WILLA, стр. 22
I cried through the entire ordeal and wasn’t much help, but no one told me to be quiet, to go to Grandma’s room until it was over, or tried to comfort me in any way. That was the first time that I understood that despite how brave I’d felt in the cellar, I wasn’t at all prepared for the world in which we currently lived. Part of that was Mom’s fault for pitching a holy fit whenever someone even suggested I learn to use a gun or one of the many makeshift weapons my uncles had created or to take my turn at watch.
I couldn’t be angry at the lack of sympathy I received. The others were in just as much pain and sorrow as I was. If I couldn’t bring myself to comfort them, why should I think they would do it for me? Thankfully, cleaning the basement kept me distracted.
The field where we took the bodies used to be the one the cows grazed in, but not a single one of the animals was in sight.
“Some of these bodies are human,” Kaylie said, walking the line of the dead.
“Yes,” was Uncle Jamie’s only reply.
“You guys killed regular people?” she asked, bending over the body to get a better look at the person.
The stench was overwhelming, but the peppermint soaked rags we had covering our noses and mouths helped mask some of it. I didn’t recognize the person. Some of that was due to how bloated the corpse was. The rest was because it was a stranger. The fight it had been in before coming to the farm and decomposition had deformed the person’s facial features so much that I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
“When we had too,” Uncle Jamie said.
“If they were alive, why would you have to?” Kaylie demanded.
No one else seemed bothered by the fact that people lay dead in our field. She was the only one who didn’t seem to get it.
“Some of them were trying to force their way into the house to get to our food. Some had been bitten, like Jace, but hadn’t yet turned, which was why he should’ve never been let into the house, to begin with,” Uncle Jamie said, turning his head to glare at me.
“I didn’t let him in the house. So you can shut that shit down right now,” I said, leaping to my feet and starting toward my uncle.
He didn’t move.
I’d never sworn at an adult before, but I was tired, scared, and angry, and I was not about to have the only people left on the Earth who could help me survive the end of the world thinking I was the cause of the death of most of our family.
“I told you no one was on watch when I went upstairs. I’m not stupid enough to let anyone in the house without permission. I get that my parents sheltered me. That you all think I’m weak. I may not understand things right away, but I’m not stupid. Mom was. She was in denial. I’m not.”
“Okay. Fine,” Uncle Jamie said, throwing up his arms. “Listen up, all of you. He’s,” he said, pointing down to Jace’s body, “an example of why if any of us get bit, we have to tell each other right away. No one, and I mean no one, survives a bite. Don’t hide it thinking you’re the exception, and you’re going to get better. There’s no exception. You’re killing us if you don’t tell. If you don’t want us killing you before you turn, then you walk away.”
We nodded at his words.
The five of us stayed at Grandma’s for another week, but then the whole place caught fire when Chase tried to burn the field of bodies. I understood his actions. Wolves and coyotes were getting to the dead, and his and Sam’s parents were among them, but there had been a reason why Uncle Jamie hadn’t set the field ablaze. The ground was too dry, and we didn’t have access to a fire truck to put out the flames if the fire got out of hand, which he felt sure it would, and it did.
Chase apologized profusely for the fire and our need for a hasty departure from our family home, but I don’t think any of us were truly angry. Our families had been out there decaying. Also, I think we all knew that we were going to have to leave soon anyway. Our food was slowly diminishing, and the number of zombies flooding into the area was increasing. We understood that the bodies in the field could’ve been drawing them to us, but our attempt at digging a mass grave failed. The farm equipment made too much noise. Doing it by hand took too long, and our presence out in the open drew the zombies to the house.
Uncle Jamie had us taking turns on watch, and when we weren’t on guard duty or sleeping, we were training. Only he and Sam could aim worth a shit, though. The two had been able to keep us safe up to that point, but we worried that one day soon, the creatures would run us out of our home the way they had so many other people.
When we could get someone on the radio, all we heard were stories of groups wandering from one so-called safe place to the next. Something inevitably happened to make them leave. No one seemed to be able to stay in one place for more than a month or two. We knew we’d been lucky to make it as long as we did in Grandma’s cellar.
On the day of the fire, Chase was supposed to be guarding the back door, Uncle Jamie the front, with Sam and I positioned