Yesterday he and Steven had run down those backstabbing bastards. Christian thought he should let Sergio out of the safe, because apparently he didn’t understand the statement, “I can’t open it. He’s going to die in there.”
What did he think was going to happen after he killed Rebecca? There was nothing else to be done. He had killed the man’s daughter without even checking to see if she was really zombie. He just saw what he took for a bite and bang, she’s dead.
What did they think Kyle Rey would do? What would any man have done?
What would you have done?
Christian threw a fit and called the man a murderer, then tried to kill him. The man fought him off and Christian fled. He tried to take Anthony with him. The man and Steven stopped Anthony in the driveway, but Christian got away. Steven and the man chased him, caught him, and pinned him down in some toolshed.
He shot at them. The man told Steven to go back and get supplies. They were going to burn him out. The man would stay and watch the shed.
And Steven never came back.
He was the man’s number one; the only one the man really trusted.
As the sound of the Jeep faded down the road, Christian had poked his head out just enough for the man to get off a shot.
The man knew better than to make too much noise in the open, but he didn’t care.
Christian was going to die today.
Twice more, Christian tried to leave the shed and both times he retreated to the cracks of pistol-fire.
An hour passed, and still no sign of Steven.
Ninety minutes.
With the two-hour mark quickly approaching, the man began to get seriously concerned. Even in post-apocalyptic Cheney there was no reason for him to take this long. Something must have happened to him.
The man realized that he could not spend the rest of the night hiding outside this shed, waiting for supplies that may never come. Just as he began debating his options, a solution presented itself. On the other side of the lawn, four grey-faces pushed through a gap in the fence. The man fired several rounds into the side of the toolshed, making Christian cry out and scream angrily at him. The noise excited the zombies and soon they were swarming the shed. Christian broke out. The man shot. Christian shot. The zombies came. The man tried to retreat but the shed was overrun. He was busy trading blows with Christian when the zombies reached him. Out of bullets, he stomped Christian’s shin, and pulled him to the ground. The man stomped Christian’s lower leg and knee until he heard a crack, and then ran.
It wasn’t until he had covered the first mile that he realized just how hurt he was. By the second mile, he was exhausted and ready to collapse. When he finally crossed South Murphy, the man was nearer death than he had ever been.
Now, seated on cold, stained carpet, the man plotted his next move. He needed supplies. He needed wheels. He needed to find Steven and whoever did this to Kurt, Michael, and Dave. But first, he slept.
◊◊◊
It was a three-mile walk to the edge of town, and then man did it at a slow pace. He knew the roads and the houses and the secrets they contained. He had been up every road and through every house he could find. He had taken every scrap of food and durable resource he could find over the past months, so he didn’t bother checking any homes as he came into town. Instead, he headed to a part of town he had never been in before.
The business district was the first area of town affected by the mob because, frankly, people have no imagination. The man had known this, and had avoided hunting there. But as provisions were getting low, and after the successful raid on that family in the garage, his hopes were up that he would be able to find something of use.
He found more than he could ever hope for.
Just down First Street, right up the main drag of Cheney, the man made his way staying close to the buildings and in the shadows. He knew that wouldn’t hide him from the zombies but that wasn’t his real concern at this point. He was more worried about a sniper picking him off and rifling his pockets.
Hell, he’d done the same thing a dozen times.
It left one less person competing for food and the man got whatever they had in their pockets. Usually it was shit. Pictures and trinkets and memorabilia.
None of that keeps you alive, really. Not in the mind of the man, anyway.
The only thing that keeps you alive in the wild is being bigger and scarier and fiercer and more vicious.
Either you were a lion or you were everyone else, and the man knew he was a lion. He had made it this long, hadn’t he? He was the King of Cheney, and what he found next made the King very happy indeed.
Parked across the street was his Jeep.
The man scanned the scene for Steven, hoping that his gut was wrong. How could he have abandoned him? How could Steven think he could ever get away from his family by traveling such a short distance? It didn’t make sense.
The Jeep was parked in front of the old mill, and the man was a little jealous of the idea. It was a fortress when you looked at it right. High walls. The few windows on the ground level had been boarded up.
But by whom?
How long had Steven been planning on leaving? How long would it have taken him to prepare this place? And where is he now? Why wasn’t the Jeep hidden? Nothing seemed right to the man, but it was about to get a few shades clearer.
Out of a side door strolled a young man, shouldering a backpack and
