-Chapter 8-
-POV Alicia Clark-
"This is crazy," Chris said as he got out of the car, worried about not seeing our parents again the very second after they had left.
'He's such a baby,' I thought, rolling my eyes before following him to reassure him.
"If they can't get in, they'll come back," I said calmly.
"Leaving the others?" he said, this time worried that his mother wouldn't come out, almost outraged at the idea that they might save themselves before trying to rescue people we knew nothing about at the moment.
'Make up your mind… one moment you're worried about them, the next you want them to kill themselves,' I thought, slightly annoyed by his behavior.
"Would you rather they all die?" I shot back at him, who still seemed to be living in some fairy tale while we were going through the goddamn apocalypse.
"No, I want no one to die, that's what I want!!" Chris said, glaring at me.
"You sound just like your dad," I said, rolling my eyes, recognizing that annoying trait of Travis, always thinking everything would magically work out, as if we still lived in a world where everyone was nice and kind.
"At least he's doing something," Chris said.
"We can't save everyone," I said, trying to spare him a harsh disappointment if his dad or his mom didn't come back with the others.
I had already lost a parent without being prepared for it, and it was the worst pain I had ever had to endure in my life.
"Why are you saying that?" Chris asked me more loudly, not even understanding that I was saying it for his sake.
"Because it's the truth… sorry, but that's the way it is," I snapped back.
"Shut up, quiet," he said, staring into the void.
"What?!" I said, baffled by his response.
But he didn't give me time to understand and said, panicked this time as he confirmed the noise I had just heard too: "Get back in the car, now."
I obeyed and whispered softly, feeling my heart pounding way too hard, almost afraid it would draw the dead to us:
"If they're dead, they'll just walk past us, right?"
"I don't know," Chris murmured, as freaked out as I was.
Footsteps
"Don't move," he whispered again, more to reassure himself than because I was actually moving, as we heard the footsteps getting closer.
The next second, someone tried to open the car doors, but since we had locked them, they failed.
In the split second that followed, while I wondered—because the dead usually didn't open doors—I got my answer when the window on Chris's side suddenly exploded, spraying glass shards everywhere.
The soldier who had smashed the window easily unlocked the door, then dragged us both out of the car by force.
"Come on, out of there," said the soldier who had yanked me from the car, while the one who had pulled Chris out slammed him against the hood, saying: "Shut up and move."
Once the soldier let me go, I calmed down, just like Chris, who glanced at their weapons.
'No, don't do it,' I tried to scream at him with my eyes.
"Why didn't you want to open the door?" asked the one who seemed to be their leader.
"What do you want?" Chris said, trying to stand up to them without answering the leader's question first.
"Transportation. So hand over the keys," said the other soldier, not taking Chris seriously.
"No," Chris answered, still trying to defy them in vain.
"Be nice, kid, we'll take you with us," said the leader.
"And you, pretty girl," said the one who had pulled me out of the car, staring at me with a smile that disgusted me.
I pulled my head back to avoid his hand, but Chris jumped to defend me.
Unfortunately, he was slammed against the SUV in a fraction of a second, crying out in pain.
I screamed, afraid they would hurt him: "Stop, stop! I have the keys!"
Everyone stopped talking, so I handed my keys to the leader, who said nothing: "You sure you don't want to…"
He didn't have the luxury of finishing his sentence, because a bullet tore through the right side of his skull and he collapsed, expression frozen, eyes blank, into my arms.
Shocked, I didn't react until I felt my face wet with his blood.
---
-POV Calvin Jasper-
"Don't even think about it," I said, staring at the soldier in the middle who was about to grab his assault rifle.
'Luckily they were too busy arguing with the two kids to notice us sneaking up until we were at a foolproof shooting distance,' I thought before adding mentally:
'At least for me, since I know Dad could hit a target from very far away with a proper scope.'
"Who the fuck are you?" the man asked, sweating fear from every pore of his body.
I said coldly: "I'm the one asking questions. Can you take me to the infirmary, or are you useless to me?"
The man frowned, studied us for a few seconds, then said:
"I can do it, but the dead have already breached the fence."
"Perfect. Now you're coming with us," I said before glancing at my watch. It read 4:11 a.m.
'We don't have much time left before sunrise,' I thought, remembering that the episode had ended before dawn in the series.
"Cal," Alicia said, looking torn and guilty.
"Not now, I came for Nick," I told her without looking at her, following the soldier who had been disarmed by my father, now moving under the threat of my gun.
As soon as we reached the stairs, I heard a gunshot from inside, followed by several more.
"A handgun," my father said.
I moved a little faster, though without outpacing my father, who still wore his prosthetic. By the time we arrived, I heard Madison shouting at Liza to hurry up.
"Follow me," I said, remembering the scene, because I knew where they would go next.
I scanned the signs and followed the one pointing to the kitchens.
Very quickly, I heard screams and pushed open a door, feeling by pure instinct that it was Travis's ex-wife's cry.
'And what a damn good instinct it was,' I thought as I saw a zombie leap at Liza about five meters from me.
I didn't think—I fired the instant the red dot of my sight lined up with the zombie's head.
I thanked the suppressor on my weapon… which we all had, actually—and I kept mowing down zombies like it was nothing.
After the 8th zombie dropped for good, I spun around looking for another, but saw none.
Only then did I take a second to breathe, having held my breath the whole time, while scanning the group, most of whom were staring at me with bulging eyes.
'Great, 8 more points,' I thought, quickly checking the attribute window in the Universal Prism's survival mode.
I don't know if it was because of my gear that they looked so shocked, or because I was saving their sorry asses after they'd abandoned us, or even because I had just appeared out of nowhere and wiped out a group of zombies that had been seconds away from tearing them apart—but they all went silent and waited for me to speak first.
I glanced at each of them, then stopped on Madison. And despite the blazing fire in the back of my mind screaming only one thing—vengeance—I said in a cold tone:
"1–1. Call it even?"
N.A : Sorry I'm a bit late, but I'm here 🙈