Chapter 143: 143
Kaley and I went inside while I skimmed through their list of people that are in here. One of the soldiers served as our guide as we went inside.
“E… E…. E… he’s not here. Oh! Juan is here but Carl isn’t. K… K… K… D… D… they’re not here too. The camp at Malanday has better organization. Hold on, why is Juan the only one here with his last name? I remember the soldier said he came with his GF but I thought he would also be bringing his family over as well. Something might have happened.” I thought to myself.
There are four buildings here and we went to the building where all the civilians are placed in. We discovered that most of them are huddled in a few spots and some were chatting normally. We saw the earlier group and I could see an older woman crying uncontrollably. The guy with the angry expression glared at the soldier we were with but he looked away when the soldier we were with looked at his direction.
“How long could they maintain this thing though.” I thought to myself.
“Are all the civilians in here?” I asked.
“No. Some who were early had rooms for themselves though they share with a few others. The people here are a few stragglers who manage to come here at a later date. There’s also a few at the upper floors that get special treatment.” He explained.
“Like doctors and such then?” I asked and he nodded.
I just scanned my eyes around and I can’t seem to find Juan here.
“Juan Santiago. The guy who talked about me, is he still alive? You said that he came with people.” I said.
“Oh! That guy, he’s in the 4th floor. Wanna head there now?” he asked.
We climbed the stairs and I’m still scanning my eyes around the place for anything out of place. So far, there seems to be none aside from that most of the people are in the ground floor and the 2nd floor and up has no people loitering in the halls and might seem to be in their rooms.
We reached Juan’s own room and I found out that he’s living alone. There’re several supplies on his table and he’s sleeping comfortably on his bed. There’s an ashtray on his side and a lit cigarette is slowly burning itself.
“I thought he was with other people?” I thought to myself.
“Hey, wake up! You got a visitor.” the soldier said.
Juan’s eyes slowly opened and it looks like that he’s still groggy. When our eyes met, it suddenly shot up and he quickly stood upright.
“Hey man! The f.u.c.k are you doing here?!” he exclaimed happily.
He gave me a strong handshake but he suddenly started on packing his things. I was surprised at what he’s doing and Kaley was confused as well. He puffed his cigarette and blew a huge cloud of smoke and he packed the ash tray as well.
“Hey man, I thought you would go to my place. I-” I was about to say more but he cuts me.
“Are you taking me with you? You’re taking me, right? Great! Let’s go now!” he said as he finished on packing everything.
Our eyes locked for a brief moment and he definitely have something to say but can’t at the moment.
“Sure, the other people I would be fetching isn’t here. Let’s go now.” I replied as we turned back.
“Really? You’re coming with them? Suit yourself.” the soldier said with nonchalance.
“Yeah. It’s nice here but I’d like to go with my friend here.” he replied.
“Sky, they’re not here?” Kaley asked.
“Yeah. I checked their list. We need to go to their houses now. I hope that they’re there.” I replied.
We slowly made our way down and we saw Jared on the roof of the pickup while Tatiana is chatting with Rico. They saw me coming out and they eyed the person we brought out.
“Oh. You’re bringing him out. Okay, then.” Rico said.
“We’ll be on our way.” I said as we five get in the Raptor.
As soon as we drove off, Juan breathed a long sigh of relief but there was a slight grumble.
We started to drive towards Lawa and when we’re a fair distance away, Juan started to sob silently while his hand shakes while holding his unlit cigarette. Everyone besides him was silent but I spoke.
“Tell me what happened.” I said.
“The camps are not safe.” He replied.
“What?” Jared asked.
“At least for the civilians. Well, the normal civilians. I don’t know for the situation at the other camps but that place will get you killed.” He said.
“Tell me everything.” I said.
“When I went to my place and got my GF and my mom to safety along with a few close friends, I was supposed to come straight to your place but there was a herd in the distance. The closest refuge we got is that DDR Camp. The soldiers there took care of it so we decided to stay there for the time being.” He said.
“Where’s your family and your GF?” I asked.
“My mom went missing. I didn’t even notice her gone until the gates were being closed behind me. There were a lot of people when it happened and I was carrying all of our bags. My GF was the one with my mom behind me but when I looked back, she’s just by herself crying. I can’t even find my friends too; it was all a blur. I tried to find her outside when I came out a few times but we never did.” He replied.
“Then that means that she’s somewhere alive.” Kaley said.
“Did you check the other zombies if she might’ve turned?” Jared asked.
“No! If she turned to one of them I wouldn’t be able to tell since the camp burns the ones that they kill.” he replied.
“How did she disappear?” Tatiana asked.
“What my GF said to me was that another civilian pushed my mom away from us while she was pushed inside. We didn’t even get a proper time to check my other friends. But my GF… my GF… F.U.C.K.I.N.G DAMN IT!!!” he shouted.
“What? I thought she was already inside.” Jared asked.
“Did they do something to her?” I asked.
“That… that… that place makes everyone there without any use or deemed useless baggage will be sent outside to get their own food. My GF, she uh, you know, gave herself to them in exchange for supplies. She is staying with one of the soldiers there so she wouldn’t have to do anything. Some of the females there did the same as well. In turn, us guys would need to head outside to scavenge our own food.” Juan said.
“So, you’ve been out a lot then? You have a lot of supplies.” Kaley said.
“No. I haven’t gone out even once when she started to stay with one of them.” he replied.
Everyone looked at him with confusion.
“She was given special privileges. She would occasionally bring some food to me. She kept on saying that it was for the best but I’m stuck in a dilemma. I don’t want her to do those things and I kept on insisting to go out for supplies but…” he trailed.
“But what?” Jared asked.
“She asked the soldier she was with to not allow me to go outside.” he said.
“But how were you allowed to come with me?” I asked.
“We had a fight recently because of what she’s doing and she just left me all this supplies and told me to go f.u.c.k myself. I don’t even know what to do. It’s complicated. I just wished that she didn’t decide like that the first time the food got rationed. We should’ve gone to your place by using the backroads not the highway so we wouldn’t be in this situation. I just got left there all alone now. I want to head to your place alone but I’m afraid that your place might not be standing since we don’t have a way to contact each other.” he said.
“I thought the camps are well stocked?” Jared asked.
“At first it was. But there are several thousand inside before. Now, we are about several hundred since some who went outside didn’t manage to get back.” Juan said solemnly.
“It came sooner than expected.” I said.
“What do you mean?” Juan asked.
“Do you really think that the DDR Camps are self-sustaining? Even if a helicopter would come and go a few times, the supplies they bring wouldn’t be enough.” I said.
“So, we just let some of them die?” Juan said.
“That’s the reality now. Even I can’t help them.” I replied.
“But I thought they have set the DDR camps for that? To help people, right? Even your compound, right?” Juan said.
“Yeah, that’s the point but this is more than our government or even the whole world could take. Everyone is severely unprepared. We have the same situation at my place and that’s why I started small unlike what they did to take everyone and play god. If we take everyone from that place we’ll be out of food in a week. I just took what I could first since we need some people, not all of them. We’ll decide on taking in more once we can sustain them and if we have more territory or land to produce more. But for now, we only do what we could. We help people but not by sacrificing everything that we have. We need to secure everything that we have and slowly increase what we could sustain. I’m not a saint. Let’s drop the subject for now since we’re close.” I said.
They kept silent and it’s a few more minutes before we reach the place. The road there is narrower than what we have in the highway and it runs on a few slopes but everything is cemented. This pickup is just the right size to use in this place rather than the 8-wheeler at home. I looked a the vicinity and this place has several walking around unlike our place since we have a group clearing them on a daily basis.
“Juan, you still have Jenny’s revolver?” I asked.
“No, they took it. Only the soldiers have guns. How’s Jenny by the way?” He asked.
“She’s doing good. She’s with Allan now.” I replied and he gives a look of surprise.
“How about the older lady and the kid? They’re doing good too I think.” Juan said innocently.