I Don't Care If You're Contagious

“Michael!” I shook the lazy boy’s shoulder as he snored, “It’s getting late”
“Hm?” he barely even moved. I got annoyed and kicked the bed.
“Get up!” I threw a heavy pillow down on his head and he groaned in response.
“Go away!” he whined with aggravation.
“Michael!” I grabbed him by the feet and yanked him out of the bed, watching him land with a loud THUD and a groan.
“What!?” he finally opened his eyes after rubbing them and sat up.
“It’s almost time to go!” I exclaimed.
“That means it’s only 6:40!” he whined, “How is it getting late when the sun is barely even up yet!?”
This was typical Mike behavior. Even years ago, waking up for school was the same. For a 24 year old, he sure did act like a kid.
“Just get up already” I sighed with very notable irritation, “You’re old enough to get up yourself now. I shouldn’t have to keep doing this.”
“You didn’t have to yesterday.” he said as he pulled himself up to his feet.
“Yeah, It should be like that every morning.” I rolled my eyes before pulling on my jacket, “Hurry up and get dressed.” I said bossily. Mike just sighed and went to the other room, giving the door a small slam. I just really wish he’d grow up. Sometimes I wonder if he still thinks life is the same; everything simple with no zombies or shit “government” trying to control us. Maybe he just prefers to be ignorant. Some people do, even though it’s been years, lots of people like to pretend that everything’s okay. Things have never been okay ever since the outbreak. Never.
No more than five minutes later, Mike came trudging out of the room with his other attire on. I finished packing out bags and handed him his as routine before throwing my own over my shoulder. He looked at his bag with a sigh before putting it on his back. I knew he was tired. I was too; tired of the same shit every week. But it was how things were now. So we had to try and make the best of it.
“Remember when we were younger-“ I heard Mike speak behind me as I opened the front door of our shitty little house, “-and I always complained how hard school was?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but crack a tiny smile, “Yeah. I remember that. You never wanted to get up. You complained every night about how hard chemistry was.” I said with nostalgia filling my mind
“Can we go back to that?” I asked me, a hint of despondent in his voice.
“I wish.” I responded, “Come on, now’s not the time to get all depressed.” I added.
“Okay.” he sighed and I tried not to sigh too. That seemed to be our way or saying our feelings without ever saying anything. Whenever we sighed, we knew what each other meant. It’s such a common thing that we do now. It might as well be a part of our vocabulary.

--

I found myself feeling a little better after I forced myself to stop thinking about the past; about mom and dad. About how great life was before all of this stupid shit happened. It’s not best to think about things like that before going out behind gates. Though, it wasn’t until I got to the ‘spot’ that I stopped abruptly. I stood there, planted into the ground, staring at a couple of familiar figures who stood next to Oli, who waited for me like he did almost every meet-up. The spikey-haired boy and the diamond-faced kid stood together talking, making me wrinkle my nose in confusion. I saw Oliver approach me and I had to tear my eyes away.
“What are those two doing?” I asked him and he seemed to know exactly what I meant.
“They’re part of the group.” he said flatly.
“I don’t know if I agree with this change.” I said.
“I guess you’ll ‘ave to get used to ‘em, mate.” he replied. I exhaled sharply through my nose, taking a few steps forward, hoping to avoid them. Luckily I did, standing there, but it wasn’t until I heard my brother’s voice that I turned to look. I saw him and the diamond-faced boy, also known as Tony, exchanging words. I gaped at the two, wondering why Mike would talk to him after I ordered him specifically not to. I moved my eyes an inch to see the other boy, Jaime I suppose, just standing there. He didn’t talk. He seemed interested in their conversation but didn’t speak. His thin lips stayed closed. I looked away instead, trying to ignore them. I waited for our instructor to come out and tell us something but instead it was Jeremy who came to inform us that we’d be going out to look for implements, anything useful. I wondered why our instructor couldn’t have come out to tell us this. Then again, this happens a lot. I guess he gets lazy. Or busy. But I’d bet my money on lazy. I waited patiently for the doors to open with Oliver. The only sound I could hear was the chatter of Mike and a couple of other people in our group. I didn’t want to look back though. I just ignored it. Any noise came in one ear and just left out the other. This was a skill I learned when I often got scolded at by my parents. What I’d give to hear them yell at me again. It’s funny how we look at things we used to hate, realizing that once they’re gone, we dreadfully miss them.
The gates open and our group wasted no time to begin moving forward. I breathed in the air as I walked, still the sound of my brother talking bugging me at the back of my head.
“So why do your earlobes look like that?” I heard Mike asked.
“Oh, these things?” I heard the boy humorously ask, “Yeah, a long time ago I decided to stretch them.” I listened to him explain, “They were pretty big but after this whole outbreak thing I decided to lose them. I thought they’d be dangerous.”
“I bet they looked cool.” I heard Mike muse.
“So did I.” he replied.
“How do you still have a stud in your cheek?” Mike asked.
“You’d think it would have been pulled out” I heard Tony say, “but it actually hasn’t. I don’t know, I guess it just doesn’t get in the way”
“Oh” Mike began to say something else but a sudden ‘shush!’ silenced the whole group.
“Does anyone else hear that?” Kellin asked in a whisper and the whole group began looking around suspiciously. None of us seemed to hear anything.
“it’s jus’ the sound of your idiocy” Oli spat.
“Excuse the fuck out of me for trying to look out for your sorry ass” Kellin shot back.
“Well guess what? We don’t need your help.” he said flatly and Kellin began fuming. I saw Kellin begin to open his mouth to retort but I quickly talked first,
“Stop arguing before something does come” I said.
“Well, you should tell shit face to stop being such a fucking dick.” Kellin hissed, earning a laugh from Oliver, which in itself earned an evil glare from Kellin.
“You’re so intimidating” I heard Oli mock and without even hesitating, Kellin went for Oli, knocking him down. I tried grabbing Kellin before he could touch Oliver but I was too slow.
“Can we not do this every time you two get together!?” I heard Alex say as everyone in the group began breaking them apart. I could see fists flying for the other but Kellin was no match for Austin and Oli was no match for Alex and Jeremy. I looked over my shoulder to see my brother and Tony just trying their best not to burst out into laughter. It didn’t take long for Mike to notice me glaring at him, so he immediately stopped giggling.
“You’re better off dead!” Oli growled as he was dragged away.
“Yeah!? Well-“ Kellin was just about to come up with a comeback when we all paused at the sound of unmistakable undead groaning.
I watched as Alex and Jeremy dropped Oli at the same time as Austin dropped Kelling, both landing with small thud noises. They both quickly scrambled to their feet, forgetting about their feud. Everyone in the group quickly began speed-walking away from that spot. We weren’t exactly sure where the noise was coming from so we hid in the trees so we could look.
“I told you I heard something” Kellin hissed quietly. We all looked around. Eventually we decided that it wasn’t coming anymore when we didn’t see anything and took a route through the forest.
The trip was very silent for the most part. The only audible noise I could hear was the sound of leaves crunching beneath our feet and the occasional twig that snapped under our weight. We soon came up to the short end of the trees, coming upon a small river. Almost everyone let out an exhausted sigh as we approached the slowly running water. I watched as Oli, who had dried blood on his bottom lip which I didn’t notice before; kneel down to the river to put some water on his hand.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, he just got one hit.” he said as he rubbed the water on his face, chills forming on the skin of his arms from the temperature.
“He hits like a bitch” I watched him grin. I just smiled crookedly. I already knew he’d be fine. I looked over my shoulder and took a couple of steps to see if I could notice Mike but instead, my eyes met with someone else’s.
“What are you looking at?” I narrowed my eyes back at the spikey-haired boy who put his hand over his eyes.
“Sorry, didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to look.” he said. I stared and blinked a couple times before shaking my head.
“So stupid” I mumbled to myself and turned back around so I could sit down next to the water.
“So” I could hear him approach from behind, seeing him sit down next to me out of the corner of my eye, “Do those two always fight?”
“Normally.” I replied stiffly. Instead, I wanted to say, ‘why are you sitting next to me? I thought I made it clear that I’m not comfortable with your presence.’
“Why don’t they like each other?” he asked.
“Because they both have a history of getting on each other’s nerves.” I said.
“What about you?” he asked, “Who gets on your nerves?”
“So far-” I spoke casually, “Just you.”
“Ouch.” he said, “I haven’t even talked for a full thirty minutes and you already don’t like me. That’s a personal best.”
“Why don’t you just go talk to your friend?” I asked, hinting a groan.
“Because I thought since we’re going to be in this group together, I might as well get to know you.” he shrugged.
“You know my name. What else could you possibly need to know?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” he said, “Maybe your age?”
“26.” I said plainly.
“Really? I’m only 23.” he replied. Honestly, I could have just said ‘I don’t care’ but I spared him the harshness.
“We’re you from?” he asked after I said nothing.
“California.” I said blandly. Before he could say or ask anything else, I heard Mike say something which caught my attention.
“Hey, I found some rope. This could be useful, right?” he brought the item to me.
“Yeah, this could.” I said and took it from him to put in my bag.
“Good job.” I congratulated him before I threw my bag back onto my shoulders.
“We should keep looking.” I suggested, “We’ve had a long enough break.”
I expected Mike to be following me as I began walking but instead when I looked, he was right back at Tony’s side. I rolled my eyes, walking over to Oliver instead.
The walk back was just the same as when we came. Mike was chatting again with the boy I didn’t approve of while the others just sort of mumbled to one another. Oli and I stayed quiet as usual. We were more listeners than talkers. We didn’t find anything very useful on our way back. I wondered how mad our instructors were going to be at us for bringing back practically nothing. Whatever.
We reached the gates, waiting for them to be opened. our group was back again, every member in one piece. Well, except the bruises Oli and Kellin may have given each other but that doesn’t really matter. Oliver turned to me and volunteered to take the little few items we found because he didn’t care to be yelled at, if they did decide to. I handed him the rope from my bag and watched him walk off before turning to Mike who was laughing with the diamond-faced boy.
“Mike.” I said sternly, catching his attention.
“Yeah?” he asked me.
“Let’s go get cleaned up” I ordered.
“But I don’t need to” he said.
“Let’s go.” I repeated myself. I heard him sigh briefly and turn to say goodbye before catching up with me.
“This is really starting to annoy me” he said.
“Me too.” I said.
“What?” he gave me a puzzled look, “I’m talking about you bossing me around”
“I’m talking about you, talking to that kid” I said stiffly.
“Why do you care who I talk to?” I asked, slightly annoyed.
“I’m just taking precautions” I responded.
“Oh, shut up” he scoffed, “Stop acting like you’re the boss of me.”
“I am the boss of you!” I retorted.
“No you’re not! you’re just my brother! you don’t own me!” he snapped at me and I paused where I stood.
“I’m looking out for you!” I raised my voice.
“Yeah, well, Stop it!” he said before abruptly walking off. I stood there with my hands in fists. He’s so ungrateful. Where would he be without me? he’d probably be eaten up my zombies. He never respects me. I groaned audibly, my jaw tightening as I began walking again. Whatever. He can be on his own. Maybe Tony will put up with him from now on.