Tuesday, July 21, 2009

#0026 | 07/21 | 02:25 AM

Today was busy, but fairly uneventful.

We've officially decided to take the school as our "home" per say, and Henry thought that it might be a good idea to see if it's possible to get the school security camera's functioning again. God knows that, in theory, such means might be very useful in terms of dealing with potential danger, but cameras need electricity to operate.

The school, and the city, as far as I can tell still has flowing water and electricity, but I get the feeling that's only good luck which is primed to go bad.

The water fountain in the southern yard started churning out muddy water today.

I guess a similar fate awaits every other water emitting contraption eventually. Until the water just stops flowing. It's only the one fountain for now, we tested the school's other founts and such, but the water they give is still clean, but it's only a matter of time. Henry was right to recommend we start hoarding water. We should stock much more, in truth.

Hector spent the day doing that, with Anna. We've cleaned out the auditorium and we're using it to store all the water containers we've amassed.

Meanwhile, me and Sean went about securing the southern and northern buildings with arm in hand. Expectantly, we found no Freaks dwelling among the classrooms or darkness, and each building is in fairly good condition. If the times comes when we need room or new living arrangements, the buildings can be easily fortified.

About midday, I took off for a bit. I returned to my old home, the old house, alone.

It was a much easier and quicker trip, not being lagged by others or shopping carts. Hector found some school keys in the janitor's office, and we opened up the back gate for a bit. I traveled by the main road.

I wasn't entirely sure why I returned, there were no supplies here, and definitely no memories I wanted to resurface.

I stood in the front yard, on the lawn (it'll be yellow soon...) for awhile. A cement brick wall runs along the perimeter of the house - had - but a car had crashed into the corner of the wall, and lays there now. The wall now cracked and destroyed, a memory of itself.

There's a small house to the south. Roughly three weeks ago, a skinny, little man had barricaded himself inside. Nailed the doors closed and shoved who knows what on the other side. That was when people were worried, but not yet panicking. Flickering, but not yet ablaze.

Those locked doors haven't opened since then. The dude's probably dead.

I felt a tiny urge to go and check then. Spend the rest of the day smashing a window open, or smashing through that door. Morbid curiosity suddenly almost compelled me to do just that. To confirm that his carcass was rotting on the other side. Perhaps with a hand tightly clutching a gun, pulled up to his splattered temple. Or perhaps hanging off a ceiling rafter, a belt or such around his neck.

I even took a few misguided steps.

But then I turned back. Went back to the school. Back home. I felt incredibly retarded.

And then there's Anna. She turned up in my room about an hour ago. I'm honestly confused about her, but there's one thing that's obvious. She's fucked up, and I don't know what we can do to make her better.

It's not hard to imagine what I thought was about to go down when she opened the door. I'd been listening to the noises outside. Freaks. Screaming and laughing. Running their land.

And then she opened the door.

She's got red hair, and her bruises have solidified in color, but she's not ugly. No way.

She was crying.

I held her for an hour, and I'm holding her now. At every scream that comes from outside, her body shivers uncontrollably. And she keeps whispering the name of her fiancee.

"Billy. Billy. Please..."

There's nothing remotely sexual in this, god knows I wish there was. But there isn't. There's only fear.

And I don't know why I'm filled with such a numb dread at every one of her words.

No comments:

Post a Comment