October 20, 2003

Time passed after we left Jenny's house, and I barely even noticed the days go by. My life has become monotonous: wake up, kill lurkers, eat, sleep, repeat. Some days I barely leave my room in the RV. Ever since the incident a couple weeks back, Luke has been back in his "protective brother" mode. That being said, I haven't had much of a chance to talk to Nick. I wasn't mad at him anymore for the way he acted previously. These days you never know when a day could be your last, so there's no use staying mad at anyone, especially the ones you care about.

I watch a lurker stumble around far in the distance, the evening sun illuminating it. The daylight is receding quicker everyday, so it won't be long until the sun sets. I force myself to stand for the first time in hours. I peer into the mirror mounted on the wall. I look sad and tired. Grasping the hem of my shirt, I lift it up and expose my stomach. It doesn't look much different than it did three months ago.

Cold hands slither around my body, sending a jolt of energy through me. I push Nick off of me in fear that Luke could be nearby.

"Relax," he whispers in my ear while replacing his arms around my body. "Luke and Pete went for a run a bit ago."

I lean into him, feeling safe and relaxed for the first time in weeks. I lift my shirt again to show him. "I don't look pregnant, do I?

He ponders for a moment and shrugs. "Hmm… well you aren't that far along yet. And you're a small person, so the baby will probably be small too."

I move back and forth in front of the mirror, taking myself in at different angles. "I guess so. You don't think that will end up being a problem, do you?"

"No, no, no. It will be fine." Nick stands in front of me and rubs my shoulders in reassurance. "You know, we should probably start gathering baby supplies soon."

I smile and nod, but my smile quickly falters when I spot Luke and Pete nearing the RV through the window. I shoo Nick out of my room and close the door behind him just as Luke and Pete are coming through the door of the RV. I lean my back against the door and slide down until by butt hits the floor. I pull my knees to my chest and hug them. I'd give anything to get rid of the loneliness that has been inhabiting my body recently.

I spend some time alternating between reading and staring at the ceiling until darkness overtakes the Earth. Sometime later I hear the others stop chattering. Luke and Martha head outside for watch, while Pete and Nick settle into bed, although I'm sure Nick is not sleeping, but instead is staring at the ceiling in the dark.

I toss and turn and fade in and out of sleep. Sweat beads on my forehead, so I kick at the sheets, effectively freeing my legs and cooling down my body. It's still a bit stuffy in my room, and I feel nauseous, so I crack open the window slightly. I put my head against the cool window and feel the subtle breeze.

I can hear Luke and Martha's voices outside; they're extremely faint but I'm able to make them out. Eavesdropping is bad, but I've found myself having to participate in it so often these days. With the dashes of tension between the group, I decide to listen in to what they have to say. After all, maybe it will give me some peace of mind.

"You're a good brother, Luke, and you try your best, but what you're doing to Bea and Nick isn't right. I know it's probably weird and hard on you, but forcing them apart isn't doing anything. Your sister has been so isolated lately, and it's not good for her. I'd never tell you what to do, but I really think you should reconsider how you feel about Bea and Nick's relationship, especially in times like these," Martha says.

There's a painstaking silence from Luke, in which I try to anticipate his reaction. He eventually clears his throat and responds, a sense of uneasiness in his tone. "You're right. It's been hard for me to see it that way, but you're absolutely right. There's just some things that you all don't know… and that's clouded my judgement. I feel horrible at this point, and I don't even know where to begin to make things right. It's probably too late now anyway."

"It's definitely not too late. They'd forgive you in a heartbeat; you just need to do the right thing," Martha reassures.

I pull the window closed, the biggest smile on my face. The first step to things getting better is Luke admitting that he was wrong. The only thing left is for Luke to come to me and make things right. I slip into bed again, this time slipping into sleep almost instantaneously.

October 21, 2003

The next day passes, and I expect Luke to come to me at any minute and apologize. But to my chagrin, he doesn't even say a single word to me all day. I try to show the others that I'm in an elated mood by not hiding in my bedroom for hours on end. Everyone seems to notice my change in mood, except for Luke who pays me no attention. Nick seems the happiest to see me having a good day. He gives me smiles and small touches, but he strays away from anything that isn't inconspicuous.

At the end of the evening I prepare myself for the awkwardness I'll encounter during my watch shift with Luke. When the time comes, I settle into my chair atop the RV. As predicted, awkwardness hangs thick and heavy in the air. Silence consumes us for hours. Luke doesn't even look at me, instead keeping his eyes firmly trained in front of him.

After hours pass without a lurker sighting or a single word from Luke, he finally turns toward me. He's slow as he turns, almost as if he is having to force his body to do something he doesn't want to do. "How… are you?"

"I'm… good," I answer with uncertainty. I've never had a problem talking to my brother until now.

He clears his throat and speaks abruptly. "Do you want to be with Nick? And I don't just mean because of the situation. Even if you weren't pregnant- even if there was no apocalypse- would you still want to be with him?"

I guess this is the moment I've been waiting a decade for. I've imagined it probably hundreds of times, rehearsed exactly what I was going to say down to the exact words. Yet for some reason, my brain malfunctions. I can't think of the right words to say. I turn my head away from him and mumble, "Of course."

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry for being so harsh toward you two. It's just with what happened when we were younger, and I promised Mom and Dad that I'd always protect you, and then you dated that one dickhead in high school, and then Nick got you pregnant in the fucking apocalypse, and fuck I don't know. I just went too far trying to protect you, when Nick is my best friend and the greatest guy that you could possibly be with. Basically I'm just trying to say that… that I'm sorry."

I gasp, turning the conversation playful. "Did my big brother just apologize to me?"

He feigns a scowl. "Hey, don't push it."

We both laugh for a minute before I turn the conversation serious again. "Thank you for apologizing, Luke. I really appreciate it. You're a good brother. Mom and Dad would be proud."

"Yeah, yeah," he brushes me off, even though I know that it means the world to him to hear him say that. It's too dark to tell, but I can almost see a hint of a blush across Luke's face. "You can go wake up Nick now to trade shifts."

I give him one last smile and descend down the ladder. I reach for the door handle, but the door shoots open before I reach it to reveal Nick.

"Hi," I say to him, a bit breathless from the shock of seeing him at the door.

"Hey," He smiles back. We stare at each other, dumb smiles on our faces but heads empty at what to say to each other.

"I couldn't sleep, so I was just coming up to take over your shift for tonight. Everything good?" He says.

"Yeah… yeah… it's great," I stammer. I've never had a problem with awkwardness or nervousness around Nick, but now that Luke has given me the go ahead, I'm at a loss for words.

"Okay, well… I'm just gonna head up then," he says. He leaves when I give him a nod.

I climb into the RV and creep to my room with gentle, quiet feet. I fall asleep quickly.

October 22, 2003

The door to my room flies open the next morning, startling me from slumber. It was Nick who threw the door open. I expect the worse; maybe somebody died, or maybe lurkers are surrounding us. Nick flies over to me and develops me into a tight hug.

"What- What's wrong?!" I ask, trying to avoid panic.

"Nothing's wrong! Everything is right!" He says, his tone excited. I haven't seen him this enlivened in months, long before things went to shit.

I study his face, trying to figure out what's going on. He says nothing, but instead continues to grin at me. "What's going on, Nick?"

"Luke said we can be together!"

"Oh, that's amazing-" I begin cautiously, but he cuts me off with a big kiss. It's everything I've ever dreamed of and now that it's here I don't know how to act. I just let him lead me and I melt into his embrace.

"Oh, gross!" Luke shouts from the doorway, forcing us to pull away from our moment of bliss. "I told you to take things slow. It's gonna take a while to get used to you two swapping spit right in front of me."

Nick and I look at the disgusted look on Luke's face and descend into a fit of laughter. Luke trudges off with a sigh while our laughter dies out.

My hands find Nick's hands, and we give each other a squeeze of comfort and confidence. I pluck up the courage to speak first, "I love you, Nick. And I really mean it."

"I love you too," he says. "I have for almost all my life."

November 1, 2003

"Good morning," a deep voice says, stirring me awake. I open my eyes and orientate myself with my surroundings. Sitting up, I wipe a dribble of drool off of my chin. I must have been in an extremely deep sleep. I look to my side to see Nick sitting on the bed, already dressed and sporting a grin.

"What time is it?" I groan.

He looks down at his watch that was gifted to him by Pete. "It's almost one. I didn't want to wake you, but the others are making lunch soon and I wanted to make sure you had something to eat."

I groan again and roll to my side. For some reason I am unbelievably tired, despite getting at least ten hours of sleep last night. "Okay, I'm getting up, but I'm so tired."

"I can let you go back to sleep," he offers.

"No, no," I insist, finally getting to my feet. "I got plenty of sleep."

"It's crazy to see how pregnancy affects you. Before all this you somehow managed to be a night owl and an early bird."

I undress from my pajamas, which is composed of only Nick's shirt. I ignore Nick's suggestive looks as I pull on a fresh set of clothes. As I pull my sweater over my head, a loud rumble sounds from my stomach. It catches the attention of both of us.

"Somebody's hungry," Nick says.

I stand in front of the mirror trying to run my fingers through my tangled hair. "Oh, I'm starving after puking my guts up last night after dinner," I say. "And I'm craving chocolate like crazy," I add after another rumble of my stomach.

"Chocolate, huh? I'll add it to the shopping list," Nick teases.

I finish up messing with my hair and give him a playful elbow nudge, before wrapping my hand around his arm. He leads the two of us out of the RV, paying extra attention to helping me down the steps. He's been treating me like a China doll the past couple months. Everyone has.

"Ugh, goddammit!" Pete says with a sigh. He slams a can down on the ground.

"What's wrong?" Nick asks, concerned.

"Bad news," Pete starts. "This can of beans we found last night had a hole in it. Damn thing was rotted out; bugs got to it."

"What?" Nick asks, a hint of anger in his tone. "That's all the food we have left. Bea needs to eat!"

"You think I don't know that, boy? It's not like it's my fault," Pete counters.

"Nick, I'm fine," I reassure and give his arm a squeeze. I know he's not actually mad at Pete. He's just mad about the situation, and he's taking it out on Pete.

"There's that cabin in the woods we passed the other day. It's not too far. Come with me, and we'll see what we can find," Pete says.

Nick nods at Pete and at me. The two of them grab backpacks and their weapons. "Be careful," I urge the two of them as they wander into the treeline. The both of them give one last wave before the forest swallows them up, and they are out of view.

From the opposite way, three figures stumble into view. The smell of rotting flesh and the sound of morbid gurgles fill the air. Luke and Martha jump up from their chairs.

"Luke and I got this," I tell Martha, who hesitantly sits back down.

Luke and I speed walk toward the lurkers, not wanting them to get too close to our camp. "You get the little one; I'll get the other two," he commands.

I go with his plan for the sake of not arguing, although I'd be perfectly fine with taking two lurkers down. We approach them quickly. I drive my knife into the skull of the shorter lurker without hesitation, silencing its groans at once. I pull my knife free as quickly as I can, in preparation that Luke may need my help. As predicted, Luke is struggling to pull his knife out of the first lurker's eye socket, and the second lurker is fast approaching. I sneak up behind it, and kick its knee out because it's far too tall for me to reach its head. It falls flat on it's stomach, giving me easy access to stab my knife through its skull. Luke finally pulls his knife free just as I am planting mine into the downed lurker's head.

"Thanks," Luke says, awkwardly laughing. "Watch my back while I drag these into the woods?"

I keep an eye out and follow Luke as he begins dragging the lifeless corpses off. He starts with the two bigger ones. He grunts while dragging them, easily working up a sweat. They're pretty heavy- I can tell- but Luke would never admit that it's a struggle for him to move them. I wish he'd let me help, but he'd say no in a heartbeat so I don't bother with offering my help.

We stand before the last body. Luke reaches to grab its arms, but I make a realization that causes me to swat his arms away to make him stop. "What-"

"Look at her, Luke," I cut him off.

He looks the body over, takes in the massive bite on her neck, the IV needle hanging out of her arm, the torn hospital gown covering a still swollen stomach.

"I think… I think she had just given birth when she died," I say, gulping to try and tame the nausea budding in my stomach.

"Bea, I mean you never know… It could easily be something else." Luke grabs her arms and begins pulling her body away, much quicker than the others.

"It's pretty obvious. If this happened to her then… what happened to the baby…" I jog after him.

He lays her body down on a pile of leaves, much more gentle than the other bodies. Her body was much lighter than the others, but he was probably trying to spare my feelings as well.

"Just… try not to think about it," he says. "And while we're out here alone, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about…"

I force my attention away from the corpse and her past life and instead focus it on whatever Luke's about to say.

"I know you don't like to talk about, but I really think it's time that you told Nick and the others about the… incident." Luke approaches the topic cautiously.

"I really would prefer to not talk about it," I say. "I mean it was so long ago, we might as well forget about it."

"Really, Bea?" he asks, deadpan. "You're telling me that all the nightmares just magically went away, and you want to 'forget about it.'"

"Fine," I say stubbornly, knowing that he caught me in a lie. I turn back to head toward camp, Luke following me.

"Great, 'cause Nick's been asking me about it for a while, and I told him I can't tell him, 'cause it's your story to tell," Luke says at my side.

I can't think of the words to say, because I'm racked with nerves about the thought of telling my story. I give Luke a nod, because I know he's right. Back at camp, I sit in a chair and try to relax. I need to prepare myself, find the right words to say. I must convey what happened without upsetting myself. It's been years since I talked about it outloud, let alone told the entire story in one setting.

Pete and Nick appear out of the forest. By the looks on their faces, I'm guessing things didn't go well.

"Well the bad news is, there wasn't any food," Pete says. "But the good news is, I found this tool set I've wanted since last year. Brand new, still with tags."

"Oh, great," says Martha sarcastically. "While the rest of us all starve, you can play with your new screwdrivers." Pete looks a bit hurt, so Martha claps his shoulder. "I'm just joking with you. I'm glad you found them. We'll all be fine."

Nick sits beside me, and I try to hide my look of disappointment. Usually I'd be fine with not eating for a day, but today my stomach is sporting intense hunger pains.

"Well I did find this," Nick says to me, reaching into his backpack. He produces a large chocolate bar and hands it over to me with a grin.

I snatch it from him and throw my arms around his neck for a tight and quick hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

It seems stupid, but the combination of my cravings and intense hunger has made this chocolate bar seem like I struck gold. "There was nothing else edible in the cabin except for this? What are the odds?"

"Well, I passed on the rotting and decomposing bananas, because I didn't think they looked very appetizing," Nick jokes.

I want to eat it quickly, but I force myself to chew slowly so that I can savor the taste. I don't know when I'll get my next candy bar. Who knows, this could be my last. I try to offer some to Nick, but he shakes his head before I even get to verbally offer him some.

I swallow the last bite, and it's a bittersweet feeling. I'm less hungry now, and my craving has been fulfilled, but I'm sad it's gone. Luke clears his throat to get my attention and let me know that it's time.

Taking a deep breath, I begin, "So, there's something I've been meaning to tell you all. I'm sure you've been curious about it for a long time. The truth is long overdue, but I'm ready to tell it. I truly appreciate your patience. It's an extremely difficult conversation for me to have. In fact, I haven't told the full story to anyone in probably ten years."

I look around to see everyone's reactions. Everyone is intently watching with sympathetic faces, even Pete, who has stopped meddling with his new tool set. Beside me, Nick holds my hand with a fierce passion.

Feeling everyone's support, I continue, "When I was four, and Luke was six, our family went to visit my grandparents. It was a small town; they never really experienced any crime. All of the adults left Luke and I at the park to go pick up ice cream. They told me to stay with Luke, but he was playing baseball with some other kids. I had my 'wandering off' problem, and I was able to slip away. There was this van.." My voice cracks, but I hold back my tears. I can do this; I am strong.

"There was this van, and I got too close to it. This guy jumped out and he grabbed me. I couldn't even scream. He had such a tight hold on me, I could hardly breath. I was unconscious for a lot of the time I was with him, but the time I was awake was… bad. He was so mean. He broke several of my fingers. I was so scared. Eventually at a gas station in Texas I was able to get loose. I knocked on the glass when he went inside and someone saw me. They broke the glass and got me out, but they never caught the guy. I was missing for three days. The whole ordeal was my earliest memory. As I got older, I always worried where the man could be. What did he want with me? Was he going to come back? Of course Luke thought it was his fault, because he hadn't seen me slip away. The both of us had to go to therapy for it until our teens. We never talked about it growing up, but I know Luke and I both still have nightmares about it to this day."

There's a stunning silence until Luke speaks, "That's why I've always been so overprotective of Bea, sometimes too overprotective. I thought it was all my fault. After we found her, my parents made me promise to always protect her. I took that promise extremely seriously, because I was responsible for my little sister nearly dying."

"Luke, it wasn't your fault," I tell him, but he shakes his head and looks down in shame.

"Thank you for telling us. It took a lot of strength to not only go through that, but to share your experience with others," Martha praises me.

I smile at her in appreciation. I then realize that I made it through the retelling without crying once. It took a lot, but I'm proud of myself. I will never be able to completely forget about it, but I think it's maybe time that I will be able to put it behind me. Hopefully Luke will be able to as well.

At my side, Nick has a tense expression. I knew he would be angry when I told him, not at me but at the man and the fact that something so bad happened to me. His face softens when he realizes that I'm finished. He hugs me tightly, whispering into my ear, "You're safe now."