“I still do not understand why you are trying to feed him like a kid.” That was the first coherent word that Adam heard, hours after he fainted. It was his father again. Inexplicable anger rose inside Adam toward the man he had respected for most of his life. “Does dad hate me?” he thought drowsily as his eyes finally focused on the person sitting close to his head while she tried to put a straw in his mouth. Sophia. “I swear to God, Caleb... Adam, son, are you awake?” Marriane, who was about to let her husband have it, quickly asked when she saw Adam’s eyes flicker. Adam would have loved to respond to her. He would have loved to erase that pain from her voice. He would have loved to tell her he was just tired and goddamn hungry. Yet all he could do was look at the person with something close to food in her hand. He made a move to talk to her but all he could do was move his head. Yet she understood. She put the straw back into his slightly parted mouth and with a little re
The Troy household was not what Adam expected it to be. Adam had thought he would meet a lot of resistance from the workers when they found out that Trent was dead. He thought he might have to make a scapegoat of a few of them so that the others could fall in line. As it stood, he did not even have to do anything at all. There was no resistance from any angle. Simply because there was nobody there to give it. The fifty staff who were said to be working on maintaining the splendour of Troy’s new home were nowhere to be found. The house was squeaky clean.Scents of detergent and air fresheners still hung thickly in the air but the interior of the house was chaos. It was as if angels of vengeance had descended on the house and turned it apart. Shredded wallpapers. Broken glass tables. Half Yorkshire vases dotted the rooms. The kitchen seemed to have gotten the greatest hit. The dinner table was scarred with marks of soot and knife cuts. There were only a few china plates in t
Trent’s phone was missing! Adam put off facing the horrible sight after he and Ryan got back to the stables. It took them a while to get back to the others because Adam told Ryan that they should cover the hole. The stinky tarp was burnt once they were done. Then Adam told Ryan that he should go ahead and that he would join him later. Ryan merely nodded and went on to the stables. After he had told Adam the chilling story of how his family was killed, the man was back to his expressionless, quiet self again. Adam knew that there was nothing he could say at the moment that would make Ryan believe that he only did what he had to do to survive. The man believed that he was a murderer and that whatever happened to him was his punishment for what he had done. Adam could understand the feeling well enough. So, he let the man be and he suggested that they should cover the hole instead. Ryan did not need to be told twice. He took the needed tools from the outdoor shed and jumped t
None of them confessed to have seen any phone. Adam wondered what anyone would want to do with a dead man’s phone. Since he was not sure whether people passed by the stables while they were inside, Adam couldn’t say for sure whether the phone was with any of them. Since he didn’t want to give them more reasons to hate him, he decided to let go of his instinct to search their bags. What would anyone do with the phone anyway? Sell it? To who? Where? With that thought in mind, Adam dismissed the thought of the phone and concentrated on what was important. He needed to get to his sisters.And he couldn’t go without putting things in order here. The women were surprised by the amount of food in the pantry, storage room and kitchen. Some of them had been chosen from time to time to make Trent’s meals and they were not allowed to take anything apart from the leftovers that remained after he ate. So they knew the situation. Sophia was the only one who voiced the question that most
Adam could feel the increasing dread in Old Larry’s body as they proceeded. The tension Adam was feeling earlier had not made him take in the destruction around him. He couldn’t believe it had been over twenty-four hours already that he passed those streetsThe road was filled with all forms of junk. Damaged cars.Rotten foods.Carts and scattered pieces of luggage filled the streets. “Do you know how this started here?” Adam turned to ask Old Larry, who was sitting in the front seat with him. The man’s face was whitened like he had seen a ghost. Adam did not bother to ask the question again since he could see that the man was battling his own monsters at that moment. Only God knew what he had seen with those dim eyes. Adam thought. The young man at the back was just muttering “Holy shit. Holy shit” from time to time as he saw more and more blood and destruction. “Just look away” Adam said, just as he had told Yoshi earlier. “Hey, you can’t tell me what to do!” Jeremy yelled
“I swear it wasn’t deliberate. I swear it wasn’t deliberate!" Jeremy kept yelling as he ran down the staircase that led from the side of the workshop to the living quarters of Old Larry.He held a boombox that was still blaring in his hands.“Boy, what…?” “Shut the damn thing off!” Adam shouted, interrupting Old Larry.He quickly looked back at the zombies that were getting closer to them at that moment.“It wouldn’t turn off! It wouldn’t fucking go off!” Jeremy shouted with all the sheer terror of a sixteen-year-old on his face.Gone were the belligerence and the world-weary toughness.At the moment, he was nothing but a teenager, afraid to even get down the staircase because he knew he had messed up.“Just throw the damn thing away as far as you can. We have to go now!” Adam said as he jumped from where he was tying the last part of the rope against the rack.“I can’t! Mom gave it to me. This is all I have of her now!” he shouted while still standing on the staircase.“You…” Jere
The Troy’s mansion was as silent as a graveyard that night. Even the children seemed to feel the tension and sadness in the air, even though they did not know what caused it. They quietly ate their food and went quietly to bed. Those who were not asleep yet hung around the living room and terrace, like they were waiting for the hands of the clock to change. The last dregs of hope were evident in some eyes, like they were expecting things to have turned out differently. “It still feels like a dream,” Adam heard a man whisper to his wife. Yet it was no dream at all. Most of them had seen the torn body of Old Larry when they brought him back. Some of them had dug the grave where he was buried. Most of them had heard the repeated “I killed him. He died because of me,” Jeremy mumbled over and over before Marriane calmed him down. They had all seen that, yet some of them couldn’t help but hope. They had seen all the destruction before, yet they couldn’t help but wish that this wa
Carlisle was like a disaster waiting to happen After he had been restrained from taking his own life three times, he finally settled into a depressing mood. By then, Ryan was sporting a black eye. Caleb had promised to have nothing to do with restraining him again. And one of the kids had cried her eyes out after Carlisle had snarled at her for looking at him. Adam had finally been able to talk some senses into him eventually. Not without some help from Sophia though. It was obvious that despite his cloud of despair, Carlisle had a soft spot for her. She was the one who had been able to persuade him to eat his first meal. Adam had even caught Carlisle apologising to Sophia once for not saving Cain. The two of them were hugging each other at that time. Though Adam couldn’t see Sophia’s face at the moment because she had her back to him, the heaving motion of her shoulder made him know that she was crying. Carlisle’s one good eye also had a telltale wetness in it as he repea