All Alone In An Empty House

Today's song is All Alone In An Empty House by Lost In The Trees.

"Do you think dinosaurs used to watch each other have sex?"

"What?" Bella asked in confusion. She was usually a master at deciphering whatever convoluted ideas her older brother came up with but this line of thought had definitely caught her off guard.

"Just think about it for a minute," Emmett urged her seriously. "If you were to come across two tyrannosauruses going at it in the woods wouldn't you stop to watch?"

She considered it for a second as she resumed carrying crates of bottled water into one of the houses being used for food storage. "Eh, I guess," she shrugged as she stacked the flats. "But for purely scientific purposes only, I am not a perv."

"Whatever, we all know that's not true." He dismissed with a shake of his head before training his eyes on Jacob's sweaty form as he entered the cool building. "What about you man? Would you watch two dinosaurs going at it?"

Jacob hefted a large sack of grain out of his wheelbarrow and onto the growing pile."Hell no. I'd get out of there as fast as I could without being seen, I wouldn't want to be some kind of post coital snack."

"Wimp," Emmett taunted. "I'd totally tape that shit and post it on the internet."

"Alright I'm going to have to stop you right there," Bella piped up as she tried to catch her breath. "You've just taken a hypothetical situation and made it absolutely ridiculous. Where the hell did you get this camera from and

Emmett rolled his eyes at his little sister's lack of imagination. "Well if I'm watching dinosaurs do the nasty I've obviously figured out time travel so why couldn't I have a camera with me."

Bella stared at her brother for a moment in disbelief. "You really are a moron you know that?"

"Says the girl who believed aliens were going to come out of a Santa Claus piñata and kill us all."

"Hey!" Bella protested. "I was five and you had just forced me to watch the scene in Alien where it bursts out of the guy's chest. Excuse me for being frightened."

"But a Santa piñata?"

"Don't judge me Emmett the thing was creepy. Besides, you were the wet the bed until you were eight." She seethed as she engaged her giant of a brother in a staring contest.

"Hey , hey!" Jacob shouted as he stepped between the two siblings. "Let's cut this shit out, there's a lot of work to do around here and you two fighting isn't going to make it go any easier."

Bella and Emmett continued to stare one another down for a few moments more until Emmett finally blinked and broke eye contact. "Fine" he conceded unhappily. "I have watch in a few minutes anyway. And you," he said rounding on Jacob, "not one word of this ever leaves this room capiche?"

"Yeah sure, you got it man," Jacob agreed readily as he and Bella watched silently as the large man walked into the sunlight outside of the small room in a huff.

"A Santa piñata?" Jacob laughed in disbelief as soon as Emmett was out of earshot earning him a swat on the arm from Bella.

"Shut up," she grumbled before following in Emmett's footsteps and stepping into the heat of the day. "I'm sure you've done some embarrassing shit too."

"Sure I have," Jacob admitted as he came jogging up behind her. Without breaking his stride, he threw her over his shoulder causing her to shriek in surprise and pound her fists on his back in protest. "I just make sure anyone who knows about it is too afraid to talk."

"Oh well, why didn't I think of that?"Bella laughed as she was carried through the village.

She felt Jacob's chuckle rumble through his large chest. "I guess it just goes to show I'm the brains of this outfit."

"Is that so?" Bella asked as Jacob slid her down his front and placed her safely on the ground outside of his house.

"It would appear that way yeah."

Bella ran her hand through her wayward hair. "I'll just have to remember that then."

He nodded his head as he motioned for her to enter the house in front of him. "That's probably a good idea."

Bella stepped into the cool house and immediately settled into an old leather chair and made herself comfortable as Jacob dragged over his own chair and a pile of papers. Carefully, he arranged the assortment of maps and lists on the table in front of them.

Bella studied a map covered in handwritten notes and dates. "Is this, is this accurate?" she asked in awe.

"Near as we can tell," Jake replied seriously, all joking aside. "It seems to have started here," he pointed to a large red star on the map near their location, "before it began to spread. You can see from the dates that it was contained for about a week before it began spreading like wildfire. Before we lost communication it had already reached here, here, and here."

Bella silently traced her finger over the path the infection had taken. From Jacob's map it appeared to have popped up over a month ago only sixty miles or so from their current location before spreading to every major city in the country within weeks. If this map was correct by now the entire country had been infected and it was only a matter of time before it reached foreign shores.

"Any news from down south?" she asked.

"Nothing. We lost communication before any of us thought to check on the situation in Mexico but you can bet if it reached Tucson it has surely made it over the border."

"Shit," Bella breathed in disbelief. "I never thought it would move this fast."

"None of us did," Jacob agreed. "Don't beat yourself up over what could have been, none of what happened was any of your fault. The government tried so hard to keep what was happening a secret none of us had any idea this was happening until it was already too late. Cutting off all forms of communication in the infected cities was really the nail in our coffins. Maybe if people had known what was coming they could have prepared or some shit. Hell, I tried to call you for days until I realized the cell towers had been shut down and you had the satellite phone."

Bella closed her eyes and breathed deeply as she remembered the faces of all those infected she had encountered along the way. If they had been given half a chance maybe some of them would have survived but that opportunity had been taken from them.

"You're right," she agreed sadly. "I know it's not my fault but I just can't help but feel guilty. Maybe it's survivor's guilt, I don't know. There were just so many better people who could have survived."

Jacob slammed his fist down on the wooden table causing Bella to jump. "Don't you fucking dare say that shit again," he seethed. "If it weren't for you and your crazy fucking plan we'd all be dead. Don't tell me there was someone better who could have survived because that just makes me feel like shit."

"Jake I didn't mean-"

"I know what you meant Bells," he ground out angrily, "but if you didn't deserve to survive then there is no way in hell I deserve to still be here and as selfish as it may be I can't seem to find it in me to regret surviving so let's just agree to drop this depressing self deprecating bullshit okay."

"Okay," she agreed ready to be done with the conversation. "Um so what's this?" she asked pointing to a series of lists.

Jacob let himself relax as he began to explain the inventory sheets he had been making. While he had waited for Bella he had gone house to house and inventoried the contents of each looking for food, weapons, medicine, etc. On his sheets he had listed the quantity of each item, where it could be found, if it had an expiration date, and in the case of the medicine who needed each prescription. He had even gone so far as to research the uses, dosage information, and possible side effects of each prescription.

"This is really-"

"Nerdy. I know," Jacob admitted with an embarrassed shrug. "I just figured better safe than sorry you know? "

"I was going to say thorough," Bella argued, "and I'm impressed. You've done a really great job looking after your people Jake."

Jacob pushed his chair back from the table and rose to his feet. Without a word he began agitatedly pacing he small room before gripping the top of the door frame leading outside and taking stock of what was left of his village.

Acoma had once boasted a population of nearly two-thousand inhabitants in the general area with about fifty of them living atop the mesa in the ancient dwellings of Sky City before the infection had struck. Now the tribe's population had been reduced to something nearer to one-hundred with only thirty choosing to live atop the mesa.

The majority of the tribe had chosen to attend the state basketball tournament in Albuquerque when the infection had hit. Jacob, Seth, and their friends had chosen to stay behind and go four wheeling instead, much to their father's dismay.

Billy Black had always felt his sons should show their support for their community in any way possible and was not happy about their decision not to support the local high school by attending the tournament but he had chosen not to press the issue. The last time Jacob had heard from his father it has been through a brief phone call during which his father called to transfer leadership of the tribe to his eldest son as he fought for his last breath.

As far as Jacob knew no one had made it out of the city alive, leaving it up to him to defend the lives of his people from further annihilation. It was a responsibility that weighed heavily upon the normally carefree young man's shoulders. He felt responsible for the unnecessary deaths of his people and although he was rational enough to know that if he had attended the game he too would have most likely met his end, he couldn't help but consider the ever present what ifs. All he knew for sure was that without the help of one Miss Isabella Swan, he would be truly lost, she was the only reason he had managed to keep his head and prepare his people as best he could for the coming hardships they were sure to face.

"Shit Jake!" Bella shouted excitedly before jumping to her feet and knocking the chair over in her haste. "Did you hear that? It sounds like an engine!"

Jacob stared at her blankly, unable to comprehend her words as she squeezed her small body through the doorframe past his much larger one.

"Em!" she began shouting as she clumsily jogged toward her brother's lookout post. "Em what is it?"

Emmett lowered a pair of binoculars from his face and wiped the sweat from his brow before pointing to an approaching cloud of dust. "Looks like a truck or a van of some sort but its kinda hard to tell with the cloud of dust its kicking up."

He passed the binoculars to his sister's impatient hands. Eagerly, she snatched them from her brother and raised them to her face only to lower them again a moment later in disappointment. "I can't tell either," she sighed before passing them on to Jacob.

"Huh, well I definitely wasn't expecting that," he remarked a moment later.

"What?" Bella asked as she snatched the binoculars back and began scanning the horizon.

"Well shit," Emmett laughed, "I never would have expected that either."

"What?" Bella demanded impatiently as she stared at the rapidly approaching dust cloud.

"Don't you here it Bells?" Jacob laughed.

"Here wh- oh. Oh! You've got to be fudging me!" she shouted in disbelief before erupting in a fit of giggles as she heard the tell tale strains of music echoing across the open desert.

Emmett grabbed the binoculars back with a chuckle. "Nope. What we've got heading our way is an honest to goodness Good Humor truck."

He was silent for a few moments while they regarded the approaching truck before he dropped to his knees, clasped his large hands together and looked toward the heavens. "Dear God, please let them still have some of those amazingly delicious Strawberry Shortcake bars and perhaps, if you're feeling particularly generous, a Chocolate Éclair bar or two," he prayed so seriously that Jacob and Bella couldn't help the peals of laughter that shook their bodies until they collapsed into a panting pile on the warm earth.

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Sorry it took so long, midterms were a beast! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, especially the dinosaur conversation which is word for word an actual conversation I had the other day, quite random but oh so Emmett. Please leave me a review and let me know what you think and I promise you'll all find out about Sammy soon!

XOXO,

Bellarella