Heyo! Back here with another chapter!
(Disclaimer; I do not own the concept of The Walking Dead)
Enjoy! ;)
Chapter 7: Baseball bats and screwdrivers.
Menthis had gone into the admiral's tent, but his buddies were still outside. They didn't looked that harmless as Menthis described them to be. I still didn't know if we could trust the guy or not. I mean, the army wasn't leaving us behind, at least not because a couple of walkers outside the gates.
These people that are with Menthis said they had found a way to get rid of the walkers, but did that mean the soldiers didn't? Is that why they left? And some of his words…it seemed I heard them before. It was so confusing. I wanted to believe Menthis, I wanted to believe that we could all survive this if we workedntogether, but…it just didn't feel right.
I turned my head to Manhunter. I wanted to say something, but another question came to mind.
"What's your name?"
He lifted his eyebrows. "Max."
"In case you're wondering, my name is Abigail, Abby, if you like."
"Well, Abby," Max said, a little surprised by my weird interruption after the long story of Menthis "What do we do?"
"I think we have to look inside the admiral's tent" I said. "There's blood on the canvas, but I can't see if it's from a walker or a human. So I say we take a quick look inside."
"They never let us pass them," Max objected, pointing at the men with the big-ass guns.
"We got to get them away from the tent, so we can sneak in."
He sat down and started to draw out his plan in the sand.
"OK, how's this? This is me," he pointed at a circle with four little sticks at it, "and these are the guards." The drawing was getting better and better.
"I run to the exit which is the most far away from them and shout "Walkers in the camp!" Then they come running to me and you go to the tent."
Max was a nice guy, but seriously; his plan sucked.
"Look, Max, I really like your drawing, but this isn't going to work. The first thing those men do his protecting their leader, Menthis. So they're staying with him the whole time. I won't get in without a bullet through my head."
"Yeah, you're right," he swept away his sand drawing, "can't we just ask them if we could talk to Menthis? Ask them nicely?"
"You think that will work?"
"Well, you're a girl, you should know that kinda stuff…"
"Max, what are you saying?"
"Well, you know…flirting and all…"
"What? Are you serious right now? You think I'm some kind of slut?"
"No, no, absolutely not!" He held up his hands, like I was going to hit him. Well, I almost did.
"I just thought….never mind." Max's face was full of shame, I almost felt sorry for him.
I sighed and stood up. I tried to wipe the sand of my dress, my poor, pretty dress.
"Where are you going?" Max asked.
"Well, DADDY. I'm going to look for my mom. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'll be home before dinner!"
OK, that was kinda mean. I almost walked away, but I found it wasn't nice of me to just walk away when he had just kinda saved my life.
"You want to come with me?" I asked. "Maybe my mother knows what to do."
He stood up, with a little red on his cheeks.
"Uh, sure."
When we got to the medical service, there were a lot of people standing in line. They were all excited about something. I heard them talking about a "new doctor", "helpful man", "very polite", a "life saver" and a "miracle." I walked pass them and wanted to enter the tent, but a guard stepped before me.
"Wow wow wow, where are we going, lady?" he asked, holding his shotgun against his chest.
"To my mother, doctor Reese" I answered, I looked him in the eyes and wanted to look confident, but I was actually scared as hell.
"Yeah, right. Go back in line, like everybody else."
"No, wait, it's true!"
"Yeah, and I'm the son of Menthis. Go cry somewhere else, your mommy ain't here."
"Are you so sure about that?" My mom's voice made the man turn around. "Let my daughter pass, please."
I never forget the look on the man's face, hilarious. I walked past him, giving him a look; told ya. Max wanted to follow, but the guard pushed him back.
"You ain't going nowhere, son."
"He's with me" I said.
"Don't tell me he's your brother. I ain't that stupid."
"He's my nephew" my mom said. "Let him pass."
The guard was having a bad day. He stepped aside and let Max through.
"Mom, what is going on?"
For two days I was confused. My mom was acting strange. Every time I asked her where Keith and the rest of the soldiers were, she said something else.
"They left us.", "They're on a run for supplies.", "They're evacuating other towns.", and most of the time just "They're gone."
The last thing I remember about the soldiers and Keith, is that all of them had to come to the admiral's tent. An hour after that, Menthis and his gang entered the camp.
My mom was lying, obviously. She would never say that Keith left us. Not even when he moved out and left us with Philip. She always believed in his choices, even when they were stupid and made no sense. She always looked at the bright side, but now….she had dark circles around her eyes, looked pale and her eyes were most of the time red, like she'd cried all night. I was worried about her, but asked no questions any more. She wouldn't answer it anyway.
Menthis had left the same day he arrived. The next day he came back with medical supplies and food. He was a god to most of the people, they immediately believed his lie about the army. How could they be so stupid?
He had made my mom head of the medical service, and she was busy all day. Menthis himself sometimes helped her in the tent, other times he went to the "kitchen" and helped making food, then he helped securing the exits in the camp. Menthis was a goody-goody, our "saviour". I had hoped that he was that saviour that would protect us all, but he lied about the army, and that was what confused me. I didn't know if this guy was good news, or bad.
Aiden had joined Menthis' gang, which surprised me. I thought he could see further than the story Menthis told. I didn't think he would believe him, but he did the opposite. In some way, I could understand his decision. I mean, the soldiers had left him in Outside, that made it easy for him to believe they had done it again. Aiden was most of the time busy guarding the exits, they even let him carry a gun.
Caesar wasn't that stupid. Well, not as stupid as Aiden. Caesar actually didn't care. He had found his nephew Pablo, and was thinking about leaving the camp to look for his sister in the Centre. And now I think about it, Caesar is maybe even more stupid than Aiden. The Centre got completely overrun, there were just a few people who made it out in time. There were like, 20 of the million who made it out. OK, maybe more, but you know what I mean. It was a stupid-ass idea to go to the "red-zone", like my mom called it.
In the past few days I got to know Max a lot better. We hung out a lot, because there was not a single fuck to do in the camp. He told me he was from Autumn, a city close to the Rhody-mountains. He used to live there with his mother, but she got bit by a walker and turned, so he got in his mom's car and drove away. I felt really sorry for him, losing a parent isn't easy. And surely not like that. That's just brutal. He almost cried when he told me.
But we became good friends. There were not much teenagers in the camp, well, only a couple. Most of them were stupid twelve year olds or seventeen year old emos who only smoked all day. Not much people to hang out with. I think it's because most of the teenagers our age were still at school when the outbreak started… It scared me to think that. It was recess at my school when my mom called me and told me to get out of there. I told my friends to go home too, and they did. They were not here, which scared me. What if they….
Max became my best friend from that point on.
The third day was different. Max and I were hanging around in the Autumn-part of the camp, where Max came from. We were just sitting in the grass, playing tick-tack-toe, when a man walked up to us. He had blue eyes and dark blonde hair. He was big, as in really tall. He had big arms, very muscled, and his chest was like, one meter long. OK, maybe not a meter, but you know what I mean. He stood before us, and at first he didn't say anything. I looked at him, then continued my game. When I looked again, he was still not gone. What do you want?
"Uh, sir," Max asked "can I help you?"
"O, er, yes. I….uh….Menthis is giving a class about how to take out a monster. He sent me to get all the teenagers to the field. Yes, that was it."
Wow, and I thought Caesar was an idiot. But his offer sounded interesting.
"Max, should we go?" I asked him. "It sounds like a good idea."
Max lifted his shoulders. "Why not? Let's go."
The man smiled, and there appeared a row of brown/yellow teeth. "Come with me." He turned around and ran with his short legs towards the nearest exit. Note; every exit in the camp was different. The main entrance was the gate of steel, of course. The second was in the part of Townville, this gate was the door to a grocery store. We could go through there and then enter the town. The groceries weren't enough for all the people here, but we got Menthis. Yaay.
The third was close to the kitchen. This one was a door that led to a pub, so the cooks could go to the kitchen there to get stuff like sauce pans or spoons or whatever they needed.
The fourth and last was through a barricade of cars and, I'm serious, a tank. It's at the very end of the camp. It's a little complicated to explain, but the camp is basically set up inside the town, in a park. It's so huge, it's almost like we are caged by the houses. At the weak spots, there are fences and guards. It's pretty organised and well done in such a short amount of time. It's been five days since the outbreak, in two days all the humans were evacuated when it was still possible. The rest are dead, or walker. It seemed to me there was no possibility of surviving outside this camp.
I don't know what's behind the last barricade. I've never gotten close and nobody could/wanted to tell me. I was surprised when the man led us towards this gate. I really wanted to know where it went. The guards let us pass, and the man opened the gate. Behind it there was a huge field of grass and seeds. I could see a beautiful landscape, with hills far away and a forest at the other side.
There were more teenagers; the twelve year olds, which included Pablo as well, the emos, a couple of early twenties. Those were our "classmates." There were three men of Menthis club, Aiden too(bastard) and the gentleman himself. He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. I was surprised to see him wearing anything but a suit, even in the kitchen he wore a suit. But not with this. Before him stood a table, I recognised the admiral's desk. On it stood a box. Menthis smiled at us when we walked over to the group.
"Welcome!" he said with a warm voice. "Welcome! Now that we're all here, we can begin. I let my men collect all the strong, healthy, young people to this field for a special occasion. I'm going to teach you how to take out a monster, or a "walker", if you prefer to use the military phrase for these creatures."
"I'm not talking the language of traitors" said one of the emos. Some of the others agreed by making grumbling sounds.
"In this box I have some weapons for you" Menthis continued, brightening his smile by the words of the group. "With these I will teach you how to kill them. If you just stand in a row, please. Yes, very good. I will all give you a weapon that suits your size."
Max and I stood at the most right side, basically the last ones in the line. Menthis opened the box.
"You" he pointed at the first emo in the line. "Step forward. What is your name?"
"Michael, sir."
"Well, Michael, I can see you are not so tall for your age, but you have strong arms and legs. For you, I have an baseball bet." Menthis handed over a bat with an aluminium top. Michael looked at it like it was a Barbie doll.
"Seriously? And this is supposed to stop those things?"
"I'll explain later. Please stand back in the line. Next please."
The second stood forward, she was given a hammer. A little better. I was kinda wondering what I would get.
Menthis gave everybody in the line a weapon, till only Max and me were still without a weapon. He looked at Max when he stepped forward.
"How tall are you, Max?" he asked.
"Uhm… 6.43 feet, sir."
"I see, you seem the tallest here. I have something special for you."
Menthis walked away, towards the tank and disappeared behind it. He came back with a…pickaxe. Probably the most useful weapon here. Max looked shocked that he was given this 'weapon', but Menthis was right. This suited him. Max stepped back in line, and now it was my turn. Menthis looked at me, from head to toe.
"Funny to see the biggest and the smallest person are standing next to each other" he said. Since when did twelve-year olds get so big? At first I felt kinda insulted, but then I didn't know which weapon he was going to give me. He laughed. He touched the belt of his trousers and suddenly he held a knife in his hands. It was a sharp, short, hunting knife. The other kids probably hated me now, for getting the best weapons. They had screwdrivers, a shuffle, a crowbar, a golf club, a pipe(?) and a tire iron. What was this man thinking?
"Well, now everybody has a weapon, we can start the training" Menthis said. I noticed a big truck riding towards us. "Before we start, I want to point out; don't be scared. And whatever happens here, stays here. Is that understood?"
We all nodded. The truck was coming closer. I really wanted to know what was in there. I looked at my new knife. I never held such a weapon, only in the kitchen. I felt dangerous. I hoped I wasn't going to hurt anybody. Well, if they were not walkers.
The truck stopped, turned around and drove backwards towards us. One of the men walked towards the truck and told him to go further, and then stop.
I turned my head to look at Aiden. He quickly looked away, and I saw a little guilt lying in his eyes. That scared me. What was going to happen?
A man stepped out of the truck and walked to the back. I could hear screams coming from inside. Not human screams, more like….. o my god. No. Fucking. Way.
