Not Ready to Die
Camp Desertion
“I could ask you the same thing. Where’s my sister?” I say, looking around the room, not seeing McKenna.
“I’m the one asking the questions! I said who the fuck are you…and why are you here?!” There is an angry look on her face, but it also looks sad.
“My name is Brian. I’m here with my sister McKenna. We just stumbled upon this motel thinking it was abandoned.” I plead, sitting up slowly and putting my hands up. ‘Damn I wish I had my handgun under the pillow…stupid.’ I think to myself.
“Well it isn’t abandoned! I had my camp set up here with…” The woman seems to have lost her train of thought.
“We aren’t here to steal or hurt you in any way. We’ve encountered many people like that in our travels. I promise you that we aren’t like that.” I say but she looks unconvinced.
“Likely story. You’re probably part of that bandit group that tried to kill my group and rob us blind!” She says pushing the end of the shotgun on my forehead.
I look to the side and see my sister peer her head out of the bathroom. She has one of the handguns. The next bit is in a flash.
McKenna shoots the woman in the shoulder. She stumbles back and I grab her shotgun and tackle her to the ground. She tries to resist but I push my weight on top of her and push the gun to her throat.
“Now I get to ask the questions! Who the fuck are you and why did you try and kill me?” I say, holding her down.
She pushes the gun slightly off her throat, “My name is Lilly. And this place used to be run by me.” She continues to struggle to get out of my hold.
“Okay Lilly, I’m going to get up off of you and you have to promise not to attack. The only reason I did this was to get you to stop waving a gun in my face. Okay?” I keep her held down until she forces a nod.
I get up and sit on the bed with the gun pointed at her. “McKenna, help her up.”
She rushes over and tries to help Lilly. “Get your fucking hands off me! I can help myself up.” McKenna looks at me surprised and I motion for her to get a chair and sit the woman down on it.
“You’re going to tell me your story Lilly. While my sister attempts to get that bullet out of your arm.” I state as McKenna looks over Lilly’s arm.
“It just grazed her. I’ll just need to bandage it.” I nod to the bag that’s by the drawer at the front of the room. She digs out bandages and alcohol swabs.
“So…Lilly. What happened to your camp?”
Lilly grimaces as McKenna wipes her shoulder down. “Well I set up camp here with a few others. We had a good thing going for a couple of months, until someone in our group betrayed us. I knew who did it. Stupid bitch.” She scoffs and smirks to herself, “She was giving our medical inventory to some druggie bandits. They didn’t get their last package, because I sent someone to find out who had been stealing from us, and they attacked. We had to leave the motel because it was being overrun by walkers….I got separated from the group.” She seemed troubled by her last sentence.
“I’m sorry to hear that…it makes sense that you would have trust issues with people. You’re in luck, so do we.” I smile sarcastically.
“I came back here in my RV outside, hoping to set this back up to the way it was. Hard to do alone.” She twiddles her thumbs in nervousness. I watch her carefully, seeing if she might pull any stunts.
“Well, if you don’t cut our throats in our sleep. We can help manage this with you. Woman shouldn’t be by herself.” I say lowering the shotgun.
She sneers at this comment “Oh, so because I’m a woman, I can’t take care of myself?! I’ve managed for 6 months god dammit! Don’t belittle me because I’m a woman. Remember I could have shot you.”
“But you didn’t. Which means you didn’t want to. You wanted to figure out if we were the bandits or not.
We are not.” I put the shotgun on the table and watch Lilly warily. McKenna tapers the bandages and sits across from her on the bed.
“I was aiming for your head. Know that now. My brother is important to me. I will not stand idly by when some is threatening him. Try anything again and I’ll make sure I don’t miss.” McKenna states with a stoic demeanor.
“Well that’s very sweet.” Lilly says with sarcasm “But I never miss. Know that.”
With that we take turns watching her in the night. She falls asleep, sitting up in the chair. We still don’t take chances, she could be fooling us into falling asleep and try bleeding us out.
With me on the last shift I wake both McKenna and Lilly up and we head out to finish refurbishing the camp.
Lilly and I work on reinforcing the fence, to make sure no walkers get through, while my sister picks through the rooms to find anything else to board up the barrier.
"So Brian. You look familar. I feel like I've seen your face before." Lilly says as she pushes a table toward the barrier.
I grin embarrasingly "Yeah...I was in a band. Rock band, called Avenged Sevenfold." I push a dresser toward the sliding entrance. Don't want anybody getting through there. We could always climb over it if we want to get out.
Lilly shakes her head "Yeah I've heard of you. A lot of guys at the base talked about you guys. You were on tour nearby before all this hit 6 months ago. I remember. They tried to give me a ticket but I said 'fuck that, I don't listen to that shit."
I frown "Well we didn't play anyways. Shit started going down before we were going to play. We had to evacuate."
Lilly sighs and says "I'm sorry, I'm sure you guys were good. Just not my kind of music. I'm more of a country girl."
"In the state of Georgia, I'm not surprised." I say finishing up the wall.
We walk back towards the RV. McKenna found nothing while searching so she went up for guard duty.
"See anybody?" I yell up to her.
"Nothing but clear sky. Expecting someone?" McKenna says smirking.
Lilly reviles "Those bandits might still be out there. I heard there was a crew of them under the overpass. I'm not taking my chances. It's my turn, let me lookout for a bit." Lilly climbs up and McKenna jumps down.
"We're going to go look for food. Maybe at that overpass. I saw it coming to here and it was abandoned. Overrun by the looks of it. But we didn't venture in. Couple of geeks wandering around in there." I get my knife and handgun out of the room.
"You deserting me already? I was really enjoying your company." She says in a joking coy voice. Not sure if she was serious or if she actually was being coy with me.
"Yeah yeah, just as insurance, I left the handgun and Taser in the room. Just so you know we'll return." I yell back as we start to climb over the barrier.
I help McKenna down and we begin to walk towards the interstate.
"I still don't trust her. I don't know why we had to leave the other gun behind. The taser we could do without but the gun?" McKenna says in disdain.
"I know, but we need to get her to trust us. It seems that she's been through the same kind of shit we have. Least we could do is show her some southern hospitality that she's lacking in." I answer.
We freeze as we see a walker wanders onto the road, unaware of our presence.
"I got this one." McKenna says and pulls her knife out and sneaks towards the walker. She reaches him and he turns and growls, she then extends her arm and brings the knife down hard on the walkers head. It drops immediately and she drops the knife into his rotting face.
'Double tap, good girl. Twice to make sure they're dead.' I think to myself and smile. I walk over and take a look at him. Farmer by the looks of him, which is pretty typical in this area. We check to see if he has any valuables and find a pocket knife and some loose change.
We continue on the road in silence; we mourn the ones we kill. We want to keep our humility by doing so. With so much wrong with the living in the world we try to keep our morals similar to our past life. If we didn't our grandparents would roll in their grave. In a twisted way they probably did roll and crawl out.
I stray from that thought and think of the task at hand.
"I hope we find some food. I haven't eaten since that gas station. Lucky there was a hidden stash. Poor guy tried to hold himself up in the utility closet." I say, thinking back to the gas station. Guy had been bitten and turned. It was a close call because we didn't realize he was there until he fell from the utility room and ontop of me. McKenna had good aim at that time luckily.
"Yeah, I just hope there aren't any bandits there. We share a common misfortune with Lilly; the disgusting bandits we come across." McKenna says cleaning off her knife on her shirt.
We finally reach the overpass and it appeared to still be deserted. We shrug and venture forth. We see mounds of bodys burned, reeking of ashen death. We dig through boxes of Save Lots and St. John's Dairy and find nothing but empty cans.
We see a couple of tents and approach with caution. One moves slightly, as if someone is coming out. I wield my handgun, ready to fire whatever may be in the tent. McKenna pulls out her knife coming in at the side of the tent.
The zipper opens and someone slowly peers out with a shotgun.
"Oh my god."
“I’m the one asking the questions! I said who the fuck are you…and why are you here?!” There is an angry look on her face, but it also looks sad.
“My name is Brian. I’m here with my sister McKenna. We just stumbled upon this motel thinking it was abandoned.” I plead, sitting up slowly and putting my hands up. ‘Damn I wish I had my handgun under the pillow…stupid.’ I think to myself.
“Well it isn’t abandoned! I had my camp set up here with…” The woman seems to have lost her train of thought.
“We aren’t here to steal or hurt you in any way. We’ve encountered many people like that in our travels. I promise you that we aren’t like that.” I say but she looks unconvinced.
“Likely story. You’re probably part of that bandit group that tried to kill my group and rob us blind!” She says pushing the end of the shotgun on my forehead.
I look to the side and see my sister peer her head out of the bathroom. She has one of the handguns. The next bit is in a flash.
McKenna shoots the woman in the shoulder. She stumbles back and I grab her shotgun and tackle her to the ground. She tries to resist but I push my weight on top of her and push the gun to her throat.
“Now I get to ask the questions! Who the fuck are you and why did you try and kill me?” I say, holding her down.
She pushes the gun slightly off her throat, “My name is Lilly. And this place used to be run by me.” She continues to struggle to get out of my hold.
“Okay Lilly, I’m going to get up off of you and you have to promise not to attack. The only reason I did this was to get you to stop waving a gun in my face. Okay?” I keep her held down until she forces a nod.
I get up and sit on the bed with the gun pointed at her. “McKenna, help her up.”
She rushes over and tries to help Lilly. “Get your fucking hands off me! I can help myself up.” McKenna looks at me surprised and I motion for her to get a chair and sit the woman down on it.
“You’re going to tell me your story Lilly. While my sister attempts to get that bullet out of your arm.” I state as McKenna looks over Lilly’s arm.
“It just grazed her. I’ll just need to bandage it.” I nod to the bag that’s by the drawer at the front of the room. She digs out bandages and alcohol swabs.
“So…Lilly. What happened to your camp?”
Lilly grimaces as McKenna wipes her shoulder down. “Well I set up camp here with a few others. We had a good thing going for a couple of months, until someone in our group betrayed us. I knew who did it. Stupid bitch.” She scoffs and smirks to herself, “She was giving our medical inventory to some druggie bandits. They didn’t get their last package, because I sent someone to find out who had been stealing from us, and they attacked. We had to leave the motel because it was being overrun by walkers….I got separated from the group.” She seemed troubled by her last sentence.
“I’m sorry to hear that…it makes sense that you would have trust issues with people. You’re in luck, so do we.” I smile sarcastically.
“I came back here in my RV outside, hoping to set this back up to the way it was. Hard to do alone.” She twiddles her thumbs in nervousness. I watch her carefully, seeing if she might pull any stunts.
“Well, if you don’t cut our throats in our sleep. We can help manage this with you. Woman shouldn’t be by herself.” I say lowering the shotgun.
She sneers at this comment “Oh, so because I’m a woman, I can’t take care of myself?! I’ve managed for 6 months god dammit! Don’t belittle me because I’m a woman. Remember I could have shot you.”
“But you didn’t. Which means you didn’t want to. You wanted to figure out if we were the bandits or not.
We are not.” I put the shotgun on the table and watch Lilly warily. McKenna tapers the bandages and sits across from her on the bed.
“I was aiming for your head. Know that now. My brother is important to me. I will not stand idly by when some is threatening him. Try anything again and I’ll make sure I don’t miss.” McKenna states with a stoic demeanor.
“Well that’s very sweet.” Lilly says with sarcasm “But I never miss. Know that.”
With that we take turns watching her in the night. She falls asleep, sitting up in the chair. We still don’t take chances, she could be fooling us into falling asleep and try bleeding us out.
With me on the last shift I wake both McKenna and Lilly up and we head out to finish refurbishing the camp.
Lilly and I work on reinforcing the fence, to make sure no walkers get through, while my sister picks through the rooms to find anything else to board up the barrier.
"So Brian. You look familar. I feel like I've seen your face before." Lilly says as she pushes a table toward the barrier.
I grin embarrasingly "Yeah...I was in a band. Rock band, called Avenged Sevenfold." I push a dresser toward the sliding entrance. Don't want anybody getting through there. We could always climb over it if we want to get out.
Lilly shakes her head "Yeah I've heard of you. A lot of guys at the base talked about you guys. You were on tour nearby before all this hit 6 months ago. I remember. They tried to give me a ticket but I said 'fuck that, I don't listen to that shit."
I frown "Well we didn't play anyways. Shit started going down before we were going to play. We had to evacuate."
Lilly sighs and says "I'm sorry, I'm sure you guys were good. Just not my kind of music. I'm more of a country girl."
"In the state of Georgia, I'm not surprised." I say finishing up the wall.
We walk back towards the RV. McKenna found nothing while searching so she went up for guard duty.
"See anybody?" I yell up to her.
"Nothing but clear sky. Expecting someone?" McKenna says smirking.
Lilly reviles "Those bandits might still be out there. I heard there was a crew of them under the overpass. I'm not taking my chances. It's my turn, let me lookout for a bit." Lilly climbs up and McKenna jumps down.
"We're going to go look for food. Maybe at that overpass. I saw it coming to here and it was abandoned. Overrun by the looks of it. But we didn't venture in. Couple of geeks wandering around in there." I get my knife and handgun out of the room.
"You deserting me already? I was really enjoying your company." She says in a joking coy voice. Not sure if she was serious or if she actually was being coy with me.
"Yeah yeah, just as insurance, I left the handgun and Taser in the room. Just so you know we'll return." I yell back as we start to climb over the barrier.
I help McKenna down and we begin to walk towards the interstate.
"I still don't trust her. I don't know why we had to leave the other gun behind. The taser we could do without but the gun?" McKenna says in disdain.
"I know, but we need to get her to trust us. It seems that she's been through the same kind of shit we have. Least we could do is show her some southern hospitality that she's lacking in." I answer.
We freeze as we see a walker wanders onto the road, unaware of our presence.
"I got this one." McKenna says and pulls her knife out and sneaks towards the walker. She reaches him and he turns and growls, she then extends her arm and brings the knife down hard on the walkers head. It drops immediately and she drops the knife into his rotting face.
'Double tap, good girl. Twice to make sure they're dead.' I think to myself and smile. I walk over and take a look at him. Farmer by the looks of him, which is pretty typical in this area. We check to see if he has any valuables and find a pocket knife and some loose change.
We continue on the road in silence; we mourn the ones we kill. We want to keep our humility by doing so. With so much wrong with the living in the world we try to keep our morals similar to our past life. If we didn't our grandparents would roll in their grave. In a twisted way they probably did roll and crawl out.
I stray from that thought and think of the task at hand.
"I hope we find some food. I haven't eaten since that gas station. Lucky there was a hidden stash. Poor guy tried to hold himself up in the utility closet." I say, thinking back to the gas station. Guy had been bitten and turned. It was a close call because we didn't realize he was there until he fell from the utility room and ontop of me. McKenna had good aim at that time luckily.
"Yeah, I just hope there aren't any bandits there. We share a common misfortune with Lilly; the disgusting bandits we come across." McKenna says cleaning off her knife on her shirt.
We finally reach the overpass and it appeared to still be deserted. We shrug and venture forth. We see mounds of bodys burned, reeking of ashen death. We dig through boxes of Save Lots and St. John's Dairy and find nothing but empty cans.
We see a couple of tents and approach with caution. One moves slightly, as if someone is coming out. I wield my handgun, ready to fire whatever may be in the tent. McKenna pulls out her knife coming in at the side of the tent.
The zipper opens and someone slowly peers out with a shotgun.
"Oh my god."
11/12/13