“Hey honey!” Sarah greeted James. “Whatcha get me?”
“Well I got a surprise today for you, a little roast lamb and some chardonnay”
“Really?” asked Sarah with unbelief.
“Nah just some spam, canned water chesnuts and chunky soup”.
“Ah my favorite!” assured Sarah.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Either way we got some good eats, so why don’t you let us in and we can have a fancy dinner”.
Sarah opened the door wide enough for both of the men to carry in their full bags. The safe house was such a comfort to Andrew and the survivors. It was crudely decorated with things that had been found on scavenging trips and yet it was still a place he could call home for now. There was a couch in the corner that was once possibly some sort of leather, it faced a television set and an old DVD player. Without people there hadn’t been any cable or news broadcasts in years but they did have an unending supply of DVDs that had been released before the “Event”. Throughout the safe house were old make shift beds, mostly old mattresses and blankets. Without the means of running water it was near impossible to wash the sheets and clothing. They did what they could in puddles or ponds with detergent they had picked up from different stores they looted.
Every so often Andrew would make an attempt to travel to an area in Cleveland that he had never been to before. He would go during the day time for maximum lighting and less surprise, sometimes he would travel on foot and be gone for hours other times he would hotwire an abandoned car that still had fuel in the gas tank. It was difficult to drive now since most cars had been left at a stand still littering the roads and sidewalks of the suburbs and city. When the Event first happened many people took to the roads trying to make their way out of the cities and into the rural areas. The problem was that everyone seemed to have the same idea and many of the highways and streets bottlenecked with vehicles. The drivers just up and decided to begin walking. Some would be with families while others were attempting to regroup with family members. What the survivors didn’t know at the time was that without their vehicles they were susceptible to attacks from then-random walkers.
The rest of the safe house was used to store the equipment and food they had acquired while out on their missions. They had an area for non-perishable food as well as cleaning supplies and toiletries. Andrew had found a sporting goods store that sold guns and he and James used a truck to haul a gun locker into the safe house. They cleaned the store of all of it’s shotguns, hunting rifles and handguns, about twenty five to be exact. They also had plenty of ammunition, enough to fill seven 3 foot by 3 foot boxes. Before the Event Andrew did not have much experience with guns but he had now grown accustomed to them in the past 3 years. For Andrew it was more fun to successfully kill a walker by using some sort of common variety household item. Anything could be made into a weapon and Andrew had learned how to modify them. He once killed a walker with a frying pan, using it to bludgeon the undead. He took some satisfaction with his inventive ways to kill walkers and had plenty of experience in the art form.
“Well it’s about time you’re back”, said Robert concerned. “Each of your outings take longer than the last and we never know if we are going to see you again”. “We would have been back sooner had James not wanted to talk about Jason the whole time”, retorted Andrew with a disconcerting shrug. “You know Andrew, the night that Norma and I met you we heard Jason on the radio for just a short second”. “You don’t know if that was Jason or not Robert, it could have very likely been a military broadcast left over from after the Event. There were tons of those on all frequencies for a long time”. Andrew walked over to the cabinets where the canned goods were stored and started to unload his findings. “This one was different, the voice didn’t sound military. It said something about being beautiful or something along those lines. You know the military wouldn’t be saying things like “beautiful””.
Robert was convinced that he was right about hearing Jason on the radio. For months the group of six had seen placards and graffiti on random buildings alluding to the existence of a man named Jason. Sarah began to tell Mark bedtime stories of a man named Jason who was going to bring everything back to normal. Before she and Mark had met up with the group she too had heard radio broadcasts from a group of survivors led by Jason who were out west. James was convinced that Jason was in fact Dr. Jason Cross who was one of the leading scientists working on finding a cure for the Syrafax Indigo virus shortly after the Event. No one had ever been able to confirm who Jason was or why there were signs everywhere about him but they all had hope that Jason was where they needed to be, all except for Andrew.
“Regardless of who this Jason fellow is, or if he even exists it doesn’t matter because he isn’t here right now, and to be totally honest I am getting a little tired of all the fairy tales being told. Our focus needs to be on us and our survival if we are ever going to get anywhere. Now if anyone else has anything to say about Jason, say it now or let’s just drop it”. Everyone in the safe house was silent, they knew that Andrew didn’t get mad easily and he was clearly irritated by this point. Norma stood up from her chair and faced Andrew. “Thank you so much for bringing us food Andrew, and you too James. Now if you don’t mind I would like to go ahead and prepare something for us to eat. Can we all agree on that?” Everyone nodded in concession.
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