The rest of our journey was uneventful, except for the occasional infected that Daniel ran over, and after a couple of minutes we arrived at Westwilde.
I had been pelted with questions throughout the ride, mostly by Cassandra and Daniel since they didn't know she'd saved me from one of the bandits and a couple of infected. Cassandra was really worried since she'd just witnessed an infected create dents in the car ceiling with her fists. She also wondered if Goldcrest was a safe place since Belmont wasn't that far from Westwilde.
No one had talked to Faye, they were all giving her the cold shoulder. She didn't say anything to anyone either.
Cassandra was the one giving directions and we drove for a while before a few houses started to show up. In the moonlight, the street hardly looks different from a normal street.
The lack of illumination from the street lamps gave it away first. At this time, their glow should be casting a smudgy beam onto the black street. Cars were still in the driveways, waiting for owners that will never come. I wonder if the old residents abandoned their homes willingly and at least kept their lives.
All the houses had a huge 'X' spray painted on their doors. There were no signs of life on the street, not even infected. Some houses had windows that had been smashed in.
Newspapers tumbled around on the asphalt as if caught in invisible laundry machines. It was still a town, just devoid of the warmth that made it worthy of that term.
We rounded a corner into a street that was lined with shops on both sides before we got to a school. It was enclosed by a high chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire loops. The sign in front of it declared that it was a high school but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the group of people in the field. They were all sat around a bonfire with bottles in their hands and stopped what they were doing when they saw us.
"Should we stop?" Clareta asked when they waved at us enthusiastically.
"I don't see a reason to," Cassandra responded as we passed them.
There were a couple of street lamps ahead, shining brightly into the night. There was a concrete sign in the ground that read, 'GOLDCREST ESTATE'. The words shone yellow in front of an area that was gated off with tall brick walls that had spikes on top. The estate had two gates that were fashioned from black iron, probably one for entrance and the other for exit. As far as I could tell, it looked secure.
"Well, this is nerve-racking," Hae In muttered and I agreed with her.
I could make out several people standing in elevated guard posts behind the fence. They kept their eyes glued to our vehicle till we stopped at the gate. The large gate swung inwards after a couple of seconds, leaving an opening wide enough for us to pass through and Daniel drove in.
We were stopped by a man in fatigues next to a guard post not far from the gate. He asked for our names and where we were from. Cassandra answered for all of us. When he asked if any of us had been in contact with any infected or had been bitten, Hae In discretely glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes as Cassandra said 'No'. The bite mark from the infected had long faded but I still remember where it was. He wrote our names in a log book before he gave us directions to the medical centre and waved us onward.
Stretching out of sight on either side of the road were identical houses, each with a path running down the side. A couple of people waved at us from balconies as we drove past.
All of the houses were duplexes and they had their own sliding gates. We passed a couple of people taking walks or sitting in front of houses. It seemed like there wasn't an apocalypse as I watched them. They also waved and looked genuinely happy when they saw us.
We stopped in front of a house that had the number eighteen written on the fence. According to the man at the gate, this was the medical centre. No one got down from the car and we all stared at the house in silence.
"Are we going to get down?" Alison asked, shattering the silence with the tact of an hammer.
"Uh, sure," Cassandra muttered before she opened the door and stepped out.
Jack followed her out and one by one, we all got out of the car. I stretched my hands above my head, happy to be able to feel my legs again. The night air was quite chilly and I wrapped my arms around my body. The gate was wide open and we all walked in.
"Should we knock?" Zeke asked when we got to the porch and Cassandra opened the door.
The house was welcoming from the open door to the wide hallway. The floor was an old-fashioned parquet with a blend of deep homely browns and the walls were the blues of clear skies meeting a bold white baseboard.
The living room had been converted into a waiting room and all the couches had been pushed to one side. There were two ladies sitting on the floor under an ornate chandelier and playing chess. They looked startled upon seeing us before scrambling to their feet.
"Oh, hi. Welcome," one of the ladies said as she moved over to the long polished wooden table at the edge of the room.
"Come in," the other one said, gesturing to the couches.
"We haven't welcomed anyone new in a long time," the lady by the table said as we walked into the house, shutting the door behind us.
I was shocked by what she said. Was there really no one else out there?
The other lady was petting Jack who was really happy with the attention he was receiving as she fed him what I assumed were treats. The name tag on her shirt read Laleh while the other woman's read Tatyana. I sank into the couch, relieved to feel the soft fabric. I let my head loll back and eyes pull to a close as Cassandra talked to Tatyana.
I must have fallen asleep because I awoke to Daniel nudging me.
"You have to go take a shower," he said and I groan in response.
He nudges me again and I reluctantly get up. He had changed his clothes and the scent of soap clung to him. Clareta and I were the only ones in the living room and he tells me that the others were undergoing a check-up before he guides me to the bathroom.
The bathroom walls were large format tiles of white honed travertine and the floor was made of bright blue tiles. The vanities were of a dark wood and the counters were a brilliant white quartz. There was no bath tub but instead a huge walk in shower with two shower heads.
A set of clothes were on the counter and the bin next to the door had the clothes Alison was wearing in it. I took off my clothes and dumped it in the bin before I got in the shower. Once I was clean, I dried myself off and got dressed. Daniel had been waiting outside the bathroom and he took me to a room where Tatyana was in.
The check-up was mostly her checking me for bites or scratches and I was grateful that the zombie bite mark on my right arm had faded. She then asked me a couple of questions before letting me go. After we were all done, Laleh led us to the house opposite the medical centre.
The gate and the door were unlocked. The house stood in a composed way, as if it had chosen solitude for itself, as if residents were a luxury it could forgo. The interior looked like a movie set waiting for life to come. The only problem was the odour and the dust. It was musty and dry, but nothing opening a couple of windows couldn't solve.
Laleh began to talk to Cassandra and Ezra about someone called Captain but I didn't wait to hear it. I headed to one of the rooms upstairs and practically fell into the bed.