Eating my experiences (6)

TOME 7

I found myself laughing nervously at not having noticed the thick, fowl smelling blood dispersed across my shirt and arms. "Yeah, I'll take care of that, heh....lucky we still have running water, eh" I seemed to be trying to go the comical route, to which Alex was clearly a little concerned about, but knew to stay silent about it for now. It felt as though days had gone by as I washed my arms and attempted to salvage the shirt I was wearing to no avail, eventually dropping it into the sink where it would stay.

"Alright" I said loudly as I passed Alex, causing him to jump, just like Gabe used to. "Just gonna get a shirt from my stuff and I'll be ready." I was already rushing out of the room again

"Hmmm, you haven't packed your stuff, do you want help?" Alex was always very helpful, something that had helped us get this far. I gladly accepted his help. After getting everything together and strapped to our bodies, we decided it was time to leave, time to get even farther from the nearest town. What's an hour in a several day long trip, after all.

We walked for about two hours before we came across a house that seemed hospitable enough, and being tired, we decided to attempt to make it our new home, we started by checking the water, which was potable and running. Next, we checked for any foot prints or recent signs of life, or undead, other than Gabe, clearly. We spent a long time searching now that instead of five there are two, but we knew this was the most important part of finding a new abode.

Once we were satisfied there was nobody around, we set up a fire between the back of the far house and the barn, the hay would come in handy to keep us warm. We could burn it, or stuff beds with it, something I looked forward to. I only had about an 1/8 left of the ounce of weed I had initially brought, but I knew very well this was one of the hardest days I'd have for a while, hacking off your boyfriend's head is rather hard, so I rolled up a small joint out of mini bible paper, something I picked up as a teenager.

"So, where should our beds be?" Alex broke the silence inquisitively.

"Hmmm. I was thinking" I murmured taking a long drag "maybe upstairs so we can hear if someone comes in, there's a lot less of us now, so we need to be more careful, right?" I was speaking listlessly, something you'd expect after the level of loss we had experienced.

"I wanted to talk to you about that... uh... do you think Zach is still... alive?" The notion surprised me as I sat up abruptly.

"What? Alive?" My eyes were wide, staring past Alex almost as if to stare into my past.

"Yeah, I mean we didn't see him die, right? Also, if they killed him they probably wouldn't have carted his body all the way, but there was no body...So he could be.... I dunno, just a thought" he trailed off noticing the blood drain from my face.

"If he's alive, we should save him....right?" the joint had gone out due to lack of attentiveness as my mind was plagued by this development.

"You left him for dead, one of your best friends, left for dead" chuckled Gabe's head from my bag as my hands fell limp in my lap.

"sh-shut up" muttered weakly, drawing an inquisitive eye from Alex.

TO BE CONTINUED...