Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 13: Shopping Spree .1

Melissa's P.O.V.

Getting my cast off should have been a good thing.

But now that I had full mobility I had was twice as bored.

I thought maybe Evelyn would have things for me to do, or, now that I was mobile, she'd want to go out, but she had been completely serious. Snowy months were months that Evelyn didn't leave her house. She really was just going to hibernate until it the snow had melted.

And okay, sure. We bitched and complained until she agreed to celebrating Christmas in the house, but that had only opened up the door to more problems. That involved Evelyn going up into the attic and bringing down three boxes all filled with Christmas supplies, including a fake Christmas tree.

We all asked her why she had this stuff if she was so against having a Christmas in the first place and she said the most cryptic thing we had ever heard.

"We used to celebrate Christmas."

But nothing else.

Then she left us with that. She wouldn't tell us anything else, like... literally would not bring it up again. And if we asked her who she meant by we she'd just look at us like we were crazy and then change the topic.

See, that was the thing. Evelyn, to our knowledge, had always been alone. But clearly that wasn't the case. She had a room that clearly belonged to someone else, someone male or really into sports and bloodied video games, and now she said she did Christmas with whoever she meant by we.

Maybe she was so against working with other people because she lost who she was originally with and didn't want to replacement or get close to anyone else in fear of getting hurt again.

And I might have believed that too, if I thought Evelyn was capable of human emotion which I was pretty sure she wasn't.

But Christmas meant gifts, and we didn't have any of that.

And that could only mean one thing.

"Christmas is tomorrow!" Rebecca shouted at Evelyn as she moved around the kitchen attempting to make her eighteenth cocoa of the day.

"Yes, I know the date, Becks," she said.

"Don't call me that, you know I hate it when you call me that."

Evelyn held her gaze and said: "It's Becks or Scream-o what do you want?"

Evelyn gave nicknames to people. It was her thing. Rebecca was glaring at her because she didn't like either of those options. But she didn't want to answer, because whatever she chose would be what Evelyn stuck with, but Evelyn was going to call her either or until she gave her a clear answer on which one she wanted.

Bit since Rebecca had struck out it was my turn now.

"What we mean is that we don't have presents and we want to get each other and ourselves presents," I told her. Evelyn was always a little more reasonable with me, but that was because I knew how to speak our language.

"It's snowing."

Yes. I know. Because it was December in Canada, and zombie apocalypse or not, Canada was Canada and we got snow every winter.

"I know it's snowing, but maybe when it's done snowing, we could go to the mall."

"Malls are fodder zones, they also breed mutants. Malls are never good."

"Aw come on, you're telling me you never go to the mall?"

"Not if I can help it," Evelyn said trying to move past, but Connor had joined us now and helped us in blocking the way.

"If we can't go today maybe we can go tomorrow as like a Christmas event?" Connor added and Evelyn turned to all our faces one at a time, realizing that we were pretty much all against her.

She sighed heavily and then said: "No. I don't do snow."

And then she pushed past all of us to storm up to her room.

"Well, that was a bust," Connor said once she was gone. "Do you think there's a reason? Like something happened in the snow and now she doesn't leave during the winter?"

That definitely seemed to be her pattern, but who was to say? Evelyn rarely talked about her past.

"What if we go without her?" Rebecca asked. "We could just take her jeep and go."

"Do you want to die?" I snapped. "Firstly, we take her prized Jeep and she'll kill us. Secondly, we go without her and we won't have the power to walk through a crowd of zombies without being bothered and bam, we're dead."

"She can really do that?"

Both Rebecca and I nodded and that fan-boy light in Connor's eyes brightened.

"So, we're not going?" Rebecca asked and I just shrugged.

"We can try again tomorrow but I make no promises."

But by morning, the decision had already been made. Evelyn woke all of us up with the same speech.

"Get up. Get dressed. Get ready. If I'm taking you guys shopping, we've got rules to go through and I need all of y'all to be completely in agreeance and understanding before we leave."

All of us were surprised. Surprised that she had changed her mind. But none of us were going to question it, so we all did as we were told.