Chapter Eleven: Revelations (pt2)

Eva woke us all up at six-thirty.

It was a good thing Mami had taken the time to pump breastmilk yesterday while she was driving, because this was the second -and last- bottle I was feeding her. Her cries had woken up a cranky Olivia that wasn't really pacified by 'Dora' this time. Even Camila, who was usually all 'sunshine and rainbows' from the second she woke up to the moment she went to bed, was a bit grumpy.

It did not help that Olivia, after being told that Mami was working and would not be back soon, started asking for Papi... and then for Abuelita or Tia, when we said that they couldn't come... well, it led to Olivia and Camila breaking out the waterworks. Even Isabella was angrily wiping away errant tears before she turned around and locked herself up in the puppy-bathroom for a private cry.

It made me feel all sorts of helpless... because all I really wanted was my dad and grandmothers too... to see Andres pull Alexander under his arm and give him a noogie. But Abuelita and Tia Esther were dead. I'd seen their bodies for myself... and Papi was missing. Just gone. And Andres had been gone long before all of them.

The truth was, there was no guarantee that I'd ever see Papi again. It made me want to curl up and cry too, but my eyes felt drier than the desert and my heart colder than ice. It wasn't time for that.

-Maybe it wouldn't ever be time for that.-

Even Alexander looked grief-stricken as he tried to calm down my baby sisters while I fed Eva... My poor cousin would never know what happened to his parents or brother.

I'd learned that it was worse- the not knowing.

There wasn't any sort of closure with that. It felt like their return was always pending... which only made their absence ache even more.

Isabella was the one who eventually calmed our sisters down by taking out the photo album and pointing out pictures until the tears stopped flowing. Alexander practically jumped to put on a funny movie after that so that the mood wouldn't get somber again.

It was a relief when my mother finally appeared.

Carl lived through the surgery. Though the sheriff's son would be bed-bound for about two weeks. He got lucky.

The man, Otis, who'd accidentally shot him... not so much.

Otis had gone with Shane to get some supplies that Carl had needed to survive the surgery, and ended up getting killed by a herd so that Shane could get away. Three hours after my mother got back to our RV, she ushered us all out to pay respect at the fallen man's grave.

I'd only been to one funeral before.

My best friend's older brother had died two years ago in a DUI accident. It'd been... the despair coming off everyone was almost physical. Like Joshie's ghost was in the room with us, making his unseen presence known. The room had been suffocating, muffled sobs and soft broken whispers were like canons. Jenna had been inconsolable, and even with time, my friend had never really recovered. Some part of her was always sad and lost, always looking over her shoulder for a brother that would never tug on her hair again.

I didn't really understand her sadness, her grief, not until Andres disappeared in the early chaos of the apocalypse. Not until I saw Abuelita and Tia die.

The Greene family and Otis' wife, Patricia, built a marker for the fallen man's grave out of rocks 'cause there was no body to bury.

Miss Patricia's body shook with swallowed sobs as she leaned on a pretty blonde teenager, while Mr. Hershel -the owner of the Greene's farm- read a passage from a weathered bible. It was strange how similar and different grief looked like, but it was still a real thing. Like a wound-up snake nestled tightly in the center of your chest.

Mami rocked slightly from side to side to soothe Eva, who was strapped to her front, but her eyes were locked onto the pile of rocks. We didn't bury Abuelita or Tia. There hadn't been time... we'd barely been able to cover their bodies up with sheets before we'd had to leave. It made something ugly flare-up in my heart. A combination of anger and jealousy- grief. I shut my eyes so that I didn't have to look at it and focused on Olivia's clammy hand in mine instead.

"-He died as he lived, in Grace." Mr. Hershel paused for a moment before turning to look at Shane, said man looked so weird with his newly shaven head and the really baggy overalls that had belonged to Otis hanging off him, "Shane will you speak for Otis?"

"I'm not good at it." was his forlorn reply as he looked at the dirt, "I'm sorry."

"You were the last one with him." Miss Patricia's voice was haggard from the cries she was keeping in, "You shared his final moments. Please. I need to hear. I need to know his death had meaning."

Her words were painful to hear, there was an ache and longing in her voice that made me want to disappear. It made my heart race and hands sweat even more. Her want for it all to make sense, 'though nothing made sense no more.

Alexander bumped his shoulder into mine -when had I shut my eyes- making me look up at him, his brown eyes swirled with concern. I shot him a smile that felt more like a grimace and shook my head. Later. Always later.

"We were about done. Almost outta ammo. We were down to pistols by then. I was limping. It was bad. Ankle all swollen up." Shane revealed in an almost trance-like way, "'We've got to save the boy.' See, that's what he said. He gave me his backpack. He shoved me ahead. 'Run,' he said. He said, 'I'll take the rear. I'll cover you.' And when I looked back..." he trailed off, looked at Miss Patricia for the first time before limping towards the wheelbarrow with extra stones inside and grabbed one to add to the pile, "If not for Otis, I'd have never made it out alive. And that goes for Carl too. It was Otis. He saved us both. If any death ever had meaning, it was his."

Miss Patricia broke out into another round of silent tears as Shane added his rock.

"I don't like him. That dark-haired cop, Shane." Alexander whispered as we started to move away from the makeshift grave and back to our RV. Mami was ahead of us, Camila practically skipping across the grass in glee as Olivia tried to keep up with her pudgy legs. I could understand her joy. We had been cooped up for weeks. The grass felt like a luxury now.

My back stiffened as Isabella got closer to us, "Why?"

He shrugged, "There's something... not right. He wasn't looking at anyone when he was talking about the man that died. He looked super guilty."

"It could be survivor's guilt." I retorted, " You know, feeling guilty that he lived when Senor Otis didn't."

Alexander shook his head, "Nah, more like he's fibbing about something. Like when you're not telling the whole truth, but you really want it to be. Like when the grownups in the nursing home were trying to keep all us kids in the dark over what happened in Senor Stephan's room."

I could see Isabella shudder at that reminder. Mr. Stephan had died in his sleep three almost four weeks ago... but he hadn't stayed dead. Even though he hadn't been bitten, he still turned into one of the muertos and killed- ate his roommate before anyone knew what was happening. Mr. Stephan's roommate had even turned by the time they'd gotten there.

The same thing happened three days later when one of the old women -she'd been Abuelita's friend- on the first floor, died too. It'd been a heart attack, and this time there'd been witnesses. Mrs. Shaffer had been dead one second and a muerto the next, almost took a bite out of Senor Felipe's arm before the others put her down.

Point was, you didn't have to be bitten to turn into one of them.

Senor Guillermo had wanted my cousin, sisters and I to be kept out of the loop. Heck, he'd tried to keep Miguel and Carlos from the truth as well. That fiasco lasted about a week. No one had even hinted about it whenever any of us were around, and the fear that there were somehow muertos slipping into the nursing home had been driving us all insane until Carlos snapped.

He'd yelled until his face was bright red and the veins in his neck popped, "We have a right to know too! This shit can kill us any moment now, how am I supposed to feel safe here when I can't even fuckin' sleep outta fear of the dead getting in here at night!"

His anger had been scary, not because he was yelling and waving his arms around… but because he was right. Carlos' rant upset a lot of the old ones, but it got them to cave. Needless to say, me, Alexander and Isabella were all properly horrified when Papi and Mami sat us down for an in-depth discussion over where the muertos really came from.

Anyone in the old folks home could've dropped dead any second and risen again, we'd been in danger the whole time. That's when Senor Felipe made the decision to start locking the bedroom doors at night, as a precaution... and all the people that'd had conditions were given their own rooms to sleep in, just in case they passed away overnight.

"So you think he's lying?" Isabella reiterated, her brow furrowed in concern, "Why would he lie 'bout that? "

"I don't know... but it can't be for anything good." Alexander stated bluntly before rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

I eyed him for a minute longer before a gasp escaped from my lips as everything clicked, "You think he killed Senor Otis!" I hissed. Isabella's jaw dropped as she gaped at the both of us.

"I don't know." he said seriously before sighing, "Maybe he just left him there. You remember that's what happened to Michael. Guy got all crazy on a run, and when los muertos started swarming the crew just left without him. It coulda happened like that. That's the problem... We don't know him."

"You're right, Xander. We don't really know him..." I muttered, "He may have gone with me to look for you and Mami three days ago, but that's only 'cause he wanted our supplies."

"He's just... I don't know, mean. " Isabella piped up, "He really don't want us here."

I nodded, "I guess I don't trust him either."

My cousin grunted before nodding, "We're staying away from him."

"We should tell Mami." Isabella cleared her throat, "She needs to stay away from him too. "

Alexander and I exchanged a look over her head, "We will." he promised before breaking out into a jog to catch up with my mother. Isabella and I didn't even pause before following after him.

Words 1977

(I am so sorry. I meant to post this last week when I updated this fic on AO3 but something must've went wrong. Ooops.)