Chapter 2: A Safe Haven
I woke up the next day at around 9am; the sounds of birds chirping outside reminded me of how things used to be. The room was filled with a cold breeze from the winter air as Leah opened the window
"Oh, good morning" She said, handing me a heated up bowl of beans and a few slices of bread.
I stretched my arms and took the bowl from her, the heat warming my hands.
"Thank you" I smiled, looking up at her as I began eating.
The rest of the group were outside, waiting for me to join them so they could go through plans of supply runs and searching for more survivors that may have set up camp near here.
I stepped outside to join the group; everyone was smiling, telling jokes and laughing whilst they were sat cooking bacon on the small gas cooker Josh brought with him from the town.
This was the first time since all of this started that I had seen everyone so happy. It was almost like everything that they had been through was forgotten for a moment.
Tom pointed out that he had seen smoke coming from the top of the mountains just north of the park during his shift on watch last night.
"You want to go check it out?" Gabriel asked, relaxing next to the heat of the barbecue.
"I think we should, if there's a chance of survivors we should go help them." I replied taking a piece of bacon from the barbecue and placing it in-between two slices of bread.
When finished eating, we started assigning each member of the group a job role.
Leah, Gabriel and I were going to go look for the survivors up in the mountains; Josh, Amy and Tom decided to head out to the town to bring back some supplies that we desperately needed. Finally the other members of the group were going to stay back at the park and ensure nothing gets in whilst we were gone.
We waited for another hour so that everyone had eaten, gathered their equipment and some of them even said goodbye to their loved ones just in case things went wrong. Who could blame them; in this world we couldn't guarantee our safe return.
Nicole and Tania followed us to the park to let us out through the large gates at the top. They were by far the least crowded by infected.
They both took one side of the gates and opened them slowly, making as little noise as possible. We didn't want to pull any more attention than we needed to, especially this early on in our journey.
We set out taking a shortcut that Gabriel pointed out. There are steps in an alleyway that take us to higher ground and closer to the mountain. At the top was a small housing estate.
"We're going to have to be quiet." I whispered, pointing at the estate at the top of the steps.
We quietly and slowly walked up the steps in a tight formation, making sure none of us could get snuck up on. We noticed that there were a few infected walking down the road in the opposite direction we were walking.
Once they had disappeared out of our sights, we continued down the street and spotted a child walking toward a house.
"Do you think she's infected?" I asked Gabriel, trying to define any specific signs of infection.
She looked normal, even though I could only see her from the back. I decided that I should get a closer look. I wasn't about to just leave a poor, young girl walking these streets without at least making sure that she was alive or dead.
I began walking towards her with Gabe and Leah waiting back, ready to assist me if I needed it. I had my bat and gun if things got too bad and couldn't risk Leah getting hurt. There was something about her that I really liked.
I approached the girl, reaching out to put my hand on her shoulder, I could hear footsteps coming from behind a house to the left of me, followed by more children walking out. These children had obvious signs of infection, the pale white eyes, blood on their clothing, tears of the skin and some had broken legs, crawling across the floor. This was when it occurred to me that the girl I was approaching was also infected; she had a bite mark behind her hair which was hidden until I got close.
Suddenly the girl turned around and started stumbling towards me, followed by the rest of the children.
I backed up into a wall and found myself surrounded by the infected. Leah and Gabriel were heading over to me, so I just had to stall until they got there. There were far too many of them to handle by myself and if I tried taking one out, the others would surely be able to grab me or at least manage to bite me.
I tried backing up further, trapping my foot on the curb and falling backwards, slamming my back onto the pavement. I could see the infected children gathering around me and thought this is where I was going to die.
Suddenly, Grabbed grabbed the girl silently and dragged her away from the others so they wouldn't turn on him and crushed her skull in an alleyway, blood showering the pavement.
Leah killed the young boy closest to me by driving a knife into the back of his head just as he lunged towards me. She killed the third child by smashing it's head through car window, driving a shard of the glass through its skull and cutting her hand. I could see that she was holding in her pain as tears built up in her eyes.
If Leah and Gabriel didn't rush to my aid, this would have been the end for me. Imagine that... taken out by children after all I have been through, that would have been ridiculous.
Leah gave me her hand and helped me onto my feet, showing no concern for the pain she was in.
I took out one of the bandages, my bottle of water and sat Leah down so that I could clean the wound on her hand.
"You guys wait here, I'm going to look ahead" Gabriel said noticing something in the distance.
As he walked off I screwed the lid off the bottle and poured it onto Leah's hand, cleaning the wound. Thankfully the cut wasn't too deep and wouldn't need stitches; I could see she was biting her lip from the pain.
I carefully wrapped the bandage around her hand and sat with her. sharing some of the food we had brought with us.
"Could be here a while huh?" Leah laughed, still clenching from the pain in her hand. "So, what did you do before this all happened?"
"Well, I used to work as bar staff for a bar in town and I'd spend my free time, going out with my friends and get drunk, sing karaoke and dance like a lunatic." I replied, smiling to myself. "Those were some of my favourite memories and though it's only been a few days it seems like none of that will ever come back."
"Oh, I don't know. Just because the world has gone to shit, doesn't mean we can't make our own fun. Electricity hasn't gone down yet, surely we can find some music and have our own karaoke and there's definitely alcohol somewhere!" Leah smiled, biting into a sandwich she had packed. "As for me, I just worked as a retail assistant, nothing too exciting. If I had any idea any of this would have happened, I definitely would have travelled more and been a bit more adventurous with my life. I've always wanted to go bungee jumping or sky diving, despite my fear of heights."
"Yeah, like you'd ever catch me doing anything like that." I laughed, drinking my water. "I wonder where Gabe went."
Thirty minutes later and there was still no sign of Gabriel. Packing up the food we were eating we decided that we should go look for him and find out why he was taking so long.
We sprinted down the end of the street and heard shouting coming from one of the alleys in between the houses; we backed up against the walls and listened in to the conversation.
"I'm not going to ask you again, where is your fucking group?!" A man shouted.
"If I told you, I'm afraid I would have to kill you" Gabriel laughed, spitting blood onto the ground.
He sounded like he was in pain; it was obvious they were beating him from the tone in his voice. He sounded tired.
"Let go of him!" I shouted, running around the corner aiming my Glock at his head.
He looked startled, and turned his crossbow onto me.
"Gabe take Leah, get her away from here." I said, shaking.
"Like fuck am I leaving you here." Gabriel replied, spitting onto the ground once more and proceeding to stand.
"You're a brave one." He said lowering his crossbow, raising his fingers up to his mouth and whistled.
Three members of his group walked out from the trees. There were two guys wearing masks. One carrying a shotgun and the other an SMG.
They were shortly joined by a woman wearing a mask, holding a hunting rifle and walked towards me, aiming for my head. We were clearly outnumbered so I lowered my gun, put the safety on and placed it onto the floor in front of me.
"Careful now, she doesn't miss."
"David! There you are!" A voice came from within the group, as he stepped out and took off his mask. "I've been looking for you, after I seen the state of our mother's street I thought you were dead."
It was my brother Danny; I was surprised to see him though. I was certain that he was with the rest of my family in Oxfordshire.
He dropped his weapon, ran over to me and hugged me. '
"This is David?... Shit man, we've actually been looking for you. Danny said you might have been holding up somewhere around here if you were still alive. My name's Eric, Danny, you know, the woman with the hunting rifle there is Paola and the one on the left is Keir and our sniper is Taylor." Eric said waving his arm signalling Taylor to come out.
"A fucking sniper?!" I thought to myself, wondering what would have happened if I had pulled the trigger, I would have been dead for sure.
Eric was a 6ft 1 tall, dark skinned guy, carrying a crossbow, Paola was a 5ft 6, Puerto Rican girl with long black hair carrying an SMG and Keir was a 5ft 9 Canadian guy with brown curly hair, wearing a leather necklace with a small brown bead on it and carrying a shotgun.
Taylor climbed down from a ladder they had set up behind the houses and walked over to us, she was 5ft 7, skinny with long brown hair. She was carrying a standard armed response sniper rifle.
"Well, you've met my group, now can we meet yours?" Eric asked holding his hand out for a handshake.
"This is Gabriel and Leah, the only two members with me at the moment, we were just out looking for survivors. There are more of us at our camp; you can join us if you like?" I asked, shaking his hand. "We are all held up in Bedwellty Park down the road, we've barricaded the gates and are using the mansion as an outpost."
"Fucking genius bro." Danny replied, walking over to Gabriel and Leah. "Nice to see you guys."
"Likewise" Gabriel smiled, bumping his fist.
Thankfully, they accepted the offer to join us and told us they would meet us there later today as they had to go retrieve their supplies and their truck from the police station near the library.
The rest of us made our way back down towards the park, killing a few of the infected silently, by driving our knives through the back of their head. Once the gate was clear, Leah moved forward and banged on the gates three times.
Tania and Nicole rushed to let us in, opening the gate and closing it behind us as we walked in. As I approached the mansion the rest of our group were stood outside worried. This was where they explained to me that Josh, Amy and Tom have yet to return from their supply run, I wasn't too worried at this time as we weren't gone long and maybe they would run into Eric's group on their way back.
Suddenly, the sound of gun shots echoed through the air. It couldn't have been Josh he doesn't carry any sort of fire arm with him and I don't recall Amy having a gun either. It could have been Tom taking out infected in the town but why would he waste ammunition, this is a small town with no gun stores so ammo would be almost impossible to come by.
Gabriel offered to join me in investigating the gun shots, I couldn't risk taking Leah with me, she was wounded and it would be dangerous, especially when there could be another armed group in the town. One thing was for sure we had to be ready for the worst.
I walked inside the house to find Leah and tell her I was going with Gabriel to investigate the gun shots.
"Well I'm coming with you!" Leah shouted, climbing down off her chair. "I'm better with a bat than either of you."
"You're wounded, you're not going anywhere. Besides you promised us Karaoke, you find the music I'll be back with the alcohol." I smiled, placing my hand on her shoulder. "We'll be back I promise."
"Fine, don't you dare die before our date." She winked, heading up the stairs to find a stereo.
We gathered our weapons together and Leah packed some spare food in the event we couldn't get back and had to stay the night somewhere else.
We left through the gates next to the tennis court and took the alleyways towards the town.
"Hey wait up" Danny yelled, running towards us carrying his SMG.
"Where the fuck did you just come from?" I laughed, as we stopped for him to catch up.
"Eric sent me to find you." He replied, holding his gun. "Besides we can kill more of these bastards this way. We got ammo from an evidence locker in a police station, he heard the gunshots and sent me to help you, whilst they were packing up."
As we got closer to the town, we spotted Josh, Amy and Tom taking cover behind a burnt out car.
"Hand over the supplies and nobody has to die." A voice yelled firing another shot at the car, the bullet ricocheting into the pavement beside them.
We quickly started sprinting over to Josh and Amy, diving behind a wall as a stray bullet hit the brick below us.
"Dan, there's more of them over there." A voice shouted, re-adjusting his aim to us.
I took out my Glock, clicked the safety off and cocked the barrel, Danny raised his SMG and Gabriel got out of sight to try and ambush them from the back.
"Let me speak to the leader of your group." The voice that apparently belonged to Dan shouted out from his group.
I stepped out from behind the wall and slowly started walking towards his group, holding aiming my gun at them, with Danny following behind me. I thought that maybe this group was like Eric's and were just playing it safe, so there was no need to be hostile... yet.
Dan walked out of the crowd as they lowered their weapons; he was a big guy with black hair and a red fringe. I could see Taylor in the corner of my eye readying her sniper to take him out; I wasn't prepared to stop her.
"What do you say we join together?" Dan said with a smirk on his face. "Strength in numbers and all that shit."
Something about his tone of voice made me feel like he couldn't be trusted, like he had a different agenda. I wasn't about to risk the safety of my group, I wouldn't have even trusted Eric's group if my brother didn't vouch for them.
Before I could reply there was suddenly a loud blast and a hold being blown through one of Dan's members, stood in the alleyway.
"Ten points!" Keir yelled, holding his shotgun in the air and walking out from behind them. "Who's next?"
Dan's group were about to retaliate before realising they were suddenly out numbered and he noticed that Taylor was in position to take them all out.
"We're going to fucking kill you for this!" Dan shouted angrily, lowering his weapon. "You mark my fucking words."
"What do we do with them now David?" Gabriel asked, walking over to them and taking their weapons one by one.
"Bring them to the park, place them in the tennis court cage until we figure out something." I replied, helping Josh and Amy to their feet. "We need a meeting when we get back, leave it up to a vote."
Eric pulled up in an old black pickup truck and parked it at the bottom of the street.
"Need a lift?"
Danny, Taylor and Gabriel escorted Dan and the rest of his group into the back of the truck after binding their hands with handcuffs Eric had brought from the police station and climbed in the trailer. Once everyone was in Eric, quickly drove us down the road and parked outside of the gates toward the tennis courts.
Once there Gabriel, Eric, Josh and I grabbed Dan's members out of the truck and locked them inside the tennis courts, there was a high thick metal fence with barbed wire across the top and the gates were only able to be unlocked from the outside, making it the perfect prison for the meantime. Being held hostage I thought they would have been more afraid than they were but they seemed so calm, suspiciously calm actually. Some of them even having the audacity to laugh.
As soon as all gates were locked, Gabriel kept guard as we went to put their weapons and the supplies that Josh and Amy brought back in the house, then we were going to host a meeting to decide on what we're going to do with Dan's group. They didn't harm any of our group members thankfully, but Keir did kill one of theirs so retaliation of some kind is a guarantee.
"I say we just let them join and contribute to our society" Nicole said, handing everyone a cold bottle of water. "Not everyone out there is bad and maybe this was just a misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding, they tried to fucking rob us!" Josh shouted, slamming his fist on the table. "They threatened to kill us if we didn't hand over our supplies... I say kill the bastards."
"Don't forget, we killed one of his group members... you think he's going to be ok with that and help us?" Gabriel asked, taking the lid off his bottle and drinking it.
There was no doubt that Gabriel did have a point here, I don't know what drove Keir to killing one of their group members like that but it would definitely cause us problems if we let them near where we sleep.
"How about we separate the park, keep guard and let them contribute... After a fair amount of time, we let them join our group and we can move on from this mess." I replied showing a map of the park. "They could stay at the top of the park in the field, we could get them some tents and a few supplies to get them through the night and tomorrow we can do runs with them and find out if they're willing to co-operate."
In my mind this was the best cause of action, I didn't want this world to change who we are as people. Eventually it's going to, so I am going to try and do everything I can to keep us as humane as possible.
"There's your fucking problem David, you're always too nice. Mark my words these guys are going to fuck us over first chance they get!" Josh shouted, getting up from his seat.
"We're not killing them, it's not right." Leah shouted back.
Josh didn't like Leah's objection; he stood up angrily, slammed his bat on the table and left the room with Amy.
"That settles it, they stay alive. We set them up tomorrow in the field and work everything out from there... Are they any objections to this?" I asked, looking around the table.
There was nothing but silence; I could see it in their eyes that they weren't too keen on the idea of them living but I felt like it was the right thing to do.
Eric suddenly walked in through the door carrying multiple boxes of alcohol after hearing the arguments from outside.
"Let's worry about all that tomorrow and just get pissed." He laughed, ripping the boxes open and handing everyone a bottle.
As Leah excitedly ran off to set up the music, I headed outside with my bottle to take one to Gabriel who was now on guard duty.
"Here man." I said, sitting next to him and passing him the bottle and taking a sip from my own. "Crazy day huh?"
"You made the right choice you know." he replied, cleaning blood off his bat. "Making hard decisions makes a good leader, otherwise you'll descend into chaos. You can't please everyone man. Sometimes you have to be an asshole, if you're going to keep people alive."
"I'm not a leader man, this is a community run by a council." I replied, drinking from my bottle.
It was nice to see that someone believed in me, but I wondered how I would live with myself if something bad happened because of the decisions I made.
I felt a little uneasy from the thought of them killing someone in our group out of revenge, so I headed back inside to join the others. I trusted Gabriel's instincts, we've been through a lot in the past few days.
Once inside the music was blasting, everyone was singing and dancing together.
"There you are let's dance." Leah smiled, taking my hand and dragging me into the crowd.
She made me forget about all of the worries going through my mind as we were dancing, even if it only lasted a short time. It felt like the world was taken off my shoulders.
"You know, we get on just fine." She laughed, noticing how bad my dance moves were. "If we died tomorrow, I wouldn't want to die alone."
Suddenly she leaned over and kissed me, I had no idea she even liked me but I didn't stop her.
A few hours later everyone had gone to bed, Gabriel had gone to bed and it was Taylor outside on guard duty. She seemed to be the only person actually trained to use a weapon, so it felt safe that she was on our side.
Leaving the hall, I went up to the room Leah and I were staying in and silently climbed into the bed next to her as she was fast asleep.
Staring at the ceiling I knew that if Dan's group decided to join up with our own that this community would be so much stronger for it. Maybe we all could survive this thing together.
"January 9th 2014 – 2:57am
Today was eventful! We found another group lead by a guy named Eric, they seemed hostile at first but it turned out we actually just got off on the wrong foot and I found my brother!
We managed to convince them to join up with us and they agreed to start contributing towards our community. They brought us a black pick-up truck which would make our supply runs much safe as well as food, water, medicine and various weapons they found in a police station.
We found Josh, Amy and Tom, being ambushed by a group for their supplies and assumed they were bandits. We found out that this group was run by a guy named Dan that the group looked to as their leader. I've never been so afraid, infected were bad enough but now people?!
As we were talking, Keir had killed one of the members of his group, I still don't know as to why but I wasn't prepared to question it right now. We just have to deal with the repercussions when they arise.
We took the group hostage and are holding them inside a tennis court where they can be carefully observed by the people we post on guard, We don't know if they will retaliate to a member of their group getting killed but we will be prepared to cross that bridge if it comes to it.
I still worry that I made the wrong decision, I just hope nobody gets killed because of it.
Thankfully no members of our group were killed today and I was glad to see Josh and Amy returning unharmed and bringing back a lot of food from the supermarkets in the town.
Things might just end well for us whilst we wait for help to arrive.
I woke up early the next morning after having a quiet peaceful sleep for once, there were no gunshots, people shouting and no infected banging on the gates. It was the quietest night we have had so far.
I rolled over to wake Leah, but she was already gone. Stretching my arms I stood up, got dressed and headed downstairs. I could see people were already getting ready for their supply run. This reminded me that I had to send members of Dan's group out with them, I'm going to separate them of course. I wasn't about to let them go out together where they could plan an escape or even a way to get revenge for their fallen group member.
Leah walked over to me handing me my jacket with a smile on her face. I was wondering where this went, it appeared that Leah had taken it to try and get the blood stains out and done an amazing job at doing so. They were barely noticeable apart from a small fade on the sleeve.
Josh and Amy were coming down from upstairs, seems they were up late at night as they both looked tired.
"Josh, come here a sec" I called as he was about to walk out the door.
He walked over to me putting on his hooded jacket and picking his bat up off the floor.
"We're taking Sean on a supply run today, so play nice ok?"
"Alright, but I'll keep an eye on him." Josh replied, holding his bad over his shoulder. "But if he tries anything, I'll kill him."
"I'm also sending Nicole, Tania and Taylor with you" I said, writing names down on the paper so that I knew who was with each leader of the group.
In group one the leader was Gabriel, he was assigned to take, Keir, Danny and Quinn with him. For group two the leader was Josh, he was assigned to take Sean, Nicole, Taylor, Tania and Amy with him. Finally for group three, I was the leader. I decided to take Leah, Eric, Dan and Tom.
We all left at the same time so we knew that everyone was accounted for. I wasn't going to let Dan out of my sight, at least not until we know whether or not he's dangerous to members of our group. My group was heading to the town centre this time, since this is the most dangerous place to go after throwing that alarm we decided to take turns going there.
We took the same alleyway we would usually take, having to take out a few of the infected that dwelled around the outside of the gate, with a few close calls.
We made our way towards the town, the number of infected were less than before, but seeing as we had to kill so many everyday it's not ridiculous to think we might actually be cleaning this place up, it was a small town. Who knows maybe we would even eventually take control of the whole town and make it a safe zone for other survivors seeking a place to stay without worrying about the infected or having trouble to sleep.
Dan stayed at my side the whole time with others following behind us, this way Dan couldn't attack anyone from the back, it made me paranoid having him this close to me.
We had to be cautious of course, not a lot of people would be happy about being kept captive for a crime that they might not even attempt to commit, but he seemed fine... angry but fine.
We stopped near the library next to the police station to ready our weapons and get ready to push forward, the number of infected were growing higher going up this road but in small doses we managed to pick them off one at a time, being as careful as we could.
Gabriel picked up a glass bottle and threw it at the wall near the police station, drawing as many in that direction as possible.
"Gabriel you take the left, I'll take the middle and Dan can take the right. Leah and Eric follow behind to make sure they don't get the jump on us." I whispered as we were approaching the group of the horrid corpses ahead of us.
We all rushed forward at the same time in a tight square formation to ensure they don't jump out from any blind spots.
On the way towards the infected, I spotted a crowbar on the floor, it looked like it was used to try and break into the police station early on. I wondered maybe the group that did that was Eric's group or maybe the other group survived. There were no bodies nearby that I could see unless they are now members of the dead.
I picked it up and drove it into one of their heads, blood splattering on the floor and on my clothes. This weapon was definitely more effective than the plank of wood that seemed to do more damage to my hands than it did to them.
Eric fired an arrow from his crossbow straight into the skull of an infected, walking out from around the back of the police station. It was hard to believe his accuracy; it pierced straight through the eye and out the back of the head.
Dan took out three of them on the way to the centre with a machete he had found in one of the hunting stores, or at least that's what he told me. Maybe I was just too paranoid about that guy, who was I to judge his character,
Suddenly I was thrown to the floor, caught off guard by one of the infected that had been approaching me. My head hit the floor hard, blood from my head slowly started filling the pavement. The only thing going through my head was how it was so easy for me to be caught off guard and if this was the place I was going to die after all.
I could see Dan approaching me as an infected was about to bite into my cheek, I could feel his breath and blood on my face as I closed me eyes, struggling to hold him away from me.
"This is it, this is the time that determines if Dan is one of us." I thought to myself, trying to push the infected away from my face.
Suddenly the infected got pulled off of me, thrown to the floor and curb stomped into the ground. I turned my head to see the head splattered onto the floor.
Dan helped me up, taking my hand and lifted me to my feet.
"You good?" He asked, shaking the blood from his shoes.
"I am now, thanks." I replied, brushing myself off and picking up my crowbar. "I'll have to be more careful."
We fought off the rest of the infected and joined up with Josh's group that was having trouble near the town centre, I could see Nicole and Tania were heavily surrounded by infected.
I sprinted over to them ready to help, grabbing Tania and throwing her to Gabriel as I swung the crowbar across the head of an infected about to grab her.
Together with Gabriel, we started clearing the infected around Nicole but we were too late, one of them that appeared to have fallen over had its teeth stuck into her ankle. As she fell they all piled down on top of her ripping her apart.
"Nicole!" Leah cried, rushing towards the infected around her.
"We can't risk it!" I yelled, yanking Leah away from Nicole. "She's gone Leah."
"How can you say it like that? She was one of us." she replied, trying to break free of my grip. "We can at least take her body back for Tania."
"I'm sorry, we can't risk it." I finished, holding back my tears. I wanted to save her really I did, but I've seen now how people turn and it was too late for her.
We decided to join up with Josh's group for the rest of the run to rendezvous with Gabriel's group in the town. On our way to the town, we stopped to observe a young girl scavenging for supplies in a rundown food store.
She had long brown hair and appeared to be around 16-17 years old. She didn't seem afraid of the infected though, maybe my eyes were deceiving me and she was actually one of them. It had happened in the past so there was no reason to doubt that.
I approached the girl slowly, suddenly I could see golf ball rapidly approaching me, almost hitting my head. It would have if I hadn't moved in time.
"Woah! relax, we're friendly!" I shouted, coming out from behind a door I hid behind.
"Stay back" She ordered, holding a golf club.
"It's ok, we're from a community in the park." I replied, placing my crowbar on the floor. "We're just here looking for supplies for our group."
"A community? Is it safe?" She questioned, lowering her weapon.
"We have lost people I'm not going to lie to you, but it's safer than doing everything on your own" I answered, honestly. "You can come with us if you want to. What's your name?"
"I'm Brittany." She replied, continuing to stack food into her backpack.
"Are you alone?" Josh asked, walking into the room.
"I was surviving with my father, but he went missing a few days ago. I found him today as one of those freaks and had to kill him." She continued, tears building in her eyes.
Brittany stood, throwing her backpack over her shoulder and walked over to us.
"I'll go with you, but if you try to screw me. I'll kill you."
"That went well." Leah laughed, gathering up the rest of the food in the store.
We continued the supply run, gathering as much food as we could. But after all the runs the town was now running dry. At some point we would have to leave for another location, this wasn't going to last forever.
We met up with Gabriel's group on our way back to the park; thankfully everyone in his group had survived and was carrying so much food we would be good to survive another few weeks at least before having to move, if we rationed them carefully.
We got back to the park safely and welcomed Dan's group to join us each of them pulled their weight during the runs, making me feel a lot better about them staying with us. We also welcomed Brittany as our newest member.
When night fell, we threw a welcome party using some of the food we had gathered such as sweets, alcohol and sandwiches we managed to save before the bread went bad.
Leah brought out the music once more and Eric brought us the alcohol from inside the house.
It was nice to do something normal and fun for a change in this world and everyone seemed to be having fun. The smell of the marshmallows cooking on a fire was too good to resist so I joined them to go eat.
Whilst there we decided to come up with something to name the infected for fun, since so far we were handling the situation well outside of the gates.
"How about Brainless?" Josh laughed sipping from a glass of vodka.
"Nah I was thinking of something like "stupid", can you imagine we get surrounded and we would be saying, oh my god we're surrounded by stupid" Leah laughed taking the bite of a marshmallow after roasting it on the fire." Brainless sounds good to me though" She finished after giving it some thought.
"Let's name them by their movement or intelligence; I've seen some infected walking around that are smarter than the others. Some of them are even using weapons. Small stuff like rocks and such, they don't have the strength to pick up anything heavy. I say we call the smart ones Seekers, meaning that they're going to be seeking us out to kill us and as for the slow normal ones, let's call them Grunts as they move around slowly and grunt a lot. Makes sense right?" Gabriel explained contributing his ideas to the group.
This idea sounded perfect and not too cliché from things we saw on the television about this kind of thing. Usually the term used for them are "Walkers" or the most dreaded and cliché of them all "Zombies". I wanted to avoid all that stuff and be original about it. Gabriel's idea was perfect for just that.
After the party everyone went to their beds and we set up an area for Dan's group to stay, Josh wasn't happy about this but they earned it after what they did for us today. Dan saved my life from one of the Grunts, so what reason would I have to deny him a place to stay... right?
It got late and as usual things around the park were quiet. This was the one place we can go, to escape everything that has happened on the outside; sure everyone was going to die at some point. But maybe we could find a way to survive this so that when we do die it'll be of natural causes like old age.
"January 10th 2014 – 2:30am
I've decided to go to bed earlier tonight after having a very rough day; we split the groups up and placed Dan's group members somewhere among us so they could earn our trust. I almost died on today's supply run but thanks to Dan my life was saved. (maybe I was wrong about them?)
He and his group have all earned a place to stay in the community; hopefully they will continue to contribute towards making this place better and more survivable.
We have also met up with another survivor named Brittany. She was found scavenging food and was a little shocked to see us. (not that anyone could blame her.)
She is now welcomed to the group after an amazing party we decided to throw with what supplies we could spare.
We even came up with a name for the infected instead of the cliché and over used term "infected" or "Zombie"
Sadly though not everything that happened today was good, we lost one of our members Nicole. We're going to be holding a memorial tomorrow evening, Tania hasn't said a word. I wonder how she's taking it.
We have enough food to last us at least a few weeks now without having to move and find more."
The next morning I was awoken by a loud banging on the door. I stood up and sprinted down the stairs, sliding my jacket on as I went along.
"What happened?!" I shouted as I got out into the park, thinking Dan's group had done something in the night.
Suddenly there was a loud laughter as people were looking at me wondering why I was so shaken up.
"Sorry to wake you David, we were just fixing up fortifications on the doors and windows. You know, just in case. "Gabriel laughed, holding a hammer in his hand.
"You could have told me you were going to do that last night" I replied, panting for breath before joining in the laughter with them. "Anyway what's up?"
"Well, the others are around the park searching for weak points and patching up, since Josh's paranoia told him that there was someone plotting to destroy everything we have worked so hard to defend... I stayed behind to fix up the house and to keep guard since you were asleep. So maybe now you can help keep guard whilst I go help Taylor with the gates" Gabe replied as he turned to leave the area.
That was just like him, not giving me a chance to reply, but since I'm awake I don't see why I couldn't help out. I picked up my crowbar off the floor and sat on the steps near the doors to the house.
"David! Get the fuck over here now!" Gabriel shouted from across the park. "Those motherfuckers!"
Panicking I sprinted over to where he was, There I found Taylor unconscious on the floor and her sniper rifle missing.
I quickly checked her pulse to find out if she was still alive, anger filling my emotions.
"She's alive, someone must have hit her though judging by the bruise on her head." I said angrily, brushing her hair to one side. "Gabe, gather everyone to the centre of the park now. I want to find out who was responsible for this and it will be dealt with accordingly. I'll need you to watch my back on this one in the event that something does kick off."
With that Gabriel ran off to gather everyone together as I carried Taylor to the house and placed her in the bed with a bottle of water ready for when she woke up. If we don't find out who did this right now, we certainly would when she woke up.
I picked up my Glock, loaded it and left the house to join the rest of the group. The main people I was suspicious of of course was Dan's group, this was the first night they were outside of their cell.
"As someone might know, Taylor has been knocked unconscious and her weapon has been stolen. If the person who did this comes forward now, no penalties will be issued. However if nobody comes forward and the culprit is found, then you will be killed or outcast. This is serious, I'm not messing around here" I spoke loudly, for everyone in the group to be able to hear me.
As I expected nobody came forward, they all stayed quiet and didn't respond.
"Very well." I said in a quieter tone as I turned around and left on patrol around the park with Gabriel.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary though, Dan's group left and began fixing the park up, he was not instructed to be anywhere near Taylor and someone would have seen them approaching her. It didn't seem possible that they could have been the culprit. I wanted to believe my own thoughts due to Dan saving my life but of course they were the main suspects for all of this.
I searched the park in search for a member of Dan's group and bumped into Sean, placing boards on the fences to reinforce them.
"Sean, can I speak with you please?" I asked, in a calm tone of voice.
"Sure, just give me a sec" He replied, hammering the last board onto the fence.
He followed me back to the house, sat down in a chair in the lounge and placed his hammer onto the ground.
"What's up?" He asked, curiously.
"Well, you weren't here when we gathered the group, actually nobody from your group was. Taylor a member of our own, has been knocked unconscious and her weapon has been stolen. Eric is outside questioning people, but I thought maybe you would know if anyone from your group or yourself knew anything about this situation." I replied, one hand on my gun.
"I saw Dan walking around last night after saying something about wanting the supplies you guys had, he did say he was kidding though I don't think he would be serious about that kind of thing. It's possible that he was the culprit in all of this but I haven't seen him since." He whispered to me in a suspicious tone.
Shocked I put out a search to find him; we had to do something before he could do anything that could really mess things up for us. However we could not find him anywhere, what was worse is that he was armed with a powerful sniper rifle. He could get to us at any point; did he only save my life just did gain my trust? How could I have been so naïve?
Thoughts were going through my head but I couldn't be sure about it until I found him and questioned him myself. That was the only way to do it and I hoped that was not the case; I was ready to kill him if it came down to it.
It got late and as Sean had told us half of our supplies were missing. I kept everyone inside the house and left to go find out where he could have gone, hopefully he was stupid and stayed inside the park to hide.
Otherwise it was possible he could have headed over to the school. It was pretty clear there after all from all the runs we had done to go and clear it out and provided him a good view of the park.
"Wait up" Gabriel called, running behind me, followed by Eric and Keir. "You're crazy if you think we're going to let you go at this on your own."
We suddenly heard a sudden but loud scream coming from the house.
"What now?!" I shouted as we sprinted towards the house.
I got back to the bottom of the park and saw a horde of grunts, heading towards the house from all angles. Did Dan really let them inside after we fought so hard to defend this place? Did he really just attempt to kill us all, even members of his own group?
Gabriel and Keir started clearing around the back of the house whilst Amy and Josh took the left side. Eric, Leah and I took the front of the house. We were really hoping to defend this place and hold them off, but our chances weren't look good. They were easily overwhelming us and there didn't seem to be an end. Especially as Taylor was unconscious with Tom, Tania and Danny taking care of her.
Tom ran outside the house carrying Taylor in his arms and Tania sprinted out behind them followed by Danny carrying a large backpack of supplies from the kitchen.
"This isn't going to work!" Gabe yelled from the back of the house. "There's just too many of the fuckers."
He was right, there was too many of them and the gun shots were just going to bring more of them down on us. I didn't like the idea of it but it was clear to me that we had to leave the park and find somewhere new. Perfect timing though as we were not going to be able to save a lot of the supplies, even worse that half were now missing.
"The side gate is free! Let's leave through there." Sean shouted, leading our group towards the field and killing grunts as he went along.
I had no choice but to trust him, why would he stay if all of his group were planning this from the beginning; it only made sense that he was loyal to us and not him, or he was left behind and was just helping us to benefit his own survival.
Besides I was unaware there was even a gate near the field, could that be where Dan had left without being noticed... nobody was stationed there.
The field was crowded with infected but not too many for us to handle if we were careful.
I ran in formation with Tom and Leah as Gabriel began to lead the others through clearing any coming in from the sides.
Suddenly a loud gunshot came out of the park and hit Tom in the shoulder, dropping Taylor and sending him to the floor. The infected were gathering around quickly, it seemed like there was no hope we for them, Gabriel and I quickly turned around, shoving the grunts to the ground as we made our way back for them.
Sean sprinted out of the crowd, picked Tom and Taylor up over his shoulder and dragged them over to the gate.
Once of our group had reached the gate at a time as there were too many to get through all at once, we knew our chances were slim but it wasn't like we could turn back.
"I'll hold them; you get them out of here. I'll meet up with you back at the town centre, that's also a hint for you to take it back. It will do for tonight we can figure out where we're going to go tomorrow." Gabriel commanded, taking Danny's SMG and firing it into the crowd whilst running through the park.
It would be too stupid to follow him or attempt to stop him; his mind was dead set on his task. I had to trust him and get the rest out of here.
Once outside the gate we jammed it shut, it was clear Dan was the one that fired that shot but if he was still in the park then he was going to get killed by grunts anyway and if not, he was going to be killed by one of us.
The shots from the SMG Gabriel was carrying had stopped, I wondered if he had ran out of ammunition, or worse if the infected or Dan had gotten him.
We were safe once we were clear of the park. All the infected from this street were already driven inside.
This was the perfect timing to devise a plan to retake the town centre.
Gabriel had planned for us to retake it and if that's where he was planning on meeting up with us. We had to make sure it was ours.
We left through the middle of town this time and out the backdoor of one of the restaurants that led to an alley which conjoined with the town centre gate. Eric, Keir, Brittany, Tania and Danny continued towards the post office to go take out the infected around the front. Leah, Josh, Amy and I went to take the side and Sean, still carrying Taylor and Tom, went with Paola and Quinn to clear out the back.
Once we had met up on the inside of the town centre we were safe, despite the amount of stinking corpses that were around us that was enough to make even the toughest man sick.
We bolted the doors except for the gate that Gabriel usually uses when coming here on runs and placed guards making sure nobody else comes through.
I hoped that he knew this was the route he had to take if we were going to protect this place for his return.
I left Danny to take guard of the back gate for the first shift, and made sure that he wasn't going to fire that gun unless he absolutely needed too, for the time being he could use Gabriel's bat that he had handed to him in return for the gun.
We waited until nightfall, moving the bodies out and gathering what was left inside the stores to the middle of the area.
There was still no sign of Gabriel, could he have died in that heroic attempt he pulled at the park? We held a memorial for Nicole, lighting a small fire inside the supermarket as not to signal Dan of our location.
"Tania, are you ok?" Leah asked, walking over to her.
She hadn't said a word since Nicole's death, but it was affecting her deeply.
"How would you feel if your mother died in front of you." She replied crying. "I'll be fine, I just need space."
It hurt seeing Tania this way, she lost both her parents in such a short span of time. It was up to us to protect her now.
I wondered what had happened to Dan and hoped that Gabriel had found the bastard and killed him when the gunshots went quiet.
Luckily, he didn't know about our meeting spot. It was too dangerous to go hunting him down, especially at night.
We decided to take shifts guarding the gate, keeping it open as there were not many infected in our area anymore. Eric insisted on taking most of the night to protect the gate with his crossbow as it was quiet and there was no way he would let anyone else use it as it belonged to his grandfather and was given to him the day he died.
Paola had found some bandages in a pharmacy and helped to clean Tom's arm; she came to the conclusion that Dan must have been close at the time as the bullet went straight through without breaking up into fragments.
This was also lucky for Tom's life as we didn't have the tools to perform an operation.
Sean placed Taylor onto a makeshift bed of stacked clothing from inside the clothing store opposite the bakery and covered her with a winter jacket to keep her warm.
I set up our sleeping areas in the store we had previously stayed in and decided to call it a night, I was still upset about losing the park but eventually we had to move on. This was just a wake-up call that there are dangerous people out there and not all can be trusted at all.
"January 11th 2014 – 1:00am
Today was terrible, at first we found Taylor unconscious on the floor with her weapon missing, We hosted an investigation and came to the conclusion that Dan was the one planning to do this right from the get go.
Sean helped us escape the park and Gabriel is yet to return to us after agreeing to meet up with us at the town centre.
I hope he's ok he has been with us since the beginning, I really can't imagine losing one of my best friends.
The area is secure for now and we must plan on moving on. We almost lost Tom to a gunshot that we are assuming that Dan had fired during our escape from the park. We will get him for this. There's no saying in what tomorrow has in store for us but I know we are going to take it on together. We are survivors and that means we will do whatever it takes.
Tomorrow morning we are going to set out on a search to find Gabriel, avoiding the park as much as possible as Dan could still be lurking around there, waiting for our return.
He seemed so trustworthy I don't understand what could have driven him to do this.
Maybe he was seeking revenge for a group member he has lost, I can't believe I was so easily fooled. It makes me wonder... can I really trust anyone?
We are not going to let him live. Not after all he has done to us today.
Weekly Power Status
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