Chapter 24 "Gone"

Day 90; Group C

Everyone in the house was enjoying sleeping in. Yesterday was stressful, and today they were going to rest. In many cases, to mourn. Ryan was completely torn up over the loss of Lizzie. So torn up, in fact, that he unintentionally completely disregarded Mika since the incident, shutting himself in his room, blocking out all reminders of Lizzie. He knows Mika's still alive, and that he should be thankful for it. He knew Lizzie wasn't all there, but he didn't expect it to be like this. He thought he could keep her safe forever — that he could protect her from herself. What upset him most was that he couldn't seem to blame anyone but himself. He wanted to blame those newcomers. He wanted to push the blame on them so, so badly. But he couldn't. They were innocent. They didn't know Lizzie needed special care. He didn't want them to before this happened, either. And that's all his fault. Even if it were at all their fault, he was the one who brought them here. He was the one who uprooted them forcefully and greedily from their place. This wasn't Jessie's fault. It wasn't Ron's. It wasn't anyone's but his. He knew that now.

Everyone around the house was asleep, other than Beth and Mika who were in the living room, Ryan who was with his thoughts, and Oscar and Shakira, who were lying in the room they shared with a fast-asleep Gabriel, whispering to one another. They did this often, as they were usually unable to sleep. They would talk to each other until one of them fell asleep. They were both very quiet people, and they had a lot in common. It became a comfort, and it helped them deal with the things they've had to witness and experience.

"Don't even get me started. I'm Mexican, but I can't stand Mexican food," Oscar whispered.

"Really? How does that happen?"

"I don't know. My mom cried when I first turned down her menudo," he shared, causing Shakira to smile. "I was never much of a Mexican food kind of guy. I've always preferred Italian."

Shakira laughed before quickly covering her mouth as to not wake up Gabriel. "Well, whether you do or not, I love me some tapas and mojitos."

Oscar made a joking gag, sticking out his tongue. "Sign me up for pizza limoncellos."

"Isn't Ryan Italian?" Shakira asked, suddenly reminded of the large man.

"Hell if I know," Oscar shrugged. They paused for a moment. "Do you think he'll be okay?"

"I think he'll be fine," Shakira whispered.

"Eventually."

"Well, yeah. He's not just going to wake up tomorrow and be over it."

"I know I couldn't."

"I know I didn't," Shakira said, remembering when her little brothers died. Oscar grew quiet, and they remained silent for a while.

"I'm sorry," Oscar finally said.

Accepting the apology, but not that concerned about it, Shakira realized something. This whole time they'd been together, though all of this, Oscar had never told her what had happened to him. He'd shared everything with her. His first crush, first kiss, dream job, favorite things, places he wanted to go, even girls he found attractive. But he had never spoke a word about what happened to him. To his family and friends. She turned onto her side to look at Oscar, who remained looking at the ceiling, and she spoke in Spanish. "I've told you what happened to me. How one of my brothers turned, and he killed his twin. How my parents were so upset about it that they just shut down. You saw them in Lubbock. They were wretched messes, and they wouldn't leave with us. When we went back, they were there, wandering around the same place we last saw them. I bet they just threw themselves at the walkers. I told you everything about them. How much I loved and missed them, and how much they meant to me. How this all changed them. But you have not told me a single thing about what happened to you. You showed up at the refugee center basically in rags, covered in blood and dirt. They thought you were a walker at first. What happened?" Oscar didn't say anything, keeping his focus on the ceiling. He turned away from Shakira just in time so that a tear could escape his eyes without her noticing. "Why won't you tell me? We've shared so much."

Oscar's crying only intensified, and soon he was struggling to hide how his body was quivering with sadness. "Good night," he said, pulling his blanket up over his head.

Shakira sighed, unaware of his sobbing, and closed her eyes, turning away from Oscar. "Good night," she echoed.

Later that day, they were going to have a small breakfast before the scavengers left to go clear out Salem. Kelly and Patti were the two in charge of cooking it. "So what you thinkin'?" Patti asked the purple-haired girl.

"How cute Xavier is," Kelly said airily, a big smile on her face as she focused on her chipping red nail polish.

Patti gave the girl a questioning look and laughed. "Honey. I'm talkin' 'bout the food. What are we gonna make?"

"Oh," she said, straightening her stance, "right. Uh, well, we still have some fish left from before the lake got all contaminated. Why not make that? They could definitely use that ot on the road.

Patti nodded her head. "We got some cabbage and carrots, too. Could make a salad to go with it."

Kelly nodded, and they began preparing the fish. Things were getting too quiet as they were descaling the fish, so Kelly decided to talk about the things that's been on her mind most these days: boys. "So, which of the new guys do you think are the cutest?"

"Oh, I don't know," Patti bit her lip.

"I know that face. You always do that when you're lying."

"What?" Patti asked, suddenly aware of what she was doing.

"You bite your lip when you lie. You did that when Ryan asked if you thought we should leave West Little Rock."

"Can you blame me? We all knew that was gonna be a big mistake. Lost Rex, Dante, and Harry 'cause of that fool makin' us leave."

"I know," Kelly said. "But we met Greyson, Daniel, and Amber because of him, too. Lost Amber, but she wasn't much help anyways."

"Don't talk like that!" Patti said, slicing deep into the fish in annoyance. "Every person we lost was important. Do not talk ill about them."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Kelly whimpered, carrying on with her own fish. After a very tense pause, she continued, trying to continue to justify Ryan's decisions. "We also met these new people because of him. Without these people, we'd be in real bad shape. That Patricia is a smart old lady."

"That she is," Patti said. "The people we met is probably the only good thing that came out of all of Ryan's crap, though. We had it good there."

"Yeah, but we couldn't just let him take off with his two girls alone. He was leaving, and there was no stopping that."

"I know. Don't stop me from missing havin' my own home, though. A warm bed, in a bedroom all my own. Miss the people we left, too. Boyd and Kevin. Laura, Elizabeth, Tavis..."

Thinking of the people they had left behind, Kelly thought back to Roger. She missed him immensely. She thought of the fond memories of them together, when they first made love. Then, she remembered the day she left with Ryan. The only reason she left was because she and Roger were fighting. If she had simply thought with clarity, she would have never left. She and Roger would have made up, and she'd still be happy. Truly happy. When Patti spoke Tavis's name, though, she was snapped out of her thoughts and pushed back into the present. Roger was over. That was in the past. The purple-haired girl recalled Tavis. His big brown eyes, his toned muscles, his luscious dark skin. "Ooh, Tavis was cute, too."

"Those big ol' muscles? Fine as hell."

Kelly burst out laughing. "Finally! I got it out of you." Patti rolled her eyes, smiling from ear to ear. "So who else is cute?"

"Alright, I'll play. Seth's gorgeous. Xavier and Shawn aren't too bad, either."

"Xavier's mine, girl. But you can take one of those other two."

"Maybe not Shawn. That Amanda girl's got her eye on him."

"Well, Seth sure look like he needs a lay. Big, strong man like that's bound to need some assistance."

"I bet. But I don't think he'd want me, of all people. So many pretty little mannequins runnin' around here."

"Don't talk like that," Kelly said, feeling guilty for having pushed this out of her, as she now understood. "Why don't you ask him?" Kelly smiled to her.

Patti half-smiled back. "Maybe I will."

"Right after breakfast."

"No. After he gets back from the run."

"Deal."

Hours later, Ryan was sitting on the back porch, staring coldly at the place where his daughter died. This was the first time he had left his room, which gave everyone hope, but he had simply gotten leftover salad and sat on the lawn chair, not speaking a word to anyone. He exited a while after being asked by Beth whether or not he had wanted to garden. The back porch was on the opposite side of the house as the garden, so he wouldn't have to be seen by Mika. The last thing he wanted was for her to ask anyone more questions about why daddy wouldn't talk to her.

Otis passed him, who took a step back, slightly puzzled. He then said something about gloves and went inside. Ryan wasn't really listening. He came back into focus when a yell was heard coming from inside and Otis ran to the back for him. "Ryan, we have to go, somebody just yelled that a herd's coming." Upstairs, everyone was packing what they could, panicking and running about the place. Ryan was only staring at Otis, unable to process what he had just said. Frustrated and running out of time, Otis slapped Ryan, who fell out of his seat at the sudden jolt. "We don't have time for this!" Otis grabbed Ryan's arm and dragged him inside to get their things. Ryan snapped into it and unleashed himself from Otis and ran upstairs. Otis ran outside the front door, cursing Ryan for taking up his time, and he made it to the doorway, met with a herd of walkers just a few meters away and an absence of people and the RV. He cursed under his breath, slammed the door shut, and ran back upstairs, grabbing the suitcase he had pre-packed, along with his wife's and Beth's. Ryan, Amanda, Shakira, Xavier, Gabriel, Kelly, and Sierra came out of their rooms, and Otis motioned for them to follow him. As they ran down the stairs, Kelly yelled back to the people still in their rooms to hurry up.

Patti was in her room, grabbing Greyson and Daniel's belongings, who she shared a room with, trying to shove as much as she could into her backpack. Oscar was in the room he shared with Shakira and Gabriel struggling to get dressed, his belongings at the ready. When he finally got his pants buttoned up well enough, carrying his belt in hand, he found Patti. "Hurry!" he yelled, following behind the others, who were halfway to the cars parked outside of the house down the road. Patti made it out, feet behind Oscar, struggling to catch up. Just as she made it outside of the house, a walker grabbed at her foot and made her fall down. She turned around and shot the walker in the head, and attempted to get herself back to her feet, but at this point, she was surrounded. The herd was too thick and too quick. She kept shooting at the walkers closing in on her and missed a few times, hitting one only in the chest, and missing another completely. Oscar had turned around, pulling his knife out of its holster as the gun was buried in his bag. He took down a single walker, but before he could pull the knife back out of the walker's head, the walkers had completely surrounded the woman. Her screams could be heard from inside of the pack of walkers on her, and Oscar's only choice was to turn around. He sighed and took off running back to the house. At least she would slow the herd down. For that, he was thankful.

At the house down the road, they had began siphoning all of the gas out of the smaller, dustier vehicles in favor of putting it into the two vans; one black, the other blue. Just as they got all of the gas out of the useless cars, Oscar had made it to them, out of breath. "Patti didn't make it. We have to go now."

"Wait, what?!" Kelly yelled, running with a can of gas to the black van.

"You heard me," Oscar said, throwing his stuff into the back of the blue van and beginning to put his belt on. "Where's everyone else?" he asked, noticing they were missing a few people.

"Gone," Otis said, speaking between heavy breaths. "Patricia, Beth," breath, "Mika, Allan, and Lyrik," breath. "Were out gardening," breath. "Took the RV. Don't know how many made it. Have to catch up to them."

"That was the most I've ever heard you say, Oscar," Ryan commented as he climbed into the driver's seat of the blue van.

They took off in the vans, forced to abandon the gas they didn't have time to put in. As they started up, they realized they were much lower on fuel than expected. They weren't going to get far with this little gas. The secret to getting ahead is getting started, Ryan thought, assuring himself that they would make it through this.