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lolathepeacocklord · 3 years

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Chapter 3 – Helping Hand

“It’s not safe to be walking around all by yourself. There’s a lot out here that can and probably will try to kill you.” The new stranger took Smith’s hand and started to pull him away down the alley. He progressed down to a dead end and opened up a door to the left, which led to a very dark room inside the building. The place was relatively large, at least compared to other buildings in town. It probably had three floors. Smith was very hesitant on walking into the pitch black room. That guy seemed to just disappear into the abyss.

Why was he even following him? It could be some loony that was gonna kill and eat him. It’s been a damn long time since he’s met anybody nice out here. And the fact he talked normally like him was also a bit confusing. Were sane people more common then he thought they were?

He grunted and inhaled sharply- tightening his grip over to bleeding wound. Oh yeah, he just remembered why the guy dragged him here in the first place.

The smoker gained the courage to take a step into the house, and hissed when he got a light shined in his face for a split second.

“Sorry, sorry!” The man said, a little bit panicked. “We… Don’t have electricity here really. There’s a backup generator in the basement. It’s out of gas though.” He twisted the flashlight a bit and made it’s spotlight larger so the room could be seen better. Now that more of the place was visible this place looked like a run down motel. Well it was the literal apocalypse, so of course things are gonna be trashed, but he still assumed the highest rating this place ever got was three stars. Even that felt a bit generous.

The man had gone off to get both that flashlight and seemingly a medkit. “Could you sit down please? I’d like to take care of that sooner rather then later.”

“Yeah me too.” Smith murmured and sat down. At least the guy seemed to know what he was doing. He started to help clean around the wound which hurt like fucking hell. Smith still felt on the cautious side with this man, just because he met him about seven minutes ago. He didn’t even know the guy’s name.

“I’m Alex by the way.” He had a gentle little smile on his face. “Sorry for grabbing you off the street so suddenly. I just didn’t want you to be out in the open too long. Especially if you have an open wound.”

“Smith. Thanks for the help.” Well at least they were getting to know each other. He would have done this mini surgery by himself, but… This was a bullet. He’s dealt with slashes and cuts and stuff, so there was a tiny bit of experience there with stitches. But he’s never taken a literal bullet out of himself before. Or anyone else.

“Are you… Sure you know what you’re doing?” The smoker asked nervously.

“Yeah! I’ve been having a little practice recently. I got a friend who is a bit reckless. He’s… Been shot more then once definitely.” Alex rummaged through the medkit and eventually pulled out some pliers. They didn’t look… Too rusty. “Just letting you know, this is about to hurt. A lot. So just keep yourself braced.”

Smith tried to force himself to look away from this, but would continue to glance back a lot. The wound for some reason looked bigger then it did earlier. Wider. At least it gave a little more room for Alex to insert the tweezers, and it hurt like hell. Alex needed to grip his wrist just so he didn’t rip his arm away from him. The little bullet was deep in there, and blood continued to pour from the wound again. The smoker grunted slightly and clenched his teeth hard, resting his chin in the palm of his other hand. After several agonizing minutes the little piece of metal clinked onto the tabletop and rolled around in a tiny circle. Alex and Smith both sighed with relief. “Worst part’s over. Good job!” Alex gave a thumbs up and cleaned the wound the rest of the way now. There was a mediocre set of a needle and thread, so he continued to carefully stitch up the wound again. He knew what he was doing… Mostly. The apocalypse has really been helping him learn a thing or two in the medical field. At least enough to treat multiple bullet wounds and occasionally the claw marks and gashes from melee weapons.

Alex looked up at Smith every once in a while to just kind of... Get a look at this guy. He stared at the hole in the wall nervously, having green catlike eyes. And the schlera was a bright yellow that almost seemed like it glowed. Or maybe it just reflected light well or something, he wasn't sure. His hair went all the way down the back of his neck and curled a bit at the end. The right side of his head was shaved and he had several piercings on his ears, and one on his remaining eyebrow. He had a tiny little scar more on the right side of his lips. He seemed like he was a Hispanic American mix. Definitely an interesting looking guy.

“There we go, good as new!” Alex said happily, closing the kit again as Smith examined the work with the bandages. Nothing felt loose, and most of the bleeding seemed to be stopping. "Thanks, um... Alex." Smith said, returning a tiny smile. The guy sure seemed optimistic, especially since it was, oh you know, the end of the world. Suddenly Smith felt incredibly awkward.

"So um... Are you just, like, some tumor guy?" He asked, getting a confused look from Alex. "What do you mean?"

"Well you're clearly not a survivor. Or well, an immune survivor. And you got the whole tumor mess going on there." Smith put his elbow on the table, resting his head in his palm. "Wish I was as lucky as you. Not single tentacle hanging out as far as I see."

Alex continued to stare, looking just as awkward and confused as Smith felt right now. "I'm... Not a smoker. Have you- never seen a boomer before?"

Smith blinked. "A what now?"

Alex took in a deep breathe and sighed gently. The flashlight on the table began flickering. He grabbed it and smacked it against his palm a few times before getting the regular shine back. “There we go. You should really keep batteries anytime you find them. Big, small, medium- you never know what they’d come in handy for!”

“… Right, uh… I kinda wanted to know what a boomer was? And you keep talking about these other people. Who exactly- what- I’m a little lost right now.”

“Right right, sorry.” Alex quickly put the light back and began to tell the smoker everything he knew.

“I saw some guy behind a building throwing up everywhere, really violently. I went to see if he was alright. He had these growths starting to grow on his arms and face, and I asked him if I needed to call an ambulance. And then he just… Without any warning at all-” He looked like he might throw up as well. “Dear god, the guy just blew up like a balloon- blood and shit going everywhere. P-People thought I committed a murder, and there was a security camera nearby thank god. I was let off the hook just because people had no idea what happened there. The investigation didn’t last long because, well… Heh. Ahem- I started to get really sick and well, look where I am now. Yeah.”

Smith felt bad for bringing up such a touchy subject. The guy seemed genuinely ashamed he had become this monstrosity, so that made him feel even worse. He tried to change the subject somewhat and said “How are your other friends doing? They doing… Well?”

The two were quite for several minutes, just staring at each other. Alex eventually grabbed the flashlight and rose from his seat. “Come with me, I’ll introduce you to the others.”

Smith became increasingly more worried as he was given a tour around the motel. A lot of the walls and doorways were outright demolished, and at this point he was a little scared to ask who and what would have caused that. Alex’s low-context answer somehow made it feel worse.

“For the type of infected Brutus is, he’s actually a bit smaller compared to other infected. Doesn’t mean he can’t cause a ton of destruction.” He said, sounding like he was just talking to himself, because this was not giving Smith the answer he wanted regarding the destruction. At least he made it sound like it was their friend? Whatever this Brutus thing was. Alex eventually turned over to one room and gently knocked on the door before slowly opening it. “… Hello, you awake?”

There was another destroyed wall (lovely) inside the room, so that was… Something. The room itself was more interesting. Whoever lived here seemed to horde a lot of blankets and pillow, and a big mattress too. It looked a bit squished though, and there was a big blanket that was clearly made by sewing together a bunch of other blankets. More off to the corner of the room was a huge pile of pillows and blanket. The uneasy part was was the fact a hand was sticking out from the pile. A hand with very, very long claws.

“She doesn’t like super bright lights. So if you wanna wake her up ever, just… Don’t do that.” Alex turned off the flashlight and walked over to speak to the pile of pillows. Smith looked around nervously at the dark building and checked again to see if a hallway lamp was working. The answer was no, and he sighed softly. He suddenly felt a tingling in his throat and put his hand over his mouth, coughing repeatedly. He was doing his best to keep it down, so he tried moving down the hall a bit. Alex then came out and waved at him. “Blance is up! Just- whenever you’re done doing you.”

Smith forced down the coughing fit surprisingly, and watched a woman walk out the doorway, mumbling something to herself. The claws were really intimidating, and she kind of seemed to have a resting bitch face. That or she always looked angry when she got woken up to meet random strangers. She wore a baggy keyhole sweater that was a bit of a tan color, a dark gray denim skirt, and some pantyhose that were pretty raggedy and torn up. She didn’t wear any kind of shoes. Or at least not at the moment? Yeah, who went to bed with shoes on. And unless you were there to witness it and had a sharp memory, you probably wouldn’t be able to find anything in that room.

“So you’re the new guy?” She asked, looking at Smith with slight distaste. She looked a couple inches shorter then Alex and had long dirty blonde hair that covered most of the right side of her face. She brushed it out of the way to squint at Smith, and Alex turned the flashlight back on by now. She cringed at the sight of him having even more tumors then her friend right next to her. “You smell awful, god.” Well, she clearly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Smith was glad to see she still had both of her eyes in their sockets, unharmed and everything. She let the hair fall back over her face and Alex asked “Where did Brutus go Blance? I’m sorry to interrupt you starting a nap, I just haven’t heard him.”

“Heard him?” Smith asked.

“Yeah, you can definitely hear him walking around. I’ll show you why in a minute.” Alex said. “But this is Blance! Blance, this is Smith. He is a smoker, and Smith, she is something called a witch-”

“I can already tell why he has that name. Just his voice says it all.” She murmured, and didn’t give Smith time to react to that comment. “Also I’ve been… Asleep. For a while now. I thought you would know where he was.”

Alex stared blankly at her. “No… I said I was gonna check the building next door, see if it had anything there. You were supposed to keep an eye on Brutus. He does seem to hang around you more anyways.”

Smith watched the two go back and forth, just trying to figure out who the hell had been looking after this Brutus guy. He was starting to get the impression he was some sort of child, but how could a child destroy a building like this? Not like throwing things off shelves and breaking vases- actually destroying the place. He just wanted to know what the fuck was going on with these new infected her was meeting. Was that really so much for him to ask?

And that’s when things really started to go down.

Alex literally screamed like a girl when they all heard a huge crash outside. Not directly outside, but really damn close. Maybe just behind the building near them. Immediately after the crash a car alarm was going off like crazy. And then they heard the sound of a horde coming over.

“We might’ve just found him.” Blance said, and started running away, and out through a hole in the building, Alex stammered a bunch and tried to stop her before running off in a different direction of the building to get something.

“What the hell’s happening!?” Smith yelled.

“Sorry, I-I’m so sorry. I haven’t been telling you anything about that, I just- Thought it’d be better to introduce you first.” Alex had gone over to a closet where there were a ton of guns stored. “Jesus, where did you get all these?” Smith asked, staring in awe.

“This city has really dangerous litter nowadays. Here-” Alex just shoved a gun into Smith’s arms. He gave him this heavy baggy too, and when he opened it up he saw why. It had a ton of magazines for the gun. Alex grabbed himself a shotgun and shoved a bunch of shells into his pockets before he shut the door. He started to run off in the same path he saw Blance go, but stopped in his tracks for a minute.

“You don’t have to come you know! Just keep that on you in case you need to defend yourself.” Alex told Smith, who was keeping close behind him.

“No no no, I wanna come with you. Just so I can know what the hell is happening around here.” Smith said. “You guys may need extra protection, and I’m glad to provide it!

Alex smiled at him, still seeming very panicked. “I’ll explain all of this later, don’t worry.” He said and patted the smoker’s shoulder. “Just brace yourself- you’re going to see a lot of weird things from here on out.”

Smith didn’t take in how right those words were going to mean in the next several minutes. Alex didn’t even know what was gonna be in store. All they knew was that the witch ran away, there was a horde, something happened with a car, and they just needed to go on from there. So the two kept their guns in their arms, waited for an opening so they weren’t just running directly through a horde, and just followed the zombies over to the noise.

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