Life After

Chapter 14: The Day It All Fell Apart

The following day was one of the lucky days that AJ had off with me. We slept in that morning and spent a leisurely amount of time getting ready and making breakfast. We made some coffee and sat in bed just talking and enjoying each other's company. It made all the thoughts from the day before feel like a distant memory.

We took Doofus to the dog park. We walked with him and threw a tennis ball around. I sometimes wondered if he missed the days when he could roam freely instead of being cooped up in our room most days. I wished we could spend more time with him or bring him with either of us to work, but there was a pretty strict rule about dogs on the base and he had to be on a leash unless we were at the dog park.

By the time we were done at the park, Doofus was panting and exhausted. We walked him back to the Inn and decided to spend some of our coins we had collected since we began working. We had accumulated quite a savings, but hadn't really bothered with what we wanted to spend it on. We both agreed we needed some new clothes though so we went to what was once a thrift store around the corner from the Inn.

It was a small store, but we were able to find a few outfits for ourselves. We wandered through all the furniture, dishes, and other decor pointing out things we liked and things we would never put in our home. When we were done we paid the coins we owed and went outside.

After shopping we made our way to the fast food restaurant down the street from the Inn. It was no longer in business the way it was before the infection, but they still used it to make and sell ice cream from the dairy farm that had been established on base. We stopped in and purchased two bowls of ice cream then went outside to sit down and eat.

There was a bench not far away on the sidewalk where we sat down. We talked about some of the gossip from work and even started talking about if we wanted to apply to be moved into one of the newly built houses on base. We both agreed that we wanted more space and maybe an area for Doofus to be outside more often. Something in my gut felt off though. I was still thinking about the night before with Anna and the other revolutionaries. Talking about settling down permanently on base just felt wrong and I couldn't exactly explain why.

We fell into a comfortable silence where we just watched people passing by. There seemed to be quite a bit of traffic that day. More than there usually was and all headed in the same direction. Within a few minutes it was obvious that everyone was moving toward the same thing. Whatever it was was in the direction of the main road onto the base.

"What's going on," AJ asked, standing up and looking around. "Is there some kind of parade or something?"

"I don't know," I said, putting down my ice cream bowl that was mostly empty now, and standing up to look with him.

AJ held my hand and looked at me. He didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. He thought we should follow the crowd to see what was going on. I nodded in agreement and began walking with everyone else.

After about a block a voice said, "Hey, AJ." It was a man who looked to be in his 40s with some salt and pepper in his hair and beard. I recognised him as one of the men that worked with AJ.

"Hey Andrew," AJ responded. "Do you know what's going on?"

Andrew's face became dark. Every time I had seen him before, he seemed like a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He was usually either just working and minding his business or smiling and laughing with someone. This gloom and doom look about him didn't seem very on brand from what I had witnessed before.

"Someone got caught stealing from the rations. General Ross made the announcement that we need to gather at the main gates," he said.

My stomach did a backflip and I felt like I wanted to throw up my ice cream from earlier. I could hear my heart beating in my ears and I looked up at AJ who was looking ahead with a blank stare on his face. I didn't want to believe what I knew was possibly happening. My mind was trying to come up with other reasons why they were gathering everyone at the main gates.