Non-Story Post: "Zombieland"

This is not a story post, sorry, but I did want to let you all know that I got to go see a sneak preview of the new film "Zombieland".

You can check out my as-spoiler-free-as-I-could-manage review of it here.

Thirty-Eighth Entry: The Snowbunny

January 24th

Things have been going well, so well in fact that I really haven't had anything to write about for a couple of weeks. It seems that Daisy Lake does have a natural fish population. Maria says that what we have been catching is rainbow trout; all I know is that it is good to eat something that didn't come out of a can once in awhile.

Our daily routine involves fishing, bringing in firewood for the day, cutting more firewood to keep our supply up, and cooking. It's almost idyllic. We still take shifts keeping a watch on things at night though.

We haven't seen a single zed since we got here, and frankly I think we are getting a little sloppy because of it. Still, I guess as long as the ice has really killed the zeds, I suppose we are safe enough. We haven't even seen any signs of other survivors up here. It almost feels like we are the last people on Earth, or at least it did.

Sharon has been doing really well these last couple of weeks. She hasn't had a space out in days now, nor has she tried to kill anybody. She's clinging to me a lot though, which is part of why I haven't been writing, and I don't really know how I feel about that.

Part of me wants to respond, and go for it. To finally be with her the way I always wanted. Another part of me feels that that would be a shitty thing to do; to be taking advantage of her while I'm unsure how mentally stable she really is. Still another part of me believes that Tara is still out there; still trying to catch up to us, and that part feels like I would be betraying her.

The dreams aren't helping much either. I've been dreaming about Tara again. The setting is always the same, Mallville in flames. Sometimes she's kneeling next to the pool of blood where Alex fell, sometimes she's sitting on the edge of one of the potted trees, sometimes she's just standing there, but she's always as I saw her last, her shirt drenched with Alex's blood.

“Don't mess things up again,” she'll tell me, and, ”I want you to be happy, and if being with Sharon makes you happy, go for it.”

“But what about you?”

“What about me?” she'll ask.

“I love you.”

Tara will approach me, put her hands on my face, and lean in, “I love you too, but I made my choice. I'm just sorry that it's you that has to live with it.”

“It's not fair though.”

“You're right, but maybe it's for the best. You've always loved her, and now you have your chance. Don't mess it up,” Tara will say, and then pull away from me, “I have to go now.”

“Please don't leave me again!” I cry after her as she leaves.

“I'm already gone, but maybe you'll see me again.”

It was from one of those dreams that I woke to hear a familiar, but out of place noise earlier tonight; A car engine. I sprung up from my sleeping bag, quickly put my shoes on, and ran out to the front of the house. Maria, Gerry, Sharon, and Beth were already at the front windows. Beth and Maria were both holding rifles.

“What's that?” I asked.

“An engine, “ replied Maria.

In that moment I knew it, I was sure that it was Tara. Somehow she had found us, she had caught up to us. She really was right behind us, we just needed to stop long enough for her to catch up. I was both excited and scared.

Outside the window, I couldn't even see the car. It was snowing lightly,but that's not why I couldn't see it, it just wasn't close enough yet. It's amazing how much farther sound seems to carry now that there is so much less ambient noise.

When it came into view I could see that it was an SUV; what else does anyone drive nowadays, right? It was a small one though, an Acura MDX as it turned out. It was slowly crawling down the long driveway leading in from the road, bumping roughly over the unseen dips buried beneath the snow.

“You take the right, I'll take the left,” said Maria to Beth, who only nodded.

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“We don't know who it is, what they want,” explained Beth.

“So we're going to shoot her?” I asked.

“If we have to,” answered Maria.

“Only if we have to, “ Gerry corrected her. I finally noticed that he was holding a Glock in his right hand.

The Acura looked realy small as it pulled up next to our snow covered Excursions. As it stopped, Maria threw the front door open and rushed out and to the left. Beth followed her to the right, both of them took what little cover was to be had behind the porch railing. Gerry rushed out, and center where he had no cover, relying on the gun to his right and left to keep whoever all was in the car from being stupid.

“Turn off the engine, and step out of the car, or we start shooting!” Gerry ordered, which would have been a lot more imposing if he had a more serious sounding voice.

“Wait, don't do this!” I cried, knowing for sure that they were going to shoot Tara. She would be so overjoyed to find us that she would just rush out of the car, and they would shoot her by accident before they realized it was her.

The engine cut out, and the only noise I could hear was all of us breathing.

“Step out of the car, and keep your hands where we can see them!” Ordered Beth, sounding much more commanding than Gerry.

The driver's side door swung open, pushing against the piled up snow that the car had driven into. A pair of hands with pink knit gloves appeared over them, and a person stepped out. It was a woman, it had to be, she was wearing a pink puffy ski jacket, a black ski mask with a pink knit hat with what looked like a pair of long pink rabbit ears going down the back, and light blue ski pants tucked into fur lined tan boots. She had her hands raised.

“Is there anyone else in the car?” asked Beth.

The woman shook her head. She was short, shorter than I remember Tara being.

“Step away from the car, and let us see your face!” ordered Beth.

The woman. It had to be Tara, it just had to be, stepped away from the car, and closed the door. She then very slowly and deliberately pulled off her hat, and placed it on the hood of the car. She then pulled off her ski mask.

My heart sank like a hot air balloon that had just been harpooned.. It wasn't Tara, it wasn't even a woman, it was a girl. A mere teenager with long curly hair that was mostly brown, but the last four inches were a deep magenta, like she had died her hair when it was pretty short, and then let it grow out. She was pale, and had a small piercing through her nose, and two rings through her left eyebrow.

“ It's a child,” said Beth in amazement.

“I'm not a child, I'm sixteen, bitch” shouted the girl.

Maria didn't like that. She stood up suddenly, making it very clear that she was still aiming at the newcomer.

“Maria!” hissed Gerry.

“Just because she's a child and says she's alone doesn't mean that either of those things are true!” Maria said, not taking her eye off her gun sight.

Sharon brushed past me, then past Gerry, and went down the stairs towards the girl.

“What are you doing?” asked Maria.

“I'm making sure that she's telling the truth so we can stop treating her like a murderer.” said Sharon. She went down, past our little snowbunny, and opened the door to the Acura, “It's clear!” Sharon called, “she's by herself.”

“Come towards me slowly, “ ordered Beth, “Keep your hands in the open, and come into the house.

“How do I know you're not going to hurt me?” asked the girl.

“You don't,” answered Maria, “Which is why you should have stayed away. Now get in the house!”

The girl didn't seem scared, in fact she seemed more annoyed than anything else. She walked forward, her hands still in the air, her ski mask still dangling from her right hand. Gerry stepped to the side to allow the girl access to the house.

Maria, Gerry, and then Beth went into the house. Sharon grabbed the girl's hat off of the hood of the car, and came back up onto the porch. As she started to pass me to go into the house, she stopped.

“Are you okay?” Sharon asked.

I realized I had been standing there, staring at the young girl as she walked up as if I were in a trance. I did my best to smile, “Yeah, I'm good.”

“You look, I don't know, almost disappointed.”

“No, just surprised to see another survivor, that's all.”

Sharon looked at me curiously, “Okay, but if any thing's wrong, you can talk to me. I know you've been talking to Beth some, but I think I'm better now, or at least as good as I'm ever going to get.” she laughed a little, smiled at me, and went inside.

I went back into the house, and it was only then that I realized that I had gone outside without my coat on, and the chill I had been feeling hadn't just been from inside my body.

When I joined everyone else in the living room, I found that the girl had shed her coat, revealing a pink sweater with little black skulls on it. Beth was searching through her coat. She pulled a small Smith and Wesson revolver out one of the pockets; this was accompanied my the muted patter of a jumble of loose bullets falling out of the same pocket and onto the rug.

“Do you have any other weapons?” Maria asked, still menacing the extremely thin girl with her rifle.

“There's a crowbar and a hunting rifle in the car, “the girl said, “So what are you going to do, kill me? Eat me? Rape me? What?”

“You came to us, “ Beth answered.

“Yeah, but I didn't pull a gun on you.”

“How did you find us?” asked Gerry.

“Umm, you have a fire,” the girl motioned behind her to the bright flickering fireplace, “It's not like a lot of people have fire going right now, I just followed the smoke.”

“I guess that makes sense, “ I said.

“Are you alone?” asked Beth, putting the girl's coat on the couch.

“Yes. “

“What's your name?” asked Sharon.

“Pippa Webster.”

Once we were reasonably sure that she wasn't armed, we let her sit on the couch in front of the fire to warm up. Sharon and I warmed her up a can of soup that she ate while telling us her story.

It turns out that Pippa is from the bay area peninsula where her and small group had been hiding out in their high school, which Pippa describes as an ancient building that used to be someone's house. Either it's a big house, or a small school, I guess. She told us that everything was going as well as could be expected until late November.

“It was just a normal morning, we were going to go out and try and find some supplies, but when we went to look out the window and see how many of those things we would have to deal with we found that we were surrounded.

“What do you mean by surrounded?” asked Beth, “Like a dozen of them?”

“Like a hundred of them, a whole mob,” Pippa answered.

“A cemetery,” I interjected.

“Huh?”

A Cemetery. I've been calling a large group of zeds a cemetery,” I explained, “you know, like a murder of crows, or a school of fish.”

“But zombies don't come from cemeteries.” Pippa replied.

“And fish don't come from schools,” Sharon came to my defense.

“Okay,” Pippa said, still slightly puzzled, “Anyway, as soon as one of those things saw us, it started pounding on the window. Soon they were all pounding on the windows and the doors. Some of them even had clubs and stuff.”

“So what did you do?” asked Gerry.

“We got the hell out of there. We ran for the auto shop where Tim's van was parked. We could hear the windows breaking in the classrooms around us as we ran. Some of them were getting in. There were so many of them.”

Pippa was started to get a little worked up reliving the incident, “Auto shop was actually in a separate building, but it's a short distance. We figured as long as we kept moving we could get through them.”

“Mario had the keys, we had padlocked all of the exits to keep them from getting in, so he got the lock opened, and shoved the door as hard as he could to try and knock some of them back. We shoved through the zombies and ran. I heard Tamara scream, but I didn't stop to help her. She...” Pippa shook her head sadly, “she didn't make it to the shop building. “

“The zombies were coming after us, I had never seen so many in one place at one time except for on TV before the power went out. Mario couldn't find the right key for the shop building; Tim, and Justin and me, we had guns, and we started firing into the crowd, but it wasn't even making a dent.”

“Mario finally got the door open, and went in, then Marissa. Tim shoved me in, and then came himself. Justin came in last, and one of those things got close enough to bite his arm. He was bleeding really bad when he got the door shut behind us.”

“We all got into the van, except for Justin, I think because he knew what happened to people who were bit. Tim started the van, and Justin opened the garage door. He mouthed something to us as Tim pulled out. He was smiling as the zombies rushed in around the van.”

“What did you do then?” Maria asked.

“We decided that we would go inland, and see if we could find somewhere with less zombies, or maybe find other survivors. There had to be better places than where we were. Right before the power went out, we has seen rumors online of groups of survivors forming, like colonies, and we were hoping to find one. We fucked up going through San Francisco though.

I remember, back when all this began, hearing about what had happened in the big cities, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. The big cities were death traps; I remember seeing a video online of zeds breaking into a Wolf News studio, apparently live on the air. I can't believe Pippa's friends wanted to go into something like that. I guess when you're scared you make stupid choices though, Lord know I've made my share.

“I didn't want to; I told Tim to take a different bridge, not try for the Golden Gate, but he swore that it was the most direct route, and that the zombies couldn't get us if we just kept driving,” Pippa laughed humorlessly, “He would have been right too, if the roads hadn't been clogged with abandoned cars. He tried going around, going up on the sidewalk, but the city is like something out of a fucking horror film, they're everywhere; it made that horde, sorry, cemetery, of zombies at school seem like nothing. They swarmed around us, and the van tipped over. We ran, we got separated; I didn't see any of them again.”

“But you made it,” I said.

“Yeah, I made it....”

Pippa explained to us that we are the first living people she's seen since that day. She headed this way because she saw a note stuck to the doors of an Ambition store that she broke into for supplies. It said that cold kills zombies, and to head for the mountains.

“I didn't know what else to do. I didn't really have any other plan than to find somewhere safe, so I figured why not? At least it gave me a goal. Whoever left the note musta known what they were talking about.”

“And you saw the smoke from our fire, and thought you would check it out?” asked Beth.

“ I figured that if it was just some sort of natural fire, which isn't what it looked like, then oh well, but if there were people, I could maybe join up with them , or they would kill me. Either way I wouldn't be alone anymore.”

“Well we're not going to kill you,” said Gerry.

“Can I stay with you guys then? I can fight good, and I know how to drive.” explained Pippa, her attitude cracking for just a moment to reveal hopefulness.

“We need to discuss this,” said Beth, and headed for the front door.

The rest of us followed her. From the front door we could still see Pippa sitting on the couch in front of the fire, but she wouldn't be able to hear us if we spoke softly.

“So what do we all think?” asked Beth.

“We can't turn her away,” whispered Sharon, “She'll die on her own.”

“If she's really been on her own for two months, she must know how to take care of herself,” I said.

“How do we know she's telling the truth? She might have killed her friends herself? Maybe she just wants to kill us and take our supplies,” asked Maria.

Beth defended the young woman, “She's a child, Maria. Stop being paranoid. There's no way she could take all of us anyway.”

“She's not a child, she's sixteen... bitch,” Gerry said with a smirk that earned him a glare from Beth.

“She will be a drain on our supplies. We already go through them too fast.” Maria countered.

“We've barely touched the supplies since we got here. We've been getting our water and food from the lake,” said Gerry.

“And if that stops being enough? Can we catch enough fish for another person?”

“Probably, yes, “I said, “and I'm sure she can help.”

“She had better, we don't need anymore people eating our food who don't contribute,” Maria looked right at Sharon when she said that.

Sharon backed up a half step, as if she had been slapped. I opened my mouth to speak, but Beth cut me off.

“Knock that off right now. There is no one in this group who does not contribute.”

“Yeah, right, and what about the entire fucking month when she didn't?”

Sharon stepped half behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder as if using me for a shield, like she was afraid Maria was going to take a swing at her. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her breathing getting heavier. I clenched my teeth, trying to hold my tongue.

“She was sick,” said Gerry evenly, “We would take care of you if you got sick too. We're all friends here, Maria, I wish you would remember that.”

“I don't get sick, and I don't need friends that are going to get me killed.”

I couldn't take anymore, “Then maybe it's you that should leave,” I hissed.

“Stop it!” growled Beth. The glare she was giving me and Maria was completely different than the one she had given Gerry; this one was a real warning.

“Fine, “ said Maria, putting her left hand up in the air in mock surrender; her right was still holding her rifle.

“Lets vote, “suggested Gerry, “I say she joins us if she wants.”

“Agreed, “said Beth.

“We can't turn her away, “ added Sharon.

“We don't need another mouth to feed.” said Maria.

“She stays,” I voted.

“Majority rules, “said Sharon happily, stepping back out from behind me.

“This is not going to end well,” said Maria.

“It's probably not going to end well whether we send her to her death or not,” replied Beth.

We turned to face Pippa as a group, “Okay,” started Gerry, “We have decided to let you join us, provided that you pull your own weight.”

Pippa looked at us, and all of a sudden the mouthy young woman who showed up on our doorstep was gone; in her place sat a teenage girl who was too thin and too pale. She had become a girl whose haunted eyes only hinted at the horrors she had seen and the loss that she has felt; horrors and loss that we can all relate to.

“Are you sure? I mean, I mean thank you for the food, and all, but I can get back on the road,” she looked panicked suddenly.

“Where would you go?”

“ I don't know; keep heading north, I guess. I heard there's a survivor camp up in Washington; a place called Lovelock. Maybe I'll head for there.”

“With the weather like this?” asked Beth, “You'd never make it. The roads are going to be blocked by snow farther up.”

“If she wants to go, we can't make her stay,” added Maria.

“Really, I don't want to be a problem,” Pippa said.

“I'm sure you won't be a problem as long as you put in work like the rest of us,” said Gerry, “but as Maria said, we're not going to force you to stay.”

“Why don't you sleep on it?” asked Sharon.

“Huh?” asked the pale girl.

“Sharon's right, you don't need to make a decision right now,” I said, “Stay here tonight, and you can decide what you want to do in the morning.”

“Umm, okay, if that's alright with everyone,” said Pippa, a nervous smile on her face.

We all kind of glanced at Maria to see if she would say anything, but she only shrugged, turned, and left the room.

“Well then, “started Gerry, “I think this calls for a celebration!” and then he left the room too.

It turns out Gerry's celebratory idea was hot cocoa. He boiled some water on the fire and we each had a cup while we talked. Well, to be totally honest, Pippa did most of the talking. I'm not surprised; two months alone is a long time to not talk to anyone. I'm surprised she didn't end up killing herself or going crazy like Ash.

Pippa told us of her adventures. How she ended up getting out of San Francisco by boat. She stole a motorboat from the marina, and managed to get away without damaging anything too badly (apparently she did forget to untie it from the dock, and ripped a chunk out of the side of the boat). She took the boat up what I guess must be the Sacramento River until she was almost out of gas.

Realizing that she would be washed right back to San Francisco if she let herself run out of fuel, she “docked” (her term, as it frankly sounded more like she crashed) at what she said is “Sherman Island”. I've never heard of this place, but Pippa says it's some sort of recreational area for camping and stuff. I've never liked camping, which is probably why I've never heard of it.

“Sherman Island was, like, totally deserted. There were no zombies or nothing.”

“Sounds ideal, why didn't you just stay there?” asked Maria.

“I did for awhile, but there's only like ten houses on the place, and no place to get anymore food or water. I packed up what I could, and hit the road. That was probably in, like, the middle of December. “

Pippa ended up talking until after midnight. She stopped for what we thought was dramatic pause, or maybe to gather her thoughts, but after a minute of silence we realized that she had fallen asleep. It's probably the first real sleep she has gotten in months. I cannot imagine being able to sleep if I were out there on my own without someone to keep an eye on me.

Everyone else has gone to bed now; I'm staying up on guard tonight. Being on guard here is a lot easier than it was in the city. The snow and twigs and stuff out there should give away anything moving. Of course that would include deer, wouldn't it? Do deer hibernate? I haven't seen any up here.

I think Pippa will stay. Maria aside, why wouldn't she? It'll be good to have someone new with us; I wish we would find more people because I don't like even the illusion that we are the last ones alive. I know we can't be, but seeing other people would be a nice reminder of it.

I am still sad that it wasn't Tara in that car. I was so certain that it was her, but I realize now that it was just because of that dream. She could still be out there though. She could just be a few miles down the road... maybe she'll see the smoke too.

Thirty-Seventh Entry: Home Sweet Home

January 6th


After a week's journey, we have a place to call home, at least for awhile.

We rolled into town on the third, and ended up staying in a ski shop called “Down the Mountain” that had been closed up for the season last spring. It's actually a pretty secure place; the windows were already boarded up when we got there.

It looks like that store probably shuttered for their off season. The coverings were cut to match the shape of the windows, painted to match the store's brown exterior, and had the words “SEE YOU IN OCTOBER!” stenciled on them.

Of course this meant that the inside of the store was pitch black except for the rectangle of outside light that shown through the glass of the front door, but after some careful searching we found the store to be empty of everything except fixtures. No zeds, no humans, no merchandise. The last part is kind of a shame since we could have used a supply of good winter clothes, but oh well.

We stayed there for two nights while Beth, Gerry, and Maria looked around for someplace better. “Down the Mountain is great as a secure building, but it's cold as hell, and there is no place to light a fire in it. Other reasons to leave the store were that it was not near enough to the actual lake, and since part of the reason for coming here was to have access to sources of food and water this store was just not going to work.

Something about being in the store bothered Sharon. I don't know if it was really just that it was the darkest place we've hidden in, or if it was because it was bigger than our other hideouts, or even if it was just that all of the completely empty fixtures and mannequins made the place that much creepier. Maybe it's just a product of her recovering her wits that she's getting scared again?

It was on the second night in the store; I had actually been given a couple hours of watch duty (which amounted to sitting by the front door and staring out at the moonlit snow, I think we may be the only living, or unliving, things up here), and had gone to sleep in my bag on the floor by an empty circular rack. I woke up to something pulling open my sleeping bag.

I lashed out in a panic, and back of my arm collided with a person, knocking them back and away from me. The person gasped as she fell; I recognized that gasp, “Sharon? Is that you?” I asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” I heard her voice on my left.

“What are you doing?” I asked, fully awake.

“I was scared,” she whispered, “I was hoping I could sleep with you.”

“What, in my bag?”

“Yes.”

“Umm, I don't think you'll fit in here with me.”

“Yes I will.”

“But, you'd be-”

“Please!” she pleaded.

“Is everything okay?” I heard Beth ask from her station by the door. She didn't turn on her flashlight, thankfully.

“Yeah, “ I answered in a stage whisper, “We're fine.”

“Then let her sleep with you, and be quiet before you wake the others,” Beth replied quietly, her voice carrying easily across the otherwise silent store.

“Please,” Sharon whispered again.

“Okay, fine, but if you can't breath, don't blame me.”

Sharon unzipped my sleeping bag and climbed in the only way one can enter an already occupied sleeping bag, gracelessly. It's a good thing I've lost weight, because she was barely able to zip the bag back up as it was. The bag was suddenly a lot warmer with her body heat added to it.

Before you get any ideas, I would like to point out that it was somewhere near freezing inside the store, and we were both fully dressed (and we could both have used showers too). It's not the first time I've slept in a bed with Sharon, and nothing, nothing that I remember anyway, has ever happened between us before.

Still, it felt weird to have her next to me; her back to mine. It both made me think of how much I miss Tara, but also what might have been had I just opened up to Sharon before everything went to hell. It was also comforting, and at some point while I was wrestling with the emotions in my head, I fell asleep.

I woke up to Beth standing over us sniggering.

“What?” I said sleepily.

“You two.” she whispered.

“Nothing happened,” I replied as quietly as possible to avoid waking Sharon, not that she was easy to wake when she was in a deep sleep.

“I know,” Beth smiled, and then rubbed at one of her eyes, “ I just wish that I had someone who cared about me as much as you care about her. Tara was lucky to have you, and Sharon is lucky to have you as a friend.”

“Have you been drinking?” I asked.

“No, but I haven't slept either,” Beth sniffed, “I want you to know that I really respect you. No one would ever go through what you've gone through for her for me.”

So if we were going to vent our stored up emotions, I figured I should do it at least sitting up. As gently as possible, I wriggled up and out of the sleeping bag. Beth helped me to my feet, and I put on my coat and shoes, which didn't do nearly enough to cut the cold in the store after the warmth of the sleeping bag. We went across the store to sit on a little pedestal that had held a cloth covered naked mannequin with his hand stuck out like he was holding something until the day before.

We had taken the dust cloth off of the dummy because it was creepy; we then had to just take the naked dummy down because it was even more creepy. He was currently lying on the floor, his hand sticking up in the air like he had been frozen while trying to reach for something.

“So why do you think we wouldn't take care of you if something happened to you?” I asked.

“You guys are like a little clique, and I'm this outsider who you got stuck with.”

“I consider you a friend, and one of us. I'm sure the others do too. We would take care of you the same way we are taking care of Sharon.”

“I don't know, maybe you and Gerry would, but not Maria; that woman has some serious damage. She'd probably shoot me, and kick all of your asses if you tried to stop her. I know you say you're my friend, but you never would have taken her on like you did for Sharon.”

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but I don't know that she was. I like to think that I would fight as hard for her or Gerry as I did for Sharon, but....

“What do you think her problem is?” I asked

“Haven't we had this discussion?” Beth asked.

“Yes, you said she was scared, and that I shouldn't act like a macho asshole.”

“And I still say that. I wouldn't want you to get yourself killed over me either.”

We sat there in silence for a minute.

“You know, “ I began, “I could have prevented all of this.”

Beth looked at me funny, “ What, the end of the world? You're a great guy and all, but I don't see how you could have kept the dead from getting up.”

“No, not that, this. Us being here.”

“Were you going to assassinate Kaur, and just never got around to it?”

“No. I was going to tell Sharon how I felt about her, but never got the courage to until it was too late. If I had done that, everything would be different.”

“Okay, explain.”

“Well, if I had told Sharon how I felt, she might never have joined the scavengers, meaning she wouldn't have been in that attack, so she wouldn't have gotten trapped in the Hotel Majestic. I wouldn't have had to go rescue her and Jimmy, so maybe the people who went on that run would not have been attacked by the bikers.”

“Maybe they would have,” suggested Beth, but I kept going.

“Sharon never would have gotten together with Alex.”

“And you would have never gotten together with Tara. Are you saying you would trade that? You'd give up the time you and Tara had together?” Beth looked a little appalled as she said this.

“If it meant she was still alive, sure. I would rather have never been with her than have her be dead now. I think one of the biggest things that set Alex and Kaur against each other was rescuing Sharon and Jimmy. Maybe things would have gone differently if that had never happened.”

“Hashmir Kaur would not have been a better person regardless of what you did. A fight would have broken out eventually.”

“But Alex wouldn't have diverted to save me or Sharon. Maybe he would have survived, and taken Tara with him. Or at least if Jimmy had died after being attacked by the bikers, he never would have blown up Mallville.”

“Or maybe without us coming to rescue you, you and Sharon would both be dead. Does your little scenario include that?”

I didn't have an answer to that.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Beth spoke again, “What I mean is that it's no good to dwell over what-ifs. If I let myself become consumed by what could have been, I'd probably be dead by now. I'm sorry about Tara, really I am, but you need to worry about those who are still alive. You can't do anything for those we've already lost.”

“But, what if Tara is alive? What if she wasn't killed by the explosion?' I asked. My eyes started stinging, but no tears came.

Beth looked distressed, “Do you really believe she is?”

I thought about it, “I want to,” I said weakly.

“You really do like to torture yourself, don't you?” she put an arm around my shoulders, “ I used to be like you, like before all this shit started, I was like you. I would tear myself up inside over stuff I couldn't do anything about.”

“So how did you stop?”

“I don't know. I grew up and became more jaded, I guess. I finally understood that there was nothing I could do about losing people, or having those I love turn on me. Maybe if I had someone who was willing to get themselves killed for me like you are for Sharon there, “Beth pointed in the general direction of my sleeping bag, “ just maybe I would be different, but then I wouldn't be me.”

“What if I don't know who I am anymore?”

“You're you. Maybe you're not the you of the days before the zed virus, I didn't know you then, but you're you now, and I like the you of now. “

“And who is that?”

Beth laughed softly, “Well, you're a bit needy and whiny. You don't have as much confidence in yourself as you probably should. You're loving, and caring, and patient; you have put up with Sharon's bizarre, and frankly disturbing behavior, and you have never once complained about it. You're fiercely loyal, and will kill to protect those you love.”

“And that's a good thing?”

“You shot a man in the face to save Tara. You faced off against four zombies with a bat and a hatchet to protect Sharon; in fact you risked being killed by zombies, bikers, and Hashmirkaur himself to save her.”

“Okay, so I'm stupid and a murderer.”

“Did I mention that you're whiny? If you're stupid, it's only because you try to be. I don't believe it, from the little time I spent around Tara, I could tell that she was not one to suffer fools gladly, and whatever feelings she may have had for Alex, she loved you.”

“She chose him over me though, in the end she chose him,” that stinging again, but still no tears.

Beth sighed, “She couldn't let him die alone. I know what that is like too. If she's still out there, I'm sure she'll find you somehow, but don't spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder to see if she's running to catch up. If you do that you'll eventually run into something large and nasty that you should have seen coming from the front.”

Beth stood, and then pulled me to my feet. Somehow I had never realized that I'm a good six inches taller than she is; she's shorter than Sharon actually.

“Okay, that's enough feeling sorry for yourself,” Beth said and gave me a brief hug, “You be proud of being you, and I'll be proud to call you a friend.”

“Very touching,” called a slightly goofy voice from by the door.

“Kiss my ass, Gerry.” Beth answered.

I felt like kind of a jerk; when I got up I thought that Beth was going to open up to me, or that it would at least be an equal exchange. Instead it's all me, as she quite rightly said, whining. If she ever tries to talk to me like that again, I'll try to remember to just keep my mouth shut.

As had become the norm, Beth, Gerry, and Maria left me and Sharon behind at the store while they check the town out, and tried to find us a new home. Thank goodness for Sharon's comic shop goodies.

Sharon did really well that day, we actually talked, although I didn't get anywhere when I tried to get her to tell me what had scared her the night before. The only real incident of note on that day was in the early afternoon.

Going into one of her less and less frequent spacey spells, Sharon started wandering around the store. I was sitting up by the front door to make sure that she didn't try to leave, but was not really paying much attention to her.

Sharon suddenly screamed. The sudden noise in the quiet store made me jump, and I almost fell out of the chair I was sitting in. I saw her running across the store to where my sleeping bag and satchel were.

Not knowing what had frightened her, I got to my feet in time to see her grab my sword from where it lay next to my satchel, and go running back across the store. She clutched the cleaver in both hands.

“Sharon, what's wrong?” I asked.

Sharon ignored, instead she stopped over at the left side of the store, raised the sword, and brought it down on something with a loud hollow crunch. She raised the sword again two more times, bringing it down with more crunching before I got to her.

“Nooooo!” Sharon wailed as I saw what she was attacking. It was that naked dummy. She had smashed its upraised hand, and was now turning its head into a mess of plastic, foam, and fiberglass.

I wanted to stop her before she hurt herself, but I was scared, If she had somehow mistaken a dummy for a zed, then what would happen if I got too close? “Sharon,” I said in as calm a voice as I could manage, “It's okay, just calm down.”

Sharon stopped attacking the mannequin, and turned to look at me. Her face was a mask of terror. “No! Stay back!” she cautioned, tears running down her scared face. She held the sword out in front of her.

I came forward slowly, “You're okay,” I said, “You're safe. Just put down the sword.”

“Nooo!” she yelled, and swung the sword at me I felt the blade skim the very tip of my nose as I fell backwards out of it's path. I hit the ugly brown industrial carpet on the floor hard, and started trying to scramble away from her on my back.

Sharon raised the sword again, intending t bring it down on me before I got away from her. I was next to a circular metal rack that probably once held hangers loaded down with ski pants, or jackets or something. I reached up and grabbed the edge of the rack with my left hand, and yanked hard on it.

The clothing rack tipped, and came down on top of me with a hollow metallic gong. Sharon's blow hit the rack with a loud clang, but was deflected off harmlessly. I turned onto my front and crawled out from under it as fast as I could.

I scrambled across the floor trying to put distance between us, but when I spared a glance back, she was around the toppled rack and after me again, “Sharon, stop!” I yelled as I crawled.

I didn't know what to do. I might be able to make it to the guns (and I am so glad that she went for a sword instead of the guns) and shoot her, but I don't think I could ever shoot her; better that she kill me than that. In my mind I saw her coming up behind me, sword raised, ready to bring it down on my spine of the back of my skull.

I turned again, and Sharon was right there, sword raised above her head. Next to me was a simple display rack to my right; just a shiny metal support pole with a single arm to hang things on at the top, and a heavy flat base. I grabbed it with my right hand, and pulled it over towards me. I caught the upright pole in my left hand just as Sharon swung down.

The impact of the blade against the metal rack traveled up my arms and into my body, which was much better than having my skull split, which is what Sharon seemed to have been aiming for.. There was a metallic hiss as the blade slide down towards the base of the clothes rack. I had to yank my right hand away to avoid losing fingers.

I pushed the rack up and away from me, and at Sharon. I don't know if it hit her or not, as I was already on my hands and knees crawling before it hit the floor again.

I heard Sharon gasp and say my name suddenly, but I didn't stop. I kept crawling over to a thick brown wood column with a framed print of a man skiing a slalom on it. Once there I tried to hide behind it before turning to peek around it at her. She was standing there holding the sword in her left hand, it rested against her leg; on the floor in front of her was the clothes rack that had been my makeshift shield.

“Did I just...?” Sharon trailed off.

“A little, yeah.” I said. I was shaking, and couldn't make my voice be even.

“Oh God,” Sharon said, and dropped the cleaver to the floor with a dull thud, “Did I... did I hurt you?”

I put my hand up to my nose, and it came away with a little bit of blood on it from where she had almost taken my face off, “No, I'm okay.”

Sharon sagged to her knees and started sobbing, “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

I came out from behind the pillar, and found it very difficult to walk; someone had replaced the bones and muscles in my legs with Silly Putty. I went over to Sharon, trying to push the sword away from her with my foot without being too obvious, “It's okay, I'm not hurt,” I said.

“It's not okay, don't you see? Maria is right. I am dangerous. I could have killed you. I thought you were one of them,” Sharon was full on sobbing now, “Oh God! Did I hurt anyone?”

“Well, there's a mannequin who's never going to ski again, but other than that, no.”

Sharon looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. She grabbed my arms and pulled herself up to her feet so she could look me in the eyes, “Don't joke about it. What if I had hurt you? What if I had killed you?”

“You'd have one less mouth to feed, and the supplies would last longer,” I suggested, trying to sound more together than I felt.

The side of my face suddenly felt like it was on fire as Sharon slapped me hard enough to make me take a step back. I brought my hand up to my face, “What the fuck?” I said, “I think you knocked a tooth loose.”

“Don't you ever say shit like that!” Sharon snarled at me, “You're the only reason I'm still alive. Do you understand what the others would do to me if I killed you? If I even hurt you badly?”

“They might be cross with you, but they would still help you.”

“They would leave me behind at best,” Sharon sobbed, “Or Maria would shoot me in the head, because she's right; I put you all at risk.”

“That's not true.”

“It is,” Sharon wrapped her arms around me, and put her face to my shoulder, letting her tears run down my coat, “Please promise me that you won't let me hurt you. Please promise you'll stop me, kill me if you have to, before you'll let me kill you.”

“I wasn't exactly letting you-”

“Promise!”

“I can't promise to kill you.”

“Promise me then that you will do whatever you need to to stop me. That you won't let me hurt you, or the others. “

I'm not one to give promises lightly. I hate to be a liar, and make it a general rule not to make promises that I'm not sure I can keep. How can I promise to kill my friend? How can I promise to kill the last connection the me I am now has to the me I used to be? I may never be able to be that me again, but some of that me is alive inside Sharon.

I can make that promise, potentially tell that lie, because it's what Sharon needs me to do. Just making me think about potentially having to hurt her makes it one of the hardest things I've ever done for her, and that includes disposing of a body, but I did it. I promised her, but I don't know that I can keep that promise, and I pray to God that I am never put to the test.

We stood there for a long time after that, Sharon crying against my shoulder. I didn't cry, though part of me wanted to. I got that stinging in my eyes again, but no tears. Maybe I'm dehydrated or something? I've been drinking water.

When she was done crying, I walked Sharon back to my sleeping bag and convinced her to lay down for awhile while I cleaned up the mess. I didn't really want to explain why we hacked up a dummy for fun, although the sword did a damn fine job on it, not that a fiberglass dummy is the same as a zed.

The dummy was mostly in one piece, although it's right arm, the one that was sticking out, had been torn off halfway up the forearm, and its head and upper chest were a mess of flesh colored chunks. I gathered up all of th small pieces into a trash bag, and took the torso and legs bag to the back door. This was made more difficult by the fact that the legs and arms fell off as I tried to carry it, and I almost tripped over them.

I set the two display racks back up, trying to match each of them with the shallow indents in the carpet as best I could. Both racks were sporting nasty little dents and scratches where Sharon had assaulted them, so we would just have to hope that no one noticed. Looking at Sharon, especially as thin as she is now, it's sometimes easy to forget that she's pretty strong. She could probably kick my ass in a fight.

Not wanting anyone to see the dummy, I took it out back. I was trying to find a dumpster, but everything was buried in snow. I was wading my way towards a large snow covered mound that almost certainly had to be the dumpster, when I tripped over something, and fell on my face.

I dug around in the snow to see what it was that had tripped me up, and found a body. I don't know if it was a zed or a normal person that just froze to death. It was a man, his skin was pale (as I expect most frozen bodies are), but I didn't take the time to uncover him fully enough to try and determine if he was dead, or re-dead; either way it certainly went a ways towards proving our hypothesis that the cold is bad for zeds.

After finding the body in the snow, I decided that it wasn't worth slogging around in the cold and wet to find a dumpster. I dug a rough hole in the snow, threw the trash bag, the torso, legs, and arms (well, arm and a half) into it, and covered them. I just hope we don't come back here after the snow melts.

The others came back that night, and told us that they had found the perfect place. It was right by the lake, surrounded by trees and not visible from the main road. It's pretty big, its got a big fireplace with a dutch over arm built into it for cooking, and plenty of room for the five of us. We could go there in the morning, and by that time the next day we would all be warming in front of the fire. Even Maria was in good spirits.

Shortly before we turned in for bed, Beth came up and took my by the shoulder, “Can we talk?” she asked.

“Um, sure,” I replied, not sure what I had done. Beth was smiling, but it was a sort of snake about to eat a rodent smile.

Beth led me over to where we had talked that morning, “So what happened today?” the hungry snake look was gone, and replaced by one of concern.

“Nothing much,” I said.

“Seriously, what happened?”

“What makes you think anything happened?”

“Well, lets see. There's the missing dummy, and, although you did a good job even without vacuum, there are little bits of it in the carpet. Then there's the fact that that rack has been moved, “Beth pointed to the round clothing rack that had stopped Sharon's second blow, “and there's the big dent in the side of it.”

“It might have fallen over while we were playing around,” I said unconvincingly.

“Wait, I'm not done. There's the face that the carpet by the door was wet when we got back even though it was dry when we left, and then there's this,” Beth gently tapped the small cut on my nose,” So I'm going to ask you one more time before I get upset, what happened? And don't tell me you were just playing around.”

“Sharon might have hallucinated a little,” I tried to downplay it.

“What constitutes a little? Did she try to shoot you? I didn't see any bullet holes.”

“She may have just momentarily mistake me and the dummy for zombies. It's really no big deal.”

“Did she try to hurt you?”

“Not as such. She thought I was a zed.”

“And what did she try to kill the zed with?”

“A sword.”

Beth sighed, “This is serious. Has she done this before?”

“She hasn't attacked me before, no.”

Beth looked uncertain for a moment, and then sighed again, “Okay, the others don't seem to have noticed anything, so if you don't think this is an issue, I'll keep it to myself, but if it, or anything like it, happens again you need to tell me. I respect that you want to keep her safe, but if she really is going to endanger us like that we need to do something about it. I don't think for a second that Maria would hesitate to shoot her in that situation.”

“I'm sure it's just a one-time thing.”

“You had better tell me if it isn't. We can work something out if it's an ongoing thing, but you have to tell me. I can't help you if I'm the last one to know.”

That gave me a lot to think about as we went to bed. I don't want to put the others at risk, but I can't let anything happen to Sharon.

Sharon slept in her own sleeping bag that night, although she did move it right next to mine. After the lanterns were put out, and Maria took first watch shift, the rest of us climbed into out sleeping bags.

As I was trying to fall asleep in spite of the thoughts bouncing around inside my skull, I heard Sharon rustling in her sleeping bag next to me. I then felt her put an arm around me, and give me a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I rolled over to face her, “For what?” I whispered back.

“For covering for me. For not telling them what happened.”

“If anyone asks I'll just say we were playing with the dummy, and it broke, so I threw it out. They can't prove otherwise,” I said, not wanting to let her know that Beth had already figured it out.

“Thank you,” she said again, and went to sleep.

The next morning we packed up, and headed to our new home. It really was nice, but we did not appear to be the first ones there. There was a snow covered black SUV already in the driveway, and the kitchen was fully stocked with canned food and bottled water, not that that's a bad thing.

The cabin is pretty big; I don't have any great experience about these things, but I've always pictured cabins as being rather small, but this is like a normal three bedroom, two bathroom house. The outside is a light gray, and it looks strangely beautiful in the snow. There are a lot of windows, which would probably be a weakness in an attack, especially the big sliding glass door that opens onto the deck and looks like it was added sometime after the cabin was built.

Inside the cabin it's obvious that whoever owned this place (given the car in the driveway I assume they are dead) did not live here all the time. The furniture is old, like 1970s and 1980s old. I guess retro would be the right term, the stuff isn't old enough to be antique, and it's too ugly anyway. Someone of it goes great with the burnt orange shag carpeting in the living room though.

I've been trying to figure out who these people were. One of the three bedrooms looks like a child's room, a boy judging from the action figures and Legos . The master bedroom looks ransacked; like a fight took place in there. There is a full length mirror on the closet door; it's broken and there are some smears of blood on it, and the wall around it.

There aren't a lot of pictures around. There is one picture by the front door of a dark skinned man, a lighter skinned woman, and what is presumably their son; it's just your average family portrait sort of thing. The only other picture, excluding art, is an old black and white picture in the living room of a black man dressed in pharmacist's clothes standing in front of a storefront with a sign in the window that says “Bartel Pharmacy” .

We had a reasonably long discussion about who should sleep where. The first idea was that all of the women would sleep in the master bedroom, which has its own fireplace, but Sharon wants to stay with me, and Maria doesn't want to share a room with any of us. We ended up with Sharon and me in the master bedroom (once we clean it up anyway), Gerry in the kid's room, Maria in the den (there's enough room to sleep on the floor between the desk and the bookshelves), and Beth sleeping in the other bedroom, which was meant to be a guest room, I guess.

The view out the back window is stunning. The snow covered ground leading out to the lake. On first viewing, the lake was a little choppy due to wind, but I have since seen it when it is still, and it makes me wish I had a camera to take a picture of it with. One funny thing though, there's a boat out there towards the center; it must be anchored out there, because it doesn't seem to drift at all.

It looks like we're set for the winter, assuming that there are actually fish in the lake, I don't know if this is an artificially stocked lake, or one with a natural population. We've got canned food though, a supply of firewood already stacked at the aide of the house (and plenty of trees to cut more from). There's water to drink (once we boil it, anyway), and seemingly no zeds. What more could we ask for (well, other than electricity , running water, and Internet access)?

Thirty-Sixth Entry: You'll Have My Sword

January 2nd


I am glad that we have good sleeping bags, because we woke up to it being freezing today; I'm talking ice on the store's front windows freezing. While it was not quite cold enough in the store to freeze our water or anything, it couldn't have been too far off.

I had thought the idea was to hit the road early, but the others wanted to look around the town, or what's left of it. Of course I was volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on Sharon, but that didn't bother me since I had things I could occupy my time with other than playing with hot dog wrappers.

Sharon is is a little foggy today, but she pretty much just sat there all morning reading the graphic novel adaptations of “Playing for Keeps” and “Brave Men Run”. She seemed a little annoyed when I tried to talk to her, but this might be a good thing, as she has always hated people interrupting her while she is reading. I wonder if it is easier to cope being like that than being fully aware? I suppose it must be. Maybe I should give it a try, but would the Beth and Gerry be able to protect both of us from Maria? Would they even try?

I spent some time looking around the store this morning, I really wish it was feasible to stay here. At least I would have something good to read for a while. I don't think we could survive too long on boxes of stale Pocky and Ramune drinks though.

One thing that made me feel awkward at the same time as it made me laugh was the zombie display. I have to admit it, the me from a year ago would have wanted some of that stuff. There were hardback volumes of “The Walking Dead” and “Marvel Zombies”, a board game called “Zombies!!!” and like eight expansions for it, and plush zombies with detachable heads. Who would have thought that a display like that would ever be in bad taste?

There was lots of good stuff in their statue display, but pretty much all of it was too big, and where would I put it anyway? I found this really awesome little pewter Darth Vader helmet in there, and it made me sad. I just thought about how Tara would have liked it.

I decided to take the little Vader helmet; I put it in my now rather heavy satchel wrapped inside of plush Death Note that for some reason has a zipper on it so you can open it like a book. What the hell would someone normally keep inside of a plush Death Note?

Speaking of notes (I know, great transition, right?) I found a note in the office, presumably to the store manager, or at least from one keyholder to another. This is what it said:

Ruth,

I don't think there's any point in opening the store tomorrow. I don't think people are going to have much use for comics anytime soon.

My family is getting out of here, and I'm going with them. I have no idea where they think we're going, but after that incident with the bus the other day she just doesn't want to be here anymore. I find it hard to disagree with her; everyone is so pissed off about those kids. It's not like it was really anyone's fault though. I'm sure the driver didn't realize it was one of the undead, and not a living person he swerved to miss. I mean you see a person step out in front of you, do you take the time to make sure they're really alive before trying to not him them? I guess you probably should now.

I'm sure you can come with us if you want. I don't think it is safe to stay here. What happened to Maury proves that. The news is calling it “The Zed Virus” now, you know? They say it's spread by bodily fluids; that's probably how he caught it.

Regardless of what you decide to do, I won't be coming in tomorrow (well, today for you). Please give me a call if you want to come with us, it's not going to do you any good to stay here alone and torture yourself. I really don't want to leave you behind.

Seriously, call me,
Monkey


I guess Ruth must have never gotten the note. It was sitting right in the middle of the desk like it was waiting to be seen. It seems weird to think that the note may have been sitting there for something like seven or eight months waiting to be read. It certainly had enough dust on it, although that is true for everything in the store.

Another thing I found that was awesome was the store's sword display. Sure, most of them are just display items, but I found some that seem like they may actually be usable. Uruk-Hai swords from Lord of the Rings; they are these big almost cleaver looking swords with the point sticking up on the backside of the blade? There were seven of them, they are heavy, and they seem sturdier than a machete.

I wanted to test one of them out, but there weren't any zeds around (which I am NOT complaining about), so I swung one as hard as I could at the wall. The wall lost, ending up with a good sized hole in it (they can bill me for the repairs), but the sword seems perfect. I know zombie skulls are harder than drywall, but I still have high hopes for this. I also have high hopes that I will not need to put it to any actual test, but that may not be completely reasonable.

Gerry liked my idea about the Uruk-Hai swords (Sabers? Scimitars?). Beth looked at us like we were both crazy, and Maria just huffed and walked away. Sharon thought they were cool too, but then she asked me if I thought they would be good against ringwraiths. I think she may have been joking, but I'm not totally sure.

Beth, Gerry, and Maria came back from their little excursion pretty much empty handed. They had a bag of canned food, a couple of boxes of shotgun shells, Gerry told me that they had mostly found dead bodies, fire damage, and a lot of mess. I told him about the note I found in the office.

“Yeah, we checked out that bus, at least if it's the one we saw on the way in, we checked it out. It looks like it crashed into that gas station, caught fire, fire spread. It's probably why some people left the town,” Gerry theorized.

“I thought that gas stations had emergency cut-off switches to prevent stuff like that.”

“I don't know man. All I know is that there was a fire, and that not you found sounds like the bus caused it. Just another tragedy at the end of the world.”

“That doesn't explain the fact that the stuff we saw on the way in that wasn't burned looked like it had been looted,” I replied.

“So not everybody left, there may still be people hiding out there, I mean it's not unlikely. Just because we did not see anyone doesn't mean they're not there.”

“So why smash everything up?”

“Stupidity? Desperation? Try and make the place look unwelcoming so people like us will pass on by?” Gerry offered, “It's not like everybody has a master lockpick with them like you guys do.”

“A skill from your days as a cat burglar, right?”

“ You know it.”

“So why was this place left alone?”

Gerry shrugged, “Dunno, maybe because there's very little here that anyone would actually need? It's not as if you can fight off the undead with Warhammer miniatures, Naruto statues, or back issues of The Punisher.”

I couldn't argue with that line of reasoning, and if there really is anything more to it I guess I'll never know about it. I doubt we'll ever make it back that way again. It's a shame; that was a really awesome comic shop for such a small town.

We finally got on the road around one in the afternoon, but not before Sharon loaded up a Cowboy Bebop satchel with comic book trades, and mangas. It was still really cold, but it was sunny. We made pretty good time for the first hour. We were still going pretty slow though, having to work around the occasional car wreck, or just abandoned vehicles.

The big problem we ran into was about an hour and a half onto the road where we came to a section of freeway that had been washed away. We might have been able to drive through it, but just as likely we would have crashed the cars, or gotten stuck in the mud even with four wheel drive. I never realized how much work must go into maintaining the freeways. Less than a year of no maintenance and it all goes to shit.

We ended up having to go back, and take a side road way the hell around it all. On the bright side the, the road we took was clear of traffic; on the dark side, it was more pothole than road at parts, and it took us probably an extra hour out of our way. Still, by the end of the day, we knew we were near our destination.

By five-thirty, as the sun was going down, we hit our first snow. We still had a little bit to go to get to Daisy Lake, but if my theory about the zeds and cold holds true, we won't be seeing anymore active shamblers.

This is where selecting four wheel drive vehicles came in handy; there have not been any snowplows clearing the road in awhile. Our slow progress dropped to a crawl. I literally could have gotten out of the car and walked as fast as we were driving, but I prefer to keep all of my toes.

By seven-thirty according to the car's clock Gerry and Maria pulled off the road, and headed into some little town next to the highway. Beth followed them. I never did see any signs saying what the name of the town is, not only was it full dark, but most of the signs were caked with snow.

Sharon, who had been dozing since it go too dark for her to read anymore, woke up as we left the highway, “Are we there?” she asked dreamily.

“No, Sharon, I think we're just pulling off for the night,” Beth answered, and she sounded tired.

“Are we going back to the comic shop?” Sharon asked.

“No, I'm not sure where we're going. Gerry and Maria are probably looking for someplace that looks secure.” I told her.

“Oh, okay.” she answered.

We ended up in the parking lot of a small roadside motel; the sort of place one would normally take a hooker to (not that I am an expert on that), but we didn't want to get lost roaming around in the dark. The sign in the parking lot looked like it had been blown out in a windstorm, but the bowl of matches in the check-in office declared the place to be the “Sno-Ball Motel”.

A sign behind the check-in desk declared “Monthly, Weekly, and Hourly rates available” (like I said, hookers), while others proclaimed “Color TV in your room”, “Local Calls Free!”, “No Checks Please”, and “Check Out Time Is Noon. Failure To Check Out On Time Will Result In An Extra Day's Charge”. A nice and friendly place it must have been.

We must not have been the first people to take refuge here. Some of the room keys were missing from the office, the soda machine looks like someone forced it open with a crowbar, and the snack machine is full of windblown snow thanks to the glass missing from the front of it. Still, the rooms were relatively clean if a little musty smelling.

Beth, Sharon, and I are sharing one room (I actually get to sleep on a bed while Beth is on watch, which will be nice after two weeks of sleeping on the floor), while Gerry and Maria are taking the one next door. There is a door connecting the two rooms, and we are keeping that open.

Gerry wanted to go check out the rest of the motel, even though it was dark. Maria was taking first watch, and Beth didn't want to go with him, but she said she'd stay with Sharon if I wanted to go with him. Since Sharon had gone to sleep as soon as her sleeping bag was unrolled on top of her bed, I agreed.

It felt good to do something other than babysitting. Don't get me wrong, I love Sharon, and will take care of her for the rest of my life if need be, but I still want to do a bit of exploring once in awhile. So satchel on my left hip, rifle slung over my right shoulder, hatchet on my right hip, and Uruk-Hai sword in hand, I went with Gerry.

We didn't need the weapons though; we didn't find anyone, living or dead. We didn't even find anything useful. Whoever was here before us either took their stuff with them, or it was already scavenged by someone else.

Two rooms looked like someone had been staying in them, but had left. There were food wrappers and empty soda cans and bottles. The second room had a lot of small chip bags in it, probably from the broken vending machine.

One room looked like someone had tried to do a Leaving Las Vegas in it. I didn't count, but there had to be more than a dozen empty booze bottles in it. I wonder if they were just trying to escape from reality, or if they really were trying to kill themselves? I wonder if they succeeded; there weren't any clothes, weapons, food, or even any full bottles of liquor left in there.

Room 1 was actually the worst one; it looked like someone was murdered in there (which for all I know someone was). The room looked a bit like someone popped a large water balloon full of blood in there; the bed was one giant dried blood stain, and blood was spattered and smeared all over the furniture and walls. Really, really awful.

I wonder who these people were, where they were going, if they made it or not. They certainly didn't leave us any notes to follow. All I know for sure is that they like chips and booze, and something very unpleasant happened to one of them. That of course assumes it was one group and not just a bunch of individuals using this place as temporary refuge.

Out in the parking lot we found a snow covered El Camino. We cleared off the driver's side window and revealed a face looking back at us. Once we got over the surprise of that, we realized the person was dead, really dead, frozen in the car apparently trapped in by their seatbelt. I think it was a zed, but we didn't take the time to get into the car to get a closer look, we just left it there.

Short of getting to really walk around and get some fresh air without something trying to beat me to death, there was little point in our excursion, but it was kind of nice. I'm not sure if not getting a chance to put my Uruk-Hai headsplitter to use is a good thing or a bad thing. If it doesn't work in a fight I'm going to look pretty foolish... or pretty dead.

Tomorrow we make the final push to Daisy Lake. It's probably only a few more miles really, but having to crawl over the snowy roads will still make it take all day. I hope we find a good safe place to stay. I hope that it's everything that Maria remembers, and that maybe then she'll stop being such a bitch.

Beth just told me she's going to relieve Maria now, so I can use the bed if I want Ahh, a bed, even a cheap hotel bed, will be a nice change from sleeping on linoleum. Now if only the heater worked... and the lights... and the water... and the tv (I'm missing out on that free HBO).

Thirty-Fifth Entry: A Slow Start

January 1st

Happy New Year! LOL

It's time to throw out all the old calendar, and I guess just draw a new one since none of the calendar stores opened up this season. Is this a leap year? If it's a leap year I'm going to start getting my dates all screwed up at the end of February.

Of course if that's the worst worry I have by that point then I should consider myself lucky.

This was definitely the worst new years ever, and a lot of that stems from our complete inability to get very far up the freeway. Even with the world all but dead there's still a traffic jam, so here I sit in a cold, dark comic book shop writing and eating Pocky by the light of one candle in an office full of boxes of statuettes. If it weren't for the end of the world, this would actually be sort of dream of mine.

We tried to get an early start of it yesterday morning; it was really cold, so we weren't too worried about zed activity. Beth and Gerry went to pick up the cars from where they were hidden while Maria and I packed up our sleeping bags, the camping stove, and everything else we had been using day to day. We added this stuff to the boxes of supplies in the stockroom. Sharon spent this time having a quiet conversation with the coffee maker.

Even with four of us doing the work, it took a long time to get the cars loaded up. Tetris skills were employed to get everything to fit in just right, and still leave room for the passengers. I rode with Sharon and Maria in the black Excursion while Beth and Gerry would take the tan one. As a result of this, the tan Excursion was filled right up the the backs of the front seats.

Loading the cars might have gone at least a little bit faster if it were not for the fact that Sharon started coming up and hugging me at random moments. Even in the cold I was still sweating and breathing heavily, but since I still don't know how much of her is really in there or how much of her getting better depends on outside stimulus. I don't want to react to her too harshly even if I'm not totally comfortable with her actions. Of course every time she would do this, it would earn me pitied looks from Beth and Gerry and annoyed looks from Maria. I think the looks were actually annoying me a lot more than the odd affection.

Around noon it seemed like we were pretty much loaded, so I went back in to look through the store one last time, and make sure we didn't forget anything. The store looked sad with all the shelves emptied out; admittedly, the trash that we had left overflowing one of the trashcans didn't help that either. This must be what it looked like when a store would go out of business after closing up for the last time.

On the floor over by where Sharon and I had been, I saw a strip of paper lying shoved up partly under the soda counter. Pulling it out revealed it to be a strip of photo booth pictures of Sharon and Alex. They must have taken them when they first got together. Sharon probably had them in her backpack or something.

The pictures made my heart ache for my friend. The top picture showed her and Alex both smiling happily (although I still think they looked a bit father and daughter together). The second showed them with their mouths open, like they had been laughing. The third picture showed them throwing up bunny ears behind each other's heads. The fourth and final picture showed them kissing. My eyes felt like they were burning looking at these pictures, but no tears came.

“Move your ass!” Maria's voiced yelled to me through the back door, “We're leaving.”

I tucked the pictures into the pocket of my coat, and went out back. The passenger side back door of the black Excursion was sitting open, and Maria was standing by it. Gerry and Beth were already in the tan Excursion. They were talking, and looked like they were in good spirits. Maria on the other hand looks like someone have taken a piss in her instant coffee.

“Hurry up so we can go!” Maria barked at me.

“What is your problem, Maria? You've been pissy to me all week.”

“Sharon is going to endanger us all.” she answered.

I looked at her questioningly, “Seriously? What would you prefer we do then, just leave her here to die?”

“ I would prefer you be able to focus on our survival instead of on her.”

“ I am plenty focused, and to me, her survival is at least as important as my own.”

“Well my survival is more important to me, and she's going to get us killed,” Maria snarled.

“That's ridiculous.”

“Is it? She almost got you killed the other day by advertising herself as fresh meat to some passing zombies, right? What if she had killed you too when she killed those two psychos? How hard would it have been for her to have bashed in your skull while she was at it? I know you wouldn't have fought back, not even to save your own life because you love her too much. You wouldn't even hurt her to save your own life.”

“I'm sorry that I feel emotions for someone other than myself!”

“She's dangerous.”

“She's Sharon. The same Sharon she has always been. I thought you and she were friends. She's getting better.”

“She's getting stranger. She endangering herself and us.”

“You have nothing to base that on!”

“Oh yeah?” Maria asked, “Look where she is now,” she point over my shoulder down the alley where Sharon had wandered off and was standing in the middle of the street and looking into the gray sky.

“Shit!” I cursed, and jogged off after her. Before I got to her, she started walking quickly up the street and around the corner of the store.

She had not yet reached the front of the store when I caught up to her , but we were out of sight of the others, “Sharon, hon, where are you going.”

Sharon looked at me, “Home,” she answered in that dreamy distant voice she's been using.

“If you mean Mallville, that's not the right direction, and it's not home anymore,” I said as I put an arm around her, “We're going to find a new home.”

“But what about Alex and Tara? Aren't they coming?”

My eyes got hot again, and chest got heavy at Sharon's question, and it was a second before I could answer her, “No, Sharon, I don't think so. They're.... They said to go on ahead, and they would catch up if they could.”

“Oh,” she replied, “but you're coming, right?”

“I would never leave you,” I answered, and as far as I can control it, I meant it.

“Okay, that's good then, “she answered, looking me in the eyes, and I mean looking at me, not through me for the first time in a week, “I don't know what I would do without you.”

I remembered the pictures then. I pulled the strip of photos gently out of my pocket, and gave them to Sharon, “Here, I found these.”

Sharon took the photos from me, and looked at them. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes filled with tears which quickly overflowed her lids, and rolled down her cheeks. “Thank you, “she said.

I led Sharon back into the alley, and over to the black Excursion. Maria was sitting inside it now. We went around to the passenger side where the door was now closed. I opened it, and helped Sharon get inside.

Since the plan was for me to sit in back with Sharon to make sure she didn't try to get out of a moving vehicle, or perhaps get a hold of a gun and start firing it inside the car, all of our sleeping bags has been piled into the passenger side front seat so that we could get to them easily. I climbed into the back with Sharon, trapping her between myself and a driver's side back seat full of duffel bags.

“Oh God, is she crying again?” asked Maria, looking at us in the rear view mirror.

“She's fine, thanks for your concern,” I answered.

“Just keep her quiet. I don't want to hear her bawling while I drive.”

“Maria, seriously, shut the fuck up.”

“And if I don't” she asked, not looking.

“Then I will shut you up.”

Maria looked at me in the mirror in shock for a second, and then laughed; it was a real laugh, not sarcastic or scornful, but an actual amused laugh, “I bet you would try, wouldn't you?” she laughed again, sounding in better spirits than she has recently, “Okay, lets hit the road.”

Maria started the car's engine, and gave the horn one short honk. In front of us, I could see a cloud of exhaust float out of the tan Excursion's tail pipe as it started up, and slowly we rolled down the alley away from the Snacky Mart, and after a short drive to the freeway, out of Covenant.

Before I had any real time to feel sad about leaving my home behind, we found a new problem; a big problem. It seems that even in a dead world, traffic jams are inescapable. The freeway was cluttered with abandoned cars. Some were off to the side of the road as if they had broken down, or run out of gas, but others blocked the lanes.

We weren't ten miles outside of town before we came to a traffic snarl that we couldn't get around. We parked the cars, and all got out to see if we could figure out what to do about it. It didn't help that the road was only two lanes each side here, nor that there was a thick cement wall running down the center of the dirt median which would have allowed us to drive on the other side (which honestly was not in any real better shape)

I can't help wondering where all of these people thought they were going. What would I have done had I not been in the relative safety of Mallville? Would I have ended up in this mess? Where would I have tried to go?

“Did your plan cover this?” asked Beth

Maria stiffened, “No, it did not.”

In front of us were a dozen cars, all covered with months of the dust turned to mud by rain. The surface of the road itself was colored brown by a layer of the dirt blown up from the field to our right. What was probably a crop of some sort when the end started was now a brown windblown patch of land.

Over to the left, behind a row of trees, looked like some sort of truck yard. I crossed over to that side of the freeway to get a better look, and that place would have looked creepy even without the potential of zeds lurking in it.

Maria yelling my name caused me to turn back from my view of the truck yard. “Your 'tard is getting away again!” she was pointing off into the field.

I climbed over the center divide, and ran after Sharon, who had made a bit of distance into the field. I bounded down the slope leading to the field. Thankfully the ground was not muddy, or I'm sure I would have slipped and fallen. I ran into the field as fast as I could.

There wasn't anything big enough in the field to hide a zed (and I would have thought it was really too cold for them anyway), but I was afraid that if she got too far that I would lose her. I was worried that if she got out of my sight I might not be able to find her again.

I was terrified at that thought. I was terrified that I might fail Sharon like I failed Tara, and Bishop, and Molly, and all of the rest of them. She was walking pretty fast, but my fear made me run fast enough to catch her easily.

I grabbed Sharon by the shoulder, stopping her progress, and forcing her to turn and face me. “Where are you going, hon?” I asked, panting.

“I don't want to hurt you,” her voice still dreamy and distant, but she was again talking to me, and not through me.

“Your leaving would hurt me; it would hurt a lot.”

“But if I stay, I'll get you killed, or maybe even kill you myself.”

“That's not true.”

“Maria says I'm dangerous. She says that I murdered two people, but I don't remember that. My memory has gone all... all fuzzy. Did I kill someone?”

“You saved me from being attacked. What you did was to help me. You did not murder anyone. They would have killed you if you didn't kill them.”

“What about last week? She says you could have been killed because I attracted the zombies.”

“Don't worry about what Maria says. Maria has a stick up her ass about something, and she's just taking it out on you. When did she even say all of this stuff to you?”

Sharon raised her right hand, and started rubbing her right eyebrow with her first two fingers as she spoke, “This morning, while you were putting stuff in the car. It's all... segmented. I guess I got in her way or something, and she told me the you should have left me behind because I wanted to stay. She said I should have stayed with Alex.,” Sharon looked me in the eyes, “Is that true? Did you force me to leave him?”

“Alex wanted you to be safe. He wanted all of us to be safe. We were trying to escape together, remember?”

Sharon nodded, but her face showed no signs of understanding, “Then I remember you giving me those pictures, “ she pulled the strip of photos from the pocket of her think baby blue ski jacket.

“You had left them in the store.”

Sharon looked at the pictures, “He died for me, didn't he? He would have made it if not for me.”

“You don't know that. He might have made it if he hadn't tried to save the rest of us, but then he still might not have.”

Sharon tried to pull away from me. “I should go, I don't want to hurt you too.”

I yanked Sharon back, probably harder than I really meant to. “Your leaving would hurt me. You are the only thing I have to live for, everything else is gone.”

“But Maria said-”

I lost my temper then. I grabbed Sharon's arm, and started back for the road. Sharon was struggling to keep up with me, she tripped a couple of times as we crossed the uneven damp field, but I was pulling her so fast that she didn't have any choice but to stay on her feet.

I stormed up the embankment, Sharon in tow, and back onto the road surface where Maria, Gerry, and Beth were looking at the pair of burnt out overturned cars at the front off the traffic jam. They weren't even looking at us as we approached.

Releasing Sharon's hand, I suddenly started running. All of the anger and fear and rage of the last week was channeled into me at that moment, and I was directing all of it at Maria. The three of them heard my footfalls as I charged, and they turned to face me.

The look on Maria's face as I barreled into her was one of utter shock; despit her earlier words it never really occurred to her that I would actually get physical with her. I slammed her back into the rear of a dirt covered minivan.

“No!” I heard Sharon scream from the side of the road.

I'm a good half a head taller than Maria, and I'm pretty sure I'm physically stronger, but she has finesses and skill that I lack. I'm not sure how it happened, but my world spun suddenly, and I found myself with my left arm wrenched up behind my back (still hurts too), and with my face pressed hard against the dirt smeared rear driver's side window of a blue Dodge Magnum.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, boy?” Maria yelled, pulling my arm harder.

Before I could grunt out an answer, there was movement from inside the car. A small face and a pair of hands slammed themselves against the inside of the window I was pressed up against.

I made a noise that sounded approximately like “Wuuaaagggh!” and found the strength to shove back against Maria, and away from the car despite the armlock she had me in.

When I turned, Maria was on the ground, and my left shoulder was screaming white hot pain. A large part of me wanted to charge Maria while she was down; wanted to get revenge for what she said to Sharon, to take out all of my hurt on her, but a bigger part wanted to know who the hell was in that car.

Maria was more interested in a fight. She was on her feet and charging me in a flash. Her momentum drove me back into the Magnum, and I heard the window crack from the impact, but thankfully it didn't shatter.

Maria punched me once in the gut, while snarling something that I'm guessing was obscene in Spanish. If there's one thing I can do, it's take a punch to the stomach; it hurt, but it didn't knock the wind out of me. I shoved her backwards.

I started toward her, but suddenly Gerry and Beth were between us. Gerry was trying to hold Maria back, yelling something at her that I couldn't understand over Beth telling me to calm down.

“What the fuck?” Beth yelled at me, shoving me to the side and away from the thing behind the cracked window, “You need to calm down and stop, now!”

Sharon's scream drowned us all out, “Stop it! Stop fighting! I'm sorry, I'll try and be better!”. Then she fell to the ground.

I shoved Beth roughly out of my way and went to where Sharon was laying on the ground. I knelt down next to her, “It's okay, Sharon, just calm down.” Adrenaline was coursing through my veins, but I tried to make my voice sound as calm as possible, but there was no reason to, Sharon was unconscious.

Everything was silent then, except for the thing in the Magnum punching at the cracked glass. Gerry led Maria away, towards the overturned cars while Beth came to talk to me.

“Did she just speak?” Beth asked, kneeling down, and checking Sharon's head for wounds from her impact with the road surface.

“She started speaking a few days ago, “I answered, trying to calm down, “but today is the first time she's really seemed like she has any idea what is going on around her.

“Were you going to tell us?”

“Would you have cared?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Beth asked, “Of course we would care.”

“Maria just wants her gone, and if that's how you all feel, we'll leave; that's what she was trying to do.”

“Maria doesn't speak for Gerry and me, so you can knock the whole feeling sorry for yourself shit off right now. We are a team and a family, and you are both important to us.”

“Well Maria-”

“Maria is scared! We're all scared. We all need to take care of each other. If Sharon is talking to you, if she is aware of her surroundings again that is a good thing. Don't let your big macho protector feelings for her make you do something stupid.”

That got through to me, and I really did start to calm down then. 'You mean like attacking Maria?”

“Exactly like attacking Maria; she could have broken your neck, you idiot. Now lets get Sharon back into the car.”

Beth helped me get Sharon up off of the ground, but I carried her myself. Either I've gotten stronger over the last year, or she's lost weight; she seemed so light in my arms. We put Sharon in the backseat of the Excursion, and then locked her in by flipping the child lock button on the door.

Beth led me back to where Maria and Gerry were standing, looking at the zed in the back of the Magnum. It turned out to be a kid, and was not strong enough to smash through even the cracked window, nor smart enough to open the door to get out. It seemed slower than the kids we found in that church months ago, but I don't know if that's from going who knows how long without eating, or if it was a reaction to the cold.

Beth stayed in front of me, but slightly to the side so that I could look Maria in the eyes. Maria looked at me like a tiger ready to strike out at me.

“I'm sorry,” I said, some of my anger returning as I saw the anger in her eyes.

“So am I, but if you ever raise a hand to me again, only one of us will be walking away from it. I value you as a member of this team, but no one gets away with hitting me.”

More of my anger was returning hard now, and Beth saw it. Can you blame me though? Someone who I thought was a friend just threatened to kill me; that should piss pretty much anyone off.

“Why don't you go sit with Sharon, okay?” Beth suggested.

“Yeah, sure, that's how I'm a valuable team member,” I started to stalk back towards the cars.

“You're the one who wants to get into her pants!” Maria called after me.

I turned around to face her, and Beth stepped forward to be between us in case I did something stupid again, “I don't know what is wrong with you, Maria, but you were her friend, were my friend; at least I thought you were. If that's not the case anymore, then fuck you!” I very maturely flipped her the bird as I said it.

I went back to the car, making sure to turn off the child lock before closing myself in. Sharon stirred in her seat as I closed the door.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly, “I'm trying; it's just so hard. It hurts so much.”

I was alarmed, “What hurts? Was it when you fell?”

“No, it hurts here,” she took my hand, and placed it on her chest. It was over her jacket, but it still made me feel weird; uncomfortable

I pulled my hand away, “Please don't... do that,” I had trouble saying the words.

“What?” she asked, looking puzzled.

I motioned to the front of her jacket, “That... make me... that,” I stammered, unable to put it into coherent words.

Sharon looked down at the swell of her breasts at the front of her jacket, then up at me. She cocked her head to one side just like the other day, only this time she frowned. She then nodded her head twice, closed her eyes, and lay her head on my shoulder. Within moments she was snoring softly.

A few minutes later, there was a single gunshot.

A few minutes after that the driver's door opened, and Beth climbed in.

“Where's Maria?” I asked.

“We've talked it out, and decided that maybe she should ride with Gerry for a while, so I will be your chauffeur for the rest of the day.” Beth smiled at me in the rear view mirror.

“I'm sorry about all that,” I said.

Beth shrugged, “Don't apologize to me. She told us what she had said to Sharon; if someone said all that crap about one of my friends I'd hit them too. I hope you got it all out of your system though. I don't want to see a repeat of that.”

“Yes, teacher,” I said, feeling properly chastised.

Warm air started to blow out of the vents as Beth started the engine, “ If you want my opinion, I think Maria's jealous that Gerry has been hanging out with me,” in front of us the tan Excursion started to move forward, pulling to the right, “Not that there's anything going on between us, mind you. I think she has feelings for him, but it could just be that she's feeling like a third wheel. Hold on, we're going through the field.”

“What?” I asked.

Before I could react, the Excursion in front of us suddenly dropped down the slope at the side of the road, and into the field that I had only minutes before chased Sharon out into. I grabbed Sharon, who was not wearing a seatbelt, just as we started down the slope.

Unfortunately I was not wearing a seatbelt either, and while I somehow succeeded in keeping Sharon from bouncing around the inside of the car, I myself managed to slam my own head into the ceiling. My scalp was quite happy to remind me that it was still sore, and that I should avoid being dangled by my hair again anytime soon. At least Maria didn't pull my hair, lord knows there's enough of it; Tara had been bugging me to get it cut.

When the stars cleared from my eyes, Sharon was leaning the other way, up against the bags of clothing, and my arm was stretched across her breasts. I pulled my hand away quickly.

“Don't worry, “Beth chuckled at me, “I won't tell anyone you were copping a feel.”

“Shut up!”

Beth just laughed at my embarrassment. I wasn't trying to cope a feel, just for the record. I'm not a complete scumbag.

That experience set the tone for the day. Every few miles we would have to navigate around wreckage blocking the road. At one point we found ourselves blocked in by trees on both sides, orchards of some sort I guess. When we tried to go around it by crawling through a muddy field, we ended up at the edge of an irrigation canal, and had to backtrack to find a side road around the orchards, got thoroughly lost, and blew most of the rest of the day.

The final straw was just past a small town called Lobo when we discovered a collapsed overpass that apparently had been under construction back in the spring. It was blocking the road completely.

“Fuck it!” said Maria as we all stood looking at the pile of cement, rebar, and wood, “Lets find somewhere to sleep tonight.”

“I agree, “said Gerry, “It's getting dark. We can find our way around this tomorrow. Lets go back to that town there and find somewhere secure enough to sleep.”

I kept my mouth shut during all of this, partly because I agreed, but mostly to not draw attention to the fact that Sharon was again staring into space and smiling at people who were not there, and in fact was not wandering off only because I was holding her hand tightly.

Lobo looked like a small war had taken place. Most of the stores on the town's small main street had been ransacked. Broken glass, and burnt wreckage all over the place, including what looked like an overturned school bus in what looks like it was once a gas station. I can only imagine what happened here.

After a bit of searching we found a building that seemed to be untouched, it was a comic book store called “The Geek Shall Inherit”. After confirming that the place had somehow escaped the destruction that seemed to befall the rest of the town, and that it in fact did appear to be zed free, Gerry opened the doors for us, and we pulled the now mud-coated Excursions around ton the store's side to keep them as out of sight as possible.

I like it here. If I thought we could find enough supplies to make a go of it, I think I might stay here with Sharon. Also, aside from the general condition of the area, and the lack of supplies that that indicates to me, the water here is out. No running water means no toilet, and I'm to going to go into any detail about how we have dealt with that.

Sharon likes it here too. She's been reading mangas ever since we got here, that and eating Pocky and drinking warm Ramune drinks. She hasn't been talking though, and that worries me a bit, but then she's not talking to invisible people, so maybe it's a good thing.

Everyone else is asleep now except for Maria, who is sitting by the window on watch. I think she's reading a Preacher TPB, but I'm not totally sure. I would like to go and talk things out with her, but I'm afraid it will end up in blood and tears, so I won't.

Instead, I'm going to finish my Pocky, read for a little bit, and try to get some sleep. Hopefully we will make better time tomorrow. We're really not going all that far.