Brandy Creek (Book One Completed)

(Part 26)

The school is massive, shaped like a crescent. We start on the south end of it, not many windows in this school luckily most of the lights are still on. Its still eerie, the quietness of it and the papers thrown on the floor. There's some backpacks on the ground, pencils and textbooks, doors half open to rooms we clear easily. I'm taking point, with my knife and small pistol, Mato to my side and slightly behind, Anthony at the very back. Both have the same gun, small two handed with a silencer. I'm both surprised and worried that Mato let me take the lead, is it because he sees me as the most expendable? Or because he actually trusts me to be the lead?

I'm not sure if I wanted the answer to that.

Should I care though? I was brought on because I'm a fighter, someone to put between them and the monsters. I'm expendable. Do I want to stick around when I'm thought of being expendable? The best option might be to stick around for a little bit, until the world settles into its new rhythm and I can sneak out of here. Sarah would have Casey and the others in the group, and I can't think of her as mine. She isn't. I never thought of having children before, never thought I would have the security to have one. Just because I'm helping this group now, doesn't change that. I'm not completely safe when they are fine with me taking point all the time, not when they are fine with me taking risks for them.

But then I completely understand where they are coming from, they had family and friends here. The people we find even though are strangers are normal people, I'm not. I understand, but I'm not happy about it. Maybe some time by myself in this world would be a good idea. Or maybe it would be bad.

The halls of the school are eerie, I've never been to a regular school besides the elementary last night. I've seen movies and TV shows, a lot of horror movies with schools in them. That was probably not the best idea considering where I'm at now. Picking up a water bottle I chuck it down the hall and it slides and thunks loudly against a wall.

Nothing.

"This doesn't make much sense." I hiss over at the guys. I see Mato shrug a shoulder before aiming into a room and looking around it.

"That fire took out a lot of them, and we finished off quite a few." Mato doesn't bother to be to quiet about his volume, he still says it lowly though. He was right though, but if they had come out from the school, how? There aren't many windows for them to get out of.

"I would think there would be more chaos." I say to them. Every zombie movie or show I've seen, the first week or so is always fucking chaos. People running around panicking and people looting, hurting each other.

"The population of this city was around 3,500." Mato says coming back out from the room, Anthony takes the next room as I hold the hallway, Mato his back. "If we were in a bigger city it probably is a mess, most of the people here probably left or turned already. Or they are hiding."

He's not wrong, it just felt off. Maybe its just to early for the chaos, the run off from bigger city's might roll through here. We would have to be prepared for that.

We move down the hall, checking into the small classrooms as we go, not finding anyone. Alive or dead. The end of the hall is a large opening to what looks like the main entry way. With a closed off office to the right, lots of broken glass and to the left is more broken glass leading outside. Mato moves to the right, crunching through the glass into the room. Looking over the counters Anthony and I move down the hall way of offices. There isn't much to see, a handful of cramped offices, a break room and what looks like a meeting room. No ones here either, but glass is broken and doors are wide open. What ever was dead had left.

When we come back Mato had found a microphone looking thing, he presses a button and taps the mic. A loud tapping noise sounds from speakers. I move out to the open front room as Mato's voice comes over the intercom. "My name is Mato River, I am with a JOTF group, military. We have a safe space, set up in the mountains we can take you there. We are currently in the administrations office in the main entry of the high school, meet us here in the next twenty minutes. If you are not in a safe area try to make us a sign, we will clear the building before we leave."

Turning back to the office Mato has put down the microphone now just speaking to Anthony and I. "Try to find some things we can use to carry out supply's, find the lost and found if they have one. First aid kits, a nurses station but stick within hearing distance of the main entrance. I'll stay here and wait."

I head back to the offices, one of them was a women's office, she had left her very large tote bag in it. I grab it and dump it out on the desk, pushing aside basically everything. The only thing I keep is a smaller pouch bag, it has a small pack of Kleenex, hand sanitizer, a few unopened chap sticks, small bottle of hand lotion and some cartoon themed bandaids. Moving to the drawers I open and close them until I find what I'm looking for. A bottle of vitamins, ibuprofen, allergy medicine, a small first aid kid, a dozen or so tampons and a dozen or so pads. All of that gets added to the tote bag.

Ransacking the other offices only provide a few more small first aid kits, some bottles of meds and personal items to who ever worked in the offices. I did find a few more large bags that were used to haul paperwork, the said paperwork was dumped on desks. I head outside of the offices, I'm not sure where Anthony went. Mato is sitting in a office chair, pulling things out of drawers. I put the bags down and hop up to sit on the edge of the counter.

"So Wyatt has his mom and brothers here, Micah has his parents and son. What about the rest of you? Any family here?" I ask him.

Mato doesn't pause his search through papers, what he's looking for I have no idea. "Blair has family in Texas, a lot of Charlie and Delta had family in Texas as well, which is why they were there. Lex and Seb had a junkie for a mother and don't know about their dad, so no family for them other then each other."

I'm really surprised he's actually answering my question, I expected him to dodge the question or to give me a few word answer. And to surprise me more, he continues. "I'm not to familiar with the twins, Milo and Anthony. All I know is they had problems with their family, North has grandparents. He was in contact with them, convinced them to come down just before everything happened. They are at camp, maybe you'll meet them at some point."

"Ajax?" I ask him. "Or the other Bravo guy.. and you?"

"I'm not sure about the other two in Bravo, if North wants to bring it up with me he can." Mato says and doesn't answer my question about himself. He asks me. "You have any family or friends?"

I let him ignore the subject about his own family. Its not really my place to push him. So I think about the question he asked me, did I have and family or friends? "I do, I have a aunt but last I heard she was in Sweden. I have two friends though, I doubt they are dead but trying to find them would be very hard."

"Friends you can trust?" Mato asks me.

I really had to think about that. "The first one I'm thinking about yes, they have a strict no children or pregnant women rule. They avoid hurting them at all costs, they might help in the group. The second I would say they wouldn't be gun ho to hurt a group of civvies, but with a bunch of highly trained military they might... cause problems."

"This second person might try to kill us because we are military?" Mato asks finally looking up at me.

I shake my head no. "Its not the military part, its the highly trained part. He likes a challenge. He's known in the community to be the one to take the hard jobs, the ones that he might not come back from. He's a adrenaline junky with a ego, but he's very loyal. He'd risk himself for someone he considers a friend."

"He'd risk himself because he likes the thrill of it."

I smile at that and shrug. "That too, but he's one of the only people I would truly trust to do his best to get me out of a job alive."

"Could you contact them?" Mato asks.

"I would need a long range radio, maybe even a radio station because they traveled all over the country. If I managed to reach them in the next month it would be shocking." I pause then fix my statement. "If I started to reach out for them and managed to reach them within a month."

Mato nods, turning back to shifting through the drawers. I take my leave then, Mato clearly done with our conversation and wander over to the middle schools entry way.