Night Disease

Chapter 6

"Read chapter 3 and review the plants from chapters 1 and 2 tonight please," Mr. Jones says dismissing the class.

Quickly putting my books in my bag I hop out of my seat making my way to the door. "Hey, your Kaindra right the kid who got to skip a year?" A woman asks.

"Oh Yea I am and you are?" I ask turning to her with a friendly smile.

"My name is Diana I am one of your group mates," Diana says sticking out her hand for a handshake.

I take to get a hand in a friendly shake "pleaser to meet you Diana can't wait to work with you" I say giving her another smile.

"You don't have to be so formal it is the apocalypse after all," she says smiling kindly. Taking a good look at her I notice she is around her mid twenty's with shoulder-length dark brown hair and blue eyes. Sensing I can get along with her very well I keep up the friendly conversation.

"Would you like to walk with me to the mess hall?" I ask.

"Sure," she says, we turn down the hall and begin the walk to the mess hall. She starts up the conversation "so where are you from originally?"

"I am from a small area out of Winnipeg, what about yourself?" I ask as we continue our lesser walk.

"I am from Edmonton but came to Brandon for a family get-together before the whole you know zombies came and then came here after hearing the broadcast," she says a far-away look in her eyes.

"Is your family alright?" I ask.

"No, I lost them in the crowd of people and haven't seen them since, I came here with my friends. What about you how's your family?" She asks looking at me sadly.

"Don't know I was in school doing an exam when the zombies came, we barricaded the doors before they could get in and left when the coast was clear we heard the broadcast and came here I'm here with my friends," I say remembering the deaths of the people waiting to leave or do their exams.

"Oh, my gosh that must have been horrible," she says as we stop she touches my shoulder confronting me. "I can't believe you had to go through that" I look over at her smiling sadly.

"I'm not the only one and others went through worse than me all that matters is we're here now and safe," I say putting my hand on her shoulder. She smiles and we continue to walk to the mess hall exchanging small talk now and then.

We exchange quick goodbyes and head our separate ways once we enter the mess hall. Taking a quick look around I decided to head over to the buffet line and grab my food. Turning around I spot some other people in my group and head in their direction.

"Mind if I sit here?" I asked walking up to them.

"Not at all, please take a seat," a guy on my left says motioning to the seat across from him.

"Thank you," I say placing my food on the table and sliding into the seat. "You're in our forager team, right?"

"Ya, I thought I recognize you, the names Jacob by the way," the man from before says outstretching a hand.

I smile at him shaking his hand "Kaindra."

"Nice to meet you Kaindra this is Dustin," he says returning the smile. I wave to the man he pointed to giving him a friendly smile. "That's Jean then Carol, Catty, and Kate their twins." I smile all of them looking at them every time Jacob pointed to them.

"Nice to meet you," I say. We go into a friendly conversation flipping between topics, before the Apocalypse and ourselves slowly getting to know one another.

We laugh at a joke Dustin makes whipping tears from our eyes. "Oh man I can tell we'll get along just fine," Catty says.

"Me too, well this has been fun but I have a safety and medical class next so I will see you guys later," I say getting out of my chair after waving goodbye.

"Bye," they say. I smile and head out the door happy to have found some people in my group I get along with.

"Remember to read over and recite the work to keep it in your mind you never know when you might need it" giving the teacher a small mid I head out to my next training group. Today has been exciting, finally getting to focus solely on plants and foraging skills is a breath of fresh air that is long overdue.

Walking down the hall with a slight skip in my step I bounce into the next class. I smile as I head over to Jordan and the gang smiling kindly at Diana as I pass. "You look happy what happened in the small time since lunch?" Jordan asks as I take a seat.

"Nothing just happy to not be in school, I know it's bad and all but the apocalypse has been kind of like a little break from everything happening before," I say honestly.

"Makes sense, life is simpler now with not having to worry about work or school. Thinking about it, it has been a little refreshing to not have to think about any of that." He says leaning into his hand.

Opening my mouth to speak I get interrupted by our group leader. "Okay guys today we are going over zombie evasion and what to do in different situations you might find yourself in." He quickly splits us into groups to review our last zombie evasion class.

"Okay, who wants to be the first zombie," Kate asks clapping her hands to get everyone's attention. A person who I think the name was Dylan raises his hand. Spreading out across the large room we all slowly begin to go through what we learned last class.

Our group leader heads over to our group observing our practice and shouting out corrections now and then. "Great work you guys seem to have remembered most of the techniques great work." We smile proudly at his praise and continue our work switching the zombie every few minutes to give everyone a turn.

After about ten minutes our group leader Kevin calls the class back to their seats. "Now let's move into some more advanced maneuvers that can help get you out of some sticky spots or lose a zombie more effectively." He goes on about when to use specific things how to use them and what to think about, slowly moving to demonstrate the technic.

They turn out to be more simple than I thought, the hardest part about them is knowing when to use them. This might be easier to learn after all.