Meet Me

Chapter 35 - Not In Love

Kate

Two Weeks Later

"Curiosity is the lust of the mind." - Thomas Hobbes

We didn’t bury his body; we didn’t close his eyes, and we didn’t cry for him. Together, Kyle and I, dragged – yes dragged – it outside and left it for the zombies to snack on. They liked a little bit of raw meat. I had seen them do it before; that was how I knew, before you ask.  I wasn’t feeling much, and I certainly didn’t regret just throwing my brothers body away – I barely knew him anyway. The thing that confused me most, was that Kyle and my father didn’t seem effected either. It confused me a lot. I didn’t ask. There was really no need.

Staying in the prison was something I didn’t expect I would do, but I did it all the same. I guessed everything was different now. Everyone I cared about had died, but I hadn’t died.

Kyle hadn’t died.

“It’s us.”

Ash was alive.  

“I want it to be us.”

But my father…

It was a week after the death of Connor. A week after my father killed his own son. A week after Ash told me he loved me; a week after I told Ash I loved him. We had spent much time together, getting to know each other better. Everything seemed to be normal for once. I was safe – away from the outside world. I had a family of some sorts. I had a brother, I had a father, and I had a lover. That may sound really cliché, but to me it was all I had ever secretly wished for. However, I knew why I hadn’t let myself care about anybody for such a long time. I found that out sometime in the ending of winter. Despite the talking, I found it hard to connect with my father.

Maybe it was because I had never really known him, or just because we were so dissimilar. Whatever reason, I didn’t cry when he died. Kate Farah doesn’t cry. Not even for her long lost dead father.

It didn’t happen quickly, it happened rather slowly. He caught a cold and there was no way of actually treating it. Sure, they had stitching equipment, but they didn’t have any medicines that were in date. He would’ve died anyway, the cold was deadly nowadays. You would be alive for less than a couple of weeks after catching it. You stayed in the cold, so it got worse. It got worse, then you died. I know this very well. Tessa …

Anyway, back to my father’s inevitable death. He stayed outside a lot after he had killed Connor. He went out and shot zombies for the hell of it – like they always did – and then he stayed outside in the freezing cold. He should’ve waited until summer rolled around. His birthday was in the summer. My birthday was sometime in the winter, so there was no longer any knowing when mine was. I always sensed it, but I never really … knew.

My father eventually took sick, then we hauled him inside. We made a makeshift bed and lay him upon it. Everyone knew there was no helping him, but we tried for a whole week before we knew what we had to do. Ash had made the decision and the most humane way to do it. I didn’t hate him for it, I was glad he cared enough not to think about me for a second. The whole ‘in love’ thing was somewhat new to me. I never really experienced it before. I didn’t even know if it was because I didn’t want to ever be alone, or because I was actually in love. I was betting on the first one. I was too selfish to ever care about somebody else other than myself. I didn’t care about my father much when he died. I barely knew him for goodness sake. You keep saying that.

I had stood in the corner and just watched. Kyle had stood in the opposite corner to me – We didn’t comfort each other, because we didn’t need to be comforted. It wasn’t a sad moment. Upsetting, yes, but not sad. Our father looked terrible. He had even more wrinkles under his eyes. He looked extremely old. Older than he actually was probably. He was thinner than he had been the first time I met him, as he hadn’t had much of an appetite at all and obviously food had been short. My father and I locked eyes and he silently pleaded me to go over to him.