Hope On The Rocks/Issue 11

This is Issue 11 of Hope On The Rocks, entitled "Hospes".

This issue is Ridley-centric.

203, Hospes
The new group we joined had this black man as their leader. Chad, is his name. He has quite a temper, apparently, but when I woke up this morning, he was chatting with my girlfriend. I trust Esther, so I just left it as that.

Now, we’re trying to figure out a way out of this office building. Esther and I have lived here for over two weeks, so we know this building pretty well.

“There’s an exit in the back, but there’s a lot of bodies in the yard.” I say, while the youngest of the new ones, Miles, are eating breakfast. Everyone else has done so, and is now looking at me.

“So what?” The arabic asks. I think his name is Al. He looks very tired.

“First off,” I begin. “zombies are probably eating of them, right now. And there might be some deadly diseases out in that yard.” I can hear my scottish accent.

“Can’t we just kill the zombies and take some cloth for our mouths?” Al asks.

“That’s what I’m about to say.” I look at Chad. “Two of us need to kill the zombies out there. The rest of us will loot this place.”

Chad gets up, and approaches me. “Don’t tell me what to do.” He mutters, and walks past me.

Upstairs, Odin and I are looting a former conference room. Not much of interest.

“Sorry ‘bout Chad.” Odin says, while looking through a drawer. I am trying to get the water from a water cooler into some bottles we found. “He’s just worried.”

I smile. “That’s fine. We’re all going through some shit.”

Odin nods and backs up from the drawer, headed to the door to the conference room. “Indeed, we are.”

“So your group.” I say and follow Odin out, and into a workspace with busted computers all over the place. Esther and I looted this room for food, but didn’t find much. “How many people are in it?”

“There’s the four of us, and five others... Wait...” Odin looks down for a second. “Four others now. Four others.”

“What happened?” I ask, and stop. Odin stops too.

“She got bit... Chad shot her before she could turn.” Odin bites his cheek, looking away. “It was harsh.”

“I can imagine.” I say, and open my mouth to say something. I am interrupted, though.

“Ridley! Odin!” Someone yells from downstairs. We run down, just to see the zombies have broken the doors. Now the only thing between us and the zombies is a bunch of furnitures.

“Allright. Let’s get out.” Chad yells, shooting the zombies with a shotgun.

We get out without any bigger problems. In the front are Chad and Odin, followed by Al and Miles, and Esther and I at last.

“Should I tell them?” Esther suddently asks. I know what she’s talking about. Before the apocalypse she was a doctor, but as the apocalypse began, she saw a lot of people die. This took hard on her, and I don’t think she’s ready to do medical service yet.

“Are you ready for it?” I ask, and look at her. Her hair is so beautiful. Her eyes, lips, everything about her.

“I...” She stutters. “No... I’m not.”

“Then don’t tell them.” I smile.

“Honey?”

“Yes?”

“Should we trust them?”

I look wondering at Esther. She usually just trust people instantly. I smile.

“I guess we just have to wait and see.”