Chapter 77

The silence was back. An angry, disappointed, and heartbroken silence. One that I experience with Benjamin after I told him that his parents were never coming back.

I hated this. I didn't want the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I didn't understand why fate would give it to me. I wasn't infallible, I wasn't unbreakable. I was just Vicki Anderson, working mom and wife. I was... or had been anyway... a normal person until all this bullshit went down.

At times I found myself wondering if I would ever actually go back to the woman I had been before. My kids, whose weary eyes darted around the abandoned town searching for the danger that they knew was lurking behind every door; were a walking testament to lost innocence and it was something I could never repair.

The weight on my shoulders never felt heavier.

"Is there some where we can sit down and eat?" I finally asked changing the subject. "My boys haven't had a meal since breakfast, and I know they must be hungry."