Episode 10: Meanwhile

Episode 10

"Meanwhile"

Two weeks have past since Wendy's death, everything was going smoothly. Nobody was really sad about Wendy's death, she was weak, and she almost got us killed because of her stupid actions. People like her just weren't built for this kind of world. I didn't know I was, when this started I thought I was going to die soon, but I pulled through. Brains are almost more important that strength in this world. You have to be smart to survive. We got the doors fixed, and we haven't left the mall. We have a strict regulation now that nobody ever leaves the mall unless it is an absolute emergency. We have everything we need right in this mall. We need something, we go find it in a store inside the mall. We also cleared the rest of the mall out too, there were only a few lingering stranglers in the mall that we had to take out. Most of them were all killed when Jess and Jake first got here with everyone else. The vegetables were growing amazingly, they were almost done, we just had to give them a few more weeks. Mark has helped almost everyone at the group get over their fears, and past. The only person he couldn't help was Jess, she was very secluded. She didn't want to talk about many things. Patrick and I had been successfully watching the mall for a while now, nothing bad has happened. It was only a few more days until we would leave to the laboratory. Ned was just finishing up the safest route. Toronto was a big city so it took time to map out. Other than that, nothing else has really happened, Sabrina and I are deciding to take things slow.

It started getting dark out, it was time for the watch. Patrick and I headed up to the roof, passing Sabrina and Jamie, who were just hanging out and talking near the plants.

"Alright," I said, "You two can go down, we'll take watch."

Sabrina and Jamie got up and headed downstairs, I picked up one of the silenced rifles, along with Patrick. We lay down and just talk to each other, waiting for our shift to end, then Jake and Jess will come and take over for the rest of the night.

"So," Patrick began, "How long do you think this will last for?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"This! This mall. I want it to last, I want us to have a life here. Part of me thinks that this is not going to work though, it's almost too good to be true."

"We've lived here for a long time, it's almost been four months into the apocalypse, we've survived this far. We may not have held off your house as well, but that was because we weren't prepared. We were weak back then, we had no idea what was out there. We are strong now, we have this mall heavily fortified. We will be prepared for anything." I said.

"I guess you're right," he said, "But everything has to come to an end at some point."

I noticed something in the corner of my eye, it was far enough away so I couldn't make it out. I saw almost a flash of light, I looked through my scope but couldn't see anything.

"You see something?" Patrick asked me.

"I thought I did, must have been my imagination."

"Probably just some strangler or something, nothing new."

"Yeah," I said, "You're probably right."

For the rest of our shift, we just talked, and sniped the odd strangler once in a while. We don't have to use the mirrors at night time, no stranglers will notice if we drop one of them every once in a while. After a few hours, Jess and Jake came upstairs to the roof and it was our time to go to sleep.

"We can take over now." Jake said.

"Yeah," I yawned, "I'm tired."

Patrick and I headed downstairs after Jess and Jake taking over, I got into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes. I felt a lot more comfortable here now that Wendy was gone. Everyone else here was cool, and I trusted them now. I started to sleep by myself now, instead of staying close to Kayla. I haven't spent a lot of time with her now, she mainly likes to help garden with Sabrina and Jamie. I kept my eyes closed until I drifted off to sleep. I had another dream that night. It was about Samantha. It was from a birds eye view again, and I saw her at a table with another man. It was the same man in the blue suit and the black hair. He was having dinner with her, her at one end of the table, and him at the other. There were guards standing by the dining room doors, Samantha looked nervous while she ate. She would look over at the guards once in a while, and try to get up, but they would just sit her back down. Then my dream faded, I wanted to stay and watch over Samantha, but she just faded off. I woke and opened my eyes, it was morning. I got up and saw everyone eating breakfast, I got up and sat with Patrick and Mark who were eating together. Heather came by and served me some eggs and waffles. It looked good.

"Thank you Heather." I said.

"No problem, if you need anything just ask."

She then walked off to serve more people, and I started eating. I was hungry, and Heather was a pretty good cook. I couldn't stop thinking about that dream about Samantha though. It really bugged me, I wanted to see her so bad and part of me knew she was out there and alive.

"You are always sleeping in Jeff," Mark said, "You really gotta teach me how to do that. I always wake up too damn early and I can't get back to sleep. I'm usually always the second one up all the time."

"Who's the first?"

"Winston," Mark began, "Guy is like a hawk, he watches everything. You wouldn't think he would, but he does. He's always first up, and if you pay close attention it seems as if he is scanning the area all the time. Watching everyone's moves. If you ask me I think his friendly personality, is all an act."

"Oh come on, we can't start turning on each other now." I said.

Patrick laughed, "You're pretty damn paranoid Mark, maybe you need a therapist yourself."

I knew Mark was wrong, but I still wanted to see for myself. I turned to look at Winston, his eyes were narrowed, and he was looking around, analyzing people. Mark was right, but that's probably just Winston's personality, no reason to distrust him.

"Attention!" Jake began, he walked out of the storage room with Ned. "We think we might know how to get the power back on."

Everyone cheered, and Jake calmed everyone down again.

"This way, we can watch the news and keep up. I don't know what the government is planning, but at least we can see what it is."

"So what is the plan?" Jamie asked.

"Well," he began, "Ned says that every store has a backup generator. It is outside of the mall, so we are going to have to go outside. It runs on gasoline, so we are also going to have to send some people to look for gas in the mall. Once we can do that, this mall will have power."

"They usually turn on themselves, but it must be out of power. We need gasoline at all costs." Ned said.

"Wait a second," Patrick began, "Jeff, remember the gasoline we found at the arcade?"

"Yeah?"

"You grabbed some containers and threw it in the back of the truck right?"

"Yeah, but we left the truck at the start of Toronto." I said.

"We need to go back and get it."

"I guess we could, we'd just have to be careful. It wouldn't be that long of a run, maybe ten minutes or so."

"You guys have gasoline?" Jake asked.

"Yeah," Patrick began, "But we need to get back to our truck."

"You should drive the truck back here, we could use it if anything ever happened." Jess said, coming out of the storage room.

"Sure, Jeff and I will head out." Patrick selected.

"Alright," Jake said, "Patrick and Jeff head out to the truck, Ned, Mark, and I will go to the generator. Everyone stay here."

"Let me come, I can help you two." Jess volunteered.

"Sure," Patrick said, "Just don't slow us down."

Jess rolled her eyes.

We headed out of the food court, I hugged Kayla and Sabrina and told them I'd be back soon. This mission wasn't too dangerous considering what we have done in the past. I brought my shotgun with me, Patrick brought a rifle, and Jess brought her signature weapons. They were two pistols, both 1911's. She had customized them though, she had small knives on the ends of both of them. She could flip her gun around and stab something. I opened the doors and then the gate, we all walked out, and I closed everything behind us. The streets were a little bit cleaner because we had watchmen to shoot the stranglers, but there were still a bit of them wandering around

"Alright," I said, "There are still stranglers out here. We just need to take the back roads and we'll be good. Follow me."

I led everyone, and we went the same way we came. I stayed close to the buildings and out of sight until we reached the fence that Brandy cut himself on. It led into an alleyway. I threw my shotgun over and hopped over it. Patrick offered Jess to go first, I could tell he was in love with her. It was funny the way he acted with her. After Jess was over, Patrick threw his rifle over and hopped over. He picked up the rifle and we all headed down the alleyway. A strangler then turned into us from a building, Jess ran up and stabbed it in the head with the end of her gun.

"Wow." Patrick said.

"Yeah, it's fun too." Jess said.

We kept running down the alleyway, the odd strangler would appear and we would silently kill it. I found a cool way to kill a strangler with my shotgun without making noise. I would run at it with the end of my shotgun and smash it's head into a wall. Of course, Jess's way was less messier and cooler. The alley then ended and we ran back out onto the main streets. I saw our truck in the distance. We started running faster, sprinting to the truck at full force. We arrived at the truck, it looked untouched, except for one thing. I looked in the back, and the gasoline was gone.

"The hell?" I asked, "It's gone."

"Shit! Really?" Patrick exclaimed.

"Who would take only the gasoline and not the truck?" Jess asked.

I looked around, I still felt watched by something. Some kind of force. It was making me very uncomfortable. I looked on top of a small building and saw a figure move away. I only saw it for a split second.

"Someone is here," I said, "And they're watching us."

We were all paranoid now, looking around our environment, trying to find something. Someone was watching us, or more than one person, you never know. I then heard something in the distance, I leaned to see what it was, then a bullet went straight past me and struck the truck. I turned, it was fired from a building.

"Shooters!" I yelled, "Run!"

I ran behind the truck and hid, but then I saw another figure on another building facing us. They aimed and I dodged out of the way. They shot and struck the truck again. They were surrounding us, who knows how many of them there were? I opened a door of the truck and got in the drivers seat, Patrick got in the back, and Jess got in the passenger seat.

"Please work." I fiddled with the wires under the wheel.

The truck started right up thankfully, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal and we screeched off into the distance, leaving whatever that was back there. I swerved to the side to turn, and took out a few stranglers. Now a ton of them were on us now. I drove down the street heading to the mall, I just hoped the shooters back there aren't following us. I made a couple more turns, Patrick was falling around in the back as I swerved around. There was a mini horde of stranglers, I drove straight at them, blood coated the truck as bodies rag dolled around the streets. I made one more quick turn and pulled right beside the mall. There were a few stranglers following us, we got out and started to shoot at them. They dropped like flies and we kept on shooting until they were all dead. I really hoped more weren't coming, we ran into the mall and shut the gate and doors behind us. Once we were in we finally took a breath.

"Jeez," I panted, "What the hell was that back there?"

"Let's just hope- they haven't followed us." Jess said, catching her breath.

We walked down the mall and headed back into the food court, Jake and the rest of his selected team had already headed out to go find the generator. Ned, Jake, and Mark were gone. Sabrina ran up to me and hugged me.

"Thank god you are all right! Did you guys get the gasoline?" she asked.

"No, we got the truck but someone else took the gasoline. It wasn't there when we got there." I answered.

"Who would take the gasoline but not the truck?" Sabrina asked.

"That's what I said." Jess added.

The door opened again and Jake and his crew headed in, they saw us and his eyes lit up.

"Did you guys get it? We found the generator, all we need is some gasoline and we can start her right up!"

"No, we got the truck. The gasoline was gone though." Jess said.

"Dammit!" Jake kicked a wall, "I thought we could be watching T.V by tonight."

"Don't worry," I said, "We can still check the mall."

"Yeah, you guys go do that, I'll be waiting here."

We left again, same people. Jess, Patrick, and I. Sabrina and Kayla didn't want me to go again, but I assured them we were staying in the mall and the mall was safe ever since we cleared it out. We looked around the mall, after clearing it I never really paid attention to which stores we cleared. I wish I did now. I just cleared the store with a few other people and that was that.

"Do you think the hardware store would have some?" Patrick asked.

"Good idea," I said, "Let's go there."

We headed up the escalators and started walking to the same hardware we were trapped in before.

"So," Patrick said to Jess, "I know you didn't want to talk about this, but I was really wondering."

"What?" she asked.

"Jake said something about Wendy doing something to you. You didn't want him to finish though, what was it?"

"It was really nothing, it was just Wendy being her stupid self. She pushed me out into a bunch of stranglers to save herself. Luckily Jake had my back. I was lucky I didn't get infected. I wanted to kill her when I got back there. Jake wouldn't let me though. He said something about losing ourselves. He said if we just start killing people, we would lose our humanity and become animals."

"Jake needs to open his eyes," I said, "You have to make drastic decisions now in this world, or you die. You guys should have at least kicked Wendy out first chance you got."