Apocalypse I Think Chapter 19: Ghost Town

The next day, Vanessa went out to get food and other necessities for around the house, so Vince decided to go wander around the deserted town we called home.

The silence of the town was so peaceful, so calming. The hospital hadn’t been loud, but it felt… haunted. I walked around imagining what the town had been like before it had been abandoned. I stopped by the old schoolhouse and saw little kids out playing while the older ones observed. One of the kids came over to me and asked me to play with them. I declined, and he begged with me. The others, seeing his struggle, ran over to his aid. The older kids stared on with a look of judgment in their eyes. One boy stood. The kids pulled on my arm and begged with me to come play, but the teenager put his hand on one of the boys’ shoulder, “Let him go. You don’t want to play with him.”
“Why not?” One kid asked.
“’Cause he’s a freak, that’s why.” He pulled them away, but one snuck back over to me, “I don’t think you’re a freak.” He said, then ran back over to his friends.
As I watched, a scene flashed in my mind of a time at school when David was ten. Red and I were already there, and Red had done something to get into trouble and David had spent almost an hour arguing with his teacher that he hadn’t done it. After being sent out right as school ended to wait for his parents, some boys walked up to him and said he’d overheard the argument, “We all saw you do it. Why’d you argue?”
“Because I didn’t do it!” David said.
“Then who did? Your imaginary friend?” The boy teased.
Red stood (now remember, this is before any of us had a great amount of control over the others) and grabbed the boy by the collar and growled, “I’m not imaginary.”
The boy shoved him away and muttered, “Freak.” As he left.
Red attacked him, but this is where the memory ended. I looked up at the schoolyard and saw no one there. I moved on and saw a building with an old sign with weathered letters reading “hospital”. I saw movement inside of doctors and patients trying desperately to escape. Oh, the memories the old hospital brought back. I remembered the first time David’s parents brought him to ask about his “mental problems”. David was sat on the bed as his parents explained to their doctor what had happened recently (this was shortly after the incident at school).  Without even looking at David, he explained that it sounded like Multiple Personality Disorder (now Dissociative Identity Disorder) and then asked them if anything traumatic had happened that could have triggered it, and they said no. Now this isn’t a lie, but Red’s reasons for being are because of them. But they didn’t know that. His brain was scanned later and the doctors said it looked like he had Schizophrenia, though he showed no signs.
This part led to a memory from a year or so before at school when he had asked (during class) about something odd that had been in the room, but no one else could see it. The kids since then had mocked him, avoided him, and called him crazy. The memories faded, and I returned to standing outside the old hospital.
I felt David urging me to move on from the building, and the next I actually went inside (on David’s suggestion). It was the bar that Red had cleared out when we first arrived. I sat and let David recover from the memories of the hospitals. I saw a man sitting next to me drinking from a small glass held in his right hand. He didn’t look at me, but muttered something under his breath. I could tell it was directed at me even though I couldn’t actually hear it. He looked at me with a questioning stare but without moving his head. After a while, he stopped staring and took a drink, though none of the drink seemed to leave the glass.
I stood, walked home and sat on the porch next to the rock Red had carved into the previous night. I stared out, watching the dust clouds roll up from the cars in the distance. It was the first calming day in a long time. Even though it wasn’t entirely calm. It was a nice change.

Vanessa returned toward sunset with bags upon bags of things we’d need. We loaded everything in and got everything put away, then sat with the TV on. On the news, David’s picture was posted with a reward for his arrest. Vanessa changed it, saying we shouldn’t worry about it. I offered to make food and went to the kitchen. As I stood by the counters, I saw the teenagers from the schoolhouse walking outside. I watched them talk and laugh with each other until the boy from earlier noticed me. He glared, picked up a rock and threw it at the window. I heard it break and backed up, but nothing happened, and when I looked up, the kids were gone. I shook my head and finished cooking. We ate then went up to bed. She fell asleep quickly, but I stayed awake a while longer thinking over what had happened over the day. That was a luxury I missed. Though there really wasn’t much to think over.
At around midnight, David took over again and we slept.