Gareth's POV

Though it was starting to get dark, it was also still the last night of this run and we still had only one more house on this block to check anyway, so we figured it couldn't hurt to continue on, as long as we made it quick.

...Not that it wasn't gonna be a quick run through either way, that is.

—

—

The house, like most of the others and despite being a two story house, was fairly small. Not too much bigger than, if at all, than that little rundown place we were holed up in with Theresa, before all this…..an observation that, inadvertently, was beginning to make the fact that I was doing this run through with Aaron….and only him a little surreal.

How quickly things can change.

—

"Gareth." Aaron called from halfway up the stairs, jolting me to the realization of how deeply I'd just become lost in my own train of thought.

"Yeah?"

"You good?" He chuckled, somewhat nervously, reasonably concerned.

"You're already done up there and you're worried about how I'm doing?" I chuckled, intending to change the subject. "I know it's a small house, but come on."

"Touché." He chuckled, seeming to have forgotten what had concerned him only a few moments ago. "No, I just came back to ask you if you needed the bottom part of this list."

"Lemme see it?" I asked, curiously, gesturing my hand for the little piece of paper.

"Right there." He chuckled.

He held it for me to see, his finger hovering near the bottom of the list where I'd drawn a line to divide the necessities and the record that I'd thought of to keep an eye out for, for Sadie, that I'd intended to transfer onto their own list.

I chuckled again, shaking my head. "Where is my head? I jotted these down so that I wouldn't forget them, til I could transfer em to my list for Sadie. Here."

I took it from him briefly, to tear off that bottom part for myself, before handing it back to him. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He chuckled, starting back up the stairs. "..although if I happen to see any of those records, I'll grab em for ya."

"Good deal." I agreed with another chuckle. "I'll trade you some license plates for them."

I could hear his slightly muffled laugh, as he was already starting back down the hall up there. "That's all I ask."

As I continued to scope through the rest of the downstairs, it was starting to become more and more apparent to me just how recently this place had been lived in.

...Or had people holed up in it, anyway.

The windows looked like they were freshly boarded up, meaning that either they hadn't been boarded up from the start of everything or that whoever had been here last had simply gone out of their way to do it themselves, or at the very least, reinforce it better.

Either way, it had gotten me wondering if it meant that whoever might be coming back and if Aaron and I should even be here in the first place….

….that and, what looked like, a child's height measuring chart, pretty freshly carved onto a wall near the pantry

As I cautiously approached it, to get a closer look at it, my heart sunk as it became obvious to me that whichever child had been measured against this wall couldn't have been much older than about three or four, and the thought of that started reminding me of how excited Alex always was to stand up against the one we had back at Alexadria and declare to the whole household how much taller he'd gotten….and how easily this could've been made by us in one of these houses, had Aaron and Eric not found us up in that other house, only a little more than a year ago.

I sighed as I looked over at the name that had been scribbled out, just above it.

Charlie.

Scribbled out onto the drywall in the messiest child's writing, that made it evident that some parent must've lifted an excited, probably giggling child, up to that level to do it themself.

It's what Sadie or I would've eagerly done, on Alex's request.

I tried to shake it from my mind, as I opened the door to said pantry, to continue the rest of my scope out for supplies.

The walk-in pantry was mostly hollowed out, and what was left of the food had been carefully set out in one of the cupboards with a folded note standing in front of it that read, Take what you need. Stay safe out there. across the front of it

—

"What are you thinking?" Aaron, who had somehow managed to sneak up behind me, asked suddenly. "Should we trust it?"

I shrugged. "Normally, all instincts would be pointing to no, but…" I sighed, glancing over at that chart by the pantry again. "...whoever this was had a kid with them."

"Sure it's not just a ruse?"

"Believe me, that was my first thought, but…" I sighed again. "..check the writing of the name. I'm not sure even the lowest person could've faked that."

"Yeah, that's a special kind of bad." Aaron chuckled.

"That's one way to put it." I chuckled. "I'll put it in my bag. What about you? Find anything upstairs."

"Little bit. Some stuff for the kids, in one of the bedrooms." He opened it up to show me. "I set aside a few things for Gracie, figured you'd wanna take some for Alex and we can let the other parents divide the rest amongst themselves."

I nodded, smiling as I glanced and sifted through some of the things. "Good deal. Anything else?"

"Oh yeah." He reached down into one of his pockets. "...uhh, no records, but a few cassette tapes that might suffice.

I sifted through the little handful he handed me, in my hands.

"Considering I see The Doors and a couple Ramones ones, I'd say they more than suffice."

He nodded. "There were a couple Joan Jett ones too, they just weren't in the greatest condition. Probably not playable."

"Well, I'm sure Sadie could do something with them." I chuckled, tucking them safely away into one of my own pockets.

"Yeah, I was hoping you might say that." He chuckled, taking a couple more, rather beaten up looking, ones out of his other pocket.

They certainly were a lot more worse for wear and you could barely even make out that they WERE Joan Jett tapes.

"Geez, you weren't kidding." I chuckled. "You do know Sadie, though. If nothing else, I'm sure she'll want them just for collection purposes."

"Yeah, that sounds like her."

I nodded, then glanced at my watch.

"It's getting late. Wanna finish up in here, while I double down on the living room?"

"You got it."