“You strike me as a really dark girl.”
I hesitate. Am I flattered by that? No, that makes no sense. Still, though....
“You tell me yours first.”
“Nope, not a chance.” he says with a shake of his head. “But we’ll make a deal. Marketplace 101. If you tell me your most messed up moment from the beginning, I’ll tell you mine.”
I think about my answer but I try not to go too deep. I don’t want to dig too far and pull out something dark. A lot of this stuff from the early days is buried and gone as far as I’m concerned and I’m not about to go grave robbing to entertain him.
“I wore boy’s clothes for the first year.”
“That’s it?” he asks me, sounding annoyed. “That’s your worst?”
“No, not by a long shot, but you asked what was on my highlight reel and that is. I had to wear boy’s clothes for the first year because the people who took me in were afraid to travel with a young girl. They hacked my hair off and made me wear baseball hats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirts.”
“You should have been wearing those anyway. They were awesome.”
“I’m not arguing that. Now what’s yours?”
He chuckles. “You think you get my worst in trade for that?”
“No, but I get something off your list. Something scarring.” I point my finger at his face. “Your rules, remember?”
“Alright, alright.” he laughs, surrendering. He thinks for a bit before saying, “We made the mistake of going to the zoo a couple months after it happened. My parents wanted to look for food, bottled water, a place to hide. They figured with it being fenced in that maybe the virus hadn’t had much room to spread there, if at all.”
“Had it?”
“Nah, it was pretty empty. There were a few employees and tourist types that were taken down by it. They were wandering around looking confused and hungry by then. The other inhabitants, though, that’s why we had to leave. That’s what was messed up. Kev and I couldn’t handle that nightmare.”
“What nigh— Oh no, those poor animals!”
“Yeah. Every last one of them starved in their cage. Some had eaten others and it wasn’t always the animal you’d think that was left last.” He shivers quickly and shakes it off. “Can you imagine what the prisons were like?”
“Maybe they let the prisoners out.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” I mutter.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it seems like most of the people out there belong in prison.”
He nods in agreement. “You’re right. But that’s just the way things are, I think. Kill or be killed kind of thing. You get so used to fighting and killing the zombies, maybe it doesn’t seem so crazy to kill other people anymore. At least to survive.”
“Is that how you feel?”
He shrugs, looking away. “No. Maybe. I’m not gonna go out looking for people to kill, but if someone busted in here and threatened me or yo—yeah, if I feel threatened enough I’ll kill another person.”
I pause, unsure if I should ask the next question. I don’t know if he’ll answer and I don’t know if I want him to. But messed up as I am, I’m not coward.
“Have you?”
He meets my eyes now, challenging me with them. “Have I what?”
“Have you killed another person?”
“Yeah. I have.” he replies bluntly, his eyes unflinching.
“I haven’t.”
“I know.”
I scowl at him. “How do you know?”
“Because you’re looking at me like I’m dangerous. Like I’m questionable. If you’d done it too, if you knew what it was like to be backed that hard against a wall, you wouldn’t be judging me now.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“Yes you are. And it’s okay. I’m not proud of it, not like the psychopaths out there that do it for fun. But I’m not sorry either.”
There’s a long silence that I have no idea how to fill. I look anywhere but at him, unsure where we go from here. After this, what is there to talk about?
“Don’t be scared of me.” he says quietly.
My eyes shoot to his, surprised. He’s looking at me with steel in his gaze but there’s something else there too. Something almost sad.
“I’m not.”
He nods once. “Good.”
“Does it bother you that you’ve—“
“Can we go outside?” he asks, standing up suddenly. “The rain has stopped. Maybe we could hit the roof? I’m feeling closed in here.”
I look around the massive room we’re sitting in with its twelve foot ceilings and nearly total lack of walls and I wonder what the hell he’s talking about. But I don’t ask. When we head for the door I pause for a moment, debating, then hold up a finger to him.
“Wait.”
I dig around in my backpack, searching. What I need is so small it fits in my two coat pockets, making it easy to hide it from him.
“Okay. Let’s go.” I say, hurrying up through the hatch.
When we get to the roof I immediately check the rain bucket and I’m relieved to find it far fuller than it was before. Water is my worry, far bigger than my concern for food.
“You’re good?” Ryan asks, watching me smile at my bucket.
“For a bit, yeah. I still need to go get more tomorrow.”
“I won’t drink anymore.”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course you can drink some.”
“I don’t want to make you go out to the watering holes if you don’t have to. They’re dangerous lately.”
I haven’t told him I have other water sources. That I don’t go to the holes. Ever. They’re communal type areas where water pools (old fountains, swimming pools, etc.) where people go to gather rain water. They’re dangerous no matter what, but for someone like me living alone and fending for herself, they’re a nightmare. A death sentence.
“Have you seen a lot of Risen there?”
“No. We don’t go there very often. We do what you do – capture the rain – but on a much larger scale. But we’ve heard things from other gangs. Stuff about what’s been going on at the holes.”
“What’s happening?”
“Roundups. A lot of them.”
The Colonies. They perform roundups of the survivors in the wild, a lot like a dogcatcher picking up strays. It’s not voluntary. Not anymore. If they find you, especially if you’re young, they’ll take you by force back to one of the compounds and keep you there. It used to be they rumbled around town in their trucks and called out over loudspeakers for people looking for sanctuary to join them. They offered a warm, dry bed, larger meals than a lot of us could remember ever eating and safety from the infected. All you had to do was follow them like the Pied Piper out to their compound where you’d work to pay your way.
Now, though, it isn’t so merry. Now they scour the city in run down vehicles that run silently, electric most likely, and snatch people off the streets. They write messages on old billboards and on the sides of buildings trying to drum up new recruits.
Be part of a community again! Serve a purpose!
We have doctors! Nurses! Teachers! Farmers! All we need is YOU!
They promise everything under the sun to get us to join willingly. They single out young people, advertising working generators and game systems on large TVs. Hot showers. Hot meals. Milk! That right there, even on my strongest of days, could almost persuade me to go along with them. But I never do. Something just isn’t right about it. They act like they’re trying to save us, saying we are lost and they would return us to the fold where we’d be safe and sound, but I don’t know these people. Not one of them. How can I be returned to somewhere I’ve never been?
“What do you have in your pockets?”
“What?” I ask, blinking at him. I hadn’t realized I’d zoned out.