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There it was again.
Dexter Bastian Fletcher put two fingers between the window blinds and pulled them apart just far enough to peer outside. The same car had traveled the length of the road in front of their house twice in the last hour, and while this wouldn't be too terribly uncommon under normal circumstances, the world had ended five months ago. The headlights disappeared again and Dex let the blinds fall back together, turning around with his dark brows furrowed in worry. They lived in a rural, sparsely populated town, at the end of a long, winding county road, and since the Z. gondii parasite had "taken over the world", they very rarely saw cars. So seeing the same big, dark colored pickup truck several times in one hour, much less one day, was unsettling.
His dog, Hero, sat at his heels. Sensing Dex's worry, the little pit bull grumbled good naturedly and pressed his blocky head against his master's knee, eliciting a scratch behind the ears and a long, low sigh. "Gotta keep our guard up pal." He whispered, reaching up to itch at the few days worth of stubble that graced his cheeks. Dexter crossed the large, well furnished room and hit the light switch to darken the windows.
"Hey!" The whine came from across the room, to the couch where his sixteen year old sister, Riley, had been reading a book. "I'm trying to read here." She scowled.
"Use a book light." Her brother replied quietly. "There's a suspicious truck that's been driving around and I don't want to draw attention to the house."
"Yes sir." She mock saluted him with the wrong hand and stormed off in the general direction of her bedroom, using the weak moonlight that shone through the sliding glass doors in the kitchen as a guide. Dexter shook his head. Had anyone else called him "sir" they would have been corrected. He was a Sergeant, and used to being addressed as such. But Riley got away with a lot of things that others could not. Hero looked after his young mistress and then back to Dexter, waiting, and Dexter mock-scowled down at him. "Oh go on you traitor. Geh." Dismissed, the dog trotted after Riley.
They had been reasonably safe here since the z-pocalypse, as Riley had christened it. Their father, Aaron, was a freak about being prepared for emergencies, and as a result, the Fletcher home had an entire basement room stocked with dehydrated, canned, and jarred goods. Naturally they were all store bought or ordered online, as Aaron wouldn't dare do something as mundane as growing vegetables, but they were there nonetheless, ready for a nuclear fallout, or a super storm, or any other natural disaster... but they worked just as well for most of the world being infected by a brain-controlling parasite, too...
Now alone, Dexter sank down on to the couch Riley had vacated, resting his face on the knuckles of his bent right arm. He knew Riley wasn't really angry with him. She was angry at the world, yes, at their father, definitely, but the two siblings, despite being seven years apart in age, and damn near polar opposites, rarely fought. She was used to Dexter's hyper-sensitive instincts picking up on things that could pose a threat, which is why she hadn't put up a fight about the light switch. He sat there in darkness, listening for the crunch of gravel that would signal someone pulling into their driveway, but after over an hour of silence, the tension in his frame lessened, and not long after, he was asleep.
...
He was awoken by the feeling of cold steel pressed against his temple.
"If you make a move I'll blow your brains out." The words were muffled, originating just beside his left ear. Dexter stiffened, heart slamming against his rib cage as a euphoria of adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream. Fight or flight? He was confident he could handle one armed gunman if presented even the slightest opportunity to disarm him, and his dark eyes flickered around the room, searching for something to use as a weapon. His .50 caliber Desert Eagle, a birthday gift from his father, was tucked away in the drawer of his nightstand, but it was too risky to attempt to make a run for it - the room was big, but he didn't envy his chances of dodging a bullet from 15 or even 20 feet away.
Before he got a chance to think about it again, a second gunman, this one wielding a double barreled shotgun, made an appearance. "Is there anyone else in the house?" He demanded in a harsh whisper.
"No." Dexter said automatically.
It was at that point that his father, who was downstairs in his lab, decided to knock something over. The sound of glass shattering, followed by a muffled curse, belied his answer. Obviously irritated, the first intruder slammed the butt of his pistol into Dexter's face, seized him by the back of his shirt, and propelled him forward onto his hands and knees. He knelt then, the pistol again against the side of Dexter's face. "I don't like being lied to, boy. I'm going to ask you again, and this time a wrong answer will earn you a bullet. Who else is in the house?"
Leaning on one elbow, and using the opposite hand to try and stem the flow of blood from his nose and mouth, Dexter nodded, voice muffled through his hand. "My father, he's in the basement. Working."
"Working on what?" The shotgun-man asked.
"It doesn't matter. Is he armed?"
"No."
"Are you lying to me?"
"Do I look like someone who wants to get pistol whipped twice in one night?"
"Good. No one has to get hurt, we just need your supplies. Cooperate, and both of you walk out of this alive. Show me where they are. Go." Dexter was hauled to his feet by the man with the pistol, but he was smart, and kept the gun well away from his quarry. Still clutching his nose with one hand, and holding the other up in the universal symbol for 'I don't mean any harm' he made his way to the basement door with now both the shotgun and the pistol aimed at his back. He cracked the heavy, wooden door open and the leader, the man with the pistol, grabbed him and pulled him back, voice lowering to barely audible levels. "If you, or your father, try anything stupid, I swear to God I will not hesitate to shoot you. No one has to get hurt. Both hands up."
The leader pushed Dexter in front of him, and he lifted the other hand too. His lip had stopped bleeding, but the nose was still pumping, sending a cascade of crimson down the front of his white t-shirt as soon as he removed the pressure. The three of them descended the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, there were two doors, one to the left, one to the right, and a small storage closet directly across from the stairs, door slightly ajar to reveal nothing but a mop bucket and a dirty mop. "Which one?"
"The one on the left is the storage room. Food, medicine, everything is there. The one on the right is my father's... office. Please don't hurt him, he's harmless."
"That remains to be seen. Open the door." He gestured to the lab, and Dexter twisted the knob and pushed the door open. Dr. Fletcher looked up, a frown on his face.
"Dexter? I told you I didn't want anyone-" Dr. Fletcher stopped as soon as he noticed the blood on his son's shirt, and the two gunmen that entered the room behind him. "What..?"
"Dad." Dexter said slowly. "They just want the food. They're only here for the food." Please don't ask where Riley is, please don't ask where Riley is.
"Where's-"
"Hero's locked in the bedroom." Dexter interrupted.
"Who's Hero?"
"My dog. Chihuahua."
The man grunted, uninterested, and Dr. Fletcher seemed to get the point because he didn't continue with his inquiry.
"Watch them." The man with the pistol said, pulling the gun away from Dexter's back and heading towards the supply room. Dexter turned. The shotgun man was a few feet away, the double barrels pointed squarely at the soldier's chest. Still no room for a play. "Don't move. We'll just get what we need and be on our way."
There was a creak on the stairway, but the gunman either hadn't heard it, or decided it was unimportant. Dexter and Dr. Fletcher exchanged a glance, the horror mirrored in their faces. Riley.
He saw a flash of bright red hair as Riley's face peeked from the doorway. Thankfully, the shotgun man's back was to her, but the leader of the two was still in the other room, across the hallway. She must have heard him though, because she quickly turned away, disappearing behind the door frame. Moments later, the first gunman entered the room again. He met Dexter's bewildered stare with one of caution, but before he could ask anything, there was a clatter in the hallway. The pistol was automatically up, pointed at the doorway. "What the fuck was that?"
Riley's terrified voice came from the hallway. "I'm so sorry Dex I'm so clumsy I knocked the mop over." She sounded close to tears, which was weird, because she didn't usually cry so easily.
"Is that a little fucking girl?" The second man demanded.
"Yes." Dexter said, desperate now. "My baby sister. Please don't hurt her."
"Get your ass in here girl." The first man said, exasperated. He turned and aimed the pistol at Dexter. "You lied to me."
Dexter raised his hands again. "Hey man. Listen. Listen to me. She's my baby sister, you understand why I had to protect her."
"We had a deal, Dexter." The man sounded out his name like a bully on the school playground, and though anger burned like hot lead inside his gut, Dexter stayed calm, still pleading. And then Riley stepped into the doorway. Any hope of escaping this unscathed would disappear as soon as they had Riley in their clutches. Dexter would rather die than let them hurt her, or worse, take her with them. He clenched his fists, taking a deep breath and preparing to lunge at the man with the pistol, who was closest with him and had become distracted by his little sister when she entered the door frame.
It happened so quickly that he hardly had time to react.
Riley lifted the gun.
Dexter's .50 caliber Desert Eagle looked enormous in the hands of the petite sixteen year old girl, but no less deadly. Seeing the gun pointed at her brother's chest had steeled something in Riley, and the hard set of her face, her intense green eyes, reminded Dexter so much of their mother in that moment that he was momentarily stunned into silence. Riley screamed "FASS, HERO!" just before she pulled the trigger, and Hero rounded the corner in a full fury, slathering and snarling as he leaped at the man with the shotgun. But the resulting BOOM of the .50 caliber in such an enclosed space drowned out both the dog's snarling and, as Dr. Fletcher lunged at the him and pulled his gun arm between them as they hit the ground together, the four pops of the first man's pistol, which sounded like a cap gun in comparison. Riley, having no experience with such a large weapon, had been totally unprepared for the kickback it produced, and as a result, had missed the man entirely. But it had been enough to provide a distraction, and that was all Dexter needed.
He leaped across the room in what seemed like an impossibly long stride, snatching the gun from his sister's trembling hands and whipping around. He put the second round in the leader's head and turned to the man who had previously been holding the shotgun. "Aus, Hero!" He snarled, ordering the dog to let go and back off, which he did, circling and barking with a bloodied face. The third round dispatched him, and when his ears stopped ringing from the sound of the blasts, he turned and dropped to his knees beside his father. Riley stood, stunned, in the doorway, tears streaming down her face.
Dr. Fletcher had taken the gunman's four rounds in the gut, and the gun was still pressed between them. Dexter gently turned his father over, putting pressure on the cluster of wounds, but it was obvious that this was not something you recovered from. "Dad..."
"Dex..." Dr. Fletcher whispered, blood bubbling up in the corner of his mouth. "Fridge..."
"Dad, what-?"
"Fridge." The man insisted weakly. "Vial."
Confused, Dexter leaned over to the mini fridge under his dad's desk, pulling out the only thing contained there, a small vial filled with purple liquid. He handed it to his father and the man produced a capped syringe from the pocket of his lab coat. With a practiced ease that belied his condition, he drew the liquid into the syringe. "D-dog. Hero."
Hearing his name, the dog crawled over, flat on his belly as if he knew the situation required precision and gentleness. As if he didn't have a giant, gaping wound in his abdomen, Dr. Fletcher leaned up, taking hold of Hero's foreleg and finding the vein there. The dog didn't protest as the needle slid under his skin, and when Dr. Fletcher depressed the plunger, he stayed steady and calm until released. Dexter helped ease his dad back to the floor, and the man gestured to Riley. Finally galvanized into action, she weakly crossed the room and dropped to her knees, too, leaning across her father's chest to hug him. Sobs wracked her frame, and their father draped an arm across her, reaching with the other hand to clutch Dexter's.
"The cure." He managed. "Hero... has... cure."
Dexter's head snapped up. "What? You-"
"Washington. Washington. Get... Hero... Washington."
There was a crash from upstairs and all three of them jumped in surprise. Hero let out a long, low, growl, hackles raising, teeth bared at the doorway.
"The infected." Dexter whispered.
"Loud... gun..." His father said weakly, attempting a smile. "Go... I will... distract them..."
"No!" Riley screeched.
"Riley, we-"
"NO, Dexter!" Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, harsh and demanding attention. "We can't!" She collapsed into sobs, clutching her father's lab coat and muttering his name over and over again. He touched her cheek, eyes soft and so full of pain. "Love you, baby girl." He said. "Go."
***
THREE DAYS LATER
Hero sat between them in the middle seat of the truck cab. The radio was low, a Garth Brooks CD that had been there when they took the large, black Ford from just beyond their driveway. The keys had still been in the ignition. Guess the guys hadn't planned to be there that long.
They'd left their father to die as the infected swarmed the house. Dexter used the last four rounds in the Deagle to clear the stairwell and get them out. In the days since then, they'd made their way East. To the only place they had to go. Washington. Their father had been clear. Get Hero to Washington DC, to the only place that was rumored to be working on a cure. And if he had been right... well... their dog was the key to saving the world. He glanced over at the blocky headed pooch, snoozing with his face buried in Riley's lap. He had been a present for their mother when she was diagnosed with cancer, trained in Germany, and able to carry the heavy oxygen tanks she'd needed when leaving the house. When their mother died, he had effectively become a house dog, but his training for protection was not something easily forgotten and had probably saved both their lives that night.
"You okay?" He asked her softly.
"What do you think?"
"Listen Riley, I'm sorry. If I could have-"
"Save it, Dex. You did what you could."
Dexter fell silent, dark eyes focused on the road. Ahead of them, a line of cars appeared, scattered across the highway, and he pressed the brake, slowing the car to a stop. "Fuck." He muttered. "Highway is blocked."
"Fantastic." She said. "I do love walking."
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BACKPACK (DEXTER):
Items: 1
.50 Cal Desert Eagle (no rounds)
Food: none
Water: none
[BCOLOR=#000000][btn=moda|https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/threads/zombies-zombies-apocalypse-rp.149570/]OOC[/btn][btn=moda|https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/threads/mission-z-signups.149654/#post-3207100]SIGNUPS[/btn] [btn=moda|https://www.iwakuroleplay.com/threads/mission-z-ic.149888/]IC [/btn][/BCOLOR]
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There it was again.
Dexter Bastian Fletcher put two fingers between the window blinds and pulled them apart just far enough to peer outside. The same car had traveled the length of the road in front of their house twice in the last hour, and while this wouldn't be too terribly uncommon under normal circumstances, the world had ended five months ago. The headlights disappeared again and Dex let the blinds fall back together, turning around with his dark brows furrowed in worry. They lived in a rural, sparsely populated town, at the end of a long, winding county road, and since the Z. gondii parasite had "taken over the world", they very rarely saw cars. So seeing the same big, dark colored pickup truck several times in one hour, much less one day, was unsettling.
His dog, Hero, sat at his heels. Sensing Dex's worry, the little pit bull grumbled good naturedly and pressed his blocky head against his master's knee, eliciting a scratch behind the ears and a long, low sigh. "Gotta keep our guard up pal." He whispered, reaching up to itch at the few days worth of stubble that graced his cheeks. Dexter crossed the large, well furnished room and hit the light switch to darken the windows.
"Hey!" The whine came from across the room, to the couch where his sixteen year old sister, Riley, had been reading a book. "I'm trying to read here." She scowled.
"Use a book light." Her brother replied quietly. "There's a suspicious truck that's been driving around and I don't want to draw attention to the house."
"Yes sir." She mock saluted him with the wrong hand and stormed off in the general direction of her bedroom, using the weak moonlight that shone through the sliding glass doors in the kitchen as a guide. Dexter shook his head. Had anyone else called him "sir" they would have been corrected. He was a Sergeant, and used to being addressed as such. But Riley got away with a lot of things that others could not. Hero looked after his young mistress and then back to Dexter, waiting, and Dexter mock-scowled down at him. "Oh go on you traitor. Geh." Dismissed, the dog trotted after Riley.
They had been reasonably safe here since the z-pocalypse, as Riley had christened it. Their father, Aaron, was a freak about being prepared for emergencies, and as a result, the Fletcher home had an entire basement room stocked with dehydrated, canned, and jarred goods. Naturally they were all store bought or ordered online, as Aaron wouldn't dare do something as mundane as growing vegetables, but they were there nonetheless, ready for a nuclear fallout, or a super storm, or any other natural disaster... but they worked just as well for most of the world being infected by a brain-controlling parasite, too...
Now alone, Dexter sank down on to the couch Riley had vacated, resting his face on the knuckles of his bent right arm. He knew Riley wasn't really angry with him. She was angry at the world, yes, at their father, definitely, but the two siblings, despite being seven years apart in age, and damn near polar opposites, rarely fought. She was used to Dexter's hyper-sensitive instincts picking up on things that could pose a threat, which is why she hadn't put up a fight about the light switch. He sat there in darkness, listening for the crunch of gravel that would signal someone pulling into their driveway, but after over an hour of silence, the tension in his frame lessened, and not long after, he was asleep.
...
He was awoken by the feeling of cold steel pressed against his temple.
"If you make a move I'll blow your brains out." The words were muffled, originating just beside his left ear. Dexter stiffened, heart slamming against his rib cage as a euphoria of adrenaline pumped through his bloodstream. Fight or flight? He was confident he could handle one armed gunman if presented even the slightest opportunity to disarm him, and his dark eyes flickered around the room, searching for something to use as a weapon. His .50 caliber Desert Eagle, a birthday gift from his father, was tucked away in the drawer of his nightstand, but it was too risky to attempt to make a run for it - the room was big, but he didn't envy his chances of dodging a bullet from 15 or even 20 feet away.
Before he got a chance to think about it again, a second gunman, this one wielding a double barreled shotgun, made an appearance. "Is there anyone else in the house?" He demanded in a harsh whisper.
"No." Dexter said automatically.
It was at that point that his father, who was downstairs in his lab, decided to knock something over. The sound of glass shattering, followed by a muffled curse, belied his answer. Obviously irritated, the first intruder slammed the butt of his pistol into Dexter's face, seized him by the back of his shirt, and propelled him forward onto his hands and knees. He knelt then, the pistol again against the side of Dexter's face. "I don't like being lied to, boy. I'm going to ask you again, and this time a wrong answer will earn you a bullet. Who else is in the house?"
Leaning on one elbow, and using the opposite hand to try and stem the flow of blood from his nose and mouth, Dexter nodded, voice muffled through his hand. "My father, he's in the basement. Working."
"Working on what?" The shotgun-man asked.
"It doesn't matter. Is he armed?"
"No."
"Are you lying to me?"
"Do I look like someone who wants to get pistol whipped twice in one night?"
"Good. No one has to get hurt, we just need your supplies. Cooperate, and both of you walk out of this alive. Show me where they are. Go." Dexter was hauled to his feet by the man with the pistol, but he was smart, and kept the gun well away from his quarry. Still clutching his nose with one hand, and holding the other up in the universal symbol for 'I don't mean any harm' he made his way to the basement door with now both the shotgun and the pistol aimed at his back. He cracked the heavy, wooden door open and the leader, the man with the pistol, grabbed him and pulled him back, voice lowering to barely audible levels. "If you, or your father, try anything stupid, I swear to God I will not hesitate to shoot you. No one has to get hurt. Both hands up."
The leader pushed Dexter in front of him, and he lifted the other hand too. His lip had stopped bleeding, but the nose was still pumping, sending a cascade of crimson down the front of his white t-shirt as soon as he removed the pressure. The three of them descended the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, there were two doors, one to the left, one to the right, and a small storage closet directly across from the stairs, door slightly ajar to reveal nothing but a mop bucket and a dirty mop. "Which one?"
"The one on the left is the storage room. Food, medicine, everything is there. The one on the right is my father's... office. Please don't hurt him, he's harmless."
"That remains to be seen. Open the door." He gestured to the lab, and Dexter twisted the knob and pushed the door open. Dr. Fletcher looked up, a frown on his face.
"Dexter? I told you I didn't want anyone-" Dr. Fletcher stopped as soon as he noticed the blood on his son's shirt, and the two gunmen that entered the room behind him. "What..?"
"Dad." Dexter said slowly. "They just want the food. They're only here for the food." Please don't ask where Riley is, please don't ask where Riley is.
"Where's-"
"Hero's locked in the bedroom." Dexter interrupted.
"Who's Hero?"
"My dog. Chihuahua."
The man grunted, uninterested, and Dr. Fletcher seemed to get the point because he didn't continue with his inquiry.
"Watch them." The man with the pistol said, pulling the gun away from Dexter's back and heading towards the supply room. Dexter turned. The shotgun man was a few feet away, the double barrels pointed squarely at the soldier's chest. Still no room for a play. "Don't move. We'll just get what we need and be on our way."
There was a creak on the stairway, but the gunman either hadn't heard it, or decided it was unimportant. Dexter and Dr. Fletcher exchanged a glance, the horror mirrored in their faces. Riley.
He saw a flash of bright red hair as Riley's face peeked from the doorway. Thankfully, the shotgun man's back was to her, but the leader of the two was still in the other room, across the hallway. She must have heard him though, because she quickly turned away, disappearing behind the door frame. Moments later, the first gunman entered the room again. He met Dexter's bewildered stare with one of caution, but before he could ask anything, there was a clatter in the hallway. The pistol was automatically up, pointed at the doorway. "What the fuck was that?"
Riley's terrified voice came from the hallway. "I'm so sorry Dex I'm so clumsy I knocked the mop over." She sounded close to tears, which was weird, because she didn't usually cry so easily.
"Is that a little fucking girl?" The second man demanded.
"Yes." Dexter said, desperate now. "My baby sister. Please don't hurt her."
"Get your ass in here girl." The first man said, exasperated. He turned and aimed the pistol at Dexter. "You lied to me."
Dexter raised his hands again. "Hey man. Listen. Listen to me. She's my baby sister, you understand why I had to protect her."
"We had a deal, Dexter." The man sounded out his name like a bully on the school playground, and though anger burned like hot lead inside his gut, Dexter stayed calm, still pleading. And then Riley stepped into the doorway. Any hope of escaping this unscathed would disappear as soon as they had Riley in their clutches. Dexter would rather die than let them hurt her, or worse, take her with them. He clenched his fists, taking a deep breath and preparing to lunge at the man with the pistol, who was closest with him and had become distracted by his little sister when she entered the door frame.
It happened so quickly that he hardly had time to react.
Riley lifted the gun.
Dexter's .50 caliber Desert Eagle looked enormous in the hands of the petite sixteen year old girl, but no less deadly. Seeing the gun pointed at her brother's chest had steeled something in Riley, and the hard set of her face, her intense green eyes, reminded Dexter so much of their mother in that moment that he was momentarily stunned into silence. Riley screamed "FASS, HERO!" just before she pulled the trigger, and Hero rounded the corner in a full fury, slathering and snarling as he leaped at the man with the shotgun. But the resulting BOOM of the .50 caliber in such an enclosed space drowned out both the dog's snarling and, as Dr. Fletcher lunged at the him and pulled his gun arm between them as they hit the ground together, the four pops of the first man's pistol, which sounded like a cap gun in comparison. Riley, having no experience with such a large weapon, had been totally unprepared for the kickback it produced, and as a result, had missed the man entirely. But it had been enough to provide a distraction, and that was all Dexter needed.
He leaped across the room in what seemed like an impossibly long stride, snatching the gun from his sister's trembling hands and whipping around. He put the second round in the leader's head and turned to the man who had previously been holding the shotgun. "Aus, Hero!" He snarled, ordering the dog to let go and back off, which he did, circling and barking with a bloodied face. The third round dispatched him, and when his ears stopped ringing from the sound of the blasts, he turned and dropped to his knees beside his father. Riley stood, stunned, in the doorway, tears streaming down her face.
Dr. Fletcher had taken the gunman's four rounds in the gut, and the gun was still pressed between them. Dexter gently turned his father over, putting pressure on the cluster of wounds, but it was obvious that this was not something you recovered from. "Dad..."
"Dex..." Dr. Fletcher whispered, blood bubbling up in the corner of his mouth. "Fridge..."
"Dad, what-?"
"Fridge." The man insisted weakly. "Vial."
Confused, Dexter leaned over to the mini fridge under his dad's desk, pulling out the only thing contained there, a small vial filled with purple liquid. He handed it to his father and the man produced a capped syringe from the pocket of his lab coat. With a practiced ease that belied his condition, he drew the liquid into the syringe. "D-dog. Hero."
Hearing his name, the dog crawled over, flat on his belly as if he knew the situation required precision and gentleness. As if he didn't have a giant, gaping wound in his abdomen, Dr. Fletcher leaned up, taking hold of Hero's foreleg and finding the vein there. The dog didn't protest as the needle slid under his skin, and when Dr. Fletcher depressed the plunger, he stayed steady and calm until released. Dexter helped ease his dad back to the floor, and the man gestured to Riley. Finally galvanized into action, she weakly crossed the room and dropped to her knees, too, leaning across her father's chest to hug him. Sobs wracked her frame, and their father draped an arm across her, reaching with the other hand to clutch Dexter's.
"The cure." He managed. "Hero... has... cure."
Dexter's head snapped up. "What? You-"
"Washington. Washington. Get... Hero... Washington."
There was a crash from upstairs and all three of them jumped in surprise. Hero let out a long, low, growl, hackles raising, teeth bared at the doorway.
"The infected." Dexter whispered.
"Loud... gun..." His father said weakly, attempting a smile. "Go... I will... distract them..."
"No!" Riley screeched.
"Riley, we-"
"NO, Dexter!" Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, harsh and demanding attention. "We can't!" She collapsed into sobs, clutching her father's lab coat and muttering his name over and over again. He touched her cheek, eyes soft and so full of pain. "Love you, baby girl." He said. "Go."
***
THREE DAYS LATER
Hero sat between them in the middle seat of the truck cab. The radio was low, a Garth Brooks CD that had been there when they took the large, black Ford from just beyond their driveway. The keys had still been in the ignition. Guess the guys hadn't planned to be there that long.
They'd left their father to die as the infected swarmed the house. Dexter used the last four rounds in the Deagle to clear the stairwell and get them out. In the days since then, they'd made their way East. To the only place they had to go. Washington. Their father had been clear. Get Hero to Washington DC, to the only place that was rumored to be working on a cure. And if he had been right... well... their dog was the key to saving the world. He glanced over at the blocky headed pooch, snoozing with his face buried in Riley's lap. He had been a present for their mother when she was diagnosed with cancer, trained in Germany, and able to carry the heavy oxygen tanks she'd needed when leaving the house. When their mother died, he had effectively become a house dog, but his training for protection was not something easily forgotten and had probably saved both their lives that night.
"You okay?" He asked her softly.
"What do you think?"
"Listen Riley, I'm sorry. If I could have-"
"Save it, Dex. You did what you could."
Dexter fell silent, dark eyes focused on the road. Ahead of them, a line of cars appeared, scattered across the highway, and he pressed the brake, slowing the car to a stop. "Fuck." He muttered. "Highway is blocked."
"Fantastic." She said. "I do love walking."
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BACKPACK (DEXTER):
Items: 1
.50 Cal Desert Eagle (no rounds)
Food: none
Water: none
Last edited by a moderator:
