The next day.
Brian and Sarah carried their backpacks and left the lakeside cabin where they had stayed for a long time. Angela and Barton waved their arms reluctantly and said goodbye to them loudly from the fence behind them.
Kenneth walked beside them, glancing at the assault rifle slung over Brian's shoulder, a glimpse of greed in his eyes.
In fact, there was a gun store in the town, but an explosion occurred in it on the day the plague broke out, and all the guns and ammunition were destroyed. Otherwise, he would not have been envious of the rifle in Brian's hand.
"Haha, this guy really isn't that kind."
Glancing at Kenneth's greedy face, Brian sneered inwardly, knowing that the other party must want to take this opportunity to take away his assault rifle.
But he didn't expose it. He just thought to himself that he must teach this guy a profound lesson later and let him know the consequences of greed.
After walking for a while, the three passed the bridge where corpses were piled up like mountains. At this time, the entire bridge had already become a hotbed for the reproduction of fungi. The fungi used the corpses to grow embryos, and the grown blocks of bacteria attached to the corpses and spread rapidly on the bridge. It looked extremely disgusting from a distance.
Came to the outskirts of the town.
Brian took out a hand-drawn map of the town from his arms. There were small squares drawn on it, and each square had the category of the location in the town written on it.
At this time, most of the supermarkets and restaurant blocks on the map had a red cross marked on them, indicating that they had either been looted or destroyed by explosions in the disaster.
Brian kept moving his finger on the map and said, "The population of the town is not that large, so there are not many supermarkets and convenience stores. In addition, the survivors are definitely collecting supplies, so the supplies inside are probably running out."
His finger kept moving on the map, slowly stopping at an unknown area outside the northern part of the town. He pondered for a while and said, "I know there is a warehouse nearby. It used to store building materials. There is a small area dedicated to storing food. We can go there to find what we want. There happens to be a road leading directly to Dallas."
"What?"
Kenneth looked at the place where Brian pointed with a crazy look in his eyes. You should know that they were located on the southern outskirts of the town. If they wanted to go to the north, they would have to cross the entire town. He said dissatisfiedly, "Are you kidding me? Do you know how dangerous this is? And how can food be stored in a place where construction materials are stored? Brian, listen to me, the convenience store we searched last time should still have some food left. It should be enough for you to eat. It will be safer to come back here and then go to Dallas."
But Brian shook his head and rejected Kenneth's suggestion mercilessly, saying, "No, we must go there."
"you!"
Kenneth looked at the annoying kid in front of him with an angry face. Although he really wanted the assault rifle, he didn't want to lose his life for it.
So he decided not to keep up his disguise. He had originally thought of letting the two kids act as porters for a while, and then taking away their guns and food after collecting the food. But now it seems that this is no longer necessary.
He raised the gun directly to Brian's head and said, "Kid, I don't care if you are really stupid or just pretending to be stupid. I know you are very smart. I'm afraid you guessed my thoughts, so you said you wanted to go there."
"Are you doing it so early?"
But Brian was not frightened at all. Instead, a smile appeared on his face. He raised his hands and said, "I thought you would at least wait until we have collected the food before you do anything."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Kenneth suddenly felt a little uneasy when he saw Brian who was not afraid at all. But he felt relieved when he looked at the pistol. No matter how fancy you are, I will shoot you with one shot. Why are you pretending here?
He showed a cruel and ferocious smile and said: "Hand over your rifle, and you'd better not play any tricks. Since you helped me in the past, I can spare your life..."
As soon as he said "they", Kenneth suddenly realized that there should be another person next to him. There was nothing he could do because Sarah was a girl and behaved very well on weekdays. She didn't seem to have much fighting power, so he subconsciously ignored her.
He suddenly looked towards the place where Sarah was originally, only to find that she was no longer there. He thought to himself that something was wrong and was about to pull the trigger to kill Brian first, when he suddenly heard a gust of wind behind him. He felt a pain in the back of his head and instantly lost consciousness.
As Kenneth fell to the ground with a thud, Blake clenched his right fist with the thumb facing up and made a powerful gesture to Sarah, who was holding a wooden stick in front of him, patting her chest desperately and looking nervous.
Sarah just smiled and threw the stick aside. She kicked the unconscious man and said, "I didn't expect you to be right. This guy was so busy getting your gun that he didn't pay any attention to me."
But then she asked doubtfully, "Aren't you afraid that if I fail, he'll just shoot and kill us all?"
"It's okay."
Walking in front of Kenneth, Brian bent down and picked up the pistol in his hand, removed the magazine, gestured to Sarah, and said jokingly: "I have already unloaded the bullets in his pistol, so this trip is just to practice your courage, so that you won't make a fuss when you encounter an infected person in the future."
"I didn't!" Sarah glared at Brian and said, "Then what should we do with this guy?"
Brian pondered for a while, looked at Sarah seriously and said, "My idea is to let you kill him. We will definitely encounter this kind of thing often in the future, so now is a good time for you to adapt in advance without any danger, but..."
He turned his head and glanced in the direction of the lakeside cabin, and continued, "But he is Angela's father. If the child loses her father, it will be difficult for her to survive. I know you have a good relationship with her, so I won't force you. You decide what to do."
After saying that, Brian took out a bullet from his pocket, put it into the magazine, pulled the barrel back, stuffed the pistol into Sarah's hand, and then walked towards the town without looking back.
"I'll wait for you at the hole in the doorway of the bar."
Staring blankly at Brian's receding figure, Sarah looked down at the gun in her hand and fell silent for a moment, but then she took a deep breath, raised the pistol and pointed it at Kenneth who was lying on the ground.
"Bang!"
.....
In the town.
The scorching sun shone on the dilapidated streets. In less than a week, this once bustling town had become deathly silent.
There were only a few infected people wandering on the streets. Most of them just stood there stupidly, with their knees bent and their heads slightly covered with their hands, as if they were struggling fiercely with something and looked extremely painful.
At this moment, two figures entered the town from the south. They moved along the outskirts of the town where there were few infected people, and stopped only when the way forward was blocked by collapsed houses.
"Let's go, let's rest in this house, and then see if we can get around it later."
Brian sighed as he looked at the blocked road in front of him, and took Sarah to the yard of the house next door.
The door was not locked. There was an infected person standing inside, struggling in pain. Without thinking, Brian took out a dagger, sneaked up behind it, and ended its suffering.
After resolving the threat, the two searched the house for useful items before sitting down on the sofa in the living room to rest.
Leaning on the sofa, Sarah couldn't help but ask out of curiosity: "I still don't understand why we have to take such a big risk to find some food. There are so many houses here, there should be enough."
"Okay, let me show you."
Seeing Sarah's curious face, Brian couldn't help but pinch her. Then he took out a piece of note paper from his backpack, put it in her hand and said, "This is what I accidentally saw in the town center last time. You will understand after you take a look."
Sarah took the note curiously and read the contents:
....
Damn it, Morris, where on earth have you been? It's a mess outside. When you see this message, hurry to the place where we hid last time, which is the Fell Steel Plant in the north. I won't wait for you too long. If you don't see me when you get there, I'm sorry, you need to escape by yourself. I'll leave you some supplies and a car. Don't worry, I've locked the car and no one will drive it away. The password is 7736. The car keys and supplies are in the secret compartment under the desk. Remember not to die!
Good luck, Ford
....
"Okay, don't be so excited." Looking at Sarah's gradually opening mouth, Brian took the paper from his hand with a bit of amusement and put it back into his backpack.
Coming back to her senses, Sarah looked at Brian in disbelief and said, "No wonder you dared to come out like this. It turns out that this was planned long ago."
"Are you talking nonsense?"
Brian rolled his eyes when he heard the other party's exclamation. Then he approached Sarah with a curious look on his face and said, "I also want to know what you did with that guy Kenneth."