Chapter 9: Settlement
"How did you get in here? Did you see anything back there?" Fablo asked while pointing at the door that Edward had forced open after confirming that he wasn't truly hurt.
"I did, I saw a zombie corpse, and the place looked really messed up. Did you people kill it?" Edward acted so naturally that nobody would suspect a thing or doubt him.
Everyone stared at him and could only marvel at how lucky and stupid he was at the same time.
Why would they be hiding under a shelf and be scared shitless if they were able to kill such a zombie?
"Cough! Don't joke around kid, we were hiding here all this while"
Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!
The sounds of the front door threatening to come down to its knees reminded everyone that this was not a place to hold a conversation unless they planned to have a board meeting with all the zombies outside.
Fablo looks at the door and then at his companions before turning to Edward.
"Are you alone, kid?" He asked and Edward nodded in response.
"Alright, then you can follow us. We will make introductions later" Fablo said and Edward agreed without a second of hesitation, that was his reason for coming here anyway.
The others obviously had different thoughts but now was not time to talk about it, they threw away everything in Edward's bag and then filled it with supplies before leaving through the back door.
They were further shocked by the scene they saw and the body of the zombie, they once again stared at Edward and could only appreciate how partial luck was towards him.
...
It was already morning by the time they finally left the place, they had spent the entire night there because of the incident they had run into. Luckily, none of the eight people went missing and they even brought back someone with them.
They moved in silence as they traveled across the city that was crawling with zombies, avoiding every single zombie they spotted, and running as fast as they could when they were spotted.
Edward realized that they were already getting closer to their settlement after noticing that the number of zombies had reduced a lot and the part that they were passing through seemed to have been planned out. He was more than happy to stick to such a group as they would increase his safety in such a place, although he still kept his vigilance and was prepared to flee in case things went bad.
After all, he was a stranger to them and did not know what plans they had in mind for him or what they would do to him if they encountered a hard situation where someone had to be sacrificed. Such a thing was not rare in the apocalypse so Edward tried as much as he could to position himself on the side that would make encircling him difficult.
Fablo seemed to notice Edward's thought as he studied the way that the kid was moving and observing the members of his group, he could only smile slightly at this. He had no such thoughts of sacrificing a kid for himself since he once had kids too but did not know their whereabouts currently, he just hoped that they were safe.
As for the other seven, they did not notice anything and only moved with cautious silence as they constantly looked around them while being light on their feet.
They finally reached their destination after a few hours of walking, the sky was now well lit but the temperature was still cold.
They stood in front of a story building with a metal door in front and a slide on the door that acted as a see-through.
Bang!! Bang!!
Fablo stepped forward and slammed his fist on the metal door twice before taking a step back, silence was what followed. Seeing that the other members are calm about the lack of response from the other side, Edward decided to not say anything and observe their surroundings instead.
The street was littered with bodies of zombies, blood, broken stuff…it was plain chaos.
The buildings around barely had all their windows intact and blood stains could be seen on their walls and some buildings had cracks like something had hit them hard or an earthquake happened beneath them.
Edward could easily tell that this place was no different from his university that fateful night, he seemed to be able to imagine the scenes of the residents of these buildings running chaotically, sounds of babies crying and women screaming as some had a front seat experience to how it was to be eaten alive. The terror many must have felt when their own people and loved ones turned to bite them, the shock they would experience when their cats and dogs revealed rows of razor-sharp teeth and gained hideous appearances.
"Hey kid, wake up"
Edward suddenly felt someone shake his shoulder and a voice entered his ears, waking him from his daze with a dull pain; his body still ached a bit even after a few hours had passed. Edward looked over and saw Fablo standing in front of him with a hand on his shoulder and a look of confusion on his face, the others were also looking at him with weird expressions.
"You alright?" Fablo asked, seeing that Edward had come back to his senses, the kid seemed to have suddenly zoned out in thoughts.
"Yeah, I'm good. I just got lost in thoughts" Edward smiled foolishly and scratched the back of his head. The expressions of the others eased upon seeing them and no one paid him any more attention, the metal door was already opened, and in front of them stood a scrawny-looking old man and a fat lady.
Fablo looked at Edward for a while before gesturing for him to follow them in. Edward nodded and followed behind the man in security uniform. He was mindful of the expressions on their faces and felt relieved when they stopped paying attention to him, it would be bad if they thought he was infected and was hiding it.
They entered the building and the metal door was shut by the scrawny man before placing steel pipes to cross it. Meanwhile, Edward and the others were let to a separate room where they would be properly inspected. Of course, the five women were taken elsewhere to be checked by the fat woman while the scrawny man came to check them.
Edward felt strange standing amid naked men and he too was in the same situation, thankfully, he had nothing to hide as all the signs that he fought that zombie had been erased by the time he woke up; the only sign that reminded him that it was not a dream was the dull pain that he was feeling.
He could feel Fablo's eyes roaming his body and he knew what the man was looking out for so he did not feel offended or weird being stared at by a man.
The inspection was soon over and they finally moved further up the building to the top floor which turned out to be the main quarter where everyone lived together, both men and women.
In the apocalypse, it was common sense to not be separated even in a shelter with a lot of people as it might result in a disaster.
Restrooms were on the lower floor and a single person was not allowed to go alone even if they had secured the entire building, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Edward found a corner to sit as he looked around the place. The place was strangely wide with nothing to block his vision, just like a hall, so he was able to see everyone.
Excluding the eight people he had already met, there were another twelve people living in this place, including the scrawny man and the fat woman whom he had seen earlier. A total of thirteen women and seven men, Edward had already met ten of them so the other ten were complete strangers; not like he was familiar with the previous ten to begin with. Edward saw Fablo, the man in security uniform, hand over the bags that they had brought back to an elderly woman who seemed to be in her fifties. It was strange to see such a person had survived so long in the apocalypse. How long had they been staying here?
The people welcomed the eight members who had gone out to look for food and they exchanged some pleasantries as they started to chat casually. Soon, laughter began to sound in the hall as if the world outside had been forgotten by them.
"Surprised?"
A voice sounded beside Edward, waking him from his thoughts, again. The voice had by now become familiar to him so he was not startled when he heard him, he turned slowly and put on a naive smile as he said.
"Yeah, I never thought I would witness a scene like this three years ago," Edward replied.
Even though he still had experienced fun moments in the past, that was only after he had joined Helen's group which was a few months ago and even those fun moments were not entirely joyous like this because Helen would only smile at their foolish words, Lily would blush heavily and not participate, while Elsa would put on a cold face. It was mostly just him and Mark. Any time before those times was plain hell.
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