11. On The Roade
After making his choice Alex went through the maps a few more times so that he was aware of any highly populated areas. He was going to take the maps but having an idea of where he was and where to go in an emergency could save his life.
When he felt satisfied, Alex went onto the internet to check on the church. He wanted to make sure they were still there. He didn’t want to go all the way there just so that nobody was there.
He tries contacting them through their facebook page.
[still hanging in there?]
Alex waited for a few minutes to see if someone had answered, 5 minutes later nobody had answered. Deciding that getting his things ready was a better use of his time, he decides to check on them later.
Ping
Right after standing up a message arrived.
[thanks to God’s mercy we are safe. Is help on the way?]
Alex felt bad about making them think that he was going there to help them. He wasn’t going there to cause trouble, but he also wasn’t going there to save the day.
[No sorry, just another lone survivor that needs shelter. I can take care of myself, and I have food. Is there enough room for one more person?]
[Everyone is welcome to the house of God. We will receive you with open arms]
[I’ll probably arrive tomorrow but if I don’t. take care of yourself]
[Save travel I hope to see you tomorrow]
Turning off the computer Alex made his way downstairs to star getting his thing ready, sharpening his axe and his knife, loading the magazines that he found, checking his backpack, making sure he had everything in case of emergency and taking the cores of the zombies outside that he had forgotten to take. Before dinner Alex did one more refining session, sweating a light brown. After dinner Alex went to sleep.
As he lay on the bed Alex couldn’t help but replay Clark las moment over and over again trying to think of a way to stop him from committing suicide.
‘I couldn’t have stopped even if I knew it was coming. I have to stop thinking about it, I need to sleep’.
Even though he was trying to stop himself from thinking about Clark the image of his last moment kept playing in his mind and when he finally fell asleep, he was there trying to stop him but always failing.
Early the next morning Alex gets out of bed even though he barely slept las night. After eating a quick breakfast Alex made his way to his truck. Once he made sure that he had everything and that there weren’t any zombies around, he was about to get in the truck, he stopped and looked towards the house.
“Thanks for having me and I hope you and your wife are together”.
Done whit his parting words Alex gets on the truck and starts to make his way towards the church. The beginning of his trip was easy enough but after the halfway mark Alex had to take detours on many occasions either because the cars that were stopped in the middle of the road, car that collided whit other cars or buildings and large concentration of zombies. While he could run them over there were a little too many for him to come out unscratched.
As he was trying to find a way forward Alex stumbled into another group of zombies, this one larger than normal. Because he was distracted looking for a street, he only noticed them when they had noticed him.
Not wasting any time Alex made a U turn and speeds of not caring about what street he was taking only caring to get as far away as possible. After a few minutes he slows down so that he can oriented himself with his map. Suddenly a car drives by almost hitting his truck.
‘Shit. That was close. I have to check on the driver of the car’.
Looking out he noticed that the car had stopped not too far away. Alex gets out of the truck and as he makes his way towards the car, a man comes out from the driver’s door.
“Sir are yo-“
“Get away from the truck Asshole!!”
The man suddenly pulls out a gun and stars to walks towards the tuck while aiming at Alex.
“I said get away from the fucking tuck!”
Alex didn’t have any other choice but to comply with the man’s orders. When the man made It to the door, he turned around to get inside. This gave Alex a chance to take a quick leap at the man. Moving faster than the man and Alex expected, Alex grabs the man by the shoulders and throws him to the floor.
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BANG!
When the man hit the floor, he pulled the trigger, Lucky missing Alex, and the truck. The man tried to take aim at Alex once more, but Alex was ready and close enough to kick the gun out of the man’s hand.
Taking two steps back Alex takes out his own gun and aims at the man. While the man slowly stands up.
“WHAT THE HELL? I WAS TRYING TO HELP YOU!”
The man doesn’t answer Alex and just stares at his gun, noticing the small shake on Alex hand.
“You are not going to shoot me, you don’t have the balls!”
The man suddenly charges at Alex.
BANG!
Alex hadn’t mean to shoot but when the man charged, it had startled Alex. The bullet had hit him on the shoulder.
“AAAA, YOU SHOOT ME YOU MOTHERFUCKER AAAAAA FUCK”
As the man lay on the floor crying and yelling Alex notice that the gun shoot had attract several zombies that were making their way towards them quickly. Alex debated with himself if he should help the man or not for a second, but when he saw him making his way towards his gun and still cursing at him. Alex got on the truck quickly and left. A couple of seconds later he hears gunshots and screams that quickly die out.
‘Why, why, just why would you do that?! We could have helped each other!’
As Alex rambles, he doesn’t pay attention to where he is going, by the time he calms down he is completely lost.
Feeling mentally tier Alex looks for a spot where he can park the truck and take a break.
‘That guy probably thought that he had a better chance at surviving by himself’.
Taking some water and food, Alex calms down and starts to look for his location on the map. After a long while he has a general idea of where he is and what direction he needs to take.
‘I drove pretty far from where I was, I should fuel the tank before leaving’.
Alex turns off the truck, makes sure there aren’t any zombies around and gets out. After finishing fueling the truck and gets back in the truck but before he closes the door, he hears something.
“HELP PLEAS SOMBODY HELP”
Far in the distance he sees somebody running away from about a dozen zombies. Without losing any time Alex gets back on the truck, turs it on and speeds off after the running person and the zombies.
The person was running in the opposite direction that Alex was coming from, so he had to honk to get the person’s attention. Unfortunately, this made the person slow down, given a chance to the zombie too caught up to the person and tackling them to the floor.
“FUCK”
Alex curses as he tries to go faster but he is already flooring the accelerator. With the remaining zombies quickly approaching the person on the floor Alex is left with no chois but to keep going straight and hope not to hit the person. Alex hits the last one of the groups and keeps going hitting the rest, making a quick small turn before he arrives to the place, he calculated the person to be, Alex steps on the brakes as hard as he can. Only after stepping on the brakes for a few seconds and going through a fence, does the truck stop.
Getting out of the truck Alex hopes, prays that he did not hit the person. Once out he sees that he did not hit them, but they are being mauled by two zombies. Sprinting faster than he had ever done, Alex arrives close to the zombies only to realize that he forgot his axe in his hast, too late to take his knife or gun out, he kicked one of the zombies on the side like a football, getting it of the person and sending it away.
Turning to the other one Alex takes out his knife and stabs it on the head killing instantly. Before he can take his knife out the other one jumps at him, grabs him and bites him in the shoulder. Letting go of the knife Alex stumbles but doesn’t fall. Alex grabs the zombie by the hair and pulls trying to shake it off but ends up only taking hair, while the zombie bites off a hole in his jacket and takes some skin with it.
Alex, taking the chance, puts his elbow in the neck and falls forward. Making the zombie hit asphalt headfirst but this doesn’t kill it, not loosing any time he mounted it and stars punching until stops moving.
“GET AWAY GET AWAY!!”
Alex looks up to see the person, a man, crawling away from another zombie that hadn’t die but couldn’t use its legs. Getting up Alex walks towards the zombie and stops hard on its head. As he gets closer to the man, he tries to clam him down.
“Its ok they are death, can you stop crawling away pleas”
“HIIII GET AWAY FORM ME!!”
The man tries to stand of and run away, but Alex grabs him from the back and stops him. The man tries desperately to get away from Alex as he screams, claws and kicks, but Alex held him in place.
“If you don’t do something now you are going to turn”
This got through the man, making him stop. Alex lets him go, but the man just stood there for a couple of seconds before screaming.
“AAAAA SOMETHING IS IN ME, GET IT OUT”
“I can’t, but you can do it. Sit down, tense your muscles, take a deep breath, exhale hard.
Alex managed to sit him down, but the man was so terrify that he would cry, yell and scratch at his wounds.
“I DON’T WANT TO TURN! AAAA!”
“IF YOU FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS, YOU ARE NO- “.
Alex was unable to finish his sentence as a Zombie clawed at him hitting him on the face. Countering whit a punch to the face he manages to stop the zombie’s next attack. Not stopping there Alex throws a series of punches, unfortunately this doesn’t finish the zombie just stops it from attacking again. After a strong right hook Alex manages to make the zombie stables back giving him a chance to kick it on the chest and send it flying to the floor.
Instead of continuing attacking it Alex throws and rolls himself to the ground, narrowing dogging another charging zombie that crashes with the other one on the floor. Taking a moment to check his surroundings Alex notices a few more zombies running towards him. Not wanting to take all the zombies empty handed and not wanting to attract more, with his gun Alex sprints towards the truck.
Lucky for Alex he left the door open. Reaching inside Alex pulls out his axe and turns around in time to hit an approaching zombie on the side of its head, cutting it halfway through. Changing his grip, he slams the wooden part of the axe into the nose of the next zombie making it stumble backwards, giving him enough space to raise the axe and bringing it down on its head.
The two remaining ones are far enough away that Alex has enough time to prepare a large and strong swing. Once they are close enough Alex swings with all his strength, decapitating one and hitting the other on the shoulder and bringing it to the floor. With a quick cut to the head, he finishes the last one.
Looking around Alex find the man just staring off into the distance.
‘Shit, I think am to late’
“Hey…. Are you still you?”
Alex voice made the man stir, making him turn his head.
“(deep sigh)”
The man Black eyes stared at Alex for a moment before charging at him, with a quick almost lazy swing of his axe he finishes the zombie. As he was making his way towards the truck to refine the corruption Alex noticed something about his body.
‘The corruption…. It’s not moving. No, it’s moving but much slower than before. The cores, they either raised my resistance to the corruption or me getting stronger helps me resist it.’
Feeling excited with the new discovery Alex turns around to star harvesting cores, but after taking a couple of steps the pain in his body increases indicating that the corruption has gone deeper into his body.
‘I’m not immune…. yet. I should deal with the corruption first.’