Chapter 14: The Meeting

All was silent on the way back, We killed a few of the dead but no one talked. No one had anything good to talk about... Nothing had gone right ever since I had started getting trained by Christian. But this was the world we lived in, nothing had gone right for a single damn person.

I could see the walls of the community in the distance. We were going to have to tell Shannon, and I wanted to see her reaction. If she believed any of us or if she just took it off as a joke. There's no way she could think it was a joke. We had seen one of our own hanging from a tree.

It was already dark and I was kind scared of being out here with the dead being all around me. Christian could hear them coming perfectly fine but I hadn't quite reached that status though.

I shivered thinking about it, I had killed a few but I was still scared of them. Im pretty sure everyone was still afraid no matter how hard they tried to hide that.

"He could still be alive Jordan, we only know that one of them died." I said to him. I tried to make him feel better but it felt like it only made him feel worse. He shook his head and looked back down at the ground. I felt bad for him, He had bullied me when I was younger, but he said that he had changed, I couldn't help but believe that.

"He could be, that group better prey that the didn't kill the wrong person... They're going to feel a whole lot of pain if they did... They're going to feel a whole lot of pain period... They killed good people." He responded to me. Fair enough, I would be insanely upset if someone had killed my parents. I was upset at the dead for doing that, but did they truly know what they were doing?

"We will find them man... Don't worry... Christian is good with that type of shit." I said to him. He put his head up and kept on walking. Then he had this weird sort of smile that came out of nowhere.

"You're going to help me kill them... If this is a big group we are going to kill every single one of them. No one gets away with that type of shit of they are good people." He said to me. I nodded back at him. It was true, the guy had changed a lot and I could tell. I didn't ever hate them I just didn't understand him. And I knew his father was a good guy and got upset when Jordan made fun of me.

We kept on walking to the walls and I could see the people there perfectly fine this time. Tyler was on the tower looking in the opposite direction. Was he always on every single tower? Or was Christian doing this on purpose because he knows he's friends with my sister?

"Hey Tyler! Open the gates!" Kim yelled to him. He turned towards us and then nodded. The gates then began to open and we walked through. Tyler then came down the tower when he saw that all of us were together. He was looking at Christian a bit confused.

"What's going on? I thought warriors didn't normally follow you, and why do you got a wanderer with you?" He asked Christian. Christian looked at him and then nodded to all of them.

"They saved us, we were in a bit of an iffy situation... The chances of surviving are really low. Im going to tell Shannon what happened today and yesterday. So be there tomorrow morning as long as you don't have gate duty." He said to Tyler. Tyler then looked a bit confused once again.

"What happened? Did you get attacked? I don't work tomorrow, its my one day off thankfully... I would die if I worked this much everyday." He said to Christian. Christian grunted and then responded back to Tyler.

"Attacked by the dead yes... Just go to the meeting tomorrow around noon and you will find out. I gotta get everyone here to head to their beds tonight... It's been a rough day. Everyone here don't go heading back out there tomorrow." He said to all of us. Then he nodded towards me which I was a bit confused of.

"He did good out there Tyler... He's going to make a fine... Um... Awesome dude like me. Now Ben go pick up your brother and sleep well tonight." He said to the both of us. We both nodded and then Christian then began to head back off to his place. I knew where we were at thankfully, we were only about a mile out from Liam's daycare.

"Great job Ben... Just so you know, a lot of people thought you didn't have a chance but I always believed in you." He told me. I nodded thankfully, I sorta didn't really believe that but he wasn't the type of guy to lie so maybe he did believe in me.

"Thanks, Ill see you tomorrow. Im tired its been a long day." I said to him. He nodded to me and then he began heading up the ladder to the tower that he was on.

I then went and began heading towards Liam's daycare. It had seemed like it had been forever since I had last seen him. Even though i had seen him yesterday morning. I couldn't wait to tell him about the 2 days I was out there. He might not understand it but he was a pretty smart kid.

Angela would probably be out there so I most likely would not see her. If she was still here we might have another thing were Shannon gets upset that she is not out there. She could be out there for nearly a month and it still would not be good enough.

Shannon was a good leader, not as good as my mother but she let personal relationships get in the way of her decisions a lot. There had been good people that had gotten low hanging jobs because of her. The same thing had almost happened to me. It wasn't my fault that she didn't like Angela.

At this point I am pretty sure that everyone knew that I deserved at least a somewhat decent job, even Jordan did and we used to hate each other. My own mother used to be the leader of the community... If I got a job like farmer people would wonder what was going on. That would have been a big mistake by Shannon. She is lucky Christian came in and saved her from losing leader.

I took away all the thoughts from my head and continued heading towards Liam's daycare. I couldn't wait to see him. I felt bad for him, both his parents are gone and his brother and sister are working almost all of the time.

He would be basically growing up at the daycare because Shannon would get pissed off at both of us if we spent any time off.

I saw Liam's daycare from not too far away and then I began running towards it. I knew he wouldn't come running back towards me. In fact he was probably worried about me because I was supposed to be back way earlier.

We had basically started jogging back to the community because it had gotten so dark. It had to be about 9 or 10... I was pretty sure I would have tomorrow off though. We wouldn't have the meeting until noon, and Im sure I wasn't the only one tired after today.

I opened the door to the daycare place and saw that most of the lights were turned off. A lot of the kids were asleep but I saw a few that were still playing with toys on the other side of the room.

Then I saw Liam in the corner with another kid talking. He had a book in his lap, I was glad that he was talking to kids rather than reading though. Reading might be good for you, but he at least needed to make friends. I didn't go to daycare but I at least had a few friends for a while.

I then slowly walked over to him making sure I didn't trip on any cars or something else that would wake anyone up. I could here him talking to the kid and I didn't want to spy on their conversation but I still heard a few words.

"Yeah I'm worried, but he will be okay... He is like my sister..." He said the kid, he was smart and I knew that he was talking about me. It made me feel about a thousand times better about myself that he thought that way about me.

I went over to him and then sat down beside him. He kind of hopped up as if I scared him a bit. It was not my intent at all however.

"Hey Liam... Sorry... I almost died out there today. I'll tell you all about it when we get home." I said to him. He smiled and then gave me a hug. I felt a bit bad for scaring him, I wasn't trying to do that in anyway.

"I missed you Ben... Ill see you Ethan." He said to the kid. They then nodded their goodbyes and I began to open the door to leave. That's when someone nudged me in my back.

"Sorry I was in the bathroom, I just heard you talking. I stayed a bit late today so that I could tell you about Liam's first day!" Shannon said when I turned around. I smiled, she was actually really good looking and I hoped she didn't think bad things about me earlier because I wasn't trying to look at her boobs... I wasn't that much of a sicko.

"Hey! Lets leave the daycare that way we don't wake anyone up. Then you can tell me all about it." I said to her. I didn't want to wake up any of the young kids. She nodded and then walked out of the daycare center with me and Liam.

I looked back at her waiting for her to talk. For some reason I felt like Liam's first day wasn't the only reason she wanted to talk to me. I wasn't sure if she had liked me, but it seemed like she did. I thought she was definitely good looking but at the moment I did not really have any feeling for any women.

She was looking at me right in the eyes like she did have feelings for me however and I felt a little bad.

"How was his first day? We gotta be a little quick I want to go eat and sleep. Im sorry..." I said to her. She nodded understanding me and then she began to talk.

"He was great, he met a few kids that were friendly, a few others kids started making jokes about him so I had to push them apart." She said to me. I looked at Liam feeling a bit bad for him, what had happened to me was already happening to him. He lowered his head and I felt bad.

"I had the same stuff happening to me... Don't feel bad Liam." I said to him. He put his head up a little bit but he still didn't like getting made fun of and I knew it was going to happen because the other kids knew that he was smarter than all of them.

"But how was your 2 days out there? I wasn't stalking you I promise, they just told me that you would be out there for a few days." She said to me. I instantly knew that she had feeling for me the moment she had said she was not stalking me. She probably thought she sounded a bit weird asking about that to me.

"Not too bad... We fought off a bit of a couple of herds, one of my friends saved us." I said to her. I didn't really want to call Jordan a friend because of what he used to do to me but he had changed. There was no other way of really explaining it all that good to her.

"Wow that sounds scary... I don't know if I could ever really go out there. I used to think I could. But it scares me just thinking about it, but you are brave." She told me. I felt good about myself for her saying that about me and I could definitely tell that she was crushing on me.

"Yes it was... Also I have something else I want to tell you, Ill be heading back tomorrow. I cant say it with Liam with me. He's too young for that stuff..." I said to her. She nodded and I was about to turn and head to the house when she stopped me.

"Im not going to be working tomorrow but I will head to your place. If that is okay, I know where you live not in a weird way. Its just for Liam..." She told me. I nodded, I didn't think of anything weird about it but I could definitely tell she liked be and she might have thought that it seemed a little bit weird.

"Alright I will see you then." I told her. She nodded and then began heading in the opposite direction that we were going. I felt bad for her, I wanted to like her but at the same time I just didn't really trust women at the moment.

Or for a while, the last girl I liked went after the guy that bullied me. And this girl was at least 2 years older than me. I thought it seemed a bit weird, I had barely hit puberty... Maybe about 2 years ago.

I nodded towards Liam and we began heading back to our place. He was smiling the whole way back. I thought that maybe he would feel a bit upset that the kids were making fun of him. But he seemed like he was in very good spirits.

"Oooohhhh she likes you Ben!" He said pushing into me and joking around. I knew she liked me a lot but I tried denying it.

"Nope Liam... We are just friends. She is just really cool." I said to him. He began laughing and we kept heading back to our house.

"I'm young... Im not stupid Ben! You guys looked like you were about to kiss each other!" He said to me. I began laughing as well, he was being funny, but maybe a was acting a bit strange to her as well. I wasn't actually paying attention to the way I was talking.

"Your crazy Liam! Haha, Im just tired, I'm just going to go to sleep as soon as we get back." I said to him. He continued laughing until we were almost all the way back home.

There were no lights or porch lights on at the house so I could barely see it. I could only see it do too the moon in the sky.

I went through the front porch and then opened the door. I was about to knock on it but that would make me seem a bit stupid because there was obviously no one there.

I sat down on the couch with Liam thinking through all the thoughts that were going through my head at the moment.

I was thankful for Jordan saving us. We would have been dead no matter how much Christian tried to tell me that we could push through all of them. When I turned around they were seconds away from tearing him apart and he was way stronger than me.

I couldn't imagine trying to fight over 100 of them all by myself. I could barely even get through one in the first place. They would have been all over me in all directions...

No matter how much Christian said we had a chance I knew we really did not. He was just trying to keep my head up before we faced our inevitable death.

Liam got up and wished me goodnight. I was guessing that the daycare place had already given him food. It wasn't just Sasha in here I had seen another lady in the other side of the room watching the kids that were still awake.

I tried getting those thoughts from out of my head and I went to the kitchen and checked through the refrigerator to see if there was anything for me too eat.

I saw a pair of a dozen eggs and saw that there were few left. I wasn't all that sure how to make them but both my mother and my sister had tried to teach me how several times.

I could boil them and eat them I wasn't sure how exactly to make them normally and I was so hungry. I took a pan out of the cabinets and then put it on the stove.

I put some water in it and then waited a few minutes for the water to start boiling. Once it had started boiling I then put the eggs in the pan.

I wait a while and counted down the moments that Angela said it would take to finish making the egg.

I hadn't had hard boiled eggs in a long time. I waited for it too cool off before I tried to eat the 2 eggs. I was super hungry but I could also see we were low on food. That would mean I would have to head to the market and get some food for us.

There were a few people that worked there. Just to make sure some people didn't take too much of the food.

There were also guys sort of like police that lived in the community. There weren't that many but we still needed some sort of system that way we didn't all go crazy.

The eggs were great. I was still a bit hungry but I would wait till the morning to go drop Liam off and get some more food. When Angela was out I mainly just made potatoes or a few other easy things to make.

Making potatoes were about the same as making those eggs... That's why it was so easy to remember how to make them.

I wasn't as good as Angela or my mother but I could still make at least halfway decent food.

Speaking of Angela, now that I was working out there too it could be months in between the times that I saw her. It made me a bit sad that I wouldn't hardly ever be able too see her.

I felt worse for Liam though, Sasha was cool but she wasn't his friend she was his teacher. He would hardly ever get to see either of us, but at least Lilly would be taking care of him from time to time. So he wouldn't just always be alone, and Sasha had said that he had at least met a few friends.

I went down in my room and laid down in bed trying to stir away the thoughts of how bad Shannon was. She let other people go through her decisions. I wish that someone else that was actually semi worthy of being the leader would actually go for leader. I wished that maybe Angela would try.

But she said she wouldn't ever want that sort of job. I didn't really blame her... We would see how Shannon would react to all of this tomorrow at the meeting.