Thunk

Thunk

Thunk

In the blink of an eye Eli had sent three arrows down range towards the tree he pick out to be his target, he turned towards another tree and fired off two more in equally rapid succession

Thunk

Thunk

He held his bow down and examined his shots

Two arrows from the first volley had hit home with less than an inch grouping, the third hit a little lower than he would've liked

"At least it would still kill." He thought.

He turned and looked where he had shot his second volley, both arrows hit with an inch grouping as well.

"That'll have to do."

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that!?" A female voice said behind him out of nowhere.

Eli turned around in the span of a heartbeat, his hand instinctively dropped down to the knife handle on his right hip.

It was Alyssa.

He relaxed and moved his hand away from the knife.

"Did I scare you?" She asked.

Motion in the corner of his eye drew Eli's focus away from her. Off to the right Sebastian and Silas were also watching, Sebastian had moved forward towards Eli once he saw him reach for his knife. Silas put his hand on Sebastian's shoulder in an attempt to calm him, but to no avail.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing!?" Sebastian shouted at Eli, still walking closer to him.

"Oh for God's sake Sebastian calm down." Alyssa said in return to her brother.

"Stay out of this Alyssa! He could've killed you."

"All he did was put his hand by his knife. It's not like he pulled it out and besides, I scared him. That's why he did it."

"Kill"

"Subdue"

"Survive"

Eli shook his head slightly to wave away his thoughts.

Sebastian, who clearly thought the gesture was towards him and took it as a sign of disrespect, stepped within arm's reach of Eli.

"Do you got a problem?" He asked Eli aggressively.

The two stood there looking at each other.

"Okay Sebastian that's enough." Silas said coldly, "It was clearly an accident, there's no need to make a big deal out of it."

Hearing his father's tone, Sebastian snapped out of his blind rage state and stepped away from Eli, but said nothing.

Alyssa looked around at the three of them, "Well that was exciting."

"Alyssa, will you go check on your mother please." Silas said to her.

"You just want me to leave."

He shot her a half glare from the corner of his eye, but she just smiled back in return.

"Very well father, I'd love to go check on mom." Her tone was all too mocking.

She turned and walked up the stairs and went into the house.

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"God she's such a handful." Silas said to no one in particular. "But anyways, now let's discuss the plan for finding medicine."

Eli moved over to a nearby tree stump and sat on it, resting his bow up against the side of it, "I'm guessing this is what you need me for."

"We don't need you for anything." Sebastian snapped.

"Well then if that's the case why am I still here?" Eli questioned. "If you can do this without me why not have just let me leave as soon as I woke up?"

"Because my dad is too caring."

"Sebastian that's enough!" Silas snapped at him. "Like it or not we do need his help."

"Why? We've done just fine on our own up until now. Why bring someone else in and ask for their help now?"

"Because son, up until now we haven't had to deal with something like this. Do you think I like that I have to ask somebody else to help me save my wife? Do you think I like feeling like there's nothing I can do? This is for your mother. So suck up whatever complex you're feeling and accept that we're taking his help. He's lived out there in that world, we haven't. If there's anything that could help us out there we're gonna need his help to find it." Silas said as he looked painfully at his son

"You don't know that. I-I'm sure we could find it." Sebastian said in one last attempt to persuade his father.

Eli spit off to the side before interjecting, "Where would you look to find medication then?"

Sebastian paused for a moment as he thought.

"Probably the pharmacy or a store." He said coincidently.

"That's the stupidest thing I've heard you say." Eli responded.

"That was unnecessary." Silas said.

"No. It wasn't." Eli started, "Those are the first places people went when all this started, there's nothing left in any of them except rotten meat and corpses. That should be common knowledge by now."

Sebastian let out a deep sigh, he knew there was no point in continuing his argument, and as much as he hated to admit it.

Eli recognized that and continued, "The best chance we'll have of finding medication is one of two ways. The first is by checking small businesses, like barber shops or restaurants or cell phone stores."

"I don't see how those places are supposed to help us." Silas said.

"They'll help us because of two reasons. They all have some kind of storage space for employees to put their stuff, like lockers, which means there's a chance those employees put things like medications in there. And since those places aren't super high profile, like a pharmacy, there's a good chance they've gone relatively untouched during all this." Eli finished for the moment to let what he said soak in.

The brief silence was broken by Sebastian, "I never would've thought of that."

"Yeah, neither would I." Silas said in return.

"Most people don't." Eli responded.

"So what's the other way?" Silas asked.

"Simple, we go door to door and raid houses." Elis said, "This however is often very dangerous. You never know what could be in each house. It could be empty, or have people in it which won't be friendly, or it could be full of those things. And by now most houses that are within and close to the city limits have already been raided."

There was another pause once Eli finished talking as the two men thought about everything he had said.

"So which would you recommend?" Silas asked.

"Both of them have their own risks. Personally I would go for the businesses. We'd have to go into the city which is riddled with the undead, but at least they're predictable and easy to deal with. But by going house to house we run the higher risk of getting attacked by people which is much worse than getting attacked by undead. Plus we can hit more businesses faster than we can houses. But neither option is guaranteed to get us what we need."

"What do you think Sebastian?" Silas asked.

"I- I think we should go with what he recommends." He responded.

"I agree."

"Then it's decided. We'll leave early tomorrow morning." Eli said.

The other two men nodded in return.

"Oh and one more thing." Eli started, "When we're out there, make sure you do exactly what I tell you too. If you don't you very well could end up dead."

Silas nodded in understanding, Sebastian however did not.

"How do we know you aren't just going to kill us while we're out there? Or lead us to our death by giving us faulty orders? Or abandoning us in the middle of it all?"

"You don't." Eli said back.

Sebastian turned towards his father, "how do you know we can trust him not to do any of that?"

"It's like he said son, we don't. But, Eli, I would like you to give me your word that you won't." Silas said, turning towards Eli as he did.

"Another person's word doesn't mean anything nowadays." Eli responded.

A flare of anger flashed in Silas's eyes, "Be that as it may to you, but to me, it still means something."

Eli sighed deeply, "Very well, I'll give you my word if it'll make you happy."

"There's no arguing with him"

"Thank you. Now let's head inside and check on your mother" Silas said.

Him and Sebastian turned and walked inside, leaving Eli alone, outside on his log.

"If I was going to kill them I already would've"

He turned and got up, walking to retrieve his arrows. On his way back he noticed Alyssa walking down the steps outside.

"Dinner will be ready in about an hour." She said.

Eli said nothing.

"You don't talk much do you." Alyssa stated.

"Not when there's no need to." Eli responded as he started placing his arrows back into his quiver.

"Damn I'm down to just 21" He thought, the rest had all broken during his fall.

"I'm sorry for what Sebastian did earlier." Alyssa started, "It wasn't called for."

"He had every right to react how he did." Eli said, "Especially with the world's current status."

Alyssa sighed, "He's just protective is all."

Eli swung his quiver back onto his back, picked up his bow, and started walking towards the house.

Much to his surprise he felt Alyssa's hand grab his wrist.

"Th-Thank you for agreeing to help my mom." Her voice choked, "I don't… I don't know what I'd do without her."

She let go of his wrist and he walked inside.