“I’ve been running calls with the fire department. I’ve dealt with sick people, assaulted people, and animal attacks. Blane's call, though, is what really messed me up for a while,” I skimmed past the idea of him as quickly as I could. Jacob had known Blane very, very well. They were close, and telling him this news couldn’t have been as easy as he made it seem. He glanced away, looking at the ground. That was the only indication he would give off. “You know the last thing he said to me?” I smiled. It was funny, and it summarized him as a person. I let out a laugh that I couldn't manage to suppress. “He wanted a Busch Peach.” All of them had a smile on their face now. I couldn’t tell if it was because they were trying to comfort each other, or if they genuinely thought it was funny. Jacob scoffed at the thought. He started to shake his head.

  “Yeah,” Jacob laughed, smiling a little wider now. He was less tense. “That’s Blane. I helped them load up the rest of the paint for the football field and sent them on their way.

  "Dude, your cousin's a little fucked up." Dylan climbed into the back of the truck and slammed the door behind him. Hunter took the passenger seat. Jacob was silent and slid his hand back and forth over the wheel cover. He drove our grandpa's old truck, but it looked nothing like it used to. "Do you think all that shit is true?" Hunter glanced back at him. It was a silent way of telling him to stop talking, but he didn't get the hint. Hunter sighed.

  "Yeah, man. It's not good out there. Sorry to hear about Blane," Cooper gave Jacob a couple of pats on the back. That seemed to snap him back to reality. He put the truck in reverse and pulled out of the driveway.

  "Shit's crazy, I don't know what to say. And Amelia, well, she's Amelia," Jacob didn't bother to stop at the stop sign. Dylan pushed some clothes out of the back seat and leaned forward over the center console. "She's always looking out for everyone else." The truck was quiet after that.

  "She still seems the same, though, from what I remember." Hunter tried to show him the bright side. "Doesn't seem too fucked up. Speaking of which," A smile grew on his face. "Wait until Colton gets word that your cousin's back in town."

  I went back inside and locked the door. When we got here, it was already open. It was a force of habit to lock doors the moment I stepped inside. A habit I wasn't willing to break. I went back into Jacob's room. That's where Emma and Phoebe were. Breelyn was sprawled across the bed, out like a light. Emma was curled up on the ground behind the hamper, and Phoebe was peeling back the blinds and looking out of the window. “I told Jacob about Blane,” I kept my voice low. Emma and Breelyn were in a deep, deep sleep, but I didn’t want to risk waking them up. “He took it well, I think. But it’s Jacob. I’ll probably talk to him later when he gets back, one-on-one, so he can ask whatever he wants to,” I sat on the ground by the foot of the bed. I always had to face the door.

  “Were they very close?” Phoebe turned around and wearily sat on the ground. I nodded and yawned before answering her. I grabbed my dark brown hair and started to wrap it into a bun. It was so long and got knotted so easily. It overstimulated me sometimes.

  “Yeah, they were. Blane would come down here pretty often to spend time with him and my brother Conner. They were close, the three of them. A trio of disasters waiting to happen.” That was the end of the conversation, because soon after that, I fell asleep.

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  I woke up to a tapping on the glass. I was always such a light sleeper. I never got good enough sleep because of it. If someone was breathing a little too loudly or a little off compared to someone else, I would wake up. I sat up and grabbed my weapon lying on the ground next to my head. It was light outside now, which made the world seem a little more normal. At night, everything was safer, but it looked much more terrifying. I opened the door and looked around, just to realize it was the large, dead bush scraping against the door. I looked out into the hall and realized Jacob wasn’t back yet. Now that I was awake, I couldn’t fall asleep again.

  I started to add our food from our bags to the food Jacob and his friends had. After organizing the cabinet, I sat on the couch for a couple of minutes, the boredom eating me alive. I saw the remote sitting next to me. I stared at it like a foreign object. The soldiers had said this town had electricity, but it seemed too good to be true. I walked up to the light switch and flipped it. The lights turned on, and I flicked them back off. I wondered why Jacob and his two friends were standing in the dark when we first arrived.

  I decided against turning on the TV and walked back outside. I could go for a walk into town, but I didn’t trust these people. I used to go on walks all the time; it was very peaceful, but now the animals were just as dangerous as the unstable people. I wouldn’t go for a walk. Instead, I went outside and pulled out one of the dirtbikes from the old garage. It started up within a few kicks, and I took off down the path that led to the scrap pile that went into the fields. I drove around it, but I saw the old dune buggy my dad had built when I was a toddler. We used to ride through the woods at my house. I felt my grip loosening, so I looked away and kept driving.

  I passed by the lake and went around to the far end, where I parked the bike and got off. My dad, Conner, and I had built a small cabin up here. The days I didn’t go with him to help, Jacob or my brothers would take my place, or he would do it alone. I searched for the key and found it hanging on the large windows on the side closest to the lake. I unclipped it from the window lock and walked inside. There were old sheets on the bunk bed, and a few random books and articles of clothing for hunting season. Me and my old friend Olive used to come up here all the time. We decorated it and made it look like a real home, but time had gotten to this place. I grabbed the broom from the unfinished bathroom and swept out all of the dead ladybugs. I tidied up the beds and folded the clothes, then rested on the top bunk with the door open for a little bit. There were lights in here, but you had to connect a generator to an outlet to power them. The bathroom didn’t have piping either; it was similar to the way campers got rid of their waste.

  I made sure to lock the cabin up when I left and started to ride around the property to recall some memories. I went into the middle of the field where the land seemed to be all bunched up into a big hill. When we were kids, I had been the driver of an old two-door Polaris. Jacob was in the passenger seat, and I had maxed out the speed, then whipped it to the side. We rolled it three times, and it landed on its side. I was knocked unconscious. I woke up to Jacob screaming. An axe was lying by his head, and I was knocked unconscious on top of him. Dead-weight. He climbed out from under me, and I slowly got myself to stand up, but I had cracked my head open. My brother Gunner had been the one to come help us. Ever since then, my memory hasn’t been the best, but I dealt with it.

  I drove back to the house and went inside to see if my friends were awake yet. Breelyn was. “Want to go explore an old house with me?” I closed the sliding glass door behind me. She rubbed her eyes. As of recently, she was always half-awake. That’s how it was even before the end began. “It’s in Windland, about ten minutes away. Kind of the outskirts of Windland, but still,” I grabbed the truck keys off the counter.

  “Yeah, I'm down. There’s not much else to do around here anyway,” She opened a drawer and grabbed a napkin, then opened three more before she found a pen. “I’ll write a note to let Phoebe and Emma know where we’re going.” I nodded.

  “I’ll be in the truck.”