3 The Safe House

Cara's mind was completely blank until she moved her head ever so slightly and was rewarded with sunlight on the back of her eyelids. Scrunching up her face in discomfort, she pulled the blanket over her head. It took a few more seconds for her to wake up and when she did, her first thought was 'where did I get a blanket?' followed by, 'where am I?'

Holding completely still while submerged under the comforter, she listened without making a sound. She didn't know if it was safe to show herself, and would have a hard time avoiding zombies if they saw her emerge from hiding, not that a blanket was much of a barrier to begin with. Her ears didn't pick up on any snarling or bemoaning, but that didn't mean it was quiet. Wherever she was, she could definitely hear human voices speaking not far off. But whose?

The last thing she remembered was narrowly escaping her very own death-day party in the woods. It had been quite the turnout too. But then what? The rest seemed to be a blur. Assuming that whoever was talking was doing so from another room, Cara snapped the blanket down to her sides. The sunlight that had abused her eyelids earlier peaked at her again through slender gaps in an otherwise boarded up window.

"You're new," someone said, and this voice was a lot closer than the ones she heard before. Cara turned to face its owner and was caught off guard by what she saw. There were two other women in the room, one reading a book and the other starring back at her. Both were sitting on beds, of which this room had too many. They were crammed together in the cramped room despite most being unoccupied, leaving hardly any floorspace available to walk on. Cara herself was also laying in a bed wedged in the farthest corner from the door. Seeing her eyes fixed on the door, the woman spoke again. "You're probably looking for Ethan."

"Ethan?" Cara asked. The woman nodded.

"Follow me, I'll help you find him." She offered as she popped off her bed and motioned toward the door. Cara didn't know who this Ethan was, but she followed anyway. "I'm Mel, by the way." the woman introduced herself. Mel was shorter than Cara with tan skin and the silkiest hair Cara had ever seen. The long black tresses bounced, actually bounced like in a shampoo commercial as she led the way.

"I'm Cara," Cara reciprocated, her voice coming out kind of raspy. She rubbed her throat and thats when she felt the bandage on her neck. She had gotten roughed up pretty badly yesterday and imagined just how awful she looked compared to her new acquaintance.

The bedroom led out to a short hallway that ended at the top of some stairs. So she was on the second floor then; the second floor of a house she'd never been in before, which heightened her nerves. As they made their way down to the first floor, her nervousness increased from the cacophony of thoughts stacking dozens of worst-case-scenarios on top of each other. 'What if the door was left open, what if the zombies got in, what if there are still vampires lurking around, what if these people are infected...?'

Turning the corner at the base of the steps led them into the kitchen where she saw two men exchanging weapons while a third sat at the table with a pen and pad. In this room all the windows were boarded up too. Her eyes zeroed in on the guns. Guns used to make her feel uneasy and unsafe. Now that guns were the difference between surviving and going extinct, they filled her with a sense of relief. The man receiving the weapons holstered a 9mm handgun, and racked back the slide on the M16 before slipping into the shoulder sling and leaving the room. Was this some kind of military camp? She didn't think so from the look of them, but they were well armed.

"Look what I found this morning," Mel said to the man with the pen. He looked up from his writing and gave a tired smile. He was a fairly tall man, though underweight, with dark circles under his eyes, a complexion that matched Mel's, and shoulder-length shaggy black hair. He looked tired and hungry. 'If anyone in this room is infected,' Cara thought, 'it's probably him.' She responded to his smile with a frown. His expression fell into a worried line.

"I hope you are feeling better, I can take another look at that mark on your neck, make sure it isn't getting infected." Mel gave Ethan a weighted look and he shook his head. Cara didn't know what the nonverbal communication meant, but as for her neck... she probably did need to be careful and keep it clean until it healed. It was trivial at this point, but she wondered if it would leave a scar.

When she said nothing, Ethan continued talking. "Mel can you give miss...."

"Cara," Mel supplied and he absently wrote her name down in his notes.

"...Cara a towel and show her to the bathroom so she can shower and get cleaned up? We should have some unused tooth brushes too if you wouldn't mind giving her one."

Cara's eyes lit up. They had a working shower? This house had electricity? 'Then why are they using candles instead of turning the lights on?' She wondered but the thought evaporated from her mind and was replaced by a more exciting thought. She could have a real shower, wash her hair, and clean all the dirt and blood off her body. The idea alone was ecstasy, she couldn't wait for the real thing. Not wanting to waste time, she thanked Ethan and followed Mel out of the kitchen.

They passed by a few other rooms to get to the laundry room where clean towels hung indoors on a DIY clothes line. From there they stopped in what might have once been a den turned storage room. Mel was in there for a while digging through boxes and plastic tubs until she found what she was looking for. Handing Cara an unpackaged tooth brush, she led her once more through the house until they reached the bathroom. Cara turned to face Mel once inside the door and was just about to say thanks when Mel squeezed her way into the room too.

Confused, Cara looked at her and asked, "Is there something else?"

"Soap and shampoo bottles are already in the shower," Mel hitched her thumb toward said shower but still didn't leave the room. Instead she looked like she was bracing herself for a fight and that made the tension in the room increased instantly. 'What the hell was going on?' When Cara raised an eyebrow Mel continued,"you might want to shut the door for this part."

Cara didn't like the sound of that, especially the non-negotiable tone she said it in. "...What part?"