The Ones Who Lived

by Ashley Nemer

  Jody was still in the room and now looking at her friend in a puzzled expression. "I feel like I am missing something Natalie."

  "Because you are. She's a witch too." Brody said and stormed off.

  "You're what? No way! How have I known you forever and I never knew that?"

  Natalie shrugged her shoulders, "Just because I am not talking about it with people like Brody and Sunny do doesn't mean anything. I just don't want everyone making a big deal out of it."

  "What can you do?" Jody's sudden skepticism had seemed to vanish, and she was now engrossed in her friends abilities.

  "I can see the future, not like Sunny in dreams but when I touch people or objects." Natalie shrugged her shoulders, "It's really no big deal, and it doesn't happen a lot."

  "You sound like that show Charmed that used to be on television." Jody started looking at her friend oddly.

  "See that look right there that's why I never told you, I didn't want any looks!"

  Jody argued, "I'm not giving you a look!"

  "Yes, you are, I can feel it all about you, it's grazing all over my aura and I don't like it! Stop it now!"

  Jody rolled her eyes, "I'm going to tell you like Sunny told Brody, you gotta tell them."

  "Eventually but just not yet, I'm keeping this secret close to the chest so that means you can't tell either."

  Jody lifted her right hand up into the air and held up three fingers, "Scouts honor" and then walked out of the room.

  Natalie didn't like that her secret was now getting out. She had kept it to herself for so long and then only to Brody, that's how she wanted it to stay. But the moment she had shook John's hand the day they met, she knew it would eventually change and her secret would be out. The image she got in her head the moment they touched would haunt her forever. She saw Brody laying in her arms, blood dripping down his forehead, she could feel the agony inside of her. She wasn't sure at the time what that image meant. She almost didn't follow John and Anthony to this compound, but she had known in her bones that was meant to happen.

  One day her and John would fulfill the other premonition that she had about him, but she wasn't ready to face that either. She wasn't looking for romance, she didn't want any partners or any complications. Her life was good the way it was, and she didn't like change.

  But she knew change would happen soon enough, she hadn't yet found a way to postpone it. But what she really needed to do, was change the future. She hoped that by not being with John what she saw about Brody would change as well.

  If she never took a lover, she would always be there to protect her brother.

  "SAM, ANTHONY, YOU TWO in here?" Amelia called out as her and Sunny walked into their home.

  "Yep we are in the storage room." Sam yelled.

  "How did it go" Anthony asked as he walked into the hallway to greet his sister and pseudo sister Sunny.

  With a shrug Amelia observed, "I mean, it went well."

  "Not that last part, that was weird." Sunny looked up at Amelia, "I know you know what I mean."

  Amelia nodded her head, "Yeah Natalie is def up to something. It was strange. But Brody! Brody can shield it was super cool."

  Sam opened his arms as he walked into the hallway to join all of them and Amelia walked right into them. She gave him a soft kiss on his lips and he caressed the small of her back. "Hey you," he whispered just for her to hear. "I missed you."

  Amelia let her smile widen and she gave him a longer kiss this time and whispered back, "I missed you more."

  "Excuse me love birds, but we have official business to discuss." Anthony said.

  "You will have to ignore them, they are like this all the time." Sunny rolled her eyes as she made the obvious statement.

  "I think I know what's going on with Natalie," Amelia looked proud of herself. "I think she is a witch too. I don't know how to prove it, but she seemed very sure that Sunny and Brody were going to end up involved with one another. She also seemed like she was faking shock and surprise when we told her about Sunny. She was way to understanding."

  "Was anyone else there?" Anthony asked.

  "Jody was, and she didn't believe me at all." Sunny supplied.

  "Exactly Jody was totally skeptical and wanted hard core proof. Natalie on the other had was all chill about it. I'm telling you, she is a witch too. It's like a witch hunt, who can find the most first."

  Sam scrunched his face up at his wife's last comment, "I don't know if I would put it like that, it sounds like kinda Salemish if you say it like that. Not a good thing. We're not gonna hunt them down and kill them."

  "You know what I mean Sam. I'm telling you something is amiss over there and I am going to find out what it is."

  Anthony shook his head, "Sam you better control your woman because we have more important things to do than monitor her little bag of crazy ideas."

  "Hey, she was your sister, you can control her too." Sam retorted.

  "She's still my sister, but you claimed her that day you said, 'I Do'."

  "Guys I am kinda standing right here, and I can control myself." Amelia said.

  Sunny was the first to laugh and then they all let out a few chuckles. "I'll be good I promise." Amelia said.

  "Just so long as we prepare for whatever is coming up. Sunny's dream seems very real and now that we know we have two, maybe three witches at least in the community it makes me really believe her dreams." Sam said.

  Anthony piggybacked on Sam's comments by saying, "Today was really successful with John. The three of us went out and collected our first round of ammunition and guns. Hopefully over the week we will be able to acquire more. We're going to make this place a fortress."

  "Let me guess, like The Walking Dead" Sunny rolled her eyes as she said it.

  "Exactly, but better because we saw where they went wrong." Sam said proudly.

  "Oh boy, this is going to be a long week." Amelia teased.

  "It will be, so we will all need sleep and food. We can hold off telling anyone else for a day so you two can work on food supplies for our two families and then the store. Oh yeah, I need underwear, sis can you get me some please?"

  "Anthony, I believe you have a little woman at home to do those tasks." Amelia teased her brother.

  "I do, but she told me to do it so now I am asking you."

  Amelia rolled her eyes and waved her hand off at her brother, "You're so lazy, and sure I will get you your boxers for the month. Now I am going to go take a bath, no one mess with the water supply I am sticky and need to relax."

  After her departure from the family she walked up the stairs alone and had a feeling in her stomach, something was going to happen, and soon.

  Chapter Fifteen- You're Never Too Prepared

  JOHN AND SAM HAD SPENT the last couple days walking around their small part of Florida looking for guns. Thankfully they had found an Academy that had a decent stock of hand guns and ammunition still intact. They also picked up some crossbows and regular compound bows. They hadn't figured out quite how to make the arrows work in sizing, but they gathered as many as they could to deal with that at a later date.

  Up to this point they had acquired one hundred hand guns, twenty-six shot guns and seven rifles. They were in desperate need of target practice though since only a couple people had ever been on a hunt before. They made mandatory shooting practice a daily thing for one hour a day for each person over the age of twelve. They practiced with the bows and the guns.

  Sam had been in charge of designing a layout for watchmen and where they were to be stationed, along with some sort of signaling mechanism to make sure that no one caught them off guard. They had picked up some of the hand radios and batteries. Everyone was pleased to discover that they still worked. There were ones with a two-mile radius and a five-mile radius. That's how they determined where to put the look outs.

  Over the past year they had accumulated more people than just the handful the group started out with. Of the individuals over twelve they had twe
nty-one. The usual suspects were the team leaders. Anthony, Sam, John and Natalie each had a team of two other people. That meant twelve people were on lookout duty at any given time. They had eight hour shifts and that was now their job instead of tilling the gardens or going out scouting for supplies.

  One older teen, she was sixteen, her name Garcia, stayed out of the rotation. Amelia and Sarah thought it would be important, especially for the young kids, to maintain a school house. They turned one home into a school and Garcia taught classes. Each age group had a different schedule for schooling. Anyone under the age of twelve was expected to attend with no exceptions. Sarah insisted that this would allow for their world to keep on living.

  Even if what they were teaching was limited to the current ‘elders’ knowledge base. There was a lot of making it up as they went along, eventually, once life had settled down, each person on the lookout team would teach a class. As a group they all recognized that certain people could specialize in specific fields. Anthony insisted that they take advantage of this.

  Amelia taught crop harvesting and storage. She specialized on the right months to plant crops, how to rotate harvests by location and most important, how to keep it from spoiling throughout the year. Natalie had a session on mechanics. They all learned how to take apart a specific part of a vehicle and put it back together. All the basics that were needed when changing oil and basic skills to maintain their construction equipment.

  Jody’s class was required by everyone, she conducted basic first aid and CPR. She had been certified by Red Cross only a month before the world took a dive into the apocalypse. She even found a supply store with the dummy bodies for practice.

  Sunny wasn’t a fan of school, she felt it was beneath her. There was a struggle to get her to participate but eventually peer pressure wore her out. Now she was learning all about fractions and the proper way to formulate sentences.

  Each of these classes lasted for two hours a day for an eight week rotation. That way everyone got the opportunity to learn something new and gave the other instructors a break for most of the year when it came to creating lessons.

  Amelia and Sarah were in charge of the supplies and they always went out together, never separate. Jody headed up the medical portions of things, that left five other people in charge of the farming. It wasn't ideal but it had to be done like this. They were worried about an attack and this was the only way to ensure everyone was prepared.

  Because of how important it was to make sure everyone stayed in communication they had the team leaders rotating on which ones were in charge of the communications while others were out. Each leader would work two eight hour shifts a day with alternating days off with just one shift. It sucked, they all hated it. But you could never be too prepared Anthony kept saying.

  Things took a few weeks to get everything settled in with regards to the schedules, but once they had a rhythm, everyone discovered that it almost felt natural. The little community had grown into a well-oiled family. They all had their parts and trust was beginning to really flourish.

  The younger kids had their parts too. They were helping to weed the gardens, fold clothing, and stacking supplies. No one went on without contributing something. They were all willing and ready to help.

  Amelia and Sunny had made their way through each of the families in their community. Outside of Sunny, Brody and potentially Natalie they had found two other people with magical powers. One nineteen-year-old and one younger child. John had been skeptic at first with all of the talk about magic, after seeing their little army of magical people start to form, it was hard to deny the truth that was staring them right in the face.

  "Hey man what's got your mind so wrapped up?" Sam asked John as they were preparing to go out on their next scavenging mission.

  "Just thinking about how much has changed in the last two months. We went from an easy community to one that is preparing for battle. Just seems weird."

  Sam nodded his head in agreement, "Yeah, but something about what we have now just feels right, like in my gut feels right."

  "Sarah had said the same thing the other day. Maybe the structure? You know how people love consistency."

  John grinned, "Yeah, you may be onto something there, good point." He was putting together his bag of supplies and looked up at Sam, "You know we need to find the horses or some other form of transportation right?"

  Sam smiled, "What the ten speeds aren't working for you anymore?"

  That made John laugh, "Yeah, man, but you know how little we can actually do with a bike."

  "Amelia laughs every time, she says we need to go build a horse drawn carriage from the eighteen hundreds. Who knew in the year twenty eighteen we would need to go back in time and use basic technology over the modern tech we grew up on?"

  "I guess, Sam, that's what makes this the end of the world, we're digressing." John smirked to himself at the joke he made.

  "I was looking at a map this morning, one I found at one of the gas stations. There is a patch of land that didn't have any roads along it. I don't think it has buildings either. I wanted to check it out and see if maybe we could be lucky and find livestock." Sam zipped his supply bag up and hoisted it on his shoulder.

  "Sure, whatever you want to try I'm game for." John followed suit hoisting his bag onto his back. "Just so long as I am home for dinner. Sarah and Anthony are having me over and I want to give him hell, you know the big brother stuff before they get married."

  Sam let out a small laugh, "Man go easy on him, that stuff is the worst. I remember how he raked me through the coals and I've grown up with him! It's torture. One day you will see how it is."

  "I don't see how I'm not even interested in anyone right now. Not like I have a lot of options either." John walked over to look at his bicycle, he started to check the tires for air.

  "What about Natalie?"

  "What about her?" John looked in the opposite direction of Sam.

  "You seem to be avoiding the topic here John."

  "So, let's get going. No need to gossip."

  Sam's right eyebrow quirked upward questioning his friend, "Whatever you say man, but I think there is clearly a story to tell."

  "Nope no story. Come on." Sam began walking towards the gate while pushing his bicycle, "We do really need to find another form of transportation."

  "That's the goal man, come on."

  The two of them rode out of the safety of their compound on their bicycles heading west. Sam lead the way hoping that the bit of land he found would actually work for them. He had estimated that the land was about ten miles out of town and they were five miles from the town border. About an hour and a half after they left the compound the two of them found the plot that Sam had identified.

  It was more than they could have hoped for, it was an abandoned dairy farm. There were cows, calves and horses roaming around in the pasture. There were chickens from the sounds they were hearing, and Sam knew in his gut he would find more once they started to explore.

  "I can't believe you actually found something." John said as he set his bicycle up against one of the wooden posts outside of the barn.

  "No kidding I mean what were the odds?" Sam was looking around the farm trying to take in what all he saw.

  "Look there are four horses, four Sam. Can you imagine what we could do with that!"

  Sam was smiling ear to ear, all he could think about was how Amelia would tease him about building the wagon next. "Yeah we really can do something with this. Let's hope we can figure out how to saddle them and get them back home."

  "Hey maybe they have the buggy your wife is talking about." John teased.

  "God could I be so lucky!" Sam joked.

  The two of them spent the next hour going through the farm looking through the barn supplies for the livestock. It was obvious no one had been tending to things since the feed was still well stocked and unused. The previous owners did have a buggy of sorts, but it wasn't the kind that Amelia kept teasing about
. But it would do; and he was fairly certain that the girls would be able to turn it into the kind of buggy from the game Oregon Trail.

  "Where are we going to keep all of these animals?" John asked.

  "I think we could house them in the south west part of our neighborhood, you know opposite where the gardens are."

  "It isn't like our neighborhood is equipped honestly to have livestock. We have the land size just, a lot of concrete. These animals are going to need grass." John was looking through all of the supplies and counting out different sections of stuff.

  "Let's take the horses. If the scouts each rode a horse then they could graze out on their trails and rides which would cut back on the need for them to do it at home, yeah?"

  "Okay Sam that isn't a bad idea. What about the cows?"

  They looked at each other for a few minutes while John watched Sam process through his thoughts.

  "I think the key is going to be how many cows are we going to take back with us?"

  "I think we need at least what three?" John said.

  "So, go with me on this, what if we take three neighboring houses and remove the fencing from the inside parts of the back yard and give them that grass to roam on. At least for now."

  John nodded his head a few times and then pointed to the stall behind Sam. "And what about that big guy?"

  Sam turned around and shrugged, "I don't know about the bull yet. We can't take him with us today so maybe we could give that project to Anthony to work on. We can radio back home when we are five miles out and tell them what we're bringing. Give them a chance maybe to work on removing those fences."

  "Well this is a good start. And what about the chickens, I'm thinking we could fence in one of the front yards and build a coop with the wood from the back yards." John had started walking towards the coop. "And in the meantime," John picked up a basket sitting around and started filling it with eggs. "We're having scrambled eggs for breakfast at my house tomorrow," he was grinning ear to ear at the thought of something new to eat that wasn't fruit.