The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 3: Hide (Sasha POV)

I sat there, just sitting in my house. I was just reading stories... All the stories I had, I had already read all of them. I read them again anyways, I was bored, I was tired. I had been getting plenty of sleep, I was not working, nor did I think I would ever again.
I didn't blame Ben, in fact I had thought that it was a pretty good time, that we had together. But, I just didn't know if it was for him. I was scared to talk to him after that... I mean, for good reason, me and him had sex.
I shivered, and poor Liam, he had no idea what was going on. The poor little dude had probably never heard of sex in his life. Well... Maybe he had, he did read lots of stories, very much like me. I would not be surprised, if in one of those stories he might have found out about it.
I hadn't gone back to work every since then, I was too scared... I knew that Ben would not have told Liam. But for some reason I just did not want to have anything to do with Ben at all. I felt bad for the guy, I had asked people that knew him if he was doing okay.
They asked who I was, I always just told them all the same thing... "I just used to be one of his friends." They didn't ask any questions. But much like me, they had no idea how he was, or what he was doing at all. I didn't want to ask his sister, she probably knew what had happened already.
Besides, now that I had been ignoring him for a little while, we had only been talking for a few days anyways. He had probably already gotten over it at this point. I looked at the book sadly, where even was I on the page?
I shook my head and just through the book down, I didn't even look at what page I was on. I didn't even care if I was going to be completely honest, my mind was in a whole different world right now. I didn't know what to do, I didn't really have many friends.
Well, I did have one... But I had not talked to her in a long time, we had gotten in a little bit of a fight, and now we had not talked to each other ever since that day. It was both of our faults, I couldn't blame either one of us.
Ashley... I wanted to go see her, I just wasn't sure if I could really bring myself to it. We had not talked in a couple of months... Even I knew that friends were hard to come by now in the world that we were living in.
You never know when a heard can knock down the walls like they did several years ago, right on my 13th birthday... I found my dad and my brothers dead bodies, well not really dead...
They had been torn apart, but they were still slightly moving around, I felt sick to my stomach when I had seen it. I was crying, just sitting there, they were all that I had left... Someone found me, I had been sitting there for a few days.
I also happened to find I knew way to hide from the dead. It was a bit disgusting, and the reasoning behind it was probably not the best... But at least I had somewhat helped the community. I always wanted to be one of those people that went above and beyond, I always wanted to go past to walls and the gates.
But when the day came, no one offered me a job, besides Ashley, she was 16 at the time, technically you were supposed to be 18. There were not many people there though, no one really complained about it at all.
Now I was not talking to her, she lived in a completely different region, I wanted to go see her. I just couldn't I was always so scared, I just wanted to talk to her, she always gave me good advice. I looked at the book sadly for a few more moments...
Or I could just keep reading and completely drown out all of the thoughts that I was having. It was like a different part of my brain that said that to me, I wanted to listen to it, it seemed like a smarter decision.
It was weird to people, how I could be so shy, but also be so good looking at the same time. At least that's what Ashley always told me. But if I really was good looking, then how come men never went after me?
Ben didn't ever go after me, I just went after him first. He was so cool, and Liam, he was so fun. The whole family, I just wish I could have been a part of it, but now it was too late. They probably all hated me, and if they didn't they were probably thinking I was just ignoring them.
Ashley, I needed to go talk to her... Yes, that is what I was thinking about. I sat there for a few moments, my mind was trying to tell me not to, but I knew that I needed to do it. I picked myself up off of my little, I looked at it sadly, me and my brother used to hang out in there.
In between times of doing their missions, my father was a warrior, and my brother was a wanderer... They always worked together though, and my father was the one that had trained him. What he did was a bit like Ben's trainer, Christian did. Just not to the scale of what Ben was doing.
I was proud of Ben, he was doing a great job... But me, talking to him, and at least trying... I was not doing a great job in that aspect. I looked at the small coffee table sadly, my book my sitting on it, I thought about reading it once again, but I knew I had to at least try and go talk to my friend Ashley.
Maybe I could try to get her dad to teach me how to be a scavenger while I was there. I always wanted to be doing something useful to the community... I knew that I had the strength, both mentally and physically to be doing a job like that.
Her father used to be a trader, back when the other community existed, no one knows what happened to them, lots of theories, but I was just happy to hear the one that Shannon had said, because I did not want to think about there being an evil community out there somewhere.
Maybe he could teach me something, I had always asked to learn somethings, he was a scavenger now, much like Ben's sister Angela... Maybe not as good as her, I had heard from many people that Angela was the best at anything that she did.
Ashley's dad was still a good scavenger though. As far as I had heard, and it would not be the first time that someone had wanted to change their role. It usually was an important role being changed to a less important one, but I would love to be the first.
I sat there for a few more moments, then I decided to make my decision. I was going to go talk to Ashley, and her father... If her father was there of course, sometimes he would go on large missions, but over the last 2 or 3 years he usually was just chilling at their place.
I got up from where I was sitting on my sofa. I was hungry though, I needed to go get something to eat first I had not eaten today. I tried eating when I had first woken up this morning. But when I did, I noticed that the cereal was extremely crusty.
After that, I just decided that I was not hungry. I knew that I could have eaten something different, but I just decided not to. I had eggs in there, I could have eaten that... I decided that I would just eat a really late breakfast, I looked at the clock to see what time it was.
It was around 1 pm right now. I had just been sitting here all morning just reading stories. It was my way of escaping everything that was going on with me... I didn't really have much going on with me though, maybe that was the problem...
I shook it off, then I opened the cartain of eggs. Trying to see if they were still okay to eat, I had them for almost a week now. I sniffed them, they still seemed alright. I then put one on a pan that I grabbed from under the oven.
I slowly began cooking 3 eggs, while the whole time I was cooking them I was thinking of what to say to Ashley, to be truthful, I did not really know what to say to her quite yet. Maybe the best thing to do was just say a sorry, but maybe that would be too weak.
I sat there, I stopped thinking and just finished making the eggs that I had cooking on the stove. Once they were done, I picked them up and then I put them on a plate. Yummy... Eggs, it was one of my most favorite things to eat. People thought it was weird, it often gave me the runs as well, but they were just so delicious to me.
I was so happy that the community had chickens to lay eggs for us. Life would be a lot different without having eggs to eat every day, that was for sure. I stopped thinking and just began devouring the eggs that I had made for myself.
The cartain of eggs, only had 2 left, I would have to eat those 1 day at a time... You were only allowed to go to the market once a week, and there was only so much you could take back with you, including just one cartain of eggs.
But if I played it smart, and I ate 1 per day over the next 2 days... Then the 3rd day I would be able to go to the market and go and gets some more eggs. I sat there smiling to myself, as I ate the last bit of the 3rd egg.
Once I was done, I wiped myself with a napkin, just to make sure I did not have anything on me, I didn't want to look in bad shape when I went to go see Ashley. Mentally I was already in bad shape, and I had been for years...
I wasn't the only one in the community like that though, I knew that it was one thing for sure. Ever since the virus had begun, everyone mental issues had begun to spring from simply out of the blue. It wasn't like we were all just faking it either.
People could not handle what the world had come to, and me personally, neither could I really... I hated living in this world. I wish I could just have it all back, when I was 7... The walks with my mother, and my older brother. I loved those... They were gone now, it was best not to worry about it.
That's what everyone always told me to do, but I could not ever removed those thoughts from my mind, of the times before now. I loved my mother so much, and so did my father. Now they were both gone... Both torn apart by the dead.
No matter how much people told me not to think about it, or not too worry about it. I always still managed to. I'm sure that they did to, they were just trying to make themselves look stronger than everyone else around them.
My brother would always tell me the exact same thing too, he would always tell me not too think to much on it. Then I would hear him in the other room, just crying all night long. I could not blame him... There was simply no reason to make fun of him for that.
He was not the only one that had gone through it, my father did and so did I. But I pretending at least to be stronger than the both of them. My father always told me, I was the only thing holding the family up. He wasn't wrong, without me, I had no idea where the would be at.
Maybe without me though... They would still be alive. After all, I was the reason they had died. They had run out of their way to make sure that I was okay first. I knew that they were supposed to be at a meeting with Bens mother and father.
After they had heard the dead, they had gone to run over to our place to make sure that I was okay. To make sure that they could come and save me. If I would have just told them that I was going to just do a walk around the community that day...
That morning though, they were too worried about what the meeting could be about. So I brushed it off and then I just walked out the front door and began my walk... It was not much more than an hour later that everything went down.
Luckily I happened to be on the other side of the community where the wall had been taken out, or unluckily I always thought to myself. I wish that I had died with them that day. I would be up in heaven with them... With my mother too.
Now I was stuck here, they were probably looking at me in great disappointment... I could not blame them, I was a failure to our families name.
I sat there for a few moments, still thinking about all of it... It wasn't the first time... It always just seemed to push me into a different topic each time. Never a good topic either. I looked at the clock to see what the time was... 1:45... Luckily I had not wasted too much time. Normally Ashley went to work around 4 on these days.
Hopefully her schedule had not changed... It never had, so I should not be that worried about it. I got off of the chair at the table, I then walked over to the sink to wash my dish off, my father had always made sure to make that a good habit to get into every time I finished eating.
I turned on the faucet, but the cold water for some reason did not want to work. I shook my head, not really all the worried about it, as I then went ahead and tried to turn on the hot water. That did not work either though.
I went under the sink to try and see if something was messed up, or maybe a rat had gone in and managed to bust a pipe under the sink... It happened a couple years ago... But there weren't any rats in my house anymore.
I looked at the sink, there was nothing broken at all. I looked a little closer just to make sure. Sure enough, it was all fine... It must just be a problem with an underground pipe, or just the water system. I shook my head, I then picked myself back up to my feet.
Oh well... They should have it back on later, if not I would have to go talk to Shannon or one of her main people that were a part of her group. I left the dish there, the whole reason for me getting up in the first place was too go see my old friend Ashley.
I nodded to myself, I then walked over to the front door of my place. Once I was there, I slowly opened it... I still was not all that sure if I wanted to do this. I shook my head anyways... I needed to do this, Ashley was always a close friend to me, it was sad to me that we had fallen apart.
I opened the door and then walked out, I didn't really care to lock it, if someone wanted to come in and steal some stuff, all they really would have was a couple of books, and that was about it besides that. I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to do that in the middle of the day anyways.
I began walking to Ashley's... At first it was a bit of a slow walk. But then I began moving a bit faster and faster... I had not seen anyone in the streets... I mean it was around the time of the day most people were working, but you would think you would see at least one person right?
Ashley was about 30 minutes away if I walked, I began walking faster though, almost to the point of a jog. I don't know why, but something just did not feel right to me. As soon as I said it, I heard a loud gunshot.
That was strange to me... Had one of the wall guards forgotten to use a silencer? That seemed a bit dumb to me, now the dead from miles out would all be coming to our community. I shook my head and just kept on walking.
I heard a couple more gunshots... This time I knew that something was up, this was not normal at all... Sure, maybe for some reason 1 wall guard might have forgotten to put a silencer on their rifle. But it just did not really make much sense that the rest of them would too.
Now I was beginning to jog even faster, almost to a point that I was running. I was already over halfway to Ashley's place, there was no going back now... But something just was not right in the air.
After a few moments of silence I managed to get to Ashley's place. I knocked on the door to see if anyone was there. For a few moments no one responded, I hoped Ashley was okay... What was going on? It sounded like it was happening outside the walls...
Was this the day that everyone had been so worried about? I had heard that we might be getting attacked, but I thought those were all just conspiracies. I shivered and then I finally heard Ashley's voice yell something inside the house.
"Who's there? What's going on?" Ashley said. I sat there for a few seconds, my mind wanted to say something, but my voice was telling it something completely different. Finally I managed to catch my breath and spit out a few words... Probably not the words that I wanted to say.
"Ashley! It's me! I just wanted to check on you... But I think that something bad is going on out here." I yelled back to her. For a few moments there was nothing but silence. For a few moments I thought that she was not going to let me in, then I would have to run back to my place, but then she finally responded.
"Who's me? What do you want? What is going on out there?" She said to me... So many questions, but I think she already knew the answer to at least the first 2... Surely she had not just managed to completely forget that I had even existed.
I knew that much like me, she and I were are only friends. After a few moments of me not talking I heard her scurry over to the front door and then open it. She looked at me a bit confused and a bit surprised at the same time.
For a few moments, none of us said a thing. We were just sitting there not doing anything, but after us just sitting there for so long, I went over and gabe her a nice little hug. She accepted to hug and did not fight back at all.
"I've missed you Ashley, I just wanted to say I'm sorry... I did not mean anything that I said. I hope that we can at least manage to become friends again..." I said to her. She looked at me for a few moments, I could not tell the emotion on her face, but after a few moments she managed to put out a little smile.
"I've missed you too Sasha... Come in, I don't know what is going on. You can hide in here with me, I have an attic." She said to me. I looked at her for a few moments, I then smiled. It probably was not the best circumstances to be smiling right now, but I still managed to crack one out.
I had forgotten that she had an attic, we had been in there once. The place was made before all of the apocalypse had gone down. They had left some board games and several other things sitting in the attic.
Me and Ashley always used to sneak up there, we used to play the games and just talk about whatever it was we needed to get off of our chest up there. Her father never liked us being up there, but he eventually got used to it and got over it.
"Do you know what is going on out there? Why is there so many gunshots?" I asked her. She looked at me as if she had no idea why either. "I mean since your dad was a scavenger I might have thought it was something to do with that."
She looked at me a bit confused, which told me she did not really know what was going on, but then she had a bit of a scared look on her face. She nodded for me to go ahead and go past her and go into the house. I nodded back to her and then went ahead and walked in.
"No... I don't know what it is... I think we are getting attacked. My father was worried about it." She said to me. I looked at her for a few moments, all of my worst fears had come to a reality. I choked on some spit and then nodded to her, I was accepting the fact that it was what I thought it was now.
"Oh... Well... Lets get inside then." I said back to her. She looked at me for a few moments, I could tell she was still not ready to accept my apology, but she eventually nodded and began walking in.
Suddenly there was a gunshot nearby and she spun around wondering what it was. She looked a bit scared and she turned back to me... She said something to me real quick... But those were her last words... Her head snapped towards me and her brain and blood all from it splashed on my face.
"Sasha! They're here! We need to hide!"