Chapter 1: The Way Things Are

Summer

The sun was up, but you could barely tell. It peaked through the wooden planks that barred the windows, and allowed for stripes of light to penetrate the apartment, but that was the only light we had. Electricity wasn't exactly a priority these days.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a good night sleep, and the rays of light burned my eyes slightly as I sat at the kitchen table, rubbing my face with my hands. When my vision cleared, I looked around for something to do. Joel was still asleep, and nothing would be going on until he woke up. That was a rule.

The apartment had seen better days. I could see the appeal it must've had all those years ago. Sometimes I wondered about the people who might've lived here, but I didn't think on it too long. They were all probably dead. The place hadn't had a deep cleaning in years, and it definitely wasn't going to get done with Joel living in it. Boxes filled with junk lined the walls, and stray bottles and cans scattered the floor, which had many years of dirt ground deep into it. The apartment was what was known as a floor plan before the Infection. The front door opened up to the living room, which only consisted of a couch and a broken television, directly to the right, with the kitchen set up against the far wall in front of the door. The table I sat at was beside the abandoned kitchen, and the room to Joel's room was also on the far wall beside the kitchen. There was only one bedroom in the apartment, so I'd used the couch as a bed last night. My aunt had asked me to keep an eye on Joel, so that's what I did.

Suddenly I got an idea of how to pass the time. I hopped up from my chair, and went into the kitchen, looking in all the nearly empty cabinets until I found what I was looking for in one of the ones under the sink. I grabbed one of the brown bottles of beer, and walked back over to the table, and sat back down, twisting off the bottle cap with ease. In this world, you needed a certain set of skills in order to survive, and I was pretty sure that twisting off the caps of alcohol bottles was a necessity. I took a swig of the bitter liquid, which tasted pretty okay despite being in the heat for so long. Air conditioning was a rare thing to come by, and it didn't help that it was Summer. I was sweating my ass off.

I took another swig of beer, and read the label on the bottle, Bud Lite. As I was reading, the door to Joel's room opened, and out he came. Joel was maybe in his early 50's, but he looked like he'd gone through Hell. His face was rough from scars and aging, and his dark hair hair, which went down his face into a mustache and bears was beginning to grey. His clothes, like everyone else's, were faded and caked with dirt, though they may have been nice at some point. Individuality didn't matter much; practicality was the most important thing. He was well over six feet, and his mouth always made a thin line. To top it off, he was mostly a man of few words.

"Mornin,' Joel," I said, taking a drink.

"What the hell are you doin' here?" he asked when he saw me, not offering so much as a 'good morning' in return, his Texas accent mingling with a voice rough and deep with age.

"Tess told me to watch you. So I am."

"Is that so?" he asked, rubbing his eyes with his hands, then looking up at me again.

"What the hell are you drinkin'?" he asked when he saw the bottle in my hand.

"Beer," I answered. "I never took you for a Lite man."

"Give me that," he said, taking hold of the bottle, and jerking it out of my hands.

"Hey!" I whined, "what the fuck?" I stood up to try and get the bottle back.

"You are way too young to be drinking," he said.

"I'm fifteen fucking years old, Joel, not that it makes a goddamn difference. I'm capable of handling a gun, I think I can handle a beer."

Joel looked at me, then at the bottle, then back at me, contemplating. Eventually, he sighed, and handed me the bottle. I sat back down in my seat, swigging, and Joel sat beside me. As he watched me, he finally asked, "don't you think it's a little early for it?"

"I'm surprised you could even tell with that watch of yours," I was referring to the watch Joel never took off. It was broken, and it'd been that way a long time. I once asked him why he wore it when it was broken, but he didn't want to talk about it. I didn't pester him about it, so he let me make the occasional joke. It was true, though. Time had never meant much to me. All I knew was night and day; when the sun went down, and when it came up. Telling time didn't make any sense to me.

"Fair enough," Joel answered, the smallest hint of a smile crossing his lips. "You know Tess is gonna kill you."

"I'll handle it," I said, taking another swig. "You know you talk in your sleep?"

"Oh really?" he asked.

"Yeah, you were jammering away all night. I couldn't really make out anything, but you definitely had things to say. You might wanna work on that."

"…I'll try."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. "Here we fucking go," I said, knowing damn well who was on the other side of the door.

Joel got up and opened the front door for Tess, my aunt, who walked through the door on purpose. Like Joel, she looked like she'd been through Hell as well. The top portion of her medium brown hair was tied back, and she wore a bandana to keep her bangs out of her face. Among the dirt on her face, I noticed she had a fresh scratch on her cheek, and like Joel's, her mouth always made a hard line, but unlike Joel, she always had words to say.

"The fuck happened to you?" I called to her. "You look busted."

"Yeah, well, I feel busted," she said, leaning against the table next to me.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, referring to the beer bottle.

"Beer."

"Why are you drinking it?"

"I was thirsty."

"Kara…" she started to say something, but she stopped. "You know what, I don't give a fuck. Probably about time you started learning how to handle your alcohol anyway."

"See, Joel, I told you I could handle it," I said.

"You got lucky," he said to me, standing in the opening to the kitchen.

Tess held her hand out to the bottle in my hand, and I gave it to her. She took a long drink of it, then said, "So I got some news for you."

"Where were you, Tess?" he asked, his tone angry. She froze for a moment, then answered, "West End District" before handing me the bottle again. I knew the two of them would probably fight, so I started to take quicker drinks of the beer, in the hopes that the buzz would hit me soon so I wouldn't have to listen.

"We had a drop to make," Tess finished.

"We," Joel said, walking over to the table with a rag in his hand, "we had a drop to make." He handed her the rag, and she said, "well, you wanted to be left alone, remember?"

"Then why'd you ask Kara to babysit me?"

"She needed sleep."

"Bullshit, Tess," I raised my voice, "I've been to dozens of drops. I could've gone with you. Besides I didn't get much sleep anyway."

"But you still got some," she answered, dabbing the scratch on her cheek with the cloth. "That's good enough for me."

She and Joel exchanged looks of irritation; not directed at me, but at each other. It was as if they'd gotten into a fight the night before, and knowing them, they probably had. Joel walked back toward the kitchen, saying, "so, let me take a guess. The whole deal went south, and the client made off with our pills. Is that about right?" Even in this world, there were other forms of currency, but here in Boston, pills were one of the few ones that mattered. Working on the Black Market was how we survived. It meant we came into contact with dangerous people, and we had to skirt around the law, not that it had any kind of weight to begin with. "We gotta do what it takes to survive," Tess would always tell me, "if that means doing illegal shit, then that's what we'll do." When I'd ask her why, she'd just shrug and say, "just the way things are."

Tess laughed at Joel's theory, "deal went off without a hitch. We have enough ration cards to last us a couple of months – easy." She stood up, took out small grey cards from her pocket, and threw them on the table. Ration cards were how we got food; how we legally got food. They, too, were one of the few methods of currency that mattered.

"You wanna explain this?" Joel asked, motioning to his face in the same area where the scratch was on her face.

Tess shook her head, "I was on my way back here, and I got jumped by these two assholes, alright?"

"Holy fuck," I sighed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She dabbed her cheek with the cloth again, and Joel walked closer to her as she spoke. "They got in a few good hits, but…" she saw Joel put his hands on his hips, and begin to pace. "Look, I managed."

Joel sighed, "gimme that," and took the rag out of her hand. He took the beer bottle from me, and wet one of the edges of the rag with some beer before dabbing at Tess's cheek. "are these assholes still with us?"

"That's funny," Tess answered, winching at the sting of alcohol on her scratch. Tess was certainly not a weakling. She was an expert with a gun, and she could easily handle herself in a fist fight. She knew what it was like to live in the world before the Infection; she adapted well to the new world.

"Did you at least find out who they were?" Joel asked as Tess took hold of his arm and jerked it away from her face.

"Yeah, look," Tess said. "They were a couple of nobodies. They don't matter. What matters is that Robert fucking sent them."

Joel and I both looked at her in disbelief. "Fuck me," I said under my breath as I put down the beer bottle, and rubbed my face.

"Our Robert?" Joel asked.

Tess nodded, "he knows that we're after him."

Joel walked back into the kitchen with the rag, and I downed a good majority of the beer in the bottle. I could feel a buzz starting to kick in.

"He figures that he's gonna get us first," Tess finished.

"That son of a bitch, he's smart," Joel threw the rag onto the counter, and placed his hand on his chin in thought. I stood up from the table and went over to the counter where Joel was standing. Tess followed.

"What do you suggest we do?" I asked generally to either one of them.

"He's not smart enough," she said confidently. "I know where he's hiding." A vengeful smile crossed her face.

"No fucking way," I said in disbelief.

"Yes fucking way."

"Like Hell you do, Tess," Joel gave her a stern look, crossing his arms.

"Old warehouse in Area 5," she answered smugly, walking over to the one window in the room that had shades instead of wooden boards. "Can't say for how long, though." She concluded.

"Well, I'm ready now," Joel said.

"Me too," I said.

"Yeah, I can do now," Tess said, as the three of us started to head out the door.

"Wait," I called right before I left the apartment, quickly going back to grab my 6mm handgun off the couch, and putting it in the back of my pants.