to hear Chester's insanely loud footsteps thankfully. I kept on walking, my footsteps much more quiet than his, though he did not seem to notice.
I did not feel like saying anything in this instance, he did not know how to fix that, and telling him about it would only slow us down. I just kept on walking, now seeing my place not too far away in the distance.
But I heard Chester's footsteps stop, I waited for him to tell me that one of the dead was near us. But he just stayed silent, I didn't dare turn around, I feared that someone had taken him out, it was the worst possibility, which I doubted it to be true, Shannon had said they had all left.
I shivered, and then I turned around, I could hear heavy breathing, almost as if someone was breathing right in my face. I rolled forward and then pulled my gun out and spun around. But all I saw was Chester, he was all alone, and he payed no attention to what I had just done.
"Um Ben... What happened here?" He said to me. I looked at him a bit confused for a few moments. He was staring at something on the other side of the road, right near the walls. I turned my head to look over at what it was, but there was a house in the way so I could not see.
I moved a bit closer to Chester to see if I might be able to sneak a peek at what it was. Once I got over to him, I saw what it was right away, and I felt sick. I wanted to vomit, in fact I felt like I was about to. It was absolutely disgusting what we were looking at, somehow I managed to put what I saw into a few short words.
"What the hell?!"