Gary

10:18 AM

Arms crossed, and with an unaware smile on his face, Gary looked ahead.

"These boys are the best I found," Elmer said, motioning his arm to the garbage trucks. Gary, as head of the cleanup crew, had been looking for awhile, now, for a more efficient way of body disposal. At the moment, him and his crew located a corpse, dug a hole next to it, lowered the body into the hole, and covered it up. This process worked, but it was very slow.

Now, they would begin to try a new method. Just outside of Royal Woods was a few acres of field. There, one team would dig large, square holes. Six feet deep and six feet wide. While they worked, a second team would go around the town, piling corpses into the trucks. Once they were full, the garbage trucks would be driven to the hole site, where the bodies would be dumped and buried.

The trucks were garbage trucks. Part of Gary felt bad for ordering corpses to be put into garbage trucks like trash. They were human bodies, after all, and deserved more dignity.

The more logical part of Gary, however, knew that if the corpses continued to be buried one by one, it would be a terribly inefficient process, and before long, if it rained, the bodies could become a health issue. It had to be done this way.

"You did well," Gary said. "Now, we can probably clean up the whole town before Christmas."

Elmer Clump, Gary had heard, was one of the first people to come into town, along with Lee Atticus and Patrick Bateman.

"B-Bateman will be pleased," Elmer said quickly.

"Uhh… yeah, I guess."

There was something… off about Elmer, Gary thought. Then again, not everyone was exactly normal after Captain Trips hit. People lost family, friends, and entire communities. Life as they knew it previously was over, and everyone in Royal Woods had been thrust into a new, alien, fighting world. With all of this, some people were bound to be a bit shaken.

Shrugging it off, Gary smiled. "Thanks for these trucks. I'll put them to good use."

Elmer nodded quickly and scurried off.

The rest of the morning went by peacefully for Elmer (with only a couple of hundred people living in town, how could it not?). He went home, made himself some coffee, had a couple of donuts, and read. Recently, he had been reading a lot of nonfiction, mostly nonfiction about bodies. It was a morbid subject, but Patrick made him the head of the cleanup crew. The biggest job of the cleanup crew, of course, was to remove all of the bodies from the streets of Royal Woods.

There was a lot to consider when disposing of the dead. It was better to be safe than sorry, because if someone got sick from handling a corpse improperly… there was a change that they could die. There were no doctors in town at the moment, after all.

He didn't like to talk about his past much (nobody did… not so soon after the flu), but Gary had three sons back at his home in Virginia. Watching his wife and three children all die, one by one… he didn't think he could handle witnessing any more death.

Not for a long, long time.

Lola

9:37 PM

It was October 31st. Halloween. Normally, this would call for costumes, candy, and a long, fun night of trick or treating.

Not tonight, though. In fact, probably not ever again. Lola knew that Captain Trips had changed the way the world worked. The old way of life was gone, erased permanently. Halloween, along with pretty much every other annual tradition, would likely never be able to happen again. Never again would she be able to go trick or treating.

For the past couple of weeks, with no school to go to, Lola had spent her entire days coloring, having tea parties, playing with her younger sisters, and watching recorded cartoons on the television. Lincoln had even allowed everyone to play outside again now that all of the bodies on their street were gone. They had to stay in the front and back yards, though.

If Lola had been told that this would soon become her life before the plague, she would have been ecstatic. It sounded like so much fun, after all.

It got old quick, though. She was bored. She missed her pageants. She missed her friends. She even missed going to school!

It was so unfair. Just because some idiot that worked at a research center made a mistake, most people in the world had to die? Life had to change completely for everyone? If she ever found the person responsible, she'd strangle him.

It had been hard on Lola for the past few weeks, but she tried to stay positive. Lisa was always reminding her how lucky she was to have not only survived, but have had all of her siblings survive, too. Everyone currently living in Royal Woods expect for the Loud family had lost all of their family members. They were lucky if they even have had a friend survive Captain Trips.

Lola may have had lost all her friends, but she still had family. Nobody else could say that.

Presently, she sighed and looked out of the living room window. It was becoming nighttime. Darkness began to press against the window.

The front door opened, and Leni poked her head in.

"Lisa! Lola! Lana! Lucy!" she called. "Come down here! I have a surprise."

Curious, Lola went to Leni. Lana came from the kitchen, and Lisa and Lucy came down from upstairs.

Lana bounced up and down on her feet, excited. "What's the surprise?"

Leni smiled. "It's Halloween, right?"

"Yeah," Lucy said, "why?"

"Well, why aren't you out trick or treating?"

Lola frowned. Leni was sweet as could be, but sometimes, her mind wandered… this was one of those times. Had she forgotten that most people on earth had just died not less than a month ago? Halloween was canceled. Permanently.

"Uh, Leni…" Lisa said. "Don't… don't you remember?"

She gave an innocent expression of confusion. "Remember what?"

"Captain Trips," Lisa said quickly. It was difficult for her to mention the name of the flu, so she got it over with quickly.

Leni laughed. "Oh, that doesn't matter! I talked to the people in town. They all grabbed some candy from the stores around town. They're waiting for you guys. Go upstairs and get on your costumes!"

"Y-You mean, you organized Halloween again?"

Leni nodded.

The four children's mouths curled upward in a goofy smile.

"What are you waiting for? You can't trick or treat without a costume, you know. Go upstairs and get ready!"

Lincoln

9:48 PM

Lincoln smiled as, from the back of the garbage truck, he passed and saw his little sisters dressed up in their Halloween costumes.

He knew about Leni's plan to organize Halloween this year in spite of Captain Trips, and he was honestly impressed. Leni could be a ditz sometimes, but she really did care about the family, and always stayed positive.

Lincoln would have gone with them, but only little kids go trick or treating, and he wasn't a little kid anymore. Not after Captain Trips. He had to step up to the plate and take some responsibility. With the Loud parents gone, and with Royal Woods in a fragile state, Lincoln had to pitch in in any way he could. That's why he joined the cleanup crew. That's why, instead of going around town and collecting candy right now, he was cleaning up bodies.

He was only eleven, but Lincoln had gotten used to seeing a dead person. It wasn't so bad once you got used to it. A few weeks ago, when he was walking to an arcade and saw a body under a tree, he almost threw up. He persevered, though, and with the help of Gary, buried it.

Now, he was burying dozens of bodies a day. He was the youngest person on the cleanup crew, but he worked hard. Gary, the main organizer and leader of the crew, had suggested to Lincoln that he take easier jobs, like sweeping up glass and debris around the streets of Royal Woods.

He refused, however. He needed to toughen up. For his family.

For his parents, too.

Lincoln felt bad everything he thought of his parents. They were likely outside of Royal Woods. There were a couple of hundred people living in town, now, and chances are, they'd be found by now. Why, though, would they leave town in the first place? God might know, but Lincoln Loud did not. It made no sense.

The truck screeched to a stop as Gary put on the brakes. Lincoln hopped down from off of the back of the garbage truck and began to get to work.

Cleaning up bodies was a meticulous process. If done improperly, there could be health issues. At all times when on the job, Lincoln wore a medical mask. It was blue, and it went over his mouth, held by a string that went around his head and behind his ears.

Once he found a corpse, he would first straighten it out. The arms needed to be at the body's side, and the legs needed to point downward. This way, it would fit into a bag once Lincoln was ready to stuff it. The bag was thrown into the back of the garbage truck, and this continued until the load was full. Next, the truck was driven to one of the holes that other members of the cleanup crew were digging right outside of the town. Once these holes were full, they were covered back up with dirt. Rinse and repeat until Royal Woods was clean.

When this new cleanup process was introduced, Lincoln was unsure if it was right. After all, shouldn't the dead be buried more respectfully? The bodies were being treated like big hunks of trash, not things that were previously human beings.

Lincoln had voiced his concern with Gary. Gary had agreed that the dead deserved better, but still, he insisted that it had to be done this way. If they took their time to bury the bodies the proper way, it would rain before the town could be cleaned up, and people would get sick. It wasn't like you could just go down to the clinic to get checked out by a doctor whenever you want, after all. Those days were over. Even a broken leg could be fatal.

Reluctantly, Lincoln agreed with Gary. This is how it had to be done.

Hopefully, doctors would come into town soon. Not only that, but Royal Woods was in desperate need of electricians, farmers, and carpenters… lots of different people with specific skill sets, in short.

Thankfully, Lisa was smart. Right now, she was working on getting the Royal Woods broadcasting station back up and running again. That way, the town could communicate with people hundreds of miles away. Once that happened, lots of new people would come. If Lisa's plan worked, in a few months, Royal Woods likely would have just as many residents as it did before Captain Trips. Hell, maybe more. In fact, there might be too many people for the town to handle at one point down the road.

They'd have to move into the surrounding towns, Lincoln supposed. Not Detroit, though. The city just had too many bodies… all rotting in the hot sun…

Maybe, in a few years, when the town had a cleanup crew of thousands of people, they could clear out Detroit. Until then, though, Lincoln was fine with staying in Royal Woods.

"Good job, Link," said Gary, patting Lincoln on the back. He'd bagged up the first body that night. Gary picked it up and threw it in the back of the truck.

There would be many more bodies to clean before Lincoln could go home. If he worked hard, though, the town would be clean before long.

It's been awhile since I updated this story (about a month and a half), and that's because of a few reasons. Primarily, though, it was because I uploaded the first chapter of a new story, Singled Out, and it received a lot of attention. Life As We Know It has been the most fun for me to write out of anything I've ever uploaded to , and I've released a new chapter every 2 or 3 days before I took a break for it. When Singled Out grew a big following, however, I decided to focus on that since a lot more people were reading it, despite how much fun I've had with this one.

I want to get back into writing this story, and I have some pretty big things planned, but I'd like input before I commit to it. Are you guys enjoying this story? Do you want more?