Free Decaying Humanity by James Barton

was waiting for him to take a flashlight and put it under his chin and woo at us like a ghost. Unfortunately, this was a true story.
     
        Marc and his people were really good folks, but they were set on not accepting anyone else onto the pier. I could understand and honestly Harvey and I had talked about it and we weren’t ready to join a group either. They had an abundance of fish and had devised a way to boil water and make the sea water drinkable. They had grown bored of seafood and had offered us a trade of fish for any fuel source, food, weapons, or other things. The sun was beginning to set and we told him that we had supplies we needed to gather to trade, but we needed a place to sleep.
        “I like you guys already, but you can’t come past this door. If it’s better than any other arrangement, you are welcome to sleep up here on the entryway tonight. I hope you understand. We lost two people the last time we opened the door,” Marc said.
        We had thought about sleeping in the car, but we were still worried a zombie could smash through while we were asleep. Or worse, someone could just walk up and shoot us. At least this spot would be somewhat better, for the night. So we went back to the car, brought a few pouches of grits, a couple scoops of vanilla protein powder in an old soda bottle, and even carried a handful of dune grass and a loose plank from the stairs to the beach. We returned just as night was starting to creep across the sand, chilling the beach sand underfoot. As we approached we were welcomed immediately by the outstretched plank. It seemed like an overly generous trade on their end. We both ate a large plate of grilled fish and were promised a breakfast of the same for our trade. A tall twelve-year-old girl named Megan looked inside the bottle with excitement. “Is that … dessert?” she asked an older man.
        “I suppose it is,” he responded.
        The food was amazingly fresh. It was smothered in some kind of dry seasoning. It was better than food I had eaten before the collapse. I asked Marc about the small restaurant on the pier and he told us the dry seasoning was one of the few things that survived without refrigeration.
        We sat on the outside of an oceanfront pier fortress, eating grilled fish, while sharing a small space overhanging white frothy waves.
        “Well this is romantic,” I said and winked at Harvey.
        “Don’t start with me,” he said with a mouthful of food. We both laughed a little and I looked out across the beach. It really was beautiful, the moonlight bouncing off the water lit up the night. I had to be thankful for this at least.
        
        I had fallen asleep with my back up against a wall of pallets and woke up to the worst back pain ever. After waking up and trying to stretch out, I was greeted with a new plate of food. Harvey had been awake, but didn’t want to move until he finished his plate. Marc came through the door and sat with us. “So, what’s your plan now?” he asked.
        “Well,” I started. “I guess we will head back and see if anyone has visited our house. Then, either way, we probably have to keep moving. Maybe we can find a place to hole up on the main street. There are lots of restaurants, so maybe we can figure something out.”
        “That sounds like a good start. Make sure you come back and visit us; we’ll trade with you anytime. Maybe after some time passes our group will be more willing to open the doors again,” Marc said.
        “By then, we might be ready to join a group,” Harvey said with a mouthful of fish.
        “Wait, what about the other piers? Aren’t there two other big piers on the beach?” I asked.
        “One of them burnt down, not sure by whom, but there isn’t much left of it. The second one, well, we got barely within eyeshot and they started shooting at us. I don’t think the bullets could even reach that far, but we