Third Entry: Chickenshit

June 21

I found Wally in the food court later on. He was eating by himself, which is unusual since getting a table alone is unheard of now. I don’t think it was his choice though; I had been hearing rumors during the afternoon that Sara had been bit, and that the others may be infected too. I know this was a load of crap, since I had seen them return and all, but that’s just how rumors work.

“Can I sit here?” I asked Wally.

“Are you sure you want to? I might try to eat you.” So he had heard the rumors too.

“I’ll take my chances.” I said.

“I’m sorry about Sharon.” He said, staring into his bowl of canned chili.

A terrible pain stabbed in my chest at that, “So she’s….” I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t say the words. I cannot even write them.

“I really don’t know. We were going to check out the Tyranno Mart over on Utopia, but before we got there we ran into trouble.” He took a sip of coffee from his cup.

“Zeds?” I asked.

“No, bikers, of all things. They didn’t even threaten us, they just started shooting. We split up in an attempt to lose them. Mitch and Sara climbed into the back and started shooting at them. I saw a couple go down in the mirror, but that’s when Sara got shot.”

“You lost them though, right?”

“Yeah, and we ended up hiding out in a self storage locker for two days. We kept hearing their bikes go past. I don’t know if they were actively looking for us, or what. We decided to make a go for it this morning because Sara needed help. If we didn’t get her help today, then she would have been beyond our help.”

Wally went on to explain to me how they were too afraid that the bikers might be listening to try and radio to the other cars to find out if they were still around. They did keep the radio turned on until the batteries died though, and never heard anything.

I decided then that Sharon had been right about one thing. Guarding the roof was a bit chickenshit. If I really wanted to make a difference, and if I really wanted to findn out what happened to Sharon I had only had two choices. I could leave Mallville, which would be suicide as I see it, or I could join the scavengers.

So this afternoon I went to see about signing up with the scavengers. I didn't dare go talk to Hashmir, I talked to Alex Sigler instead. Alex is bat-shit crazy, but he's not the android that Hashmir is. He's also directly in charge of the scavengers.

Alex had some doubts about letting me go out on runs. He made me promise that I wasn't only doing it because of Sharon. I lied to him, and told him that I wanted to make more of a difference, and honor Sharon's memory.

If I believed that Sharon is really dead, I would not have been lying, but I know she's still out there. I don't believe she could possibly die so easily.

Alex relented, and said that I could go out on the next run if I really wanted to. He would talk to Mike, my boss as a roof guard, and get it all finalized. Mike shouldn't mind, there's always people who want to be roof guards, especially people on the disposal crew.

I don't plan to do anything stupid, mind you, but I need to know what happened. Sharon's out there somewhere.