Once we decided our next destination, we wanted to rush to the station, however as I stepped on the path, I realized that the ground was much slicker than the street road of the fire department and church. Since there were no railings between the path and the canal, we had to walk slowly while holding on to the wall on the other side.
The nearest path end was the one near the bridge that was about 100 feet from where we were standing. We walked carefully, with Ryan almost slipped and fell into the water in the canal once in a while, but eventually reached the end of the path without any of us slipping. Once all three of us were on the road, we proceeded to the bridge. Just then, Jonathan suddenly stopped his steps.
"What is wrong?" Ryan asked him.
At first, Jonathan did not say anything, and only stared at the road ahead of us very sharply. A little while later, he asked us something.
"Remember what happened at the highway with those three strangers?" he asked us, with a very low voice.
"Is this another one?" I responded to him.
"Not just one." he said. "There must be at least… five. And I am not even sure if there are also others behind us…"
Just as he finished saying that, both Ryan and I looked behind, to see if what Jonathan said was true. It turned out, that there were indeed some faint silhouettes of people running from one parked car to another.
From what I saw there were three silhouettes of people behind us, slowly approaching us. If there were indeed five people ahead of us, then it seemed that there were eight people planning to intercept and rob us off our equipment.
"Ryan, if you do not feel like you are able to fight them, then do not." Jonathan said to Ryan, who did not give any respond to what he said.
"Really? Do we really have to attack them?" I asked to Jonathan hesitantly.
"Do we have any other choice if they made their move first?" Jonathan replied with a question. "Just stay alert…"
Jonathan then reminded us to stay really close, and not to make any sudden move. After that, we continued proceeding along the bridge slowly. I also kept looking behind for once in a while to keep track of the movements of the three people behind us.
As we kept walking, I also felt like the people behind kept getting closer since I started to hear other footsteps. When we finally reached the other end of the bridge, Jonathan hold me off from taking another step, which made all of us stopped walking.
A little while later, five silhouettes of people slowly emerged in front of us. The footsteps heard from behind us were also getting louder. At this time, Jonathan told us to prepare for combat. We readied ourselves as the silhouettes of the eight people eventually changed to figures of human being, and they approached us with a very fast pace.
Most of them were wearing hooded clothes, perhaps to hide their faces, with the exception of two people who were wearing jersey jackets instead. From what I could see, all of them were also armed, at least with a switchblade, while the others were equipped with either baseball bats, or shovels. There was however, one person who was armed with a nail bat, and it was his presence who made me sure that they had hostile intentions against us.
"Hey," said the man with the nail bat to Jonathan, who were standing between me and Ryan, "That is a fine looking thing you have there, big guy. Mind if I… take a look?"
"Sorry, nope. Not available for display for the time being…" Jonathan responded.
"Hey man, none of us said that you can refuse…" one other man with a shovel said.
"Well… that guy is right you know, I would not want to force myself to take a look, because I am really itching to hold it in my hand…" said the man with the nail bat again.
"As I said just now, none of you may hold it. So, if that is all, please excuse us. We have other places we need to go to." Jonathan answered with a more intimidating voice.
All of the people laughed as soon as he finished talking, and it made me felt that a fight was imminent. When I took a closer look, I noticed that there were traces of blood at the nails of the bat that the man was holding, indicating that he might even has killed some other people before encountering us.
I also noticed that three of them were also wearing a backpack, leading me to assume that they have encounters with other group of survivors before. When I realized of the situations that we were in, I knew that we might even have to kill them in order for us to survive. We had no other option.
"Shame… I thought that we can talk this out easily and peacefully, but it seems that you three give us no choice…" the man said.
As soon as he finished talking, two people armed with shovels and one other armed with a baseball bat charged at us and attempted to hit us. In reflex, I ducked down and swung my fire ax as hard as I could to their direction, hitting the person with a baseball bat real hard in his left leg, resulting in a big wound and serious bleeding in the process. He immediately fell to the ground, screaming and groaning loudly in pain. The other people with shovels backed down as soon as he fell.
"What the hell are you all doing?! He is just alone, attack him together you fools!" the man with the nail bat shouted.
Two other people with baseball bats then charged at me again with a slower pace. I readied my ax again to defend myself, when suddenly I heard Ryan shouting from behind me.
"Whoa, whoa, back off! We do not have to this, right?!" Ryan said while holding another of them with his folding knife in his left hand.
Apparently, another person with a shovel attempted to attack me from behind. Fortunately, Ryan was able to hold him off, preventing him from attacking me as a result.
"First the church, and now this! I have had enough of this shit!" the man with the nail bat shout while charging at Jonathan.
'Hold on… did he just say church? Could it be that these people were the ones who attacked the survivors inside the church?' I thought to myself. From what I could tell, the blood trail on his nail bat was indeed not from too long ago. But then again, what were the possibilities?
He was only about a couple of steps apart from us when he suddenly stopped by Jonathan, who was holding the man's hand that was equipped with the nail bat with his left hand. The man was not able to move at all, and the other people also stopped charging us.
"So… I was right to have my thoughts about it…" Jonathan said while staring the man sharply, "The blood on this nail bat, was from the survivors that you attacked at the church, right?"
I could see the man struggled hard to let his hand go from Jonathan's grip, but his efforts were of no avail.
"I wonder though… if this blood also came from the children and elders there…" Jonathan continued.
As soon as he finished talking, he dropped his garden fork and punched the man's throat with his right hand. The hit forced the man to drop his nail bat and held his neck in great pain. Jonathan continued by grabbing the man's left arm, throwing him swiftly to the ground, and broke it by punching it real hard that I could hear his arm bone broke. The man was screaming in pain as a result, and Jonathan finished by kicking him with his left foot.
I honestly felt a huge relief and satisfaction once he fell down and had his arm broke. As I remembered correctly again, the survivors at the church were mostly children and elders. If this man indeed attacked or even killed some of them just to get his hands on their food supplies, then he was no more than a mere heartless savage.
Jonathan must had already realized the presence of blood on the man's nail bat as soon as he approached us earlier, and had his guess running, before eventually the man himself accidentally admitted his savage actions. Jonathan then turned his attention towards the rest of the other people who were still standing, which made them started to back off slowly. He then looked at the man again before saying something.
"That, is your warning. You better stay away from us the next time you see us again, because next time there will only be consequences." Jonathan said slowly with an intimidating voice to them.
As he finished his sentences, Ryan released his hand from the person that he held, and pushed him away with his right foot. The rest of the people then immediately helped the man and the wounded person to get up, and finally ran away in fear.
We looked at them running away deeper into the fog, until they eventually turned to silhouettes and disappeared again in front of our eyes. Jonathan then picked up his garden fork, and let out a sigh.
"Ha… hahahahaha..." Ryan suddenly laughed, and put both Jonathan's and my attention towards him.
"Serves them right, huh?" Ryan said, while still laughing.
Jonathan smiled briefly, before his expression became serious again. It was at that point, that I too realized that both of them were also satisfied for delivering what those savages deserved. I also had to admit, that I did feel salute to Ryan for mustering up his courage to hold the person who was about to attack me. Therefore, I decided to thank him.
"Thanks for holding that guy. I owe you one." I said to Ryan.
"Well, glad that now we are even." Ryan said, referring to when I helped him back at the military base cafeteria.
"But… I hope that our actions just now did not attract any aliens to come and attack us again…" I continued, while starting to feel anxious again.
"It does not seem like it, though. At least, not for now…" Jonathan responded, while he started looking around at our surroundings again.
There was a brief light mood between us, and as soon as we made our minds serious and cautious again, we continued our journey to the nearest station. Surprisingly, the road ahead of us was filled with much less ruins.
The road was also less slick and smoother, unlike the ones we previously experienced. It did not take us too long before we were finally able to start seeing a distinguishable three story building in the distance. It was the elevated train station.
Even though the road was easier to walk on, we still did not rush ourselves as we did not want to end up slipping and fell like before, so we just kept our pace steady whilst still taking caution to our surroundings.
After some other while, we reached the T-junction where the station was just across from it. I looked again at my watch, and it showed me the current time of exactly 11.00 a.m. We made it to the station in less than an hour.