Together

I keep telling myself all of this rain is a good thing. I keep telling myself to break out of isolation. I've rebuilt walls that had been removed.

I physically cringe when I see Benny give Lilly any intimate gesture.  Isabelle told me they held a secret wedding ceremony to make it official. They are still less gross than Krista and Davis. Davis is a close friend but making out with Krista in front of the group is inconsiderate. Krista has always been a selfish bitch but I never expected this from Davis.

Oliver stopped by with some arrows he had made out of various materials around the apartment complex. He brought them over as a conversation starter. During training each week he and I had taken up crossbow practice. Not too many were interested in it. Avery, Benny's adopted eldest daughter, had started training with us as well.

Benny had found Avery held up in the apartment they sleep in. Benny and his family use to live in a house a couple hours away. They had lost a wife and four kids in the journey to these apartments. With all the loss they had decided to make this gated housing work. Avery just happened to be in the first apartment they had decided to clear. She had held herself up in the attic and was on day four without food and barely had any water left. There was a zombie in the apartment with her she had been evading... her own mother.

Benny and the wives took her in. She was 12 when that happened. On her thirteenth birthday, just weeks later Benny gave her a hunting knife to help protect herself. Now, two years later, Avery fights with her entire everything. She hasn't left the gate in years but she has taken care of some walkers within the gate during initial clean up and Avery has even gotten a few right outside the gate. She says every shambler has her mothers face and she can't stand to relive that again. It makes it easier, she says.

Anyway, Oliver brought over these arrows and we discussed the group. It turns out Oliver and Krista were a live-in couple before this but had been on the outs months before the infection hit. They stuck together even though the romance was long over. John is his younger brother. Krista saved John's life by deciding to get John from his middle school after calling Oliver and realizing he couldn't get to John himself. Oliver was a first year lawyer in a big building in Downtown Chicago. Krista was a bar-ista at a local Brew and Booze joint, closer to the school and farther out of town. Ever since then Oliver felt obligated to help her survive. John had a cellphone on him so in the chaos Oliver was able to notify John of his impending get away car.

Oliver got his first taste of killing  the undead as he ascended the stairs. His hard briefcase as his weapon and his love of running fueling his escape. It took him twelve hours but he made it to Krista and John at a campground they would vacation with every summer with John. They had stolen an RV from the campground and came across Jeremy and Kroger at a gas station and decided to group up. They just drove and drove in a convoy until the RV bit the dust.  Then they continued to drive until gas became more bountiful than food. Avoiding big buildings was becoming more difficult to do if they were going to find a decent amount of food for everyone in the group. They were down to rationing a can of food amongst five people once a day. They were starving. They had stopped at the gas station at the end of the street hoping to find food but instead they spotted our gated apartments and as a group decided it was time to scavenge more houses for food.

As they drove by our place they spotted Cam and Zach playing soccer and decided to check us out.

Oliver and I talked for hours. He ended up crashing on the couch and I am now typing this up and watching his chest rise and fall as he sleeps.

I can't help but feel comfort in the presence of another being. Together is the way it has to be.