Chapter 5: The Truth about Families

JASPER

Four months ago

The streets in my neighbourhood were full of people wandering around, sensing the strangeness of so many military vehicles rushing towards the base.

Only a short time ago, we began to hear sirens in the distance, blaring repetitive horn blasts, changing the feeling of the crowd from worry to fear. People started discussing whether they should get out of town "just in case."

Seeing as the army base was only a few miles away, I was scared. I wanted to ask Dad, who was a soldier on the base, what was going on. But Dad hadn't been back for the last three days which was strange. Jennifer, who also worked at the base, had been home last night for dinner. However, she had no idea where Dad was too. I hadn't called the base though. I learned early on never to interfere with his job.

I ran home as cars in the neighbourhood began to fill with people who'd decided that it was better to be safe than sorry.

But still my house was empty.

Even though I was scared about what was happening, I was more scared of Dad, so I went about my daily routine. As the youngest, even at seventeen, it was my job to do most of the housework. And no matter what, I wasn't going to shirk my duties. Dad would beat me to a pulp on the rare days that he'd come home and supper wasn't ready or the laundry wasn't done. Every time, I wanted to say it was unfair that I was expected to do all of the work, but I didn't want to give Dad any other reason to hate me.

But while I worked, I couldn't stop thinking about all the horrible things that I'd seen on the news that could be happening just down the road. Dad made my siblings and I watch the news every night to keep us aware of the "shit show."

When no one called or came to the house by supper time, I decided to check the street again. As I approached the outskirts of the town, I saw that there were heavily armed soldiers scurrying around in a panic, building a barricade to block the road, and talking on walkie-talkies and to each other in clipped tones.

I scanned the soldiers for any sign of my dad, but didn't recognize anyone. Hesitantly, I approached one of the soldiers.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, keeping a safe distance from the nearest soldier.

At the sound of my voice, the soldier whipped towards me, gun raised.

"D… Do you know… Sergeant Whitlock? He's my father," I asked, barely above a whisper as I looked down the barrel of the gun pointed at my head.

"Get out of here, kid!" the soldier said, and shoved my shoulder, knocking me to the ground.

One of the soldiers was busy talking into a walkie-talkie when suddenly over the speaker came a loud hissing noise followed by a man screaming.

There was stunned silence for a moment from the soldiers before a flurry of activity began with the tell-tale click of all of them turning the safety off of their guns.

"Go on! Get out of here! Go home and lock yourself inside!" the soldier nearest me shouted, pointing in the direction away from the barricade.

I backed away from the soldier for several steps before turning and bolting back towards my neighbourhood.

My only choice was to go home and wait for my dad or siblings.

It was near dusk when suddenly our front door banged open and my dad rushed into the house. I cringed in my seat, ready for the blows that he often rained down on me for reasons that I could never understand.

However, instead of stopping, he ran to the hall closet, grabbing backpacks.

"Jasper! Get over here!" he barked, causing me to jump to my feet and rush over to him.

Shoving one of the bags at me, he pointed to the kitchen.

"Fill it with any canned goods," he said as he ran up the stairs.

Without question, I ran into the kitchen and shoved everything I could in the bag.

Dad appeared in the kitchen only a few minutes later.

"Let's go! We need to get your brother and sister," he snapped.

I opened my mouth to ask him what was happening.

"Wha-" I began, but was cut off.

"Shut your mouth," he snarled, gesturing towards the door. "Go! Now!"

It was then that I noticed his appearance. Dad took pride in his appearance, his clothes always clean and ironed. However, now, his shirt was splattered with red splotches and it was torn at the shoulder. I also noticed in shock that he had a machine gun slung across his back.

Millions of questions crowded my mind, but nothing came out of my mouth as Dad pulled open the front door.

Running down the street, Dad didn't give the soldiers or the barricade a look as he turned in the opposite direction.

"Dad, what's going on?" I finally asked as we raced through the streets. Silence lengthened between us, but then he answered, leaving me terrified.

"Death is coming," Dad snarled. "Now, run…"

Outside was literally a thing of nightmares. My sister Jennifer, who worked on the base with Dad, had gone ahead and gotten Lucas from the community college. However, her jeep had stalled, so now we had to leave town on foot.

All around us, people were running and screaming, but I didn't know why.

It wasn't until I saw a man with his head half torn off stalking a screaming woman down the street that I realized what Dad had meant by "Death."

I gagged at the sight which caused my father to look at me with disdain.

Then, I heard a voice come from behind me.

"What… the… fuck?" my brother Luke said in shock and he was soon echoed by Jennifer.

"You're seeing correctly, kids. Now, get over it and let's get moving," Dad said in a gruff voice.

I looked at my dad in shock. How was he so unfazed?

The next dead that we saw was a woman who was hunched over a man. She was essentially ripping the man apart. I heard gasps from my siblings as she stood up and staggered towards them. They were frozen in place, just like me, unable to process what was happening in front of us.

"She was eating him!" Jennifer gasped in shock.

Dad spun towards them and shot the dead woman who was almost within arms reach of Luke whose eyes were wide and staring, unable to look away but also unable to move.

"You idiot!" Dad snarled at Luke. "Snap out of it! Are you morons really not getting it? The dead have risen."

All three of us ran after Dad as he continued down the street without so much as a look at the woman he shot down.

We ran silently for hours without a break. By the time, we collapsed exhausted none of us were capable of taking one more step. But after only about fifteen minutes, Dad had us on our feet running again through a wilderness of trees and rock.

My legs were all torn up from where I'd tripped and scraped my shins as I tried to scramble over rocks and overturned trees.

"Jesus, Jasper. Pay attention to where you're going, numb nuts," Luke growled under his breath as he stopped me from falling by yanking me up by my arm.

The dead from the army base were spread out through the forest behind us. I caught glimpses of them weaving through the trees as we frantically tried to stay one step ahead of them. I couldn't help myself from continually looking behind me because it felt like they were within reach of me.

A feeling of desperation took hold of me. They were going to get us. I just knew it.

"Keep moving, boy," Dad hissed, appearing out the trees and scaring the shit out of me.

Nodding, I pushed myself harder. We weren't going to stop and if I couldn't keep up, Dad would leave me. He didn't like me. I'd known that most of my life. Because of our shared blood, Dad tolerated me but that was about it.

After what felt like hours, it seemed like we'd finally lost the dead that had been following us, so we dropped to the ground trying to catch our breaths.

"What's going to happen now?" Luke asked Dad quietly.

"Not sure. By the time I left the base, the idiots were just gunning down everyone on the streets dead or alive which just made more of the dead things… idiots…" Dad snarled. "They should have just bombed the whole town…"

"That would have killed a lot of innocent people!" I gasped before snapping my mouth shut and looking at the ground.

I was showing weakness. Any empathy for other people was considered weak in my dad's eyes. It would usually be at this point when I'd get a backhand to the face for being a "pansy."

Before this all happened, he'd been planning to send me to a military camp for the summer to toughen me up.

"What's going to happen to all of us?" Luke asked, quietly.

"We're going to become an endangered species," Dad grunted in response.

"What if-" I began, but was hit hard in the side of the head by my father before I was able to finish my sentence.

I clenched my jaw at the pain, but kept silent. If I made a sound, any sound… Dad would call it 'baby whining' and really pound on me in earnest.

"Now, isn't the time for what ifs and worrying about strangers. This is just the beginning of the shit storm that's about to fall upon us," he said in a cold voice. "Now all of you get your asses up. Let's move!" he hissed, turning his back and striding away.

Three months ago

The makeshift refugee camp was overrun. The dead were everywhere, getting lost amidst the mass of people screaming, running, crying. My eyes darted from one direction to the next, everywhere around me, looking for the best direction to make my exit from the camp. People were trying to fight them, trying to save their families, but it was useless. They should be running, not fighting. The camp was gone. Screams pierced the air as people were pulled from their feet by the dead who used to be their friends.

I was suddenly shoved forward by someone hitting my back. As I turned, I watched the woman who'd run into me being grabbed by one of the dead. The woman's terrified eyes looked at me, as she screamed. She was looking to me for help, but I turned away and didn't look back. She was already lost and I wouldn't be next.

Dad, Lucas, and Jennifer had left me at the camp three weeks ago, saying that I was slowing them down.

In the weeks leading up to joining the camp, I tried to learn how to hunt and shoot things, but I'd never held a gun in my life before. Dad wanted nothing to do with me, but at the beginning Lucas and Jennifer tried to teach me how to survive.

I'd gotten pretty good at setting snares, but I could only hit a target with my shot gun half of the time and I couldn't fight hand to hand.

When we'd reached the refugee camp, Dad left me in the part that was for the children. There were a few teenagers, but most of them were younger. Things like comic books, toys, and hand held games with batteries had been collected for us to use, which seemed ridiculous to me. The world in which people my age were entertained by comic books was over and gone, at least for me.

Lucas was the one who dropped by to tell me that they were leaving. He said that I would be better off at the refugee camp because I couldn't keep up with them. Dad and Jennifer didn't even come to say goodbye.

For a few weeks, I wandered around the camp like a ghost. I just didn't give a shit anymore. What was the point in being scared when there really wasn't any point in living in this hell hole?

I spent my time people watching, studying how they behaved in a group, what they did when they were under pressure. I learned a lot about people during that time. I learned survivors fell into two groups, either ruthless or "clingers" to ruthless people. I'd been one of those clingers, but now I was alone. There was no room for empathy in a world where no one cared whether I lived or died.

I also spent my time at the edge of the camp learning how to shoot—crossbow, shotgun, handgun—anything I could get my hands on. And after a few weeks of constant practice I got better.

I realized that Dad got what he always wanted. I wasn't weak anymore.

So, when the perimeter of the refugee camp was breached, I wasn't really fazed by it. I'd known that it was coming. I'd seen how there were gaps in the perimeter where no guards ventured. I'd seen that people weren't training on how to use a variety of weapons. All they were learning about was how to use a gun.

So, when the dead invaded the camp, it was lost before anyone even had the chance to fight back.

Evading the dead was easy when you didn't care. The dead weren't coordinated or intelligent in their movements so when you were careful and paid attention to your surroundings you could pretty well walk away from the monsters. And that's what I did. I walked away from the carnage and didn't look back.

I'd learned two valuable lessons at the camp. One was "Don't give a shit and you'll be okay." The other was "you can't trust anyone."

Now

After patching Edward up, we spent only a few days with the Chapman family. They'd decided that they were going to head south where Lindsay's parents were from. Edward and I just didn't fit into that plan.

So we struck out on our own without a real plan for what we were doing.

Since leaving the camp, Edward was different. The naïve attitude that I'd hounded him about had disappeared in an instant. Now, he was angry and sharp in his words and actions.

It wasn't that I hadn't been affected by what had happened to Garrett and the camp, but I'd come to expect that it would happen eventually. You couldn't trust anyone.

We barely talked, joined together by nothing more than the fact that it was safer to travel together than alone. Between the two of us, we were able to gather and hunt enough for food to keep us alive.

We avoided towns, not willing to risk running into other people or the dead.

Today, we'd been walking all day and it was clear that both of us were ready for a break.

"We need to find water and higher ground," Edward said, interrupting the hours of silence.

"Right," I said, looking around us for some sign of fresh water. I saw that to our left there was a knoll with trees that only grew in damp ground.

"Over there," I pointed, thanking Luke for at least teaching me a few things.

I strode ahead of Edward, looking for the water source that fed the trees. It was a small stream, but it would be enough to restock our water bottles.

Pulling my bottle out of my bag, I knelt by the stream and filled it.

"Give me yours," I said, reaching out for Edward's bottle.

Chucking it to me, I filled his before standing up.

It was getting dark and we had no safe place to sleep.

Looking around us, Edward walked towards a cluster of large oak trees that formed a canopy above us.

Walking over to the largest one, he reached up and grabbed a hold of one of its branches. Bracing his left foot on the trunk, he pulled himself up onto the largest branch. When it held his weight, he pulled himself up higher.

"Come on," he said, looking down at me.

Slinging my shotgun over my shoulder, I climbed the tree and settled on a branch next to him.

The branches were interlaced, allowing us to stretch out without much possibility of falling off.

"We can stay here the night," Edward said, rolling up his jacket to use as a pillow.

"I'll take first watch," I said and he nodded.

At dawn, I decided that it would be a good time to hunt. I grabbed my crossbow and quietly climbed down the tree, trying not to wake Edward.

Usually, I wouldn't leave him while he was sleeping, but everything was quiet and we'd been high enough up the tree for the dead to not be able to reach us.

I'd dreamt of my family last night. They'd been on my mind ever since Garrett had been killed. Garrett had been a lot like Dad. He was hard and ruthless. But different from my father, Garrett had depended on me. He'd seen me as an essential part of his new world plan. I hadn't been useless in his eyes.

Well, fuck my family. I don't need them. I'm not weak.

I saw a partridge and crept closer to it, barely making a sound. With a single shot, the partridge dropped dead and I thought, There, fuck you. I can hunt. Then, I saw a walker a short distance away and I hunted and killed it. There I can kill when I need to, assholes.

I was back to the trees before Edward even noticed I was gone.

For months, we'd survived by constantly moving, never staying in one spot for more than a night. The only constants were killing the dead and hunger. Thinking about food consumed us. Even when we hunted, we couldn't get enough game to actually feel satisfied. The forest seemed to be picked clean of game, either by the dead or other people.

About a month ago, we'd resorted to robbing and stealing from other survivors. We were so desperate that when we found other survivors, we'd either sneak into their shelter and steal their food or we'd take their food by force. At the beginning I felt guilty, but eventually I started to believe that it was either us or them.

There wasn't much humanity left in either of us anymore.

We walked for another day, only stopping long enough to light a small fire and cook the game that Edward had caught with his traps. The hot food settled pleasantly in my stomach but with it came the lethargy that would often happen after any kind of meal these days.

I found myself dozing off despite my best efforts to stay awake.

"Jasper," Edward grunted. "Wake up, jack off. We can't sleep here,' he said.

I bolted awake and glared at him.

"What's your problem?" I demanded.

He threw a glare at me, before getting up and striding away.

Walking through a field, Edward slashed at the grass with his knife. When an undead stumbled from the woods, Edward didn't hesitate to stab it in the head with his knife. We had both become stronger in the last months of running and fighting. At first, our blades would get stuck in the creatures and we had many close calls because of that. Now, it was easy.

In the distance, I saw that he was heading towards a farm house.

"Edward, wait up," I hissed, chasing after him, but he didn't stop.

"Edward," I growled, grabbing his arm. "We don't need to steal from anyone today. We just ate."

"We need a break and there might be a better selection of food," he growled without looking at me.

I followed him silently, knowing that he was right.

It was a big yellow farm house, three stories high with hanging planters all around its wrap around porch. From looking at it, you could almost forget that the world had ended because it was so well-kempt. The garden in front of the house even looked like someone had weeded it.

Edward put his finger to his lips as we crouched low and practically crawled up the steps and onto the porch.

I motioned that I was going to check the windows on the left and he nodded towards the right.

We'd done this before. The last place we'd robbed had been a jackpot because of the variety of food that they'd had and they'd been just a bunch of young people who had no fight in them. The sobbing of the young women who were part of the group as we stole their food still echoed in my head some nights. Edward, however, was unfazed by it. Even more than me, he'd lost his ability to feel compassion for others. I don't even know whether he saw other people as human anymore. I'd never tell him this, but he reminded me a bit of James.

Tentatively, I looked through the first window which was clearly the living room, but it was empty. So, I crept towards the next window on the side of the house, but froze before I looked into it because I could hear noise coming from inside. " I snapped my fingers twice to get Edward's attention and when he came around the side of the building I nodded towards the window. Crouching down low, he joined me. Then, very slowly, he raised his head over the windowsill to look into the room. Whatever he saw inside caused him to raise his eyebrows in surprise.

Slowly, I peeked into the window too.

Inside were two women, one older and one younger, cutting up vegetables and cooking over a gas stove. The older woman was humming as she stirred something in a frying pan and the young woman was smiling as she cut up vegetables. They looked like a happy carefree family.

I looked at Edward and he counted off two on his fingers and then gave me a questioning look.

Right. We needed to see if there were any more in there, so we waited and watched.

The young one looked like she was about my age with short black hair and a slim build. The woman to her left was clearly her mother because they looked the same.

Dressed in a flower print summer dress, the daughter took up the humming from her mother as she chopped. It was surreal. It was like she didn't even know that the world had fallen apart around her. She seemed so happy. I didn't think I'd ever felt the kind of happiness she was exuding.

The world had changed, I had changed, but I couldn't stop myself from looking at her life with longing.

I was brought out of my thoughts when Edward elbowed me.

With a nod, he crept backwards towards the front of the house.

"What do we do?" I mouthed at him.

With a shrug, Edward knocked on the front door.