I read a book by a war correspondent for English class at school, in which he said that people imagined landmark events at the front, with action 24 hours a day. In fact, most of the time nothing of major importance happened, and the day was taken over by routine. Even the exchanges of fire or the bombs thrown, at some point it becomes routine. I saw action movies about zombies that the quiet time to sometimes develop the character was just a short break between crises and dangers. But if I create a graph that showed routine on one side and mobility and crises on the other, I would say that of all those months after the attacks, 80% of the time was routine. It was true that we had an extremely hectic month after the fall of Lakerview, but once we settled into the bunker, it became domestic everyday stuff. Still, there were episodes, like the events that culminated in Joe's death and Brittany and Quinn's assault.
There was also a ghastly episode in the bunker that didn't involve any shooting, invasions, deaths and displacements. One of the scariest episodes for us was called "The Winter". I told you that we were able to bring food, some medicine, new clothes, cleaning and hygiene supplies, car batteries for the electrical system, sleeping bags, bedding and blankets, and even rugs so the cement cold floor of the bunker didn't freeze us. Know that the bunker was a buried structure, and this made it a little less cold than on the coldest days, and a little less hot on the hottest days. The problem was that we had freezing blizzards that winter, and temperatures plummeted to below 0°C. We had to prepare ourselves: Sam, Joe and Blaine salted fish and chopped firewood, we filled our stocks benefiting from our greater zombie lack agility in the snow and the odd absence of reapers. As the water in the stream froze almost completely, our cistern was kind of frozen too. As a result, the reservoir level was always low and there was no pressure to flush the loo. This forced us to do these things for days: melt snow and ice, do number two outside and deal with the number one smell inside.
Brittany turned 20 on the 20th of January, and since New Years I had been planning a small party. The problem was that the cold and blizzards intensified and we were practically confined to the bunker. To make matters worse: we all get sick, and we treat our colds with tea, bicarbonate, nasal decongestant and industrialized gargle with salt, vinegar and warm water. We, unintentionally, seemed to take turns in the worst of the flu. Just on her birthday, it was Brittany who was coughing a lot, and her body was too weak to get up.
"Happy Birthday my love." I kissed her on the lips before offering her a peppermint tea sweetened with sugar. I really wish we had honey, but all we could find was corn glucose.
"Peppermint tea again?" Brittany grimaced.
"Abuela was never wrong about these things."
Yes, the pepper tea recipe with a little honey was abuela's thing. She used to give me black pepper tea when I was sick, because it was a great expectorant and also soothed my sore throat. It was a traditional recipe and it always worked. Everyone in that bunker had pepper tea and got a little better, even if we didn't have the honey. Since Brittany hated the taste, I added a mint packet to soften it up a bit.
"Happy birthday, Brittany!" Tina said excitedly, as far as we were in the mood for it. "I even wanted to find a gift for you, but as you know… we are stuck here!" Tina gave my girlfriend the gift she made. It was a beautifully designed and colorful card, signed by everyone, including me.
Brittany was good at drawing, but she never got past a child's level of technique (although I've seen exhibitions of famous people who also never got past that level and were hailed as geniuses... like Joan Miró!). Tina drew very well, so much so that she could easily work as an illustrator. She designed a card with art of Brittany dancing, which turned out really well. After Tina, everyone else went to say hello to my girlfriend, who also received a small package of Oreo just for her. You see, we were in a self-governing social system where everything was shared but our bodies and our lovers. Getting a bag of Oreos just for you was a big deal.
"Thank you, guys." Brittany said in a squeaky voice. Truth be told, we were all in poor health from the winter. My girlfriend could be at that moment with the most precarious immunity, but nobody there was much better. Our handkerchiefs were in a state of disrepair with so much runny nose, sneezing and coughing.
Sam picked up the ukulele and tried to sing something to cheer us up, while Joe and Quinn beefed up the wood in the oven. That's when the smoke began to invade the environment.
"The bloody chimney is clogged again!" Mike grumbled. "Sam..."
Mike and Sam put on a more reinforced coat, the hat, a shovel and the broom that people used to clean the chimney, in addition to the necessary rifle so as not to have unpleasant surprises. With the snowfall, the snow sometimes covered the chimney, which was close to the ground of our "roof", and she had to use the shovel to remove the accumulated snow, remove the big protection and push the accumulated snow inside the chimney with the broom. We pretended to take turns doing this task, but it was the boys who usually cleaned the chimney.
"When this shitty time is over, we're going to build a decent chimney shield." I grumbled.
"Said the engineer." Brittany placed a kiss on my cheek. It was true, I was enjoying reading about engineering because it was something practical and useful for the times we lived in.
Blaine picked up the ukulele and started to try to play something, but he had a coughing fit. No, singing under those conditions was impossible.
"This looks like a nightmare!" Rachel complained. "When will this snow stop falling?"
"You will see that we are returning to the so-called ice age." Blaine speculated. "I read a news report once that said global warming could trigger a new ice age!"
"Imagine having to worry about polar bears on our doorstep?" Rachel rolled her eyes. "As if zombies, reapers and hunters weren't enough. What a nightmare!"
"It wouldn't be so bad. Bears are beautiful." Brittany said with her usual optimism.
"Polar bears are the most aggressive types of the species." Blaine disagreed.
"Did you read that in a magazine too?" Quinn sneered.
"It was on a website about animal trivia." He replied and smiled at his friend.
"If a polar bear were on my doorstep, he would be barbecued." I said without batting an eye.
"Poor thing!" Brittany scolded me.
"We would have meat for the rest of the winter. At this time of year, all we have to do is put the meat in plastic bags and bury it in the snow: natural freezer."
"I wouldn't eat bear meat!" Rachel grumbled and still grimaced in disgust. Honestly, I wasn't impressed.
"Rachel, you were a vegetarian until the start of the apocalypse." Quinn did that favor and gave her a reality check. "Now you even eat snake meat!"
"If hunger strikes, we'll even eat insects and larvae." When Rachel made a disgusted face, I completed the argument. "It's true. People eat those things by necessity, and also by a cultural trait."
"We could eat worse things." Tina made a disgusted face. "We could be eating rats!"
"Isn't it in Thailand that rats is street food?" Joe asked.
"In some countries in Africa too, I think." Quinn said. "If necessary, I would eat it in a good way. Don't people eat beef, chicken and pork? What's the difference?"
"The difference is cultural, ethical and sentimental. I wouldn't kill my dog for food, no matter how hungry I was." Joe opined. "I was also a vegetarian until the apocalypse. Eating fish for the first time since I was a child was a torment, if you ask me."
"Were you a vegetarian?" Rachel was interested.
"Yes, I was. My parents were vegetarians. I lived on a farm in Lima where we basically ate what we grew."
"How did we never find out about this?" Rachel frowned.
"Because you never asked. Apart from Quinn." Joe grabbed Quinn's hand and smiled at her, much to everyone's surprise. I mean, among all of us, Joe was always the most overlooked in such a way that sometimes I forgot about him.
"Are you dating?" I asked.
Because in our conditions, having the status of someone's boyfriend or girlfriend was the maximum intimacy that could be achieved in those days of almost absolute confinement in the bunker. The most you could do was kiss on the lips. Not even a quickie in the bathroom was possible in those days, because, as I said, the water in our cistern was frozen, there was no way to flush it without resorting to the bucket, and there was no cleaning product to cope with the odor of nine people's pee. The bathroom door was always closed for a good reason.
"We are understanding each other." Quinn confirmed what no one there suspected because, honestly, no one was looking into it. I hadn't expected Quinn to seek any sexual affection since that day of horror. On the other hand, perhaps that was the exact reason she sought out Joe: she decided to get involved with the most celibate guy in the group.
"Since Quinn and Joe is an item now, and everybody else is a pair… well… It's going to be fun to see Sam and Blaine fighting for Rachel since she was the last one left." I started to laugh. "Imagine Blaine and Rachel?" Then I had a realization, because there were two divas dating among us. "Oh no, that wouldn't go over very well."
"Why not Sam and me?" Blaine was outraged.
"Because Sam is straight and you might be bisexual." I explained the obvious.
In the meantime, Sam arrived with Mike, and they were looking at us a little lost as we turned all eyes to Sam.
"What is happening?" He asked, brushing snow off his beard.
"Would you have sex with Blaine?" I asked and my girlfriend patted me on the arm in warning.
"Me?" Sam was lost. "I don't know. You mean under normal conditions or in case everyone dies and it's just me and him left in the world?"
"Explore these possibilities." I instigated and got another slap from my girlfriend. "What, Britt Britt? This is an interesting question. I wonder."
"Me too." Tina stepped in, which was no surprise because that was the kind of conversation she enjoyed the most.
"I don't know. In normal situations I would look for a woman because although Blaine is a good-looking guy, he's not really my type. But if we were alone, isolated on a mountain in the best Brokeback style, maybe yes… but, let it be clear, I would be the one who do the action."
"Would you blow him?" I teased Sam.
"No! Blaine would blow me… I could… maybe… jerk him off?"
"Oh!" We started making fun of Blaine. "You do have a shot, Blaine."
"I don't know, Blaine. You have better chances with Rachel. At least you'd have a chance of penetrating something." I mocked him.
"And you Santana? What if you found yourself in the reverse situation? No Brittany, no other woman around, just one guy?" Blaine challenged me.
"I've experimented with enough guys to know that my fingers are much better." That was an argument I always won, because there was no longer any doubt on my part.
The sound of sneezing and coughing filled the room again. I had the impression that Brittany had a fever, and I asked Quinn to have a take a look. Because she was the one who decided who took the medication or not. It was the power we gave her because otherwise we would detonate the medicine stock. Quinn placed the thermometer under Brittany's armpit and waited for the beep.
"39°C" Quinn ascertained. "You has a high fever." To Brittany's dismay, Quinn removed the blanket from her, leaving her with only her winter coat. "Let's wait half an hour like this. If the temperature doesn't drop a little bit, I give you the antipyretic."
"This is a nightmare!" Brittany complained. "Sick on my birthday."
"It's just because you're the oldest person in the house. That's why these things happen, old lady." Mike joked that she really was the oldest person in our group.
Tina turned 19 in January, a week before Brittany, when she baked cookies and gave herself a birthday. Quinn and Mike turned 20 in February, within three days of each other. Sam turned 19 in March, and Blaine in April. I turned 20 in August, and lastly, Rachel turned 20 in December. It was unbelievable that we were barely out of our teens and already felt like a person in our 30s.
"When is your birthday again, Joe?" I asked, because it was unbelievable that I knew when everyone's birthday was but his.
"I turn 19 on the fourth of May." He smiled.
"I don't believe that!" Sam vibrated. "May the 4th be with you!" He said trying to imitate Darth Vader's voice. Sometimes I forgot how much of a nerd Sam Evans was. "You lived on a farm and you were born on the fourth of May? You can only be a Skywalker."
"Not so much." Joe smiled. "I lived in a Christian community and I was a missionary together with my parents. I was homeschooled most of the time, and I only got into William McKinley when I got back from Guatemala."
"How were things there in Central America?
"Confused."
We laugh a little. Quinn checked Brittany's temperature again and decided to give my girlfriend a fever pill, but forbade Britt to go back under the blanket. I hugged Brittany and comforted her as much as possible.
"The bed is yours for today, Britt. Not just because of your birthday, but because you need to get off this floor." Quinn determined. In fact, even with the rugs that helped insulate us from the cold ground, it was difficult to get properly warm in those days.
We started fixing the bed for Brittany to lay down while Tina and Joe made soup for everyone. It was essentially a can of industrialised soup well diluted with a little noodle and pepper. At least that warmed our stomachs. My girlfriend was moody when she was sick. Once we had a clean sheet down, Brittany lay down and I covered her. She pulled me down to kiss her and whispered in my ear.
"Sleep with me tonight. I promise I won't make any noise."
"I guess that will have to wait, Britt Britt."
Honestly, I had no desire to have sex with other people around in the same room. Especially with my family around, in an almost desperate winter when my girlfriend was sick and everyone else had flu-like symptoms. It just didn't work, no matter how much we put a duvet over us. It was different than the time Britt and I had a quickie in the bathroom at school, or the day we went to a party and had a quickie in a dark corner of the house, because we were high on weed and after had drinking too much beer. I kissed my girlfriend and made her comfortable. Brittany needed to rest for the fever to wear off more quickly. Tina handed out the soup, and I was getting tired of that industrialized goo. I took my mug, went up the stairs to the door and looked at the environment through the small window. All I saw was white with a little green, and all I felt was the freezing wind blowing through the opening. The boys picked up a board game, chess again. Don't take this the wrong way, we had already played a lot of card games, checkers, chess, uno, even monopoly. Mike and Quinn would be the first to play and that's when it got boring, because the two thought too much. They took hours to make a move sometimes.
I sat next to the oven to warm myself better. Rachel sat next to me and so did Blaine.
"I can't wait to get out of this shithole!" I complained.
"Me too."
"Me three..." Blaine smiled. "What are you going to do when these blizzard days are over?"
"I'll probably do a lot of mundane things like killing zombies and… maybe pranking our neighbors?" I answered.
"Pranking neighbors nowadays is dangerous. You can get shot." Rachel drew attention.
"This is a fact." I agreed with my friend.
"It would be really nice if we could travel around." Blaine was dreamy.
"We could. We still have diesel and functional batteries. Just pick up any abandoned car." Joe said as he positioned his bench to sit with us.
"Where would you go, Joe?" Blaine asked.
"I would drive down to the coast of North Carolina, and from there I would take a boat to Bermuda. I've always wanted to visit this place. As a missionary, I traveled to some countries, but it was always to poorer places that needed humanitarian assistance. So I wanted to get to know a tropical place without so many miseries for a change." Joe said with a twinkle in his eye. "Maybe there's no crisis there, no reapers or zombies."
"Because, if there is, the people there are screwed. Where would they run?" I said something that was very real and plausible.
"It's a point." Joe smiled and didn't lose his sportsmanship. "Once I went to Nicaragua. We spent six months there before being kicked out by the local cartel. Because the people of the village were no longer working as slaves, and they stated to join the church and the social programs that we installed. The cartel's leader was very angry about losing his labour. At first he was tolerant of us and even helpful. When we became his enemies, all it took was one warning and we had to run! The feeling was exactly that: of having nowhere to go." Joe smiled. "We took a bus and fled to Costa Rica. It was crazy."
"No authority helped you?" Rachel was baffled.
"Not because Nicaragua is a dictatorship. It's a dangerous place, with a low HDI and high rates of violence. It's particularly dangerous for a woman to travel alone there, especially if she is young and beautiful like you. We were closer to Honduras board, but there is a narco-state with connections between these cartels. So we fled to Costa Rica and stayed with people from a local congregation for a month. Until my father accepted a mission in Guatemala. We stayed there for a year until we left back to the United States."
"You ran from a cartel? Respect!" I greeted Joe. "I've never done anything dangerous, but I've committed a few misdemeanors, like shoplifting, breaking into the homes of wealthy Lima people, and stealing drinks to take to parties... and there was that time I trashed Travis's tree and garden with toilet paper because he treated Brittany badly after having sex with her. It was me, Jordan and Grace. A police patrol passed by at the time and we ran in all directions. The patrol went after me. I've never run so far and fast in my life, yet the patrol caught up with me. The policeofficer pointed her gun at me and took me to the police station. She knew it was a prank, a teenage thing, and she just wanted to teach me a lesson. This officer left me grounded for three hours in a chair next to her desk before calling my parents to pick me up. It was horrible. My dad came to pick me up and I thought I was going to be grounded for the rest of my life, but all he did was laugh at the whole situation."
"When did this happen?" Rachel was impressed.
"Sophomore year, shortly after you founded New Directions. A week before Quinn blackmailed me into choir."
"I didn't blackmail you, Santana!" Quinn, even concentrated on her game, was listening to our conversation. "I just reminded you that as head cheerio, I could find other girls to take your place in the pyramid."
"See? Pure blackmail."
"It was the best blackmail they ever did to you." Rachel smiled at me. "Weren't you the one who said choir was the best part of your day?"
"It was fun most of the time." I didn't want to give reason to Rachel.
"I've never done anything dangerous or exciting." Rachel said. "I'm saying this before the attacks, of course, because my life took a 180° turn after that. I don't even need to talk because all of you were there. But before that, I think the most dangerous prank I ever did was opening your locker and stealing all your stuff for 24 hours. Your locker that year had been mine the year before, so I knew the password."
"So it was you?" I widened my eyes. I remember this episode very well. It was the last year in Middle School when one day all my school supplies and homeworks that I had left there were stolen. Then they left a note saying that my stuff was safe on the roof of the school. "I almost had a nervous breakdown because you stole my History paper. The teacher teased me and didn't believe me when I swore up and down that I had done the research. Only after much discussion and negotiation he allow me to deliver the paper the next day, first thing in the morning. Good thing I filed all my schoolwork on the computer, and I just had to print it again. Why did you do that, Rachel?"
"Don't you know?"
"I know I've teased you since middle school, but was it the way I treated you in general or was it revenge over a specific episode?"
"You stole my favorite sweater in the locker room during my gym class. As if it wasn't bad enough you threw it in the trash, you shredded it!"
"That lime green one with the unicorn print?"
"That's the one."
"In that case, Rachel Berry, I saved your life." I burst out laughing, and I got approving looks from Tina, from Quinn, and I'm sure Brittany would too if she wasn't napping.
"I've never done anything dangerous in my life." Blaine said. I was never very interested in finding out about Blaine's life, but he told about it anyway. "It's kind of pathetic to think that the most dangerous thing I've ever done in my life was drive drunk and hit my neighbor's parked car. My father got mad, but I never suffered any more serious consequences other than scolding and punishment."
"The most dangerous thing I've done in my life was work as a streaper." Sam said with conviction. "And perhaps the most dangerous thing anyone did in this family before the apocalypse."
"How is this dangerous?" Joe asked and I was a little taken aback by his naivete.
"Because I was underage, working under a false identity in a place where drugs and prostitution were rife. Think about it. It was very easy to get drugs there. It was just a matter of asking for it. My first joint was there. Most of the guys did booty calling and one was into street prostitution. Every day I worked, I received proposals to do sex with men and women. There was a guy who offered me 300 just to suck my dick."
"And did you accept?" Rachel asked shocked.
"No, I didn't agree to do any of that. But there was a girl, a couple of years older than me, who worked as a waitress at the club... she taught me a lot of stuff..."
"Says the Christian club member." I mocked.
"It seems lame, but having faith helped me a lot not to fall into any trap in the months I worked there. The money was great for a teenager, but if I'd given in, I could have made much more. I think there are limits to how far you can go, you know?" Sam was suddenly distant in thought. "I miss her, you know?"
"The girl from the club?" Rachel asked and I was also confused.
"No, Mercedes. I've had really easy sex with every girlfriend I've had, including Quinn and Santana… sorry, but it was true."
"We only had sex once, asshole." Quinn got mad. Sam and I had sex a few times in the weeks we were together, but it wasn't anything special. He was just another boy who took advantage of my body before I woke up to who I really was.
"Yes, but with Mercedes… she taught me to wait, to make it special. I loved her. It was the girlfriend I had in high school that I loved the most, and who, ironically, I never had sex with. Sometimes I wonder if she made it."
"We never know." I told Sam.
A gust of wind slammed into the door. It wasn't the only way to notice bad weather outside. The wind sometimes froze the pipe, and it was impossible to see anything in the periscope buried in the snow. It was a fierce blizzard judging by the amount of snow and wind that blew in through the tiny window in the reinforced door. Sam went upstairs to check things out.
"Looks like we're officially buried again."
This was always annoying because every time we got snow to melt or do the number two, we had to unblock our exit to be able to close the door because of the mound of snow that was collapsing in our entrance. Meanwhile, Brittany had a coughing fit. Quinn got to her faster than I could and checked her temperature.
"She's sweating. It's a good sign that the fever is breaking."
I held my girlfriend's hand and shook my head. What a shitty birthday of hers!
...
You know those documentaries they show at school that relate the animal world to the seasons? You know that part where spring arrives, the ice starts to melt and life seems to be reborn? It's amazing how we were reborn too. That morning, my family set about opening up the bunker, we let the air in, and we worked hard on maintaining our home. We cleaned our chimney, threw out our rubbish (we buried everything badly and poorly), unblocked the air intakes, made small repairs to the cistern, laid out the rugs to a much necessary sunbath, washed the bathroom, cleaned the house, packed our sleeping bags out to breathe fresh air.
"We should build a mill." Mike glimpsed as he watched the rapids of our little stream. "Remember that scheme I showed you? I think if we get the tools in the city, we can build a mill without any problems."
"I can help with assembly, but I'm not a carpenter." I said.
"Finn was a good carpenter." Rachel said in a wistful tone. "The carpentry and mechanics workshops were the only ones where he could do it without the slightest difficulty." She smiled.
"I'm not a very good carpenter, but I know something." Joe volunteered. "I used to help build houses, and I even taught how to plant a vegetable garden in the communities I visited as a missionary."
"Fine, tomorrow we're going to town. Me, you, Sam and Blaine. Rachel and Santana stay here to protect the girls."
"Or you can save time and go to that technical school and pick up a prototype already built." I said and Mike widened his eyes. "Don't you remember the one near the hospital where they had those solar panels?"
"Of course... one more reason for males to use their strong arms."
"Whatever."
There was no shortage of building materials in the city. The only problem was bringing it here, and we never considered moving to the city, even fortifying a house, because it made no sense to live among a horde of zombies and reapers. By mid-afternoon, while Tina and Joe were planning to build the vegetable garden, while Mike, Sam, and Blaine were cutting down a tree for firewood, while Rachel and Quinn were simply sunbathing, Brittany pulled me toward the waterfall.
"What do you want to do here?" I asked my girlfriend.
Brittany led me towards the freshly thawed waterfall pool. The water volume was large and, more importantly, the water was still brain-stopping cold. When we arrived at the small cave formed behind the waterfall, Brittany smiled and started to take off her clothes.
"Look, I know it's a beautiful day right now, but I'm not going to bathe in that icy water, Britt Britt, as much as I need to."
"It's not about the bath, silly." Brittany kissed me in the way my knees always got weak and she started to take my clothes off.
An entire winter of not being able to get intimate because it was impossible to get out of the bunker without freezing, and there were so many people around. You have no idea how much weeks of abstinence had done to my body. I looked like a hormonal boy, in which it was enough for the girl to kiss with a little more passion and bring her hand to my sex, to almost reach orgasm. It wasn't an exaggeration: Brittany had barely kissed me and I got really wet. As soon as she inserted her fingers into my vagina, I had an orgasm. Like less than a minute after that. It was embarrassing at first.
"San, I barely touched you." Brittany was in awe of my body's reaction.
"I blame the long abstinence."
"Good..." Brittany smiled and kissed me. "If that's the case, I hope you're willing to give and receive multiple orgasms."
"Game on."
You know what, I'm not going to go around describing the whole pornographic interaction of my lovemaking with Brittany behind a waterfall. You should know which paths you take and the mechanics of it all. Fingers in the vagina, tongue on the areolas, making that delicious suck, and that special attention on the clitoris by oral means or by the fingers. Of course, lots and lots of wet kisses everywhere. What I can tell you is that it was incredibly great, and I haven't felt so relaxed and so alive in a long time. Despite not being the most comfortable place, because it has stones, moss, earth, at least we did what we wanted and how we wanted. In the end, Brittany and I even had the advantage of a quick wash before getting back into our clothes.
When we go up the small ravine to return to the bunker. Our pleasurable interactions made us lose track of time a bit, as it was dusk. I confess that this wasn't a concern for me or Brittany at first. We were walking back hand in hand, our clothes were damp, our hair wet, and I was unarmed, even though my gut told me it was a bad idea.
Halfway there I heard a scream in the distance, a noise that I thought I had forgotten, but apparently these things are engraved in our brain, no matter how hard we try to ignore it.
"San..." I felt Brittany squeeze my hand.
"Brittany." I said cautiously. "On three we're going to run, but be careful not to slip and fall, okay? No despair... keep calm... just run easy. One two three. Go!"
We started running, as if we were in a cross country competition. I didn't know how I managed to run ahead of Brittany, showing her the way, because it was getting dark so fast from the woods. The screams intensified, it seemed like they were close to us, so I accelerated as much as I could already at a distance close to the bunker. When we approached, the door was closed, and that was nerve-racking. Brittany and I pounded on the door, which was opened seconds later by Mike. We entered and Mike closed the door immediately, while I already helped him with the locks.
A reaper slammed into the door with more aggression than anyone had ever seen, then another. I exchanged glances with Mike and I could see that he was also scared by the new version of these creatures that, once, were human beings. I looked through the small window in the door and saw completely hairless creatures, naked, bluish, thin, as if they had undergone some kind of mutation during the winter. At least one thing didn't change: they continued to be nocturnal beasts. Rachel went to the door with a rifle in her hand.
"Are you thinking of killing the whole pack?" Mike nearly stopped her.
"I just need to see a thing."
Rachel put the barrel of the rifle through the small window in the door, and it was kind of hard to see something with the barrel of the gun taking up half the space of the window and waiting for the right moment to shoot. She hit a reaper and looked out the little window to see what happened.
"My God." Rachel made a disgusted face and backed away from the door.
When I looked through the opening, I saw the reapers cannibalizing their wounded comrade. It was simply a terribly grotesque image. I think the riot attracted others of the same band, and they continued to attack the door.
I walked away from there and went to make sure my girlfriend was okay. Brittany and I weren't hurt or anything like that, but it was a huge scare.
"Next time we go have sex, it has to be in the morning." I said aloud, to the astonishment of both my girlfriend and everyone else.
"While that was a lot of information, Santana has a point." Mike came downstairs and spoke to all of us. "Reapers are back and we need to go over everything we know about them, including the fact that they are still very dangerous and nocturnal." Mike said, as the beasts in question continued to crash into the door, making those spine-tingling screeches. Mike didn't hide his annoyance and none of us hid our fear.
"They're attracted by noise, perhaps more than by sight." Rachel recalled. "We need to be quiet."
"Their memory is not that good." I recall.
"They hate zombies." Quinn said. "But become one when they die."
"New zombies are almost as agile and dangerous as reapers." It was Rachel's turn to reminisce.
Mike looked at the door once more and his annoyance was visible. Our bunker was secure in that sense. Not even a hundred reapers would have the strength to break down that door, but that doesn't mean it was easy and simple to get rid of those screams. Quinn took the rugs that were still rolled up and laid them out on the floor. She then took her sleeping bag, unrolled it and lay down. One by one, we did the same thing and Sam turned off the lights. The bunker became completely dark, we were all in absolute silence, and little by little, the intensity of the assaults against the door and the screams diminished. Even when everything calmed down, I swear I couldn't even doze off. The winter was bad, but at least there were no reapers to worry about. That time I knew it would be long months going back to living with those hideous creatures, and in that sense, I started to miss the cold and the blizzards.