Hope On The Rocks/Issue 8

This is Issue 8 of Hope On The Rocks, entitled Hope on The Rocks.

This issue is Miles-centric.

108, Hope on The Rocks
I feel sorry for Lia and Nick. Neither of them have said a word all day.It’s understandable, but we’re all worried for them. If any, I am. Especially for Lia.

This morning, when i woke up, I knocked on their door to see if they’d come along down and have some breakfast. There were no answer, so I just assumed they were too depressed to eat. I understand that.

Odin says he’s impressed over me, taking my sister’s, and possibly parents’, deaths so casually. Truth is, I am impressed over myself as well. I haven’t cried or anything. Not even once.

Right now, I am sitting at one of the tables in the bar, eating dinner with the others, excluding Lia and Nick.

“You think they’re okay?” Al asks. I am surprised that he has no arabic accent at all. It’s all american.

“Yea, they just need some time.” Odin says, in his slow, grizzly, cozy voice. He’d be a great father, reading up bedtime stories.

“Well, they do have a gun in their room.” Al comments, and turns back to his canned beans.

Chad looks up, proceeding to get upstairs to check on them. Before he gets to do so, Nick comes down, with red, tired eyes. Everybody looks at him.

“We need to bury her.” He just says.

In the bar’s yard, used for smokers before the apocalypse, we are all standing. A simple cross, made of tree planks, with the name ‘Helen Camper’, is placed where we burried the woman.

“Anyone wanna say something?” Chad asks and looks around.

The yard is quiet. I begin to think of my sister; she looked a bit like me. Brown shoulder long hair. She wasn’t fat, but not thin either. Same height as me. I miss her, actually. We had our fights, but I loved her. I love her.

“You’re okay?” Odin whispers and lay a hand on my shoulder. I look at him, and realize that I’m crying.

I cover my eyes with my hand and begin to cry. As Odin hold me close, comforting me, I cry. I cry for my sister, for my parents, for Helen, for everyone. I just cry.

“Helen was a good person.” I hear Nick say. “She used to volunteer every weekend, helping homeless people.”

I look up and see Nick, with red eyes, standing with something in his hand.

“She helped people who needed help. She was just a good person in every possible way. She knew I loved her. She knows.” Nick swallows hard. “She would have wanted me to keep going. So I will. I’ll show her that she didn’t die for nothing.”

After the furneal, we’re in the bar, all sitting around a table, drinking some drinks Texas made for us.

Ellis, who has been depressed since the beginning of the outbreak, is sitting alone at another table. Texas is talking to Odin. Chad stares in his drink. Nick and Lia is talking, Nick comforting Lia. This leaves me with Al.

“We all lost people, y’know, but seeing your wife die like that. That’s just... I dunno.” Al says, with this brown-orange drink in his cup.

“Yea, i follow you.” I say. Before I get to mention my sister, the radio begins to make static noise.

We all get up. Texas runs to the radio, looking at Al for a moment, for some reason.

“Hello?” Texas says in the microphone. “Hello, is anyone there?”

Static noise, followed by the words: “Hello? Who am I talking too?”

Texas looks up. I approach the radio, followed by the rest.

“I’m Texas Starr. Who are you?” Texas says, looking at Al once in a while.

“Starr? I’ts me, Gavin Cart.” The voice says.

We all look at Texas.

“How do you know him?” Chad asks, anger in his voice.

“I might have talked to him before.” Texas says quickly. Chad, against what i’d belive, doesn’t do anything.

“Starr? I have some bad news.” Gavin Cart says.

“Come with it.” Texas says and looks at us.

“The government is gone, but you knew that...” Gavin Cart says. We all look at Texas, as Gavin Cart continues: “And as far as we know, most military is knocked out. There’s no hope left, people. I repeat: There’s no hope.”