Read After The End Times :: Maveth, Chapter 2

It takes me a few minutes to remember where I am when I wake up. I don’t remember falling asleep, but nothing chewed on me in my sleep so it’s fine. Sitting up seems like a bad idea for a few minutes after I open my eyes. I can already tell that the morning air is chilly and my sleeping bag is warm. But I do sit up in the end, if I’m going to reach the Hub before sundown, I need to get moving.

I throw my blanket off and stand in one swift movement, not giving myself a chance to lay back down. I swear under my breath when the cold air hits me and immediately dig my jacket out of my pack. By midday it’ll be way too warm for it, but I am not spending my morning shivering more than I have too.

After I get my jacket on, I begin tightly rolling up my sleeping bag to make it fit inside my pack again. I’ll have to reorganize it after I do my trading at the Hub, but that’s a problem for the future.

I slip my pack over my shoulders, clipping the buckle across my chest in case I end up needing to make a run for it on my way out. There’s no telling what might’ve come wandering over during the night.

I start to make my way to the front door, though I end up stopping in front of a mirror. It’s been a minute since I’ve looked into a mirror. I have a small pocket one that I use for sneaking peeks around corners sometimes, but I don’t make it a habit to look at myself much. Besides, it’s been weeks since I’ve actually seen a living person, let alone spoken to one. My appearance doesn’t matter all that much.

All of that doesn’t stop me from looking though.

My hair is overgrown and filthy, making it look a shade of brown darker than it really is. I’m covered in dust and dirt, and my jacket is definitely cleaner than my pants. My skin is normally a warm shade of brown, but my months of walking in the sun everyday has given me a tan that’ll take some time to fade. I have a few scratches on my forehead from tripping into an overgrown rose bush a couple days back. I also look tired, my dark brown eyes seeming brighter due to the dark circles under them.

All in all nothing a few weeks settled into Paradise won’t fix, just need to keep it together until then.

I turn away from the mirror, tucking a bit of my too long hair behind my ear. I’ll cut it when I have the time, but right now I really need to get going.

I’m almost surprised that the zombie that was calling for a Stacy doesn’t make another peep while I shove the couch away from the door.

Once the couch is out of my way, I look through the glass to see if there’s anything close by. I think I see a zombie shambling off in the distance, but it seems to be moving away. It shouldn’t be a problem as long as I don’t make much noise.

I’m not a huge fan of killing them, I get that it needs to be done and I’ll kill them if they get too close. But the fact that they were all humans at one point bugs me a bit.

Not that I haven’t killed humans before, I just don’t like doing it much.

I slowly open the door with one hand, slipping my knife out with the other. Always better to be safe than sorry.

Stepping out, I make sure to avoid so much as nudging the bells I had left on the ground the night before. Then I shut the door and start off towards The Highway again. Follow The Highway, you’ll eventually reach the Hub. I can’t remember the name of this particular Highway off the top of my head, everyone I used to know just called it The Highway, it was the only one within walking distance. Most fuels like gasoline went bad years ago, and horses could only take you so far. Bikes were a possibility, but I was never actually taught to ride one, and they seem more trouble than they’re worth.

I pass the trapped zombie on my way out, but it isn’t trying to speak anymore. Its head is caved in, it looks like someone stomped on its head during the night. A shiver went down my spine at the thought, not only did someone bother to waste the time and energy killing a zombie that posed absolutely no threat, but they were just outside of where I had slept.

I need to start picking much more secure places to sleep, or I’m going to wake up with a slit throat one of these days.

With that last unpleasant thought, I pick up the pace, wanting to get to The Highway and to the Hub as soon as possible.

To help keep from slowly going crazy while on the road, I’ve come up with a game of sorts to pass the time. Well, less of a game and more of a handful of tasks. I count things, how many cars I see, how many in each color, how many still have over half of their windows. Things like that.

I used to have a pocket notebook just for writing the numbers down, but I filled it out completely a little while back and haven’t found a new one. I haven’t tossed the old one yet either. It’s dead weight and completely useless, but I still have it tucked away at the bottom of my pack. That’s probably a sign of a beginning hoarding problem.

So far I’ve counted three red cars, one of which was missing more than half of its windows. I also counted six silver ones, only two of those were windowless. There have so far been two blue cars, both of which had so far been spared and allowed to keep their respective windows.

What a life for a young man such as myself to live. So thrilling.

I should be making a list of things I need to trade for at the Hub so I can be ready for the final stretch of my journey to Paradise.

I’ll need more food I can stow in my bag in case there’s nothing to hunt, gather, or scrounge around for. I should also try to get new soles for my boots, or at least ones that aren’t crushed quite so flat. I should also restock my first aid kit, I need more flesh safe thread. And a new sewing needle.

I also want to try and get some lollipops while I’m there, they’re not a necessity in the slightest, but I want them nonetheless.

I should probably invest in a watch as well.

I have no real idea how much time has passed since I left the furniture store. There aren’t any stores around me anymore, just a whole lot of cracked pavement and dead cars. There’s also a handful of corpses, but they don’t move so I have no reason to disturb the dead. They belong to the elements now.

It’s times like this that I can almost trick myself into thinking that the dead stay dead, that they don’t walk and eat and try to talk.

I think that’s one of my favorite daydreams. That I’m just in some old world horror story, living some shitty metaphor for consumerism or some other philosophical bullshit that they had the luxury of entertaining the idea of.

You only become a zombie if you’re bit. But you can be bitten up to at least a week after you’ve technically died and still become zombified. Those things will eat anything if they’re hungry enough. I’ve seen them eat their own rotten fallen a few times. But they always prefer their meat fresh, as in still screaming in terror and agony, fresh.

In the beginning, a lot of people tried to save the zombies. After all, they didn’t quite match the fictitious versions that people had cooked up for movies and the like. They didn’t snarl and growl, they tried to speak and plead and they sobbed. Some would even ignore flesh, trying to accomplish some goal they were working at before they died. Though those were very few and far between.

But despite all the decaying scraps of humanity the undead managed to cling to, they still ate the living. Every single time, in the end, they’d eat people both alive and truly dead.

All those trying to cure and save them were idiots, and they died idiotic deaths.

All of them.

Just as the sun begins to once again dip low in the horizon, I see the Hub.