State of Decay✔️

Chapter 27: Close Call

The next couple of hours seem to pass mutely.

Marcus was having a difficult time keeping his mind off of Alan and on the task at hand. He and Maya were making their way slowly across the small town of Spencer's Mill, deciding to check out a handful of houses that hadn't been marked off the map yet. Neither spoke very much during the first hour, both of them lost in their own thoughts as they picked through the wrecked, bloodied ruins of two houses next door to each other and then their garages. There wasn't much left in each, only a handful of food stuffs and, in one of the garages, a nice, sharp hatchet that looked unused that Maya seemed pretty interested in.

During the second hour, as they pressed on with their search, Maya seemed to try and get a conversation going, chatting idly about this and that, nothing really of any consequence. It took him a little bit to realize what she was trying to do, but he finally picked up on it. She wanted to get his mind off of what had happened back in the diner. He figured it was probably for the best. Lots of fucked up things were still yet to come, he was sure.

They were making their way to another house that hadn't been officially investigated yet when Marcus finally asked, "What did you mean when you told him that there's no such thing?"

Maya was quiet for a while, and he had to wonder if she was considering what to answer, or whether or not she wanted to answer him at all. She led him up the stairs of the front porch to the house they were prepping to investigate and she lingered in front of the closed front door for a long moment, still considering.

"A lot of people believe that there's this...force, in the universe. A sentient force that is keeping score, of everyone. God, karma, fate, divine intervention...there's a lot of names for it. But it's bullshit. It's all bullshit. I think a lot of it is willful ignorance. All you have to do is take one look around this miserable shithole we call a planet and know that it's total fucking bullshit. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Nobody gets what they deserve, they just...get what they get. And the thing is, I can actually not only understand but sympathize with the people who believe in this idea.

"Because the thing is...no one wants to get robbed, or get cancer, or lose their spouse in a bad car wreck, or any other million shitty things that can happen to us, and believe that it's just...random. Everyone wants someone to blame, or, at least, they want to be certain that who or whatever did the bad thing to them will get punished, in the end. They have to believe that the people who fucked them over will, themselves, get fucked over. But it's just not the way it works. Religion is just stories we tell each other to feel better about the fact that the universe doesn't care, or the fact that you can be the best person that ever lived and still get cancer, or you can spend your entire life trying to succeed at something and still die a failure.

"And that's why I told him that there's no such thing as justice...at least not on the sense he thought about it. Because of the fact that there is no god watching over us, we have to make our own justice. It's our responsibility to make good things happen, to punish the wicked and reward the good. Because if we as humans don't do it, then it won't get done."

"Wow," Marcus replied after a long moment of silence. "I see."

"Sorry if that got a little heavy," Maya replied. "It's just what I believe. Well, more like, it's what makes the most logical sense...come on, we shouldn't linger."

She opened the door and led the way inside. Marcus followed her. For the next several minutes, they did a quick search of the house, seeing if there was anything alive, (or, strictly speaking, undead), in the structure. They only found a single zombie hidden away in an upstairs bathroom. Marcus put it down with a quick, sharp crack to the head and then they began their more thorough search of the house for useful materials.