"Alright team stay close and be vigilant." Says Neely. "Trust one another and this will be as easy as it sounds."
The four teams exit through the gate and and split off into different directions. We all give a nod to each other and proceed to jog off. I've only been in the city for a couple weeks but I've come to see it as layer of protection. I didn't felt this exposed when we lived outside the city so why do I feel this way now? Maybe I'm more aware of the danger. In reality we are far better equipped and conditioned to survive out here than when me and Lj first arrived.
"You don't think it's too early to be overthinking." Says Lj as jogs along side of me.
I crack a quick smile and hanged my head to the ground before replying. "I'm not overthinking, I'm just..."
"Thinking? I would've never guessed."
"After another mile we could start walking. This is a nice pace we're moving at right now." Neely said to us.
"Um Private Neely-" Lici began to say before getting cut off.
"You guys could just say Zhaire, no need to be so formal."
"Alright. I don't know if it's ok to ask you this but, what exactly happened to your other squad mate?" Asked Lici.
Everyone went silent for a while waiting on him to give a response.
"His name was Devin Parker. He just became a searcher only two months ago and he was in roughly the same age group as you guys. Last month our squad had a task to secure the perimeter around an abandoned factory not to far from the city in hopes of getting it functional again. Seemed easy enough we just had kill off the few infected in that area and then inspect the the machinery inside.
All was going good until it started to rain. We decided to wait for the rain to hold up inside the building. Unfortunately that building had been worn down by acidic rain and with no one to perform any maintenance on it in years... Devin and Carlton were near the center of the main room when the ceiling caved in. Devin pushed Carlton out of the way but was unable to protect himself."
"I'm sorry for asking." Said Lici.
"Nah it's ok, he died protecting another life. There really isn't a better way to go out. We just have to ensure that his sacrifice wasn't in vain."
"Speaking of rain, those clouds out to the west don't seem to promising." Said Cory.
"A very large cumulonimbus cloud, it could be large thunderstorm." Says Lici as we stop to look at it. "By the looks of it, it seems to be moving south but it may be big enough to catch us."
"Well look who showing off." Lyssa exclaims.
"You study meteorology?" Zhaire asks to Lici.
"It interest me so yeah I read up a little on it." She replies smiling back.
"Girl you is a mess. Let's keep walking before we get catch in the storm." Lyssa says as she begins to walk again.
"Good call, let's keep moving guys." Zhaire responds.
Me, Liam and Dameer looked at each other and grinned. We lightly jogged for another half mile, climbing and traversing through obstacles that littered the abandoned settlements. Zhaire's a decent teacher but compared to Rodney, his limited experience shows sometimes. He is definitely more fun to be around.
"Quiet." Zhaire whispers to us. "Get low, come behind this car."
"What's up?" Liam asked.
"Take a peak." He responds while pointing down the road.
I glanced through the broken car window to find a single stray dog walking the road in our direction.
"It doesn't seem to be infected, why are we hiding?" I asked.
"Keep watching." Zhaire replied.
The dog looks thin, possibly haven't eaten in a while. It inspects what looks like a dead bird when a growling noise pulled our attention to the right.
"More dogs." Said Liam.
"Those ones definitely look infected." Dameer added.
A pack of four infected dogs made their way over to the clean one. It whimpered and slowly began to walk off while the pack rushed at it. The first infected launched at it, biting it on the back and pulling him down. The clean pooch shook him off and attempted to run but was dragged down by two of the others.
"Are we not gonna help the dog?" Lyssa asked concerned for it.
"That dog is your cover." Zhaire replies. "Alyssa, Ejay, Cory, Dameer. Ready your bow. Each of you have one target, show me that your all good shots."
I didn't hesitate to ready my bow and draw an arrow. I peeked up and aimed through the back window of the car.
"I got the one at the front right." I said to the others.
Alyssa aimed over the trunk of the car while Cory aimed over the hood. Dameer finally took the front window and drew his arrow.
"It would be best to catch 'em all at once so on my mark. Ready, set, fire."
The four of us all released our arrows and they all hit our intended targets. I took mines down with a shot to the neck. Cory also managed to hit a clean shot to the neck, bringing his down. Alyssa struck the stomach of her target while Dameer caught a back leg which dropped it but didn't immobilize it.
"Nice shot Ejay and Cory, looks like you both got a kill." Zhaire says rising up.
Before he could release his next sentence, another arrow flew over into the neck of Alyssa's target that had turned its attention to us.
"Just being thorough." Cory says as he goes to draw another arrow.
He draws it back but then a different arrow struck Dameer's dog in the head, dropping it to the ground.
"Like you said, just being thorough." Lj says as he puts his bow back over his shoulder.
"Looks like we got some snipers in the group." Zhaire exclaims. "Alyssa and Dameer you both had good shots but you just need to work on finding which points will give you a lethal blow. Let's keep moving and keep an eye out for more strays in the area."
"Yes sir." We all replied in unison.
We walked pass the carcass of the regular stray and it already had been ripped to pieces by the infected.
"It only takes one mistake to end up like that out here." Zhaire says to us.
We continued to walk for another half mile in the same direction. I'm surprised we haven't seen any infected humans yet but then again, searchers come through here often I shouldn't expect to see much of any infected. We come across a building complex that housed several different stores.
"I felt a rain drop." Liam says alerting the rest of us.
"This cloud is basically directly overhead now." Zhaire added.
"We probably can't out run it back to the city." Says Dameer.
"Yeah we're gonna have to bunker down and head back after it passes." Zhaire replies. "Let's go we could ride it out in there." He says while pointing at one of the stores.
The sound of thunder rumbles through the air as we move to enter the store. Wooden shelves still in decent condition, torn plastic all over the floor and newspaper cover the one big window at the front of the store.
"This store use to sell vinyl albums. Most of what was here could probably be found back in the city with people like the Sergeant." Zhaire exclaims while smiling.
"I had a feeling you guys would've raided stores like this for yourselves." Says Dameer.
"The city is never gonna say, hey we need you to go and bring back some vinyl records. Random stuff like this we bring back for our own enjoyment. We've contemplated renovating a building in the city just to display and give away some of the random stuff we collect."
"That would actually be cool." Lici replied.
"Yeah it would. Um just a caution, try stay close to the wall and avoid moving into the center. I don't want a reoccurrence of what happened the last time I left the city for searcher business."
"We understand." Lyssa responds.
"Look at who didn't fumble their shot." Lj says to me.
"I practiced too hard to be fumbling for no reason." I replied with a smile.
"That's what I like to here."
"We ain't gonna pretend like you didn't headshot an infected on first try." I added.
"I learn from you bro, even if the infected was a dog." He replied as we both laughed.
Another wave of thunder came across the sky as we sat and talked to each other to pass time. Zhaire told us some of his searcher stories and we all just bonded in this situation. Only five minutes had passed when I got up to use the bathroom. The rain was showering down at this point. I figured I would just piss in the back room and get it over with. I stepped in near the center of the room when all of a sudden we started to hear cracking. Everybody paused and looked around including myself.
"Was that the roof?" Lici asked looking up to the roof.
"No it can't be, it sounds more like the walls." I answered back.
"Ejay get back to the wall." Zhaire said to me.
I lifted one leg and was ready to move towards the wall when..... the floor shook.
"Is this an earthquake?" Asked Lyssa.
"Guys." I replied staring down at my feet.
A crack in the floor tile stretched all the way to the back door.
"Ejay walk slow over to-"
Before Zhaire could even finish, the floor gave way below me and I felled through. I crashed to the floor below landing chest first on the ground.
"EJAY!" Yelled Lyssa and Lj.
"Bro you alright?" Asked Zhaire.
Cough cough "Yeah I'm good."
"Alright don't move, everyone stay away from the hole the rest of the floor could could collapse."
I push myself up to my hands and knees slowly and look around the room. Seems it's just the basement. There's a lot of boxes scattered around and some are piled on top of each other.
"I see the staircase that leads back up." I say to them.
"Alright don't push yourself, carefully make your way back up." Zhaire replies.
I struggled to my feet but any pain that I initially felt was starting to dissipate. I dusted myself off and turned my attention to the staircase. A shadowy figure stood next to it and I'm very sure it wasn't there before.
"Hello?" I called out to it.
"What is it Ejay?" Zhaire asks.
"I see a shadow."
It slowly and quietly creeps closer to me. It's definitely a person but it's too dark to make out any features. I start to back away slowly and pull out my knife.
"Say something to let me know your not infected."
"We can't see what your looking at Ejay." Liam exclaims.
"It's coming closer." I replied.
Zhaire pulls out his gun and aims in the direction I'm looking waiting for it to come into the light. Lj and Cory ready their bows after him. A cold chill runs down my spine. This doesn't feel right. I stop at the edge of the hole over my head so the others could still see me but the shadow continues to move closer. Light hits the person's feet as he gets closer and it slowly reveals more and more of its body. Covered in sand with dry blood splattered on its blue shirt. Right before its head comes into the light it emits a heavy growl.
"Wait a minute that looks like..." Lj begins to say before pausing and lowering his bow a bit.
"Isn't that..." Lici also begins to say before pausing.
It fumbles forward exposing its bloody and twisted face, but I recognize him.
"Lj isn't that the kid who came to the city with you guys." Alyssa asks him.
"Keily?" I muttered to him in shock.