And Here Is To You Mr. Roberts

Slowly lifting myself from the Ambulance floor, I unlatched the door and let it bang to the ground. There stood two people, no savages. They had worn clothes far from rags but clearly headed in that direction. I must have had a look of repulsion on my face because the man looked down at himself, brushed some dirt from his pants, shrugged, and said “If you don’t like what you see, we can leave you here and move on.” His companion was a young girl, probably around 12 or 13. She looked scrawny and underfed; the bones in her ankle sticking out almost sickeningly with the skin stretched tight across them. She was not looking at me but at the surrounding area, keeping an eye out for threats. Smart girl.

I tried to see them as people, but I couldn’t shake my thought that these people are savages.

Back before the fall of society, scientists used to do studies to see how the human mind responds to abnormal cycles and lack of stimuli. They stuck a man in a cave without a clock or a way to tell time for a month. Through the study they kept recorded what day and time of day the man thought he was currently in. Without the sun or a clock the man had no idea when he was supposed to sleep or when to be awake. The result was a clear distortion of the concept of time, and how it passed for the man.

Like the man in that study I had lost reference; not to time but to the human race. I now see regular people as the beasts that they are; things to be killed. But that must be a natural reaction since the world as we knew it died and swarms of so called humans feed the survivors.

But this begs the question: “Am I now one of the infected?” Which also begs: Is this how the diseased view us, as some creatures that need to be destroyed? What if to them we are the diseased – what if we are?

No. That can’t be right.

Thanks to my class on logic at university, I know that what separates man from beast is that I am able to take several observations combine them and draw a conclusion. The mere fact that I am forming sentences and using logic to analyze the situation shows that I am no mindless feeding beast but a man.

So despite my feelings, I pull myself from the ambulance. Keeping my eye on the man. Just because he appears friendly, does not mean that he is. Actions and intentions are incredibly different.

We both stood there looking at each other. I, favoring my uninjured leg; the pain killers keeping my suffering dulled. The girl not sparing me more than a cursory “he isn’t a threat glance.” For being so young she seems so aware and alert.

“Well come on then” the man said “we will take you to the rest of our group and you can meet Mr. Roberts.”

Group? What a strange and dangerous word to my mind. So many bad things I have now affixed to that idea. A group of people: a target. A group of infected: a threat. But in my hobbling and weakened state it would probably be best to seek the help of others-for now. I nodded my consent and picked up my bike using it as a rolling cane as we walked through the woods farther from the road, towards the savage’s camp – sorry – people’s camp.

Hopefully Mr. Roberts knows what he is doing and I’m not walking into a trap.