TRUST

How many hours had it been? Nora didn't have a working clock or phone with her, so she had no way to measure time accurately. But based on what she could see from the catwalks, it was past noon already. Her clothes had dried. Her tummy was rumbling again. Time flew by. Yet William was still nowhere to be seen.

Her worry was undeniable. However, on the bright side, she had some time to collect her thoughts and process everything that happened the previous day. Specially regarding the shamblers. The world being full of bad people was something she already saw coming, but the usually clumsy zombies turning into rabid monsters with no warning was beyond her. No wonder everyone feared the night, now it made sense. Seriously, what was the deal with them? To think she was already scared of them during the day… She wasn't expecting that twisted turn of events.

William definitely knew about them in full detail though. He knew about the dangers of the night, he night how to react, he knew what to expect. She wondered why he didn't warn her in advance. Perhaps it was a matter of trust, as usual. They were pretty much strangers after all; strangers who met under very sketchy circumstances. And they both had secrets to hide and personal issues, Nora didn't doubt that for a second.

But what is trust to begin with? To put your life in the hands of someone else? To confide in them? To share emotions, experiences…? Such a simple word, but with such an abstract meaning... And to what extent was trust a valid concept in that new world? Could you truly afford trusting others in that harsh environment?

Still, none of that mattered if William never came back. And the waiting was getting Nora on her nerves. She was scared. Did she depend on him that much? Apparently, she did.

…

Nora stared at the door on the other side of the room. The shelving unit they dragged in front of it was still there, blocking it. The entire wall was slightly bent inwards from the force the horde applied upon it from the outside. It was already way past noon, at least a couple of hours. She couldn't wait any longer. She realized that if night fell upon her again, it would be her end. There was no way she'd survive again on her own. She had to move, even if it meant walking towards an untimely death.

She figured that dragging the entire shelving out of the way would make unnecessary noise, so she spent several minutes carefully unloading the boxes and random tools filling the shelves, placing them down on the floor or on nearby furniture, until the unit was mostly empty. Then, she grabbed one corner, and very slowly pulled from it. It moved. Inch by inch, the shelves got out of the way.

The door was free. Would it even open? It was literally bent, but the frame itself looked okay. She gulped. For some reason, she felt a chill down her spine. She reached for the doorknob.

"Don't." a voice startled her from behind.

Nora flinched and let out a brief squeak. She turned around in a hurry. There was a shadowy figure standing on the entrance doorframe, looking at her. It was a man, that's for sure. She felt as if he looked familiar, but the fact that he was standing with his back to the light made it difficult to identify him. Before she could say or do anything, the figure rushed her and put a hand in her mouth. The sudden ambush took her aback so much that she couldn't react in time. She grabbed his arm and started struggling.

"Stay quiet…!" she knew that voice. Her eyes opened wide, and all resistance ceased the moment she finally identified the person holding her.

'William…!' tears of relief pooled on her eyes.

Mocking their reunion, several soft blows resonated against the door Nora was about to open a moment ago. They insisted for several seconds until they eventually gave up. William released her mouth afterwards.

"You've got guts, I'll give you that. Well… it's either guts or stupidity. Had you opened that door, you'd have been dead." he whispered. His voice sounded raspy and sickly, as if he had gotten a cold. "We shouldn't talk here. Let's go outside."

She was eager to hear him out. She had a meek smile on her face, although there was no way to tell if he noticed it within the relative darkness of the room. She didn't care, she was relieved. Immensely relieved.

She followed him outside, after grabbing her bag from the floor.

"A-Are you okay then…!?"

"Looks like it. I've never heard of anyone taking this long to turn, it usually happens within a few hours. It depends greatly on the bite location. It can range from almost instantaneous, to several hours. But I've never seen it take half a day. And I'm not feeling dizzy either… so I'd say I'm clear." he stopped for a moment, leaned on the catwalk railing and stared for a long while towards the river. "I'm guessing you're already aware of this, but it's a fucking miracle that we're both alive right now."

Nora nodded while wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Um… So… Where did you go…?" she asked.

William looked at her dead in the eye, then closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He took off his backpack, opened it, and retrieved something from it.

"Here. Take it." he said, while offering her a small box.

"Huh…?"

Nora accepted the box, and at first, she didn't know what she was looking at. Until she noticed the labels all over it.

"Ah…! No way…!! William, is this…!?" Nora couldn't believe her eyes.

It was a box of a very particular medicine.

"Listen… It doesn't matter how lucky we were, how risky it was, the bad decisions that might have been taken… In the end, it truly doesn't matter. We're both alive, that's what matters. And if you hadn't saved my life by risking yours, putting me to safety, staying with me until the end…" he stopped for a moment. He probably didn't really want to think about all the possible things that could have gone wrong, and neither did Nora. "I believe it's only right that I now return the favor by helping you save your sister."

Nora hugged the medicine in tears, and quickly proceeded to put it to safety inside her own bag.

"Thank you…! Thank you…!! I looked so hard for this, how did you even…?"

"Don't ask. I told you I'd figure things out. Now let's get moving. The shamblers seem to have gotten stuck on the other side of the catwalks, but the top of the bridge is now empty. The ones up there were probably the horde we encountered last night. We should hurry up and take this chance."

How long had it been since Nora smiled genuinely, from the bottom of her heart? Six months, perhaps? No way, not even close.

It was definitely longer than that.

******

In comparison with the previous day's adversities, luck had seemed to turn in their favor. The bridge and the surrounding streets were devoid of shamblers besides the occasional straggler, and they had nearly no issues whatsoever getting back up to the rooftops on their original side of the river.

God bless waterproof backpacks. William had gone through the trouble of getting them several months ago, and their performance was marvelous. Even when submerged over considerable periods of time, their insides remained dry and unaffected by the moisture. The fall on the river had managed to ruin some of the more vulnerable objects they carried on their pockets, but the contents of the bags remained in perfect condition. And that was particularly positive regarding the solar panel they went through so much trouble to get.

Also, when he went back to the city to look for Lilian's medicine at a nearby pharmacy, not only did he grab some extra medical supplies, but he also managed to find more food along the way.

Food, medicines, and a critical piece of equipment. Both Nora and him took a beating, but they were alive. The way back was uneventful. Was their luck finally improving after a streak of misfortune?

Apparently not.

"Fucking hell… Right, forgot about this…" William stared, annoyed, at the pack of cigarettes the river had ruined the previous night. "Bah…" he proceeded to throw them away and sulk instead.

Nora was looking at him while sipping from what little water she had left. He couldn't tell if her gaze was judgmental, mocking, or if she simply didn't care.

They had just stopped to eat something and rest before marching the rest of way towards the shelter. This time they had time to spare, William was confident they could make it, unless some new critical setback took place.

He stared off into the horizon. The city extended as far as the eye could see, row after row of buildings. Back in the day, the sky would be obscured by pollution, you could almost perceive the clouds of smoke and chemical crap emanating from the city and diluting into the atmosphere. But now, the sky was bright and clear.

'...' he pondered for a couple of seconds.

"Thank you." he said.

"Huh…?" Nora was kind of perplexed by those words, she looked back at him in bewilderment.

"I haven't properly thanked you yet… For saving my ass."

"Ah, that… But, what else could I have done…?"

"I know. You depend on me, am I wrong?"

He could tell how those words hit the nail on the head. Nora's eyes widened for a moment, and then she avoided eye contact altogether, deciding to stare at the ground instead.

"As I said when we met the other day, I could tell you were clueless from the moment I saw you. And don't think I haven't been observing you during this entire trip. You're prone to emotional outbursts, you quickly got attached and dependent of a complete stranger like me… And I took advantage of that." he explained. Nora just listened. Whether she chose not to say anything or she had nothing to say, he didn't know. "I told you what you needed to know, when you needed to know it. The more you didn't know, the more you would depend on me. The more you depended on me, the less likely you would be to stab me in the back. And let's be real, you had all the reasons to do it, given how I treated you when we first met."

William got up from the ledge he was sitting on, and walked towards the railing that surrounded the rooftop, right in front of him.

"And still, you chose to save my life. So, tell me… did you do it out of good will, or was it because you'd die without me otherwise?" he turned around and leaned back against the railing, facing Nora.

"I… U-Um…" Nora muttered, but it took her some effort to articulate coherent words. "Both options are true… I suppose I did it for both reasons."

"As I imagined…"

"I don't want to hurt anyone. I have no reason to stab anyone in the back, unless they hurt me or the people I care about… And I also don't want anyone else to die, unless they give me a reason to hate them. But I also know I can't survive this on my own. And there's also Lilian and Claire, I…"

"Yeah, yeah… I get it."

Indecisiveness. Not wanting to get your hands dirty, hoping for everything to be okay, hoping that nobody has to die. That kind of wishful thinking had little place in that world, but William understood that some people are just like that. Not everyone can steel themselves in the face of adversity.

He stared up into the sky, collecting his thoughts for a while.

"Listen, I used to trust people a lot more, you know?"

"Mhm…?"

"I'm guessing you could tell, but that shelter used to have a lot more people… We had a whole community back there."

"…Can I ask what happened…?"

"They're all either dead or gone. All because of a single person's treachery. We had survived together almost since the very beginning of the pandemic, and it all went to hell in a single night."

"Was it… the day we saw that red smoke signal…?"

"Indeed…"

A long period of silence ensued.

"I'm sorry to hear that… I… I think I understand better now." said Nora.

"I told myself I wouldn't trust strangers anymore. If I can't trust someone I've considered a partner from the very beginning, how the hell am I supposed to blindly trust someone I know nothing about?" William was almost shouting at that point. Nora simply nodded and listened. "As much as I dislike it, it's the only way I can guarantee nobody will fuck with me again. Still… I do want to trust you. I suppose it's only a hunch. I'll be damned if it ends up backfiring on me, but I don't want to keep you in the dark anymore."

Nora's eyes seemed to brighten up when she heard that. She lifted he head and looked at him directly again.

"Ah… R-Really…?"

In all honesty, it was indeed nothing but a hunch. Something about her made her feel like an honest person. If anything, the moment he handed her Lilian's medicine was a turning point for him. Those tears were pretty damn hard to fake. The girl's condition seemed to be legit, and no selfish person would drag around someone like that. At least, that's what William wanted to believe.

'Either she's to be trusted, or she's a fucking psychopath…'

"Don't misunderstand me, though. I'll still keep an eye on all three of you."

"R-Right…! That's okay. We'll do our best to help in any way we can if you give us the chance!"

"I expect no less. Even Lilian will have to find something she can do, even if it's something simple. We can't afford to babysit anyone here."

William sighed. The concept of several people working together to survive already seemed like nothing but a distant memory. Truthfully, not a lot time had passed since, around a week, yet it felt like an eternity to him.

He needed to be careful around Nora and the other girls. No matter how much they looked like "good" people, he couldn't just go and let them do as they pleased. He didn't want to live through anything like that ever again.

######

"Hey! Richard's group just came back! Drop the ladder!"

The sound of the fire escape's ladder sliding down towards the sidewalk was jarring, but luckily there was no shamblers anywhere in the surrounding city blocks that day.

"I'll make sure to lubricate that thing today. I can't stand that damn noise, and it's been like that since forever ago." said William from the back of the group, as he watched the people in front of him climb up to safety.

"Haha, yeah! We actually managed to find a small bottle today, didn't we? We could use that." suggested one of the men in front of him.

"Come on, leave the chit-chat for later, get up already!" said the man on top of the ladder.

Night would be falling in just a couple more hours, the looting trips were getting more and more dangerous the further away they had to go. Who knows, maybe they'd need to actually move out and secure another shelter in a different area of the city soon. William started climbing up the ladder once it was his turn to go, gladly accepting the help of the man waiting for him up there. The bag on his back was heavy.

"All good? We aren't missing anyone, right?"

"Don't worry, all good. We encountered a couple of shambler groups, but there were no direct confrontations." he replied.

"Ah, perfect. Come on inside, let's see what you've got this time."

Between the four of them, they found food, tools, maintenance and repair supplies, one of them even grabbed a small toy for one of the children. A little bit of everything. One of those trips each day was usually enough to keep the shelter supplied, although more people were sent out in cases of particular necessity.

There were seventeen survivors in total, among which there were two elderly and two children. A small group of people was chosen every day to go out and scavenge the area for supplies, never numbering less than four. Everyone else back at the apartments either took care of managing their current stock of supplies, repairing the outer barricade, keeping watch, or any other task that arose. Other than that, people passed time as best as they could. Or rather, as best as they could afford in an apocalyptic scenario. Sedentary activities, like reading, were favored, since moving around and wasting energy was a very bad idea. Sometimes, fancy or interesting books were picked up during looting trips, for this very reason. The children hated it, but there was no other choice.

William dropped off his bag of supplies in the apartment they were using as a storage unit on the fourth floor.

"Ah! Is that from today's haul? I had only seen three bags, started to think one of them had gone missing!" said Emma, the woman who was in charge of taking inventory of their resources that day.

"Ah, well, yeah. I took a moment to take care of some quick maintenance on the exit ladder, it was driving me nuts every single time." he replied.

"Ooh, I see. That's fine, it's not like I'm in a hurry. Just leave it there, I'll take care of it."

"Sure, thank you."

…

The apartment building had a spacious inner courtyard. Originally it was almost completely covered with tiling, but most of it had been removed to reveal the soil underneath, and a decently sized vegetable garden had been planted. It didn't take long for William to spot a brown-haired woman wandering around the place.

"Honey, I'm back." he said as he approached her.

The woman turned around to face him, her green eyes filling up with light, a smile drawn on her face as soon as she saw him.

"Darling…!" she wasted no time in greeting him with a heartfelt hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek. "I'm so glad to see you're safe."

"Everything okay around here too?"

"Mhm."

He didn't really need to exchange a lot of words with his wife, Amanda. Their connection ran deeper than that. William felt like she understood him better than he understood himself. In most situations, their actions and the way they physically interacted with each other carried more meaning than words ever could. He felt emotional safety around her, and that wasn't something he could easily find anywhere else.

Amanda was pretty much the only person in the entire building who knew how to work a field and grow something edible out of it. Besides the elderlies, that is, but their physical condition wasn't exactly fit for that kind of work anymore. In a way, she found some degree of peace of mind in that place. Fresh food was an absolute luxury those days, so a place that produced it felt like some kind of gift of God, almost mystical in a sense. At least, that was how she described it.

"Are you free right now?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, I have to keep watch until midnight today."

"Aw, alright. Be careful, okay?"

…

The wind was blowing strangely hard that evening, and the sky was starting to get dark. It was almost time for the daily rationing meeting, which was usually held every day right before the sun set. Pretty simple: everyone in the building met together in one room, their food and water provisions for the following day were handed out by the people keeping inventory that day, and then everyone went to sleep, quietly.

He figured he might as well down a cigarette before the meeting. Amanda would probably berate him for it, but he wouldn't really be around her again until his watch shift was over some hours later, so it shouldn't be that bad.

From the rooftop of the building, he had a clear view of the surroundings. The city looked calm that day. As he took puff after puff, trying his best to cover the cigarette from the wind, he noticed someone walking up to him.

"Oh, hey Desmond. How is it going? Also on watch duty?" he asked, greeting the newcomer.

"Hi Will… No, not really, I was just taking a walk…"

He thought it was a bit strange, but perhaps he just wanted to get some fresh air from the roof, so he disregarded it. He had known Desmond for a while, he was one of the very first survivors who joined William's original group in the building, barely one month after the pandemic had started.

He was a good guy. Quite small in physical size, sort of cowardly, and not prone to talking too much. However, William wasn't really a people person himself, so as a matter of fact, a quiet and meek type like Desmond was a good match for him. Since he wasn't too good at anything in particular, he was often tasked with keeping watch, or with other menial tasks, and he ended up chit-chatting with William more often than not.

There was a long moment of silence. Usually that would be a common thing for them. But why did William feel like something was off? Desmond seemed more nervous and troubled than usual, he kept fidgeting with his hands, and his feet were trembling, as if he was anxious about something.

"Hey, dude, are you okay?" asked William.

"A-Ah… Well, you see…"

William stared at him, as if encouraging him to keep going. He clearly had something to say. Why was he so nervous?

"Um… H-Have you ever done something you deeply regret…?"