After 30 Days

Six - Day 35

The silence that had fallen over our group had a distinct edge of anger. The atmosphere in the suv was tense and cold. Maggie in particular had not reacted well to hearing the details of Colton's death. Normally the one member of the group who always knew the right thing to say, she sat in stormy silence behind the wheel.

We had already all lost so much that we jumped straight into anger, completely bypassing the earlier stages of grief.

It was late afternoon, and a day spent crammed into a vehicle that was starting to smell like old blood and unwashed bodies, had already stretched tempers, snapping. By the time we stopped for the day, everyone eagerly went their own way as they found something useful to do.

"I'm fine, Alex. Leave me alone," Bill practically growled at the nurse when he tried to get a look at the bullet wound to his chest. Bright red blood was still slowly staining his shirt.

I flicked my eyes to Shawn in time to catch him looking back at me. Everyone knew that Bill wasn't necessarily fine, but we all were working on an unspoken agreement to leave the guy alone for now. Frowning, I turned my attention back to sorting through the food stuffed haphazardly into bags.

Anything with a short shelf life had gone bad weeks ago, so we mostly had picked up cans, with a few boxes of pasta and bags of rice thrown in. I almost jumped for joy when I unearthed the half eaten bag of trail mix. It had tiny chocolate chips mixed in with the nuts and dried fruits, and I spent a moment, clutching the small bag and savoring the sweet memory of chocolate. I added that bag to the pile I had set aside for us to eat tonight. If ever a day called for chocolate, this was it.

Maya had started squabbling with her husband over not letting Alex look at his wound. They almost never disagreed with each other. It made me instantly uncomfortable. Trying to drown them out, I spoke over my shoulder to where Shawn was watching the perimeter of our makeshift camp.

"Do you think they tried to follow us?"

A detail had started to bother me more as the day wore on. The guy who had attacked us had been alerting someone on his radio, just before he tumbled down the stairs. Why hadn't they come? It had taken us enough time to actually leave, that they should have been able to catch up.

"I don't know. Maybe whoever he was trying to reach decided it wasn't worth it. Maybe they were the one Charlie knocked out. We probably won't ever know the answer."

I stopped my sorting to look at him. The late afternoon sun was dimmed by the thick tree canopy overhead, and he looked entirely too sombre in the shadows as he kept watch. I knew him well enough by now to know that he would be blaming himself for our loss.

"Hey, you know it's not your fault, right?" Keeping my voice down, I went back to the task at hand.

A heavy sigh behind me was followed be, "I know. I mean, rationally, I know. But that doesn't make me stop thinking that we could have done something to prevent it."

The nagging guilt that seemed to have become a part of me, was still there. "Yeah," I zipped the last bag and turned around. But the feeling wasn't as strong as it used to be. Frowning to myself, I wondered what that said about the person I was turning into.

I let the silence stretch as I looked over our home for the night. Invariably, the stranger among us drew my attention.

Jackie looked incredibly uncomfortable as she helped Luna gather sticks for the fire. Any sudden movements or loud noises made the woman flinch. Her eyes darted nervously around and I noticed she tried to never turn her back to any of us, a real feat as the others occasionally moved around.

She hadn't made a sound in hours. Doing her best to fade into the periphery of the group, she had quietly found a task as soon as the suv stopped.

Standing on the opposite edge of our group, Charlie kept an eye on Luna as she struggled with an armload of wood. Fiercely independent, the girl had nearly bitten my head off the one and only time I had tried to take something heavy off of her hands. It was a mistake no one made any more. She nearly teetered over under her load, before catching herself and unceremoniously dumping the sticks in a growing pile.

Tail wagging, Rex snagged the biggest piece and began to race around the camp.

Indignant, little hands on her hips, Luna told the dog off in rather colorful language.

The ghost of a smile tried to form on my lips. Living as the only child in a large group of adults had had a few side effects. Or, maybe she had already talked like that before. Knowing the kid, that wouldn't be a surprise.

The rest of my friends had settled into a predictable pattern. Maggie was finishing up digging a small fire pit. Maya had succeeded in convincing Bill to sit still long enough, and Alex was working on him. This far out in the middle of nowhere, zombies were only an occasional annoyance, and we were able to relax just a bit.

The scene could almost have been mistaken for a very average camping trip. Almost.

By the time the sun began to set, a couple of cans of soup were heating next to a small fire. Bill and Maya had made up and sat holding hands across the flickering flames from me. Maggie was restlessly pacing at the edge of the light, eyes trained on the growing shadows. Alex was on watch too, something that always left me skeptical.

The mosquitos were out in force. I slapped one that landed on my arm and wished for some bug spray. The day had caught up to me. Even that small motion hurt, everywhere.

"I'm hungry."

Charlie glanced at the irritated look on Luna's face and used a long stick to pull the cans away from the flames. "I'm sure these are warm enough. Let's eat and get some rest," she deftly began dividing the soup.

Everyone took their share. I was straightening up from putting Rex's bowl on the ground when Maggie asked, "Where's Jackie?"

Startled, I searched for the woman. She wasn't anywhere in sight, and I had not noticed when she slipped away.

"She went that way. Said she needed to find a private tree," Alex indicated the darkness beyond where he had been standing.

"When?"

"A few minutes. Ten, maybe."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone?" The tone of her voice clearly conveyed her opinion of the situation. "No one goes off on their own. You know that."

"Well, yeah, but..." Alex sounded more confused than anything.

Maggie sighed. Walking a few yards, she tried to see into the dark trees. The rest of us stayed where we were, anxiously looking at each other.

"What do you want to do?" Charlie waited until Maggie came back to ask.

"We can't risk stumbling around out there to look for her. She's on her own until it gets light."

***