“Humiliating them by making them stand naked in the middle of the road is not exactly respectable behavior.” I shouldn’t argue with him, I shouldn’t press his buttons, but he drove me crazy with his wacked out ideals. He would indoctrinate me if he could; turn me into one of the Stepford wives of the Zombie Apocalypse if he could. Why couldn’t I do the same thing?
“And if we let them in and they have the infection? If they start biting and feeding and killing before we even realize there’s a threat?” His gray eyes darkened with righteous passion and he met my gaze, daring me to contradict him.
“There has to be a better way to find out if they’ve been infected. Why can’t you just ask them?” I was getting worked up, my hands clenched at my sides and my jaw set and firm.
“And trust them to tell us the truth?” He asked incredulously. “You of all people should know better than that.”
“Fine,” I conceded bitterly. “Humanity is less than….. reliable currently, but you’re not exactly promoting a circle of trust here, are you?”
He shrugged and took a step toward me, “There are some people I’d like to trust me.” His fingers brushed a path down my jaw and I willed myself to be still against that disgusting touch.
I shook my head and pushed away from the building. I knocked into his shoulder in my attempt to escape him and his low laughter followed me down the sidewalk.
He put me to work after that. I was assigned to the laundry room and forced to work with two middle aged women that loved their job- literally they loved it. They were born to do f-ing laundry I guessed, because their constant smiles and happy humming could mean nothing else. Thank God for their sakes the whole Zombie thing happened. Otherwise who knew how they’d be wasting their talents in normal society. They’d probably be like CEO’s of international businesses, or fighting world poverty or something meaningless like that.
Was I being cynical? Hell, yes. These people were insane.
I ignored them as I lost myself in the menial task of folding hundreds and hundreds of shirts. And then I realized why they were crazy. This job would literally make anyone lose their mind. It was too monotonous. Too boring.
I was going to be a voting member of their ironically utopian society before the day was over. It was like a laundry induced lobotomy.
Or maybe I just wasn’t used to this kind of peace and security. Maybe the run and hunt were the real reasons I was losing my mind. Survival was a constant activity, where my brain was always engaged. This made my brain feel useless.
And so I put it to work. I visualized my escape, over and over and over, until I had every path, every exit memorized. I pictured the main street and how the buildings were set up, how I would sneak between them and hide in the shadows. I imagined my sprint across the open fields and the swiftness of my feet as I fled this place.
At the end of the day the women led the way to a community dinner. In the gymnasium of the school, the entire town congregated to share a meal. We ate roasted chicken, roasted potatoes and canned corn. It was a relative feast.
I was placed at the head table in between Kane and Tyler. Miller sat with us too, but he never once lifted his bloodied and beaten eyes from his plate. Matthias and Linley sat across from me, smiling at Kane and I like we were a real couple and this was true happiness.
This was in an f-ing nightmare- in the real sense of the word. I had the feeling from this day forward I would wake up screaming and shaking from the memory of this family and their oppressive reach into my life.
How could these people be so disillusioned? How could humanity have slipped to these depths so fast?
We just fell apart.
And that’s exactly how I felt at that table- like I was falling apart.
The conversation was surprisingly very normal every day family stuff until Matthias looked at me and asked, “So Reagan, what do you think of our little community?”
I lifted my eyes, meeting his emotionless, aloof gray gaze and shrugged. Nothing I could come up with was going to make him happy.
“It can be overwhelming at first, I realize this,” Matthias offered generously. “Especially since you’ve been by yourself for so long.”
“I haven’t been by myself,” I argued. “I’m by myself right now, while you keep my friends locked up at gun point.”
Tyler kicked me under the table, warning me to shut my mouth. And then she tried to pull the attention off me, “Speaking of, I better get them dinner.”
She stood up and walked over to the buffet line, grabbing a little girl on her way so she could help carry the plates of food. I relaxed a little knowing they would get a good meal; and because if she was feeding them then they were still alive.