The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 3: How are you feeling? (Sashas POV)

I looked at the people as closely as I could, but I could not quite catch who they might be. I could tell that they were men just based off of the way they were walking. But I could not see who exactly they might be, and even if I could... Would I even know who they were in the first place?
I never hung out around any people, besides Ashley of course. I knew the people at my daycare, but odds are... They weren't from the daycare, and I alnost did not want to see all the dead kids in the daycare. That was the main feeling, in my gut, and in my head. It was telling me not to go in.
My heart, well... It was telling me quite different, I had to make sure that I did not find a bunch of kids laying around. I didn't want to find, kids like Liam, just sitting there, dead on the floor. I shivered thinking about it... At the same time though, I knew that I had to at least find out.
I was shivering, I leaned up to Tanner to get him to warm me up, he did not say anything about it. The summer was coming to an end, and the fall was about nearly upon us. I could tell that the leaves were about to rain down on the earth.
There were trees, all around the community. I looked at a few a bit sadly, they had been burnt down by the people that had started this mass hysteria in the first place. I part of me wanted to talk to Ben, to ask him to train me.
At the same time though, another part of me, the bad part... It was to afraid to apologize to Ben, it was my fault and I knew it. He was probably in a bit of pain, wondering why we were so close, and then I just suddenly decided to leave him.
He had told me, that people tended to do that to him. I told him, I would not be one of those people, and now... Here I was, just completely shutting him off and acting like he did not exist. I felt bad, he probably thought I was some sort of slut. Well... To be fair, maybe I kind of was.
The people that were ahead of us then began turning around the corner of their little house. I could not tell if they had walked in yet, or if they had just decided to stay in the backyard. So me and Tanner just sat there for a few moments just waiting.
Suddenly I heard footsteps from right behind me, I knew that Tanner had heard it at the exact same time. I turned around, and I saw one... It was one of the dead... It had been quite a long time since I had seen one. It did not fear me at all in this exact instance.
But I was being stupid now, I was not running. I was not moving away from it, I just let it hop right up on me. It then through me to the ground, I landed with a loud thud and then everything went dark for me. I was in a different state of mind now. I was not awake... Was I even alive?
I opened my eyes, I was being torn apart by one of the dead. But it was not from my point of view, I was watching myself being torn apart, from about 5 feet away. I saw Tanner shooting his gun at the dead, but just as he begun doing it, the dead crawled up on him.
I watched him starting to be torn apart, just like I was. Then more and more kept on coming, it was almost like there was a flood of the dead. I was watching him being torn apart, but as I turned around to look at myself, I noticed that I was no longer there.
I turned back around at Tanner, to see if he was still being torn apart, by a massive heard of the dead. But when I turned, he was nowhere to be seen, in fact, there was nothing to be seen at all. In front of me, it was all just emptiness.
I kept on looking, I was beginning to feel scared, feeling helpless. I kept on looking, but all I could see was nothing but the darkness staring back at me.
I shivered for a few moments, and then I closed my eyes. This wasn't real, and I knew it... Maybe I was dead, I would not complain too much if I was. I had already wasted so much of my life, sometimes I felt like I was not of much use.
I mean... At least I had a job for the community, I knew that there were many people that just sat at home all day. They were fine with it as well. There couldn't be a job for everyone to be fair, there was only so much you could do in these walls.
It was part of the reason that I wanted to go outside of the walls, with Ben... In the first place. I had to talk to him, I had to apologize to him. I knew that he would take the apology. He was a good guy, much unlike a lot of the people that I had met today.
I was just always so afraid... I did not k ow why, they were slower than us, they did not have brains, they were not smart. But to me, it was not the stories of the dead that scared me. I had heard plenty of stories about the dead, none of it really scared me at all.
They were just more, stories that the adults in the daycare told the kids, to make sure that they did not ever try to sneak out of the walls. No... It was not those stories that scared me, it was the stories, that people like Tanner used to always tell me about.
Because I always asked him if he could take me out of the walls, I wanted to see what it was really like nowadays, with all of the dead roaming the earth. He would tell me, "it is not the dead that I am worried about." Then I would hear stories from others.
Even Ben, most recently, he told me about the lady that had been hanging from a tree. Those people that had done that to her, those were the same people that had done this to everyone today. The same people that had taken my best friend from me.
I wanted to kill them, I kind of wished it was a real shotgun that I had laying there with me in that attic. It would have taught them a lesson, maybe they would have gone back and stopped all of this from happening, maybe they would have been scared. Or maybe it was already too late.
I opened my eyes finally, when I opened them, the light kind of blinded my eyes for a few moments. Where was I? After my eyes began to calm down I managed to look around at where I was at. I was a bit confused, was this real? Had I just woken up?
Did the other group find us? Had they taken me somewhere? I could not quite tell. It seemed fairly real to me, my head hurt quite a lot, that was the reason why I had been knocked out for a while in the first place.
I walked over to the edge of the small, dusty little room that I was in. I could see sunlight, I was in a jail cell. I went to the end to see where the light was coming from, there was a small little opening, well, not really small.
It was from far away, but it made it look fairly small. In front of me, there was a very large window, it was giving light to the place that was in front of me. I could see many other jail cells far ahead of me, and there was a very large room in the middle of it that was where the top window was giving light to.
I saw many other cells, most of them were empty, but I saw a few others, there were people in there, they were either asleep, or they were just staring at the ground, not expressing any signs, or any thoughts that they even existed in the first place.
I looked at all of the people sadly, I wondered how long they had been there. I could tell that they felt alone, and they felt like there would be no one to help them, and no one that could possibly save them from what they were in right now.
I was tempted to yell at them, let them know that they were not alone. But I thought best not to at the exact same moment, if we were in a prison, surely that meant... There were prison gaurds right?
The moment that I thought of that, I looked down at the ground, I saw a gaurd sitting down at the table, he was reading something, and drinking what looked to be some sort of coffee at the same time. For a few moments, I wondered if I was in a real prison.
I had to be dead, I must be in some sort of dream right? But then I heard groaning, it was either the dead, or it was a person just groaning in deep pain. It had to be one of the undead, or it was a terrible prison that I was in.
In those moments, I rethought of everything, I thought of many theories of what might be happening to me. Maybe my life was not real in the first place, maybe I was in some sort of weird trance, and I had just woken up from it. Maybe I had done terrible things during that time.
But then, right I was thinking of that even being a possibility, I saw one of them, it was one of the dead... It was going right towards the guy that was sitting in the chair. The guy did not seem to notice, even though the dead was going directly at the paper that he was reading.
Then, right as it looked like it was close enough, to just about tear the man apart, the dead got thrown back a little bit by something. I looked a little bit closer to see what it was, was it someone that had pulled it back?
I then noticed that the dead was chained down, I then looked down several rows, and I noticed that it was not the only dead that was chained down. The guy then began laughing, looking at the dead for a few moments, then he kept on reading his newspaper.
I kind of felt bad for the dead, and a weird thing in my head made me kind of want the dead to tear apart the guy that was in the chair. I did not know why, I was not sure why I was thinking those sort or thoughts, but the guy that was in the chair did look a fair bit evil to me.
The dead tried running at the guy once again, but the chain that it was locked onto threw it back just before it got close enough once again. This time the guy did not seem to notice at all, I waited for a few moments for the dead to run back at the guy, doing it's stupid cycle of trying to tear the guy apart over and over again.
But surprisingly, the dead seemed to almost give up. Like the dead sort of realized that it was no use at this point. A part of me then began to wonder if the dead really did not have a brain. This dead man seemed to be fairly more smart than any of the other dead that I had heard of, or seen myself.
The guy that was sitting down at the table began laughing, then he quickly sipped a bit of his coffee after doing so. He finally looked up from his newspaper, and he began talking to the dead that was trying to run after him.
For a few moments, I wondered if it was actually one of the dead, or maybe it was just a human that had been tortured out of existance. The way the guy was talking to the dead, it sure seemed like it was not one of the dead.
"Michael! When will you ever learn! You can't get to me..." He said to the person that was on the chains. I heard grunting once again, and I then realized where it was coming from, it was the person, or maybe it was the dead that was locked into chains, I still was not sure if they were dead or alive quite yet.
The guy then began laughing once again, he then got up from the table and walked out of my view, after a few more moments, I saw the guy come back over to the table. But this time he had something in his hand, it almost looked like it was the arm of a person.
He then threw it over at the guy that was locked in on the chains still. I saw the person then run over to the arm and begin tearing it apart, I was beginning to become very lost. Were these people trying to teach the dead to do certain things?
The guy that was there with the dead, it was obviously one of the dead at this point, I could see based off of the way it was tearing open into the arm, and I could also see at the exact same time, the skin that was on the body of the person, it was pale, too pale...
I heard the living person begin talking to the dead once again, almost like it was his son and he was trying to teach it what to do, and what not to do. And I knew a lot about kids, so it did seem quite a bit weird as to what he was trying to do with the dead.
"Om! Nom! Nom! Oh Michael, isn't that so yummy?" He said to the dead man. It was clearly a man, and the guy seemed to clearly be trying to teach the guy at the exact same moment. I felt sick, these people were not good people at all, and this was not just some normal type of prison.
The other people that were in their cell blocks, they just seemed not to notice at all, or they did not care, maybe it was all normal to them. I looked back over at the dead, it grunted back at the guy that was talking to it, and it almost looked to have a sort of smile on its face at the same moment.
I shivered looking at it, these people were really trying to teach the dead... It seemed to almost be working in a weird sort of sense. I shivered even thinking about it, I had always been taught that the dead were not human at all, they had no brain and no compatable thoughts to put into their brain.
It almost seemed to look as if these people were doing their best to prove otherwise, and it now started to make me sick, if these people were actually alive, and they did have a brain, did no one else realize that? Why were we killing these things in the first place?
I shook my head once again, I knew in my mind, that these things were not living, I should not even be thinking as if they were, I had seen on the news the nights that it had all gone down, even being so young at the same time, I saw it all. My parents tried to hide it from me for a while.
They gave in, in the end. They were everywhere at that point, the news had videos of the police, just putting nearly a hundred shots into a man, and it just kept on walking, almost as if it was no big deal in the first place.
I then heard the guy begin talking to the dead once again, even though he was quite a bit busy being wrapped up in his newspaper. At the same time, I saw the headline from about 25 feet out, I saw the date... It said October 23rd, 2031... That was over 10 years after all of this had gone down in the first place... That was 2 weeks from now.
"You are a good boy Michael, yes, we will put you to good use." He said to the dead, this time the dead did not seem to hear him or just did not respond to what he had said at all. Almost like all of those thoughts that could have been a possibility in my head, it all just seemed to disappear in the same instance.
The guy did not seem to notice or care though, he just kept on reading his book. The dead did not go after him anymore though. I shivered and then looked away from the guy, I walked further the the end of the cell, and I just sat there trying to get any sort of rest.
After I few moments, my eyes began to doze off, and it seemed like I was about to go to sleep, much like all of those other prisoners that were all locked up in their cells. I was now one of them at this point, I suppose...
But just as I was nearly about to pass out, I heard footsteps coming right towards the cell that I was in. I opened my eyes, and I looked up to see who it could possibly be. It sounded like multiple footsteps, except one of the footsteps seemed to be stumbling.
I saw an older man, and a younger lady walking right past me. The man was holding the lady down in a weird way, while also guiding her at the same time, for a few moments, I wondered if the lady could possibly be disabled... But I heard her talking as she stood up perfectly fine.
"Could you please fuck off London? Stop holding on to me, how the hell do you think I am going to run off in the middle of this prison?" She asked the guy that was holding on to her. The guy then let go of her the moment that she had said it, I saw him nod to the girl.
The girls voice sounded familiar, but I was not all too sure where I had heard it from before. The guy began laughing, and I saw the lady shake her head at the guy, clearly none if this was funny to her at all. I could not blame her, though she did not look to be in a prison outsuit unlike the other people in their cells.
"Well... Calm down... This is more like a school, I would not want to be calling this place a prison." He said to the lady. The lady once again shook her head at the guy. I agreed with the lady on this one, there was no way you could call this place a school at all.
I felt like I had heard the name London before, but I was not too sure where, maybe I was just tripping... But it seemed like a unique name, I knew I would remember hearing a name like that before, but I could not quite get a grasp on where I had heard it from.
"This doesn't seem like a school to me, all of these people that you have locked up here..." She said to the guy. The guy looked at her for a few moments and then he nodded, there was silence for a few moments, as they kept on standing still on the railway together.
"Well... I would call this area detention, once we have taught them not to be bad again, then we let them out." He said to her. She sat there, staring at the ground for a few moments, then this time surprisingly she seemed to be the one that was laughing this time.
Even the guy that she was with seemed a bit surprised, he then shook his head, and then began laughing with her. Clearly the way, and the reason that she was laughing did not scare the guy one bit.
"London... You fry these peoples brains, and you force them to do these terrible things, that your community does. If this is a school, this is an evil school." She said to him. The guy looked at her for a few moments, and then he looked away.
He looked right at the cell that I was in, though he did not seem to notice that I was paying attention to what I was saying, nor did he even seem to see that I was even there in the cell in the first place. Maybe that was just normal to how he treated his prisoners, it would make a fair amount of sense.
"Well, you will learn like the others... We are not evil, we may seem like it, but we know... Unlike many other groups, that this is how the world is now." He said to her. This time she did not say anything, she just stared down at the ground.
I felt bad for her, the way that the guy was talking, it sure as hell sounded convincing, but I knew not a single word that he was saying was true. Maybe that was just me, I could tell that the guy seemed to have quite an evil side to him.
I shivered, as the kept on standing still for a few moments, not doing a single thing. For a few moments, it almost seemed like time had stopped on me. But then I saw the lady moving around, quite a bit unsteadily. The guy looked at her for a few moments, and then he began trying to push her to move forward.
The lady began talking once again, this time she looked over a little bit at me, but then she turned away. But the face of the lady, I definitely seemed to recognize it from somewhere, I was just not too sure where I had seen it from before. I did not have enough time to look.
"London... There are plenty of times that I could have killed you... I hope that you know that..." She said to London. London surprisingly did not seemed phased by what she had just said to him at all. It was kind of scary to see, I wondered if the guy was even a human.
"Why don't you? Is it because you are in love with me?" He said to the lady. For a few moments, I thought that maybe he was just joking with her. I could not see the look on his face, so it was a bit hard for me to tell. But the way he was standing, I could almost seem to tell that he was not joking.
It was almost as if he was hoping that the girl was going to say yes to him. But I could tell that the girl was not buying in to any of it. Good for her, I could not fall in love with a man that seemed to be as evil as this guy was.
"No... Not at all... It is because your co leader is even more evil than you... He would kill me, and then we would have something even worse take over." She responded to him. I could tell that the guy was quite a bit disappointed by her response to what he had just asked her.
Clearly, in a weird way, the guy was in love with the lady... Even though the lady looked to be locked up in one of the cells, much like all of the other inmates that were stuck inside of this prison. The guy had his head down for a few more moments, but in the end he finally lifted his head back up.
"Well... You are right... But isn't that the fun about all of this? I am teaching the dead how to live... I am saving this planet! You can not complain about that can you now Angela?" He said to the lady. The lady looked at him for a few moments and then she looked away.
Angela... I for sure knew I had heard that name before, but right now... It seemed like I was having a very big brain fart. I cursed myself for it, there was so much that I was missing out on right now. It probably would not be very much use to me, since I was stuck in this cell anyways.
"You killed over a thousand people... That is not saving the planet..." She said back to the guy. This time the guy seemed to give her a little bit of a mean little snicker, he then looked over to the middle of the prison, right where the guy was still reading his newspaper.
I watched the guy for a few moments, I shook my head... I wished I was not here... How did I even get here in the first place? The last thing that I remembered was being knocked unconscious by one of the dead. I thought that was the end for me.
"We killed a thousand of the useless people, the ones that did not help you... And in return, they help you and us... That seems like a fair trade off to me... And look at Michael over there! He seems to be doing quite well!" He said, the last part he yelled over to the guy that was looking at a newspaper still at the table, he did not even look like he had turned a page yet.
The guy must be bored out of his mind, I don't even think that he is reading any of the newspaper at all. He was just staring at it to get his mind off of all the other things that were going on around all of us... Which I could not blame him for, even though I knew that the guy was clearly evil.
"Yes sir! He is doing great! He has not come after me in quite some time! He is certainly learning!" The guy said back over to London. London nodded back to the guy, then he looked back over at Angela with quite of a bit of an evil smile on his face.
"See... We are teaching them. We are saving the planet... If they learn not to kill, the can never die... They don't have to eat, they will be a lot of use for us." He said to her. He then began laughing, the lady kept on staring down at the ground, she had nothing to respond to the guy with.
I felt bad for her, the way he talked sounded so convincing, but what he was talking about was nothing but evil. I wondered if she even realized it, I almost did not. I shook my head and then looked down at the ground in my cell room that I was stuck in.
"Just take me back London... I've had enough of your sick games for today..." She said to London. London looked at her a bit saddened for a few moments, and then he nodded to her, taking the lead this time. Angela stood there for a few more moments, just staring down at the dead that was sitting there in the corner with no emotions.
But I could see her face more clearly now that the other guy was not blocking it out, I knew who the girl was instantly... Angela... That was Ben's sister! She was alive! But why was she here with me? Had she been taken in with me as well?
"Angela! It's me! Sasha!" I said, to her... Trying not to be too loud, but loud enough at the same time for her to hear me. But she seemed to not notice that I had said a single word to her. She then followed London further down the walkway, and I could no longer see her.
I cursed myself, then I sat down on the uncomfortable bed that was in the cell room with me. That could have been the only chance to let her know, that I was hear with her... She was not alone, maybe me and her could sneak out of this evil place.
I shook my head, and then I closed my eyes... I was tired, I just wanted to get a good amount of sleep. Even though, I seemed to have just woken up, not too long ago. I did not know how long I was out for, I did not know where I was at.
It only took my just a few moments to pass out, I needed to sleep, my body felt like it was about to give in on me on those last few moments, that I was sneaking in, trying to listen to that full conversation.

I woke up, this time I woke up in a completely different place than I just was at, I was scared, and I was confused at the exact same time. I looked around waiting for my eyes to get used to the lighting that I was in.
I then noticed right away that I was at Tanners place, I realized that I was laying on the couch in the living room. Right beside the front door. I tried my best to lift myself up, but it felt like I was almost stuck in place. I could still at least look around to see my sorroundings.
I looked over at the front door, I noticed that there was no longer any blood. I must have been out, for quite some time if Tanner mananaged to clean all of that up. I wish I could have helped him with all of that, maybe if I had not been stupid and I had actually moved away from the dead that was coming at me.
I then heard footsteps from the other room, I waited for Tanner to walk out, and say something to me. But to my surprise, it was not Tanner at all that walked over to me. Instead I was staring at Ashley, she was looking at me, and she looked a fair bit upset.
I had to be in another dream surely right? I had just seen Ashley have her head blown off right in front of my eyes not too long ago... Was none of this real? Was all of this just some super long dream? Would I ever be able to get out of this dream that I was stuck in?
I began shivering... I could not move though, it was like I was stuck in sleep paralysis, and there was no way out of what I was stuck in. I hated these types of dreams, I tried my best to move, but I was still stuck... And Ashley began laughing at me in what seemed like quite an evil voice. I shivered once again, hearing it... I knew that Ashley was not evil... None of this was real... But there was no way out of it.
"Sasha... Why did you have to come today? This was your fault... My dad would be happy if it was not for you..." She said to me. I looked at her a bit confused for a few moments, now at this point I knew that I was in a dream. There was no way out of it for me however, no matter how hard I tried.
I just did my best to stay still, maybe I could talk to her... I knew that it was my self conscious, it was just trying to scare me for some reason, it was trying to get into my head and taint my vision, of all that was real... And all of it that was fake, and I wanted to wake up now.
But finally, after a few more moments, I somehow managed to put out a couple of words. I wanted to say that I was proud of it, I was stuck in a nightmare, but I was still somehow finding a way to speak with my demons... I wanted them to leave me alone.
"Ashley... I am sorry... I did not know that it was going to happen... I know that none of this is real... Just help me wake up." I said to her... I was doing my best, not to reason with her... I knew that it was not real, but I was trying to reason with my self conscious, the thing that was giving me all of these dark and evil thoughts.
She looked at me for a few moments, I thought, just for the slightest amount of time that I was going to be able to reason with my very own self conscious, but her very next words proved to me otherwise that it simply could not be possible.
"Wake up? This is real Sasha! You killed me! You killed me Sasha! THIS WAS YOUUUUU!!!" She began yelling at me. Every word that she began to say got louder and louder to me. I tried my best to close my eyes, but it seemed like my eyes werent working for me right now either... Only my voice.
Her head then began to cave in, in a weird sort of way... This was a nightmare, and I just wanted to wake up from it, I knew that none of this was real. It was beginning to scare me more and more though, as my self conscious tended to do to me.
Her head then exploded, this time, my body actually moved based off pure instinct. And blood began to pour over into the room that I was in, so high up that it was nearly at the top of my head, and there was nothing I could do about it.
"This was your fault Sasha! You killed me!" She began yelling, smiling at me in the corner... That was the last thing that I managed to see, as the blood went over my eyes taking away my vision.

I woke up, once again, I was in a different place. But this time, my head began badly hurting, and so did the rest of my body. I looked around, even moving my head to see hurt my head a ton. So I just stood still, I then heard footsteps coming into the room that I was in, a room that I had never seen before.
I looked slightly up, not moving my head this time, just to see if this was real, and to see who was walking in to come and see me. I then saw that it was just Tanner... I remembered the dream that I just had, and I began to feel bad.
In a weird sense, to be completely honeat with myself, if I had not knocked on to Ashley's door, she would have had it locked, and it would have been safe. Her father would have come back home, seeing his daughter open the door and giving him a big hug, but instead it was me, and the hug I gave him was in pain.
Tanner looked at me for a few moments, then he sat down beside me, at a better angle, so that I did not have to move me head too much to see him. He nodded to me, looking down at the ground... I could see it in his eyes, he was in a lot of pain, I mean... He had just lost his daughter for christ sake.
After a few moments, he finally looked back over at me. Nodding his head once again, as he began talking to me.
"Sasha... You have a concussion, you probably wont be able to do anything for the next couple of days... But you did not get bit, you've been out for about 5 hours... How are you feeling?"