-Chapter 7-
-POV Calvin Jasper-
"Do you see him?" I said, looking into the distance through the binoculars I had swiped from the corpse of a soldier, watching Daniel Salazar lead the dead through the streets toward the military base's defenses.
"Hmm," my father said, also looking through a similar pair of binoculars of his own.
"You knew?" my father asked me.
"No, but I suspected," I replied.
"They're not stupid, especially that Daniel. He looks like he's been trained," my father said before adding, "He gives me the feeling of being a former combat veteran."
As he said this, we kept our eyes on Daniel, who was fleeing the area as it began to be overrun by zombies, heading back to join the others.
"I'm sure he is," I said, focusing on something else.
"So, what do we do now?" my mother asked, dressed head to toe like a SWAT member.
"They're going to get trapped by the dead," I said, implying that we should go help them.
"And you want us to run straight into the wolf's mouth to save them?" my father said, unwilling to risk his life for people who had already abandoned us once.
'And he was right… but what I can't tell him is that they're the ones who will survive and take us to Mexico. So, to survive, we really didn't have much choice for now,' I thought.
"Whether you like it or not, you can't run anymore, so we're going to need a group," I said, alluding to my father's prosthetic leg.
I felt a bit guilty for twisting the knife in a wound that had never healed, but it was the only way for him to understand that the world was ending and that, alone, we'd never be anything more than prey in the wild for a new species of predator.
"I've known Nick since we were kids. He wouldn't have abandoned me. His mother did it because she wanted to punish me. So I'd rather stick with this group than with others who might want to take our weapons when they see a young guy, a woman, and a cripple," I said seriously, in a hard tone, so they'd both understand that alone, we were weak, and we needed a group.
Even though I meant at least half of what I'd just said, the truth was it wasn't really them we needed.
We simply needed to cross the border, and I couldn't explain to them how I knew that they were the ones we had to follow to find Strand, and then follow Strand to leave the United States by sea and head to Mexico.
"I don't appreciate you talking to me like that," my father said, his gaze sharpening by the second, before finally saying, "But you're right about one thing—we'd be easy targets for selfish survivor groups."
"Everyone gets selfish when survival is on the line—case in point," I said, pointing at the horde that was starting to break through the fences, and at Madison's car leaving with her whole group toward the parking lots, finally spotting what I had been looking for.
'The place where Chris and Alicia are,' I thought.
Even though I understood the reason, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of injustice, because most of me hadn't done anything wrong.
It was the old Calvin's fault.
And at the same time, another part of me couldn't help but wonder:
'No matter what I might have done, what kind of person could knowingly abandon other human beings to certain death without the slightest bit of remorse?'
I knew she didn't like me—you didn't need to be a genius to see that—but this went beyond the pale, because my parents were innocent.
"Let's go," I said, looking at my father, practically begging him with my eyes to come with me, because I could never pull this off without him.
I needed him to carry out my plan.
We were going to end up inside a building we didn't know, which meant not only would it be a maze unfamiliar to us, but we'd also have to be careful not to get trapped inside by the zombie horde.
"I'm not sure this is the best idea… but you're right, we need a group, and I doubt they'll make it out of there unscathed. Whereas we, on the other hand…" my father said, inspecting our outfits and gear, still impressed by the finds I'd made this week.
I had taken great care never to talk about what I found and always left with a duffel bag in which I kept all my things, using my inventory to keep my best finds to myself. I usually hid the less sensitive stuff I'd stolen in my car, like clothes and other items.
Over the past week, in addition to the many weapons of all kinds I had acquired, I had also made sure to find outfits for us.
All-black gear from head to toe, a pair of boots, a gun belt with a Glock 17 attached, bulletproof vests with three magazines for each vest, and, as a bonus, a fully-equipped AR-15, thanks to the various abandoned gun stores I had been able to loot in peace.
'And if things really go south, I'll just use the grenades in my inventory,' I thought, completely reassured as I strapped a hunting knife to my vest.
"Well?" I asked.
"Alright, we'll do it your way. But if it gets too dangerous, we're leaving without them," he said.
I nodded, relieved, then said, "Thanks, Dad."
He nodded back, then gave a signal to my mother, who sighed and checked her weapon.
She wasn't military like him, but she had spent enough time with my father to be competent with all kinds of firearms.
'Either way, she'll just need to lay down suppressive fire to slow the zombies,' I thought, finding her attitude toward them rather puzzling.
She didn't like my trips into the city to kill zombies because she felt I was killing "people." Yet, it didn't bother her to shoot at them in a situation like this.
'Well, either way, better to have an extra shooter than an extra burden,' I thought, pushing away all the distracting, useless thoughts trying to creep into my mind.
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N.A : I've been a bit absent these past few days because I had some issues, but it's all good now—I'm back to cause you trouble again.