{"id":194,"date":"2013-07-21T12:32:48","date_gmt":"2013-07-21T12:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/?page_id=194"},"modified":"2013-07-21T12:32:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-21T12:32:48","slug":"chapter-30","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/story\/chapter-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 30<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure everyone knew this saying\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know what you have, until it\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Everyone knew that one, or some variation of it.<\/i><\/p>\n

But did anyone, before Infernal Friday, or even before Reaper\u2019s Sabbath, truly understand what it meant?\u00a0 Did anyone really see how true that saying actually is?<\/i><\/p>\n

Somehow, I strongly doubt it.<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying people didn\u2019t know grief, loss, and the pain that comes with losing something or someone.\u00a0 Of course everyone did.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 What I\u2019m saying is\u2026 oh hell, sometimes I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m saying.\u00a0 I talk big, act so sure of myself, but I\u2019m not.\u00a0 I just try not to let anyone see that.<\/i><\/p>\n

People knew loss\u2026 but what about the fear?\u00a0 The fear that comes when you personally see civilization as you knew it crumbling down around you?\u00a0 The panic, at realizing you might be the only person left alive, at knowing you may truly be alone for the rest of your days.<\/i><\/p>\n

Lastly, the agonizing regret.\u00a0 Regret, at all the sacrifices you made.\u00a0 Friends, relationships, family, everything you pushed aside, now gone for good\u2026 for something that was suddenly worthless.<\/i><\/p>\n

So I know people before didn\u2019t know the meaning behind that saying.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good thing; they were blessed not to.\u00a0 Believe me.<\/i><\/p>\n

But I do know.\u00a0 We all do, those of us left, know now.<\/i><\/p>\n

I just wish I didn\u2019t.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Saturday, April 14, 2012<\/b>
\n10:15 p.m.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cHello?\u00a0 Hello?\u00a0 Dad, come on, it\u2019s Riley; answer the phone!\u201d\u00a0 She slammed her phone shut and sped down the quiet, abandoned highways.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to take a good look outside her window.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t want to see what she knew she would at that point.\u00a0 It was a dark night, despite the full moon shining above her.\u00a0 All the lights were gone, and she had to drive with her brights on, just to make sure she wasn\u2019t going to crash into anything.<\/p>\n

It was colder than normal for an April evening, but Riley knew that wasn\u2019t why she\u2019d started shivering.\u00a0 Still, as she pulled up to a stop sign, she tugged down the sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt.\u00a0 Her eyes drifted towards the rearview mirror, even though she knew she shouldn\u2019t let them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not worth looking at.\u00a0 Don\u2019t torture yourself\u2026\u201d she scolded herself sternly, but her eyes wandered to the windows again rebelliously.\u00a0 Riley couldn\u2019t stop staring.<\/p>\n

Cars were haphazardly scattered along the roads.\u00a0 All throughout her drive, she\u2019d been forced to drive around them.\u00a0 Inside, if she looked hard enough, she could see the bodies of people who had succumbed to the disease that had rapidly spread around.\u00a0 There were too many bodies for the morgues to keep up with, even if people weren\u2019t too sick to run them.<\/p>\n

Part of her wondered why they had attempted driving to begin with.\u00a0 But as soon as that question entered her head, the answer followed.\u00a0 They were trying to outrun the virus, trying to get to a hospital that wasn\u2019t falling apart.\u00a0 With the media blackouts, how would most of them have known that it was like that up north, too?\u00a0 And if it had hit them so soon after it spread through the northeastern US, surely it would have hit the rest of the country soon enough.\u00a0 But they had still tried, and Riley was there to see their final resting places upon the road.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t been awake for long.\u00a0 After a long night getting footage at the hospital, she had gone back to her apartment to crash as the sun rose and slept till about eight in the evening.\u00a0 She hadn\u2019t meant to, as the report was supposed to air earlier in the day.\u00a0 However, when she\u2019d tried to call the station, she\u2019d received no answers.\u00a0 She had tried calling her boss, her coworkers, and nothing.<\/p>\n

Her father had called while she was at the hospital last night, at least.\u00a0 And she\u2019d held on to that shred of hope that he was still okay.\u00a0 \u201cRiley Anne Blake, you worry too much.\u00a0 You should know by now your old man can handle himself.\u00a0 You sound just like your mother used to\u2026\u201d<\/i>\u00a0 But she kept asking herself, had he been hiding it from her so she wouldn\u2019t worry?\u00a0 Or had he really been all right when he\u2019d called her?<\/p>\n

After an hour of attempting calls to work, her friends, and her family, she\u2019d decided to head out, after grabbing a bag of chips.\u00a0 Much to her annoyance, she\u2019d found the power to be out as well, which meant no cooking.\u00a0 She\u2019d kept trying to reach her father\u2019s cell phone, a gift from her to bring him up into the twenty-first century.\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t answered, so she was making the drive out to the house, feeling there was no room for brushing off concern at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep yourself together, Ri.\u00a0 It\u2026it\u2019s not as bad as it seems\u2026\u201d she repeated to herself again and again, in a hushed tone.\u00a0 She could feel the panic rising.\u00a0 What if it had hit her family?\u00a0 As busy as she kept herself, as isolated as her life was, due to her own career goals, she still relied on her family to keep her grounded.\u00a0 She still managed to call every weekend to check on her brothers, on her father, on her nieces and nephews.\u00a0 Even though she rarely saw them because she was always working, she always kept them on the fringes of her life, if nothing else.<\/p>\n

She flipped open her phone again, having forgotten her Bluetooth at home.\u00a0 She called the number once again, desperate for some type of answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad?\u00a0 It\u2019s me again.\u00a0 Look, I\u2019m just really worried.\u00a0 I know I probably do sound like Mom, but just\u2026 call me back.\u00a0 I love you\u2026bye.\u201d\u00a0 It hurt to think of her mother, even so many years after her death.\u00a0 She was told she looked just like her, that she had her determination, and that she worried like she had.\u00a0 Riley didn\u2019t know if it was true or her father\u2019s wishful thinking, but she didn\u2019t like being told that all the same.\u00a0 She loved her mother, but being told those things just reminded her that she was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should visit her\u2026\u201d she murmured, suddenly feeling the need to visit her mother\u2019s grave, something she hadn\u2019t done in years.\u00a0 Riley just had the urge for the slight comfort visiting and talking to the tombstone gave her.<\/p>\n

She weaved through the messy roads, and the sight grew more gruesome, the further she drove.\u00a0 Bodies were lying out upon the sides of the roads, people whom she guessed had tried walking once the roads started getting jammed.\u00a0 The roads were getting worse; she was starting to have to drive along the sides and ignore the occasional bump, trying to also ignore what she knew it was.<\/p>\n

Before long, she pulled up to the familiar place she had once called home.\u00a0 She parked and climbed out, trying fiercely to get her heart to stop beating so wildly in her chest.\u00a0 Taking in a deep breath, she started walking towards the house.\u00a0 Her gaze caught sight of a familiar car.\u00a0 Tommy\u2019s car.\u00a0 Her baby brother\u2019s car.\u00a0 She ran over to it, thinking maybe he\u2019d pulled up moments before she had.<\/p>\n

Maybe he knew if everyone was okay.\u00a0 She knocked on the window, peered inside, and her voice caught in her throat before she could utter even one single word.<\/p>\n

He was slumped over the steering wheel, his blonde hair matted to his forehead, his blue eyes open and unblinking, staring at something beyond her now.\u00a0 His skin was covered in purple lesions, and she knew she didn\u2019t have to open the door to see the truth.\u00a0 Her brother was dead.<\/p>\n

She stood there, frozen by the realization.\u00a0 If Tommy had died out here, that meant he had been either coming or going.\u00a0 If he had been going\u2026<\/p>\n

Riley bolted for the front door, not caring if she got sick.\u00a0 If she was going to, she knew that night filming at the hospital was what was going to doom her anyway.\u00a0 She burst through the door, not bothering to knock.\u00a0 Her dad could yell at her, and she\u2019d be thrilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad?!\u00a0 Hello?!\u00a0 Chase\u2026 Randy\u2026 Nate\u2026 anyone hear me?!\u201d<\/p>\n

She saw the silhouettes, illuminated by the moonlight coming through the bay window.\u00a0 Bodies that didn\u2019t move.\u00a0 Bodies that she knew belonged to members of her family.\u00a0 She could check, she could find out who, which members.\u00a0 Yet to Riley, it didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 She knew one of them was her father, that the others were some of her brothers, and that the rest of her family was dead as well, even if not here.\u00a0 They were dead.\u00a0 Everyone was dead.<\/p>\n

That was when the tears finally began to fall.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

An hour passed, and it found her driving down the road again, aimlessly.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t understand it.\u00a0 Any of it.\u00a0 She liked finding the truth; she liked knowing things.\u00a0 If she didn\u2019t, she wouldn\u2019t be a journalist.\u00a0 Yet nothing would come to her, nothing to help her understand it all.\u00a0 Although her family was technically religious, technically Catholic, Riley had never found herself truly a devout follower, growing up.\u00a0 But then, seeing all this, she found herself questioning God, wondering what she did to earn such salvation.<\/p>\n

Or was it really damnation?<\/p>\n

Riley pulled out her small camera, uncaring if she crashed her car then.\u00a0 She\u2019d do anything to distract herself, anything to stop the questions pounding her brain.\u00a0 Besides, she had just lost her entire family in one swift stroke.\u00a0 Would it matter anymore if she died, too?\u00a0 With one hand, she aimed it at herself, while the other navigated the car down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u2026 I\u2019m filming this just in case I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 For someone to find.\u00a0 This is in case in the end I don\u2019t make it, though right now, it looks like I will.\u00a0 I won\u2019t assume anything right now. \u201d<\/p>\n

She sniffed, willing the tears to stop.\u00a0 They had been coming since she found the bodies.\u00a0 Bodies\u2026 not her family, just empty shells.\u00a0 It seemed easier to think of them like that.\u00a0 But she had to stop crying.\u00a0 She had to film this, just in case, so someone who came upon this mess, clueless, would know what had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2026 I don\u2019t know how it happened.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why.\u00a0 I just know some virus swept the eastern half of the country, maybe the rest of it, too.\u00a0 It\u2019s killed everyone.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t found anyone alive yet.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s dead.\u00a0 My family, my friends, my coworkers\u2026 everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulled off to the side of the road.\u00a0 Riley deep down knew she still didn\u2019t want to die.\u00a0 No matter what depressed thoughts were plaguing her right then.\u00a0 Riley\u2019s trademark determination flared in fury at even considering giving up and dying.\u00a0 How could she even give credence to such a thought?\u00a0 However, she knew if she kept driving like she was, she\u2019d crash.\u00a0 She sighed, keeping the camera on her.\u00a0 She could see the college and the hospital not too far in the distance.\u00a0 Maybe tomorrow, she\u2019d see if anyone was alive there.\u00a0 She pointed the camera outside the Jeep\u2019s window, filming all the bodies scattered upon the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were trying to outrun the illness.\u00a0 No one knew what was happening.\u00a0 People panicked\u2026\u00a0 It spread so quickly, killed so quickly.\u00a0 No one could figure out what it was, why it spread here.\u00a0 No one knew how to cure it; hell, did anyone have time to even try?\u201d<\/p>\n

She aimed the camera back at herself, feeling oddly like she was doing a bad imitation of that movie, The Blair Witch Project<\/i>.\u00a0 \u201cWhat I don\u2019t get\u2026 what I don\u2019t understand is, why didn\u2019t I get it?\u00a0 I walked through the hospital, surrounded by the virus.\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t I get it?\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t I die?\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned the camera off, lying down across her front seat.\u00a0 Suddenly, Riley felt exhausted, drained emotionally.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t bother with the idea of driving back to her apartment.\u00a0 Why should she?\u00a0 She bet everyone was dead there, too.\u00a0 She felt the urge to drive as far as she could tomorrow, escape this hell and find out if it had happened everywhere.\u00a0 Tonight, though, she would sleep.<\/p>\n

Staring out the window, she could feel the tears come again.\u00a0 Everyone was gone, and she had no answers as to why.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom\u2026 why didn\u2019t I die, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Chapter 30 I\u2019m sure everyone knew this saying\u2026 \u201cYou never know what you have, until it\u2019s gone.\u201d Everyone knew that one, or some variation of it. But did anyone, before Infernal Friday, or even before Reaper\u2019s Sabbath, truly understand what … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/194\/revisions\/195"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamers-sanctuary.com\/undead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}