After 30 Days

Twenty- Four - Day 46

The room had fallen silent, all eyes on us. I didn't think anyone was even breathing, they were so wrapped up in wanting answers.

I didn't have any answers for them. Not real ones, anyway, and the frustration over the whole situation was making me edgy. I suddenly wanted to just go back to the little grey house and forget trying to move back inside the fences. Much simpler.

But that wasn't going to happen, and so here we were, the center of attention of a room full of confused and hurting people.

"I don't really know what to tell you," Shawn looked at the woman who had spoken. "No, I am not sick. But yes, I did get bitten." He pulled up his sleeve to show the white bandage to the crowd.

Murmurs erupted around the room. Seeing something was not the same as hearing about it second hand. Ned, seeing that his people were quickly getting worked up, stepped forward.

"Guys! We all talked about this. Nothing has changed. Alex has been monitoring Shawn's health all week and he confirms that there is no sign of infection. We are safe."

Jane, the widow of one of their recently lost people, spoke above the crowd. "How is this possible," her voice cracked at the end. The woman looked broken.

No one answered for a long second, and then Alex stepped forward. "You've already heard all I know about a woman who was possibly immune. I can't tell you anything for sure, but it makes sense that some portion of the population could be immune, or maybe able to beat the infection. I don't have the answers. I can tell you that I've watched a lot of unfortunate people die from bites, though. Shawn is not sick, and at this point, I don't believe that he will get sick."

"Are you sure it was a zombie?" A man from the back called out.

"Yeah," Shawn told him. "It was definitely a zombie."

The murmurs started again, but this time with less volume. A few more questions were called out, but for the most part, the group seemed to accept that the impossible seemed to have happened.

No one seemed inclined to leave the community room, and Shawn ended up dragged into a conversation with a group of men. I didn't want to be there, but I also didn't want to not be with him, so I ended up drifting to an empty seat. Rex shadowed me, and I rubbed behind his ears. He was still covered in bits of zombie. I was going to have to give him a bath now that our water supply wasn't limited to the bottles others brought to us.

A voice brought me away from my contemplation of the dirty dog.

"Can I pet your dog?"

Stuck in that difficult age, almost an adult, but not quite, the girl tried to hide her shyness. She looked me in the eye for only a second before her eyes slid away and rested on Rex. There was something there, and I recognized the emotion. Sadness.

"Sure. Rex loves people, just give him a second to check you out before you pet him," I smiled what I hoped was an appropriately friendly smile at her.

She glanced back at me before her eyes darted back to Rex, "Hi Rex." She edged closer to the dog and held out a hand. "I'm Carly."

I wasn't sure if she was telling me, or the dog, her name. I answered anyway, "I'm Bri. It's nice to meet you Carly."

The girl let Rex sniff her hand first before she gently stroked his fur. "I had a dog," she told me without looking up. "His name was Baxter."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I kept quiet. The three of us huddled there, just me and the girl and the dog, not saying anything. It was a relief to not talk. These people all seemed to want to talk about everything, all at once, and I was already missing the quiet that came with there just being two of us.

After a while, Carly patted Rex one last time, and said good night. With the girl gone, I was left looking around the room, hoping that we could make our own escape soon.

Jaime's dad was holding Luna, who had fallen asleep in his lap. Jaime sat next to them, leaning tiredly against her father's side. He was talking with Maggie and Charlie.

Maya and Bill had been in the room before, but I didn't see them now. I was a little jealous.

Elsewhere, I spotted all of the rest of my group, plus a lot of other familiar faces. I was surprised at how quickly I was getting to know the couple of dozen people who lived here. It wasn't like I'd actually spent a lot of time with most of them. I was scanning the crowd, putting names to faces, when I came to the one person who I did not want to see.

Marcus sat in a darkened corner. All alone, he was intensely watching the room, a slight frown on his face.

My hackles rose with just the sight of that man. The cold, unfeeling way that he had left us along the side of the road to die was all I needed to know about him. I had no doubt, had we tried to get back into that car, he would have used the gun. And, unlike any decent person who may do the unthinkable because it was also necessary, he wouldn't have suffered a moments regret.

Scanning the room, his eyes lingered on all of the members of my group a little longer than anyone else. When he came to me, he stopped. Our eyes met, and I wished I could read minds to know what kind of trouble he was concocting. I had no doubt that he was going to be a problem.

I blinked, and when I looked again, Marcus had gotten up from his shadowy seat. Walking casually through the room, he finally settled in an empty seat next to Jane. The woman had been all alone, staring into the lantern that glowed nearby.

He put a hand on the woman's shoulder, breaking her out of her trance. Leaning in, he said something close to her ear that made a flash of emotion cross her face.

I watched the two of them talking to each other for several minutes. Jane looked like she was going to cry again, but she visibly got a hold on her emotions. Nodding to him, she patted the hand that he still had on her shoulder, before getting up and leaving the room.

"Are you ready to get out of here?"

Shawn had snuck up on me as I was watching Jane leave. I was just relieved that he appeared to have finally finished talking with what seemed like every member of the community.

"Yeah. Let's get out of here, I don't care where to so long as there aren't people there," I climbed to my feet.

It took us a few more minutes to actually escape the room. Seeing that he intended to go, Ned hurried over and wanted to talk to Shawn again. I gritted my teeth and smiled as politely as I could manage. It wouldn't be a great idea to cause a commotion when we had just been let back into the community, but I wanted to scream at the feeling of someone watching me that kept crawling down my spine.