Chapter 6: The Illusion of Home

EDWARD

For a moment, there was no response, just silence from the other side of the door. But then I heard light footsteps as someone approached.

Once whoever it was reached the door, they remained silent.

"Anyone in there?" I asked in a calm, non-threatening voice.

After another moment of silence, a high lilting voice responded, "Who are you?"

"Alice," someone hissed. "No…"

"But they're alive, Mom," I heard her whisper.

"We won't hurt you," I said in as gentle a voice as I could make. I would do anything to get into that house and have some of the food that they were making. We hadn't had anything fresh since Garrett's camp.

"Please," I asked, sweetly. "We're awfully tired, Miss."

After a few seconds, the door opened hesitantly.

The two women stood in front of me, a look of fear in the mother's eyes and shyness in the girl's.

If I looked anything like Jasper did right now, I probably looked only one step up from a wild animal. We were filthy with long tangled hair, wearing clothes that were practically in tatters. I'm sure I was even worse because my shirt was spattered with my blood from the wound in my shoulder and arm.

I motioned for Jasper to join me at the door, so they could see us both.

When he reached the door, the mother's eyes flickered from left to right, looking the both of us over with suspicion. The girl, however, stared at us with a look of excitement.

"How old are you?" she asked with wide eyes.

It was the last thing that I expected to come from her mouth.

Jasper raised an eyebrow, but spoke first. "I'm seventeen. What about you?"

I looked at him curiously, but he didn't take his eyes off the girl.

"Sixteen," she said with a grin.

The mother stepped forward, putting herself between Jasper and the girl named Alice.

"Who are you?" she asked, suspiciously.

"I'm Edward and my friend there is Jasper," I said, jerking my chin in Jasper's direction. "We've been on the road for a long time, ma'am," I said. "Would it be okay for us to come in and take a rest for a short while?"

She looked at me suspiciously, so I was preparing to push our way into the house. However, the daughter beat me to it.

"Of course, you can come in. We're just making some supper. Do you want some? We have enough."

Without waiting for the mother to respond, I stepped inside with Jasper following behind me.

"What's for dinner?" I asked, looking around the room curiously.

The meal was delicious. Stir fried chicken and vegetables. It had been a very long time since we'd had a home cooked meal that wasn't cooked over an open fire. Jasper and I shoveled it into our mouths as if it would be taken away from us at any moment.

"Are you guys all alone?" Alice, asked.

"Yep," I said, not looking up from my meal.

It didn't hurt anymore to say it. Nothing really hurt anymore.

"Both of our families are gone. We were with a camp, but they're all gone too," Jasper said.

My hand clenched around the fork, anger filling me at how easily Jasper talked about our personal business.

"Alice, don't ask such personal questions," the mother said.

I looked up at her and saw that she was staring at my clenched hand. It made me realize that she saw me as a danger.

I slowly relaxed my fist and gave her a tense grin, causing her to look away.

It was surreal to be in a clean, orderly environment again. Everything shone with a pristine starkness that made me feel like if I touched anything I'd taint it. The contrast of my dirt smudged skin against the white linoleum table just highlighted my feeling that I didn't belong here.

As if hearing my thoughts, Alice spoke. "Do you guys want to get cleaned up? We have hot water and you both look about my dad's size, so we can give you clean clothes."

She smiled at both of us, open and friendly, but her gaze lingered on Jasper.

I looked at Jasper and saw the quizzical look on his face. It was the mesmerized look of someone trying to solve a puzzle.

Weak, I thought. She's just a dead girl waiting to happen.

"That would be great," I said standing up.

"Follow me," she said, traipsing ahead of me up the stairs.

Wiping the steam off the mirror, I looked at myself.

I was barely recognizable. My hair had grown to chin length and was a knotted mess. My face was a lot thinner than it used to be and I had a scar that travelled from my hairline and cut through my right eyebrow. Courtesy of James, I thought darkly.

But it was my eyes that had changed the most. Even I could see that the life had left them. My green eyes that my mother had always said twinkled were now empty and hard.

With a comb, I yanked at my gnarled hair until I was able to smooth it backwards. I knew that despite my effort, it was going to return to its wild state, but it felt good to be orderly at least for a bit.

Once I was finished, I picked up the clothes that Alice had given me—a pair of worn jeans, a grey t-shirt, and a forest green plaid shirt.

Pressing them to my face, I inhaled the clean scent that came from drying them on a clothes line.

They looked like they would be too big for me, so I was surprised when they fit. I'd grown since the world fell apart. I was now as tall as my father, who was a little over six feet. Not only was I taller, but my shoulders had broadened. I wasn't a scrawny little kid anymore.

Looking at myself one last time in the mirror, I realized how much I looked like my father. Sure, I had my mother's eyes and bronze hair, but everything else about me was Dad.

At the thought, I took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom.

I refused to think about the past. That world was gone.

Walking down the stairs, I heard talking in the living room.

"We've been alone for months, ma'am. But we're good hunters and we've learned how to protect ourselves from the dead," Jasper said.

"We haven't seen very many of those monsters, but my husband was able to get rid of the ones that found us," the woman responded.

"Where is he, ma'am?" he asked.

"He's sick," Alice said, sadly. "He can't get out of bed anymore."

I walked into the room quickly.

"Was he bit?" I asked, staring at the girl intently, but it was the mother that answered me.

"No. He's got pneumonia. He gets it all the time, but he's taken all the medicine we had kept for emergencies. Now, he's just getting worse."

I nodded and then looked at Jasper.

Garret explained to us that anyone who died from being bitten or from natural causes would turn. If what Alice and her mother said were true, the man could turn at any moment. Untreated pneumonia could kill.

Jasper began to shake his head, his eyes widening in alarm as he took in the look on my face. However, I ignored him and hauled out my knife as I strode out of the room and up the stairs.

"NO!" he shouted, chasing after me.

I went to the room at the end of the hall because it was the only one whose door was shut. Without hesitating, I threw it open and walked inside.

A man was lying in bed, propped up against some pillows. His skin was gray, but he was very much alive and was pointing a shot gun at my chest.

JASPER

I jumped to my feet and chased after Edward. He couldn't do it. We couldn't destroy this happy family.

Thankfully, when I reached the room at the end of the hall, Edward was frozen with his hands in the air.

"Daddy," Alice cried, weaving around me in order to get into the room.

The fear in Alice's voice bothered me. It pulled at me in a way that was almost painful. I didn't understand the feelings that she dredged up in me. I'd just met her, but it felt like something had awoken inside me, something that I'd never even known was there. My father would have mocked me, saying that I was weak for feeling anything for a fragile girl I'd just met. And he was probably right, but I couldn't stop the feeling of protectiveness that had surged in me.

The minute I met Alice and her mother, I could picture myself staying with them, helping to protect their home and enjoying life with a family. However, as Edward strode out of the room and up the stairs, I realized that Edward could very well ruin that possibility before it even had a chance of happening.

Over the last few months of being on the run with him, I regretted how I'd treated him while we lived at the camp. I'd been too hard on him. It was just that he was so different from the other survivors that I'd met. When James had taunted him about his sister, I saw real emotion from Edward. It was the raw emotion of someone who had lost someone precious to him. I had been around so many heartless cruel people in my life that I decided that I wanted to help save at least one of the good guys. I thought that with the right guidance, I could help him become a survivor that I'd had to become through heartache and despair. I thought I could teach him how to protect himself from both the dead and survivors.

But I was wrong. Instead, I'd help create someone cold and hard. And I didn't know whether he could come back from it.

"Edward, stop," I shouted, grabbing his shoulder, but the minute I did I saw that the man lying in bed was holding a shot gun.

"Now the two of you put your weapons on the ground," the man wheezed.

Slowly, Edward lowered his knife and dropped it on the ground and I pulled my gun from the back of my pants and placed it on the ground next to his knife.

"Come into the room so that I can see the both of you," he said, causing Edward to move forward so I could walk into the room.

I could tell that the man in the bed had once been a burly type before he'd wasted away from the illness. Alice didn't look much like him, besides her dark blue eyes.

My musings were interrupted by the hoarse voice of the man in front of us.

"Now, who the hell are you? And why the hell are you in my house?"

"Daddy," Alice said, sitting on the edge of his bed. "They're survivors. They've been on the road for months. And Daddy, they're my age."

Her father looked at her fondly before looking back at us with a cold look in his eyes.

"So, you're survivors, huh? Well, that still doesn't explain why you're in my room brandishing weapons."

Before I had the chance to calm things down, Edward broke the silence.

"When people die, even from natural causes, they turn. You're going to turn when you die and you'll kill your family. It would be better if I killed you now," Edward said, as if that made perfect sense.

"What do you mean 'I'm going to turn'?" he asked.

"The dead, do not really die, sir. They come back," I tried to explain.

Everyone in the room went silent at that.

To my chagrin, Edward began speaking again.

"So for the safety of your family, it would make the most sense if we ended it now-"

"Now, wait just a second, you sociopath. You're not going to touch my husband," Alice's mother snapped, jumping in front of Edward and shoving him backwards.

Edward's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched at that, but I stepped in front of him.

Staring into his eyes, I said, "Edward. He's not the only danger. Why don't you go check and see if there are any dead outside?"

We locked gazes for a moment, the first battle of wills that we'd had since leaving the camp. However, it had been brewing under the surface for months.

Ripping his arm away from me, Edward swiped his knife off the floor and strode out of the room.

Turning back to the family, I said, apologetically, "We haven't been around others for a while."

"I don't want him in our house," the mother said.

"Is it true, young man? Am I going to turn into one of those things?" the father said with a look of horror in his eyes.

"I'm sorry-" I began, but was cut off.

"Jasper! Get down here! Bring your gun!" Edward shouted from the front yard.

Grabbing my gun, I ran, ignoring the cries of confusion from behind me.

Throwing open the front door, I saw that around twenty of the dead were almost on the farmhouse's front steps. They must have followed our scent through the woods.

"Shit," I hissed as I began shooting at them.

Edward had shot almost all of his bolts into the approaching dead, but there were still eleven more.

Running to his side, I emptied my gun into the approaching dead still coming towards us.

Edward was now hand to hand, stabbing the dead in the head and shoving them to the side as others approached.

Together we killed the last of them and collapsed to the ground blood spattered and gasping for breath.

"Oh, dear god…" I heard a gasp from behind us.

Turning, I saw that the family had come out of the house and were taking in the scene in front of them in horror.

Edward walked towards the house and up the front steps.

Alice's father offered his hand to Edward. For a moment, Edward didn't take it. He just looked at the father's extended hand like he didn't know what to do with it. Finally, he clasped the man's hand and briefly shook it.

"Thank you, son. We would have been overrun if you boys hadn't been here. I'd like to offer you a place to stay tonight. We have a guest room that you can use. I think we even have a blow up mattress that one of you can use," he said.

Edward grunted in response and walked past the family and into the house.

With a sigh, I stepped forward.

"Thank you sir," I said with a smile. "We really appreciate it. As I said before, we haven't been around people or any kind of civilized society for a while."

"I understand, son," the man said, standing up only to be helped into the house by his wife and daughter.

I watched him stagger inside, a sinking feeling forming in the pit of my stomach. Edward was right; we needed to keep an eye on him. He wasn't long for this world.

That night, as I lay on the air mattress, I found that I was having a hard time falling asleep. You'd think having the luxury of a warm bed would have made me sleep like a baby, but I just couldn't seem to relax.

Every little sound seemed overly loud to me, so it was easy enough to hear the whispered conversation in the next room.

"They're like feral children… I don't feel safe with them in my home… especially the wild one. He's looks young, but he's a sociopath that might kill us all in our sleep," the mother said in hushed tones in the next room.

"Now, Mary…" the father said, but then the conversation became too quiet for me to hear.

After a few minutes, I heard a chuckle come from the bed.

"Feral…" Edward said, followed by a laugh.

"What else would you call us?" I responded.

Edward didn't respond, but just let out a quiet chuckle as he rolled over in bed.

EDWARD

Surprisingly, the father Brian let us stay at their house. It was nice to have home cooked meals and hot water even though I had to suffer through the mistrustful stares Mary kept shooting at me.

I half wondered why Brian was allowing us to stay when his wife wanted nothing to do with us.

Maybe he knows that he'll need someone to take him out when he kicks the bucket and Alice and Mary are too weak to do it…

"That's probably it…" I said to myself, not realizing that I'd spoken out loud.

"What?" Alice asked from where she was sitting at the dining room table playing cards with Jasper.

"Nothing… Nothing at all…" I said, looking down at the book I'd been reading. That's one thing I'd missed. I used to read constantly, but it was nearly impossible when you needed to be constantly on guard.

Jasper and Alice were laughing together which annoyed me.

"Jasper, it's your turn for dead duty," I said, interrupting their fun.

Every morning and afternoon Jasper and I would go out and pick off any undead that had wandered into the area.

Strangely, I felt more at peace out there with the dead than in here. Living in a home with a family who had the time to play cards and cook meals seemed less real to me than the dead that wandered the forests.

Jasper, on the other hand, seemed to be fitting back into civilized society quite easily, which bugged the shit out of me.

"Shit, Edward. I don't have to go at this very minute," he growled.

"Language!" Mary snapped and I snorted when I saw that Jasper looked chagrined.

"The dead wait for no man, my friend," I said. "But don't worry about it. You keep playing your little game. I'll take your shift."

With an exaggerated stretch, I stood up and grabbed my bow.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," Jasper sighed, grabbing his crossbow and knife.

Flopping back down on the couch, I laid back and shut my eyes.

As days led to weeks and then months, the desire to leave was getting stronger. I was not cut out for domesticity. Maybe at one time I was, but not anymore.

Whenever I looked around the clean house and well-tended gardens, I'd think about how quickly it would all be gone. It was only a matter of time.

I went through the motions of taking care of the gardens and farm animals, spending most of my time outside because I couldn't handle being in the house for very long. Strangely, while Jasper was fitting in more with the family, I was more useful. Without Brian being able to work, the bulk of the maintenance that went along with taking care of the farm fell to me. I took care of the cows and chickens and weeded the garden alongside Mary. She never got over her distrust of me, but tolerated me because I was useful. It was good enough for me. I didn't want to like any of them. They were just fodder for the dead.

I felt sorry for Jasper because I knew that it would break him when they died. I had a feeling by the hushed conversations that I'd heard between him and Alice that Jasper had not had a lot of kindness in his life.

Jasper tried to spend time with me and become friends, but I couldn't bridge that gap. It was as if something had broken in me.

Jasper and I still did dead duty every day. There was never a day that there weren't dead to kill, but it was never more than we could handle.

It made me uneasy, so I practiced more with my bow and knife during my free time.

Jasper taught Alice and Mary the rudiments of the crossbow and gun, but it was clear that neither of them would be any good. They didn't have the strength to handle a weapon. The kickback of the crossbow nearly knocked Alice to the ground and she'd never be strong enough to fight hand to hand.

I tried to be patient and go through the motions of fitting into their family life, hoping that eventually it would just happen. However, I could feel an anxiousness bubbling under the surface. It was telling me not to let my guard down, don't get attached.

It was a few months later when everything hit a boiling point for me.

While on dead duty, I walked around the side of the house and was shocked to find Jasper and Alice kissing on the porch.

I couldn't explain why, but the sight filled me full of fury.

Without even being conscious of doing it, I'd leaped over the railing of the porch and yanked Jasper away from her.

"What the hell, Edward?!" Jasper gasped in shock.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I snarled.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, shoving me up against the railing. "What the hell is your problem?"

I was incredulous. In my rage-filled mind, I couldn't understand how he could not know why I was angry.

"She's just another dead girl waiting to happen!" I shouted, jabbing a finger at her, almost touching her in the process.

"Back off, Edward!" Jasper snarled.

"You're fucking kidding me, Jasper. Some girl isn't worth your life," I said, with a snarl.

Alice cowered away from me.

"You… will… not speak to her like that," Jasper said in a deadly voice.

"I'm just speaking the truth," I said, and then without even thinking about what was coming out of my mouth I said. "You're going to die, Alice. You're all going to die because you're weak."

Before my words were even completely out of my mouth, Jasper's fist slammed into my gut.

I doubled over, gasping, when Jasper's knee connected with my face.

I stood up, wiping blood from my nose.

The rage spewed forth from me in a torrent.

"You are a fucking idiot if you think that this world will allow you to keep her! THEY DIE! THEY ALL DIE!" I shouted, my voice cracking and becoming hoarse as my anger flowed out of me.

I was shaking so uncontrollably with emotion that I didn't even try to defend myself when Jasper's fist connected with my face again.

I grabbed a hold of his collar and shook him, my face mere inches from his.

"These people are making you weak! They're dead already, YOU MORON!" I snarled at him.

Jasper reached up and detached my hands from his collar and stepped back from me.

"Stay away from us, Edward," Jasper said in a tightly controlled voice that hinted at his own rage. "If you come near us again, you're going to be sorry."

"Yeah… right… You're standing up for your new family," I snapped. "Well, I'm not going to be saddled with the baggage of caring for them."

Jasper's mouth was set in a grim line.

"You don't need to be here, Edward. No one's keeping you. The way you're acting… You're the real danger here… You're acting like one of the thugs that ran with James."

Mary and Brian had come outside by this time and I looked around at them. Alice was hiding behind Jasper, while Brian had a tight grip on Mary's arm. All of them were looking at me with fear in their eyes, including Jasper.

I stood up and wiped my hand over my face, as if wiping away the fury that had spewed out of me. I was confused and exhausted by it all. I needed time to process what had just happened, but I didn't have time. I needed to go.

"Okay," I said. "You're right… You're right. I've got to go."

"Now, let's not be hasty," Brian said, raising his hands in a calming gesture.

"No, it's time for me to go, Brian. Jasper can take care of things here. I'm not meant to live like this," I said, stepping around him.

I'm sure that he was thinking about all the work that would be left with my leaving. That's why he wanted me to stay. I was useful.

As I was packing my backpack with the clothes that I'd been given, I heard light footsteps behind me.

I turned around expecting it to be Alice, but it was Mary.

"I'll pack you some food, Edward. We have enough to spare," she said as she headed into the kitchen.

I nodded and followed her.

Once I was stocked with food and packed, I walked out of the house.

I froze on the top step in shock because Jasper, Alice, Brian, and Mary were waiting for me.

"Well, take care all of you," I said with a tight grin.

It was harder than I thought, walking away.

Jasper approached me and for a moment he just stared at me with an unreadable look on his face. I couldn't tell whether he wanted to hit me again or ask me to stay. But to my surprise, neither one happened.

"Take care of yourself, Edward. I hope that you find some kind of peace," he said quietly.

I stepped away in confusion and simply nodded.

After a few words from each of them, I strode away and didn't look back.