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Chapter 77


I fucking hate this.

You remember a few months before, back when Nick’s seizures were the problem of the moment? I thought he was being a pussy when he was ranting about feeling useless cause of that. I felt that there was no place to bitch, since it was a damn fluke we were even alive to begin with. I remember telling him he needed to suck it up and just deal with it until the others realized they were overreacting.

Now, I’m a fucking gimp due to my fucked up leg… and I’m wishing the blonde shithead was back so I can tell him I get it. I get why he was so damn jaded. Why I’m so fucking jaded right now.

My leg is hurting like a bitch. The pain meds don’t do shit but fuck with my head, so I’m not taking them. So I deal with the pain, constantly.

I can’t do anything. I can’t help. I can’t keep everyone safe. That’s what I did. And now I can’t. I’m a worse liability than Howie. I went from knowing my place, back to being a fucking waste. Out on the edge of our little “society” all over again.

Do you know how that feels?

You know what that does to me?

I fucking hate this.

I fucking hate myself.



Monday, October 8, 2012
Week Twenty-Five

AJ sat there, staring up at the ceiling of the place he now thought of as home. All he could hear was the steady ticking from the wall clock nearby – one that Kayleigh had picked out for the place before she had died. It seemed to slow down the day, cause it to drag on even more so than it already had been.

He could turn on the TV to put in a DVD, but he felt like he’d watched every movie he could get his hands on. Besides, it was a waste of the precious electricity the generators provided, as Jo was quick to remind him. Howie was more understanding; he had spent a lot of time lying around in hospital beds as a kid and knew how boring it could be.

AJ could read a book, but that sort of thing didn’t give him contentment anymore, the way it once had. He wanted to paint, had tried to that morning, but he needed to be standing to do so properly. His already throbbing leg begged for mercy anytime he tried to put any weight on it.

And so he sat there, listening.
Tick – I can’t believe how bad I fucked up.

Tock – I’m a useless pain in the ass right now.

Tick – I hate this shit.

Tock – I should be out killing zombies, not sitting here on my ass.
Only three days had passed since he’d been hurt, and he was already going stir crazy.

AJ sighed, shoving the wheelchair he sat in away from the wall. Howie had gone and dug out a wheelchair from the medical building for him, since his leg wasn’t stable enough for crutches. AJ had asked Jo if she thought he’d be alright after a couple weeks. She would nod, say yes, but her eyes never met his own once he had his shades off. That alone told him that she didn’t believe her own words. Gabby was probably the least awkward about it. She came in often, bringing a new board game every time. In fact, she’d been by earlier that day; he’d been the one to drive her off. He felt bad about it, truth be told, but at the same time, he needed to just be away from everyone.

It felt like a bitter irony that after a lifetime of hating isolation, after so many years of despising how people misunderstood him, he was now craving solitude. AJ had always been a social person, despite his own issues. He loved having people around him and always had. It was his outlook and his old inability to feel as if he connected to others that had kept him from having what he wanted. Everything had changed once the dead rose. Suddenly, his old issues had no longer mattered. He had been given a clean slate, a fresh start.

It was that freedom to really do as he wished and not have anything drag him down that had caused AJ to finally thrive in the new world. Since the Day of Unholy Resurrection, he’d always been somewhat amused that it had taken basically the apocalypse to make that happen for him. And now he felt like he’d been thrown down right back where he had started. Back at the bottom of the totem pole, back to being on the fringes of a society, even if it was a tiny one, seen as useless, though he knew Howie and Jo would never say it.

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to his talk with Nick. It felt like a lifetime ago, before he’d left with Kevin and Riley. Back when he’d had the seizure and learned he might have them sporadically for the rest of his life. Everyone had been pussyfooting around Nick then, too.


He was smoking in the hallway of the church building, away from the others. AJ knew the moment Kayleigh or Jo spotted him, they’d tear him a new hole in his rear end, but he didn’t really care. He had been craving a cigarette all day, and damn if they’d stop him. He heard a door slam and peered around the corner to see the youngest man in their group, Nick, exit it angrily. Nick glanced around before deciding the coast was clear enough for him to leave without being bothered.

“I can’t fucking believe this. I’m not useless; I can still help. It ain’t a big deal… and I thought better of her…” he could hear Nick muttering as he walked his way and turned the corner. AJ leaned back casually and took a drag off his cigarette, acting as if he hadn’t just been watching him.

“Still stewing, huh?” he asked. Nick jumped at AJ’s voice. He smirked once he saw the cigarette. It would infuriate the others, him smoking inside like that, but Nick seemed more amused by it. Still, the smirk couldn’t hide the bitter expression written so clearly in his eyes. It dripped from his voice like acid as well.

“You gonna treat me all special now, too?”



Now, AJ understood exactly why Nick had been so angry and so bitter. It had become incredibly clear and evident to him. The two had a few things in common. Both had been held back by their own failures, by the way others viewed them. This new world, despite all the tragedy and pain that had come with it, had broken those chains around the two men. Yet little things would come back and remind them that they couldn’t fully escape what they had once been.

AJ wheeled himself into the kitchen, barely getting through the doorway. Howie had been thoughtful to get this for him, but at the same time, the house hadn’t been designed for anyone disabled. His mobility was just as limited, but in a new way. He wondered where the others were. He wondered if they were even alive.

Would I be dead now if I’d gone with them like I wanted to?

The darker side of him, the one that had never truly left him, said that, yes, he would. It said that the three of them must be dead and gone, or they would be back by now. In the few times the subject came up (which wasn’t often), he could see the others thought so too. None of them said it. They all talked as if they would be back any day now. It was like they believed that if they said Nick, Riley, and Kevin were dead out loud, it would become true.

AJ wheeled himself to the fridge. He felt like he had signed his own death certificate anyway. How was he going to survive if he needed to be looked after like this? Gabby was good, for a kid, but she couldn’t protect him. Howie trying to do so would likely cause his own death, not only from the undead, but his hemophilia as well. All it would take was one bad accident to kill Howie, and AJ didn’t want to be the cause. When he’d learned that his friend had carried him the entire way back to the truck in a run, he’d been shocked, impressed, and angry. Such heroics could have gotten Howie killed, and it was pure luck that caused it not to happen.

Ignoring the fridge, AJ instead opened the door to the cabinet under the sink. He knew Howie didn’t think he knew about this, but he’d seen him a couple times at night when he was up, thanks to his insomnia. One of the habits AJ still hadn’t lost was people-watching. It still fascinated him, simple human behavior. In fact, some of it could have belonged to the original owners, as well. One thing they hadn’t done was sweep the house of alcohol when they moved in. Simple enough reasons for that – AJ had already been sober for awhile, so it hadn’t crossed anyone’s minds.

He leaned down, reaching further into the depths of the cabinet. When he straightened up again, breathing hard, he held in his hands a rather large bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, along with two bottles of Jack Daniels. He knew the vodka to belong to his roommate. He peered into the cabinet again. There were more bottles of alcohol further back, if one looked hard enough. AJ made a note to keep that in mind for later. He set the bottles on top of the counter and wheeled himself forward, in search of a glass. His eyes skipped around the kitchen area, only to realize they were all out of reach while he remained in the chair. His leg pulsated with lightning bolts of pain at the mere thought of attempting to stand.

“Damn it!” AJ swore, knowing he was, for the moment, alone in the house. His uninjured leg thrust forward, kicking the counter. The chair flung backwards, flying back up against the fridge. The force of the collision caused one of the bottles of Jack Daniels to fall right into his awaiting arms.

I shouldn’t be doing this, he told himself silently. His mind was suddenly attempting to think rationally. But why not? It’s not like being sober does me any damn good. And who the fuck cares? Addiction doesn’t exist anymore.

The bottle had landed in his hands with no harm done at all. He stared at it longingly. It had been so long since he’d last had a drink. It had been almost six months since he’d gone on a bender, after finding the entire world around him nothing but a mass of fallen corpses. The craving had never stopped. Each day, his throat burned for the intoxicating liquid. It was just that he’d found something else to distract himself from it. But now, now he no longer had that.

They don’t need you. You’re an outsider. You’re an idiot to think you were anything but that. They won’t want you now that they can’t use you anymore. You thought they were family? Ha! What you have in your hands… that’s the only family you have in this world.

The once-former addict eagerly opened the bottle, like a toddler trying to unwrap a Christmas present. He almost dropped it, trying to do it so quickly. Once open, he took a long swig from the bottle. AJ relished the taste, as the burning fluid slid down his throat. He felt like a man dying of dehydration finally being given water, after an eternity of suffering. AJ couldn’t believe he’d denied himself this for so long. What had he been thinking? What was the point? Especially now, when there was no rehab or such a stigma for loving alcohol as much as he did. The cocaine had been easy for him to ditch. It was this, the simplicity and bliss that alcohol gave him, that he had missed so much.

He took another long drink, straight from the bottle. A smile formed on his face. If those in his life had walked in right then, they would see that smile wasn’t what it seemed. It was an odd one, looking half bitter and half satisfied on an otherwise unhappy face.

It didn’t take long for AJ to lose the control he still thought he possessed. With every sip, he became more frantic for more. He wanted the oblivion he knew he could get if he continued.

AJ wanted to forget everything. He didn’t want to be reminded of the pathetic waste he was. He didn’t want to be reminded of why the shallow society of yesterday had disregarded him. He didn’t need to think about how those he cared about were likely rotting on some random roads to the west, after becoming a zombie buffet. Maybe one of the zombies that had eaten them was his own mother. The fact that this was highly unlikely didn’t occur to him. So he continued to drink alone, rambling about things aloud for no one to hear.

Soon, his wish came true.

Howie returned only an hour later. He found AJ on the floor, out cold beside his chair and cuddling an empty vodka bottle close to his heart.

***