WILLA, стр. 17
“Grandma, people are coming up the drive,” I said, looking to her but nodding toward the window.
She merely grunted an okay.
“Who do you think they are?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” she said, not even getting up from her stool to look.
“What do you think they want?”
“Same thing everyone wants. To be safe.”
“Will we let them in?”
“Probably not.”
“Why not?” I asked dumbfounded.
“One, because I doubt they are family. Two, we can’t take the chance that they are infected. Three, we can’t risk them taking our stuff or killing us in our sleep.”
“What are the chances of them killing us?”
“High if a larger group is waiting for them to infiltrate our home.”
“Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”
“No, now finish those dishes.”
I tried to return to my task, but the sound of gunfire got my attention.
“Kris is shooting at the two people,” I said with a gasp.
“They’re probably refusing to leave,” Grandma said nonchalantly.
“Will the guards kill them?”
“If they have to.”
“Grandma, this isn’t right.”
“It may not be, but it’s what we have to do to survive.”
“There has to be a better way.”
“I wish there was.”
I tried to watch the interaction between the guards and the newcomers. However, the two people with backpacks walked around the side of the house and out of my sight. I hadn’t heard any more gunfire, but that didn’t mean anything anymore.
Through the rest of the dishes, I thought about the survivors. I guess I understood why those on watch had to shoot at them, but a part of me also saw how much food we’d stored away and wondered why we couldn’t share. Those humans might have been willing to help us keep watch over the house in exchange for food and a place to stay.
12.
The contradictory stories the guards heard on the car radios were what caused a small wave of people to leave in the weeks after Sal and his family did. Someone was always fiddling with the stations, trying to find something, even broken broadcasts. I couldn’t fathom how we were picking anything up so long after everything had gone to shit. I firmly believed that if we’d lived in ignorance of what was “supposedly” happening around us, we might have lived out the end of the world in Grandma’s cellar in relative safety.
Instead, people believed the stories they heard. I couldn’t see how. None of them could agree on what the government was doing or if our military was defeating the creatures. No one knew if a vaccine or cure was underway, or where the safe zones were. I wasn’t one of the ones who thought we were waiting around to die, but I didn’t think we would see the end of the outbreak for a long time to come. I also believed that we needed to be patient and wait right where we were.
My uncles felt along those same lines, as did my Grandma, which was the only reason we were able to stay alive and safe as long as we did.
My second cousin, Jace, and his family were the last to leave us. He had arrived at Grandma’s after mom and I did, with just his two siblings. Both of his parents had been out of town for his grandfather’s funeral. Emma, Jace’s little sister, had had a summer cold. Jace and his older sister, Milly, had opted to stay home to care for the girl. Their parents had never returned.
I wasn’t sure if it was Jace or Milly who decided that they needed to find their parents. One afternoon, the two went to Grandma with a plan to leave. She’d begged them to stay and told them their mother would hate her if anything happened to them, but none of Grandma’s arguments swayed them.
“We have to go,” Jace protested.
I’d seen their small group conversing and had eased close to the conversation so that I could listen.
“No, you don’t,” Grandma said. “You can stay here and wait for your parents to come to you. They know to come here—just as you did. You could get lost or hurt if you leave, and then they might never find you.”
“But they could be in trouble. Milly and I have a good idea what route they’ll take to come here. We can follow it. When we find them, we’ll come back. I promise,” Jace said.
Both of his sisters stood on either side of him, nodding their heads.
“I can’t allow it,” Grandma said.
“We’re going, with or without your permission,” Milly said.
Grandma took in a deep breath before placing her head in her hands. She hadn’t cried since the start of the outbreak, and I wondered if she was fighting back her tears.
After a long moment, when Grandma didn’t look up at them, Milly gestured that they should leave her.
I wondered if I should comfort Grandma but thought better of it.
An hour later, we all watched in stunned silence as Jace, Milly, and Emma went up the cellar steps and out of the house. Neither of my uncles watched the three kids as Kris escorted them through the barrier and to the road.
I stayed up all that night, waiting for them to return, and I wasn’t the only one. Most of my family did, as well. I hadn’t been close to any of them, but they were family.
For days, those few of us left at Grandma’s wandered around the cellar somberly, listening for any hint of the kids’ return.
A good number of our group had left since the horde. Few returned. On rare occasions, someone would reappear. Unfortunately, the guard on duty would find a bite mark on the person and have to turn them away. Some returned as zombies.
I don’t know how my uncles discovered that anyone with a bite turned into one of the creatures. Yet, somehow, they had. Almost from the start, they turned away anyone who showed