The Dead World Ch. 07

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He couldn't leave her out here alone, some part of him was certain that Charlie would remain that way and that her entire plan of traveling to a remote cabin in the mountains was one that would likely end with her living once more in sorrowful solitude. So instead, he encouraged her to doze off for a while, knowing she hadn't been resting too well in the recent week.

It felt as if they hadn't made it very far at all moving slowly through the dark, barren roads... but certainly enough the pickup began to slow, and sputter. Dog furrowed his brow. What fucking luck that something would go wrong with the engine of the old piece of shit at the most inopportune time!

It had probably been sitting for too long, he surmised. The engine began to overheat and in a matter of moments they were stuck on the side of the road with smoke billowing from beneath the hood in near-total darkness. Charlie had dozed off with her head resting on his shoulder, and he tried not to stir her hoping she might sleep as long as possible.

The rain had finally begun to fall, dripping languidly at first onto the metal roof, and Dog heaved a heavy sigh and kicked his boots off impatiently. There'd be no going anywhere, not right now, and he focused instead on trying his best to wind the window up with the broken crank, managing to close it as the rain fell harder. Charlotte had shifted, curled against the passenger door, and as a precaution, he reached an arm around her to press the lock before guiding her back against him to rest.

They were stuck here until the sun rose, at least. He had hoped to get them farther than twenty miles out, but he knew well enough that no one would be following right after them any time soon, not in the dark and rain and not with the horde of the dead scattered through the area.

He shut his eyes, irritations subsiding as the torrent of rain killed him into a restless sleep... it felt like only a few short hours, and he awoke first just as the sun began to brighten the sky. It was dark, still, and he could begin to make out the deserted road speckled with the odd abandoned car here and there, graffiti plastered on the highway signs about a half a mile up almost convincing Dog such detours would be best avoided. The fact that he saw cars here, though, meant that people had gotten out here for a reason, whether coming or going.

Charlie yawned and rubbed her eyes as Dog shoved the creaky driver's side door open, and moved around to lift the rusted hood, the rush of steam followed by a sweet chemical scent was more than enough confirmation that the radiator was likely shot. He'd picked up a bit of knowledge about machinery from Slash, just enough to know that the black hoses leaking fluid down beneath the pickup would not be an easy fix. The engine might have been damaged already. The battery, however, was something worth salvaging.

He scowled at the thought of having to lug that heavy thing around, but if they could find a car in decent shape and a proper conductor, they might just be able to jumpstart a new set of wheels.

After removing it, he dropped the hood with a pensive frown and went to tuck it down under the driver seat of the pickup for safekeeping. He'd double back for it, once they set camp someplace safe. As Charlie pushed open the passenger side door he moved around to the back, retrieving his rifle and pack from the bed of the pickup and fishing out a few packs of the provisions he'd brought along for the ride.

"Looks like we're walking from here..." Charlie murmured as she slid her slender arms into the straps of her backpack and pulled it up onto her shoulders, before stretching them high above her head. As she brought them back down, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes with another poorly stifled yawn, and Dog reached out to hand her a few packs of biscuits from the MREs back at the resort. He gestured with a set of fingers toward the green highway sign reading 'Georgia Sea Turtle Center', before then pointing toward the forest.

They wouldn't be too far off from a coastal town. Up ahead, the highway sign had been all but blacked out with dark paint, leading Dog to be wary of who may be inhabiting the place at this point... but the abandoned cars nearby meant there was something worth walking to nearby. His main thought was to get off the road and out of sight.

Cutting through the forest would not only shorten the trip, but it would make them much, much harder to follow... and in the event that whoever had painted over the highway sign happened to be hostile, he'd see them long before they saw them coming under the cover of foliage.

The sun peeked just over the horizon as they made their way into the depths of the forest before the shifting clouds overcast it at least. At some point, Charlie tugged the dark beanie off, for the first time in days. She felt it had become a permanent fixture on her head. Her hair was a hapless mess of loose curls, aside from the thick braided coils that were twisted into a bun.

She made herself busy slowly picking it apart, and Dog paused to smirk at her beautifully disheveled appearance, pinching her cheek playfully before taking the beanie she'd stuffed into her pocket and fixing it back upon her head firmly. He smoothed her half undone braids back beneath it, out of sight.

"I won't have to pretend to be a boy any more if we're away from danger," She protested in amusement, but Dog seemed to think otherwise. The playfully placid expression he usually had hardened ever so slightly, and he shook his head firmly, tugging the beanie down over her little ears as if to insist she maintain the guise. She'd be safer, however marginally, if any other survivors they might cross paths with believed her to be a young boy. For the wrong people, as he was sure Charlie had realized now, they wouldn't give a damn whether she was male or female if they had it in their head to commit evil, unspeakable horrors against them.

Off Highway 520, the denseness and unfamiliarity of the forest quickly became a reality. He knew the direction they were heading—toward the sun—just as he knew the coast was to the east. They weren't far from the more charming and rustic town of Jekyll Island, with its museums and aquatic center and once posh private homes and such.

It was perhaps a five-mile hike with them cutting through the brush, an easy drive if they still had their vehicle. Five miles, all the same, was a walk through the park for Dog, but he didn't know what to expect of Charlie. She'd spent an incredibly long time safe and secure without the need to move about too often, which did absolutely nothing for her out here in the dead world, trudging through rough terrain on foot.

The rain in the recent weeks did them no favors, making the trademark red Georgia clay even more malleable than it already was, even for the sturdy boots the pair were suited in... they were still a reasonable distance from the resort, far enough that Dog considered how hard they would be to track into the wild.

As they made their way deeper into the forest, Charlie began to notice there were more and more of the dead in the area than she initially realized, and it was getting harder for her to keep up with Dog. They picked up the pace and were soon all but fleeing a large cluster of the dead and dodging others that had become stuck in the muddy terrain, still viciously attempting to pursue the living beings passing among them.

Instinct demanded he move faster, but he would only go as swiftly as Charlie would allow... after a good five and a half miles of power walking and damn near jogging through rough forest, she needed a break, and he wasn't surprised. She wasn't prepared for such a physically taxing journey; she'd barely eaten in the last few days and try as she might to hide it, she was exhausted. She was trying her best to keep up.

Dog had been conditioned to deal with these sorts of treks, ever since he was a young boy... once things went south for the world and the virus ravaged the planet, at only twelve years old, any resemblance of a "normal" childhood was nonexistent. He was ever-enduring, it was honestly no longer an option, but a constant state of mind. No matter how underfed he might be, no matter how much his muscles ached and feet burned, or how cold he was, or how broken he felt... he had to keep going. Survival wasn't an option. It was all he knew.

He helped her up into the trees, knowing she'd be safer there, and then cleverly led the dead still managing to trail them off and away from her. She waited with anticipation for him to return after giving them the slip among the evergreen trees. Once the dead were far enough away and heading in a direction opposite of the pair, the two climbed up into the trees so they were out of sight of not only the dead but anyone else who might stumble along while Charlie took a breather.

The branch he chose was wide enough for them both to rest on, cradled by the remainder of the thick oak tree's mighty limbs. Dog encouraged her to eat something again, and she all but devoured an apple and a handful of dried strawberries she'd packaged during the late summer months, small things he'd snagged from the kitchen not long before burning the damn thing down. Charlie looked upon Dog with a humble newfound fondness. He tried not to draw attention to the fact that he'd decided to skip lunch himself... rationing could be life-saving when living on the road.

"You know... if I'd ended up broken down, alone... I might have just given up. You could've woken me sooner. It might've been smart for us to keep moving..."

Dog observed her troubled expression quietly, and shook his head. Waking her wouldn't have done anything but worry her. He knew better than anyone that traveling by night in the rain in an unfamiliar area with only a flashlight would've been suicide. He shifted to slide his index finger beneath her chin and nudge it skyward as he had done many times since they'd met.

He didn't see it, whatever doubt she saw inside of herself that made her think she would be so quick to quit... he could see the fire in her eyes. He could feel her will to survive... just as he could sense her fear to live. He shook his head again as if forbidding such discussions, and passed Charlie a water bottle.

In a little while, he'd climb up higher, as high as he could to see if he could get a visual heading. There should be structures in the next few miles; a place to set up camp and possible cars still salvageable if luck was on their side. The hardest part of that would be going back for the truck battery, and finding something to connect the two without electrocuting himself. But the fact that this entire little strip of land was so remote might be their saving grace.

Many of the homes could still have items worth salvaging; perhaps as stocked as the day they had been when the outbreak began... or equipped with a vehicle. Hell... maybe they'd find jumper cables.

"Do you think it was the right thing to do... leaving? Should we... should we just go back? Just try and keep things going the way they were?" Charlie wasn't positive if she even believed herself as she spoke. Dog's deadpan stare clearly told her everything he thought about that idea.

It wasn't an option, not even a possibility. Skully would kick his teeth down his throat for blatantly disobeying him—betraying him—and Dog didn't want to imagine what they'd do to Charlie. They'd blame the fire on her. She'd never work off the debt. Slash would inevitably be right back at pushing his limits with her, and he would go far enough to realize she was a woman, with the way things had been, and... Dog didn't want to let his mind go down that path...

The way everything was unraveling with the group more than unsettled him. All hell would break loose after her secret was out... it wasn't a matter of how convincing Charlie's disguise was. It would only be a matter of time.

If he decided to go back, it would be after winter at least, leaving ample time for Colton and Oscar to have gotten over how pissed they were that he went ghost on them, to begin with. He'd be in for one hell of a Graveyard Watch sentence for this. Skully might very well want to fight over it.

...If... he went back.

Their break ended soon enough, perhaps because Dog had moved to the higher branches and finally caught sight of the nearest destination through the forest, but surely more because Charlie had removed her beanie and pulled her long wavy locks into a ponytail. She was smiling again. She hopped down unaided while Dog was getting their heading—he'd spotted an empty-looking town perhaps a few miles off, a sign for a gas station with quite a few homes surrounding it.

One spot in particular stuck out, what appeared to be a warehouse of some sort with high fences... if it wasn't over-run, a fenced-in place was the perfect place to regroup, recover, and scavenge supplies. Far more appealing than any place out in the open, especially with so many of the dead walking the area. He climbed down swiftly, not wanting to leave Charlotte alone for too long, and led the way, taking the majority of the heavy bags in hopes that he could get his precious companion to safety before nightfall.

—————

Rain pitter-pattered against the metal roof, heard in its heaviest point cascading over the structure. It was snug and secure here, and significantly warmer than being outdoors. Having spent most of the day tromping in the forest and fleeing the dead through the mucky Georgia underbrush, Charlie felt at ease atop a stack of queen-sized hotel mattresses. She had shed most of her clothing by now which had gotten thoroughly soaked, utilizing the linens she found stored here to dry herself off. Her hair was still damp; the downpour had started not long after they started into the woods.

It was almost comically ironic that they happened upon a storage unit filled with items intended for a newly opening hotel—mattresses, sofas, sheets still in their packaging, desks, chairs and other fickle accessories like lamps and mini-refrigerators. Things one would expect to be transferred to a newly-opened oceanfront paradise... ill-fated, it seemed, for the plague that decimated the country six years prior.

It didn't make her feel nearly as secure as the resort had by any means, but Charlotte tried to remind herself repeatedly that things could have gone badly a long time ago, and this was far more comfortable than sleeping nervously curled up in a tree exposed to the wind and rain, or in a rusty old truck wide out in the open.

It was nothing short of a miracle from whatever God still favored the innocents, that things had not gone badly for her before... Even amidst their latest misfortunes it seemed someone was looking out for them. Charlie counted her blessings with a silent prayer, and set her warm, chocolate eyes on the door of the storage unit, patiently waiting for Danny to return.

The solar lantern Dog had brought to her a few hours back before vanishing again glowed brightly, well enough to read if she had any material. She tried not to give in to her nervousness after Dog departed to secure the location, alone... not that she felt she could honestly be of much help to him. She had only just begun to learn how to handle a gun. She grew tired quickly and realized on their first day through the forest that he had cut his pace by more than half, along with carrying the brunt of their supplies, to make it easier for her. She was better off hiding out and waiting for him.

He'd found a pen to write with once inside and spent a time before departing again scrawling poorly legible notes to her on a flattened piece of cardboard. He told her a town wasn't far off, about a mile and a half walk up a quiet, empty two-lane road. From what he had seen of it, it was not much to speak of. He drew a few houses spaced generously apart along the road, and a few larger buildings she assumed had once been nearby lodging—though far less clustered than those that dotted the shoreline.

His main concern was what appeared to be a crudely constructed safe zone that had been set in place by the Coast Guard a very long time ago... but he also emphasized that there were, many, many shuffling, snarling, rotting reanimated bodies trapped behind its ten-foot gates.

The safe zone was overrun, the bodies were too many to count. It all looked relatively low-picked and untouched, something Danny attributed to both the remote location and the fact that it was a fucking death trap. It was promising... but incredibly risky. He had only attempted such an insane stunt once before and things didn't go quite according to plan, but he'd made it out with a few items of value for his troubles. He was older than he had been then; wiser, and far more capable.

Leaving the hotel might've been the smartest thing they'd done yet if the traffic of dangerous monsters kept steady like this. He'd seen hordes far larger than the one that had come across the resort, he knew what horrors were roaming the wastelands of the East Coast.

If they were careful, they could lay low for a while and slip off, when the road was safer for travel, and hopefully much better prepared than they already were. It would take a lot of finessing... and a functional vehicle if he hoped to pick through the safe zone set up in town for supplies. There were too many bodies to clear single-handedly. He'd have to draw them off, somehow.

When he finally disappeared through the heavy metal door, leaving Charlie to rest and acquaint herself with her surroundings, he found himself fighting to ignore the little voice in the depths of his mind taunting him about stalling...

He went about first securing the gates around the facility. Someone at some point had run through it with a car, but it was nothing to take a few chains from the office of the facility and pull the gate tightly back together again. Clearing the Self-Storage lot's fenced-in enclosure wasn't difficult, even with the rain falling erratically from the sky. He wasn't at all bothered by it. After walking for miles it was more refreshing than anything.

The handful of reanimated corpses here were thin, sluggish, and very much blind by now. Their skin looked as if it was melting off of their bones. But it was only a woman and two men, all with the remnants of clothing intended for hiking barely clinging to their skeletal frames.

It wasn't a challenge putting them down. He utilized his hunting knife, not wanting to waste the bullets, or draw attention. Even the handgun with the makeshift metal suppressor welded to the barrel wasn't entirely soundless, not like tripping the feral husks into the mud and sliding his hunting knife into the base of the monster's skulls, severing their spinal cords.

It seemed there were much fewer rotters in this area compared to the forest.

There was only a single tattered tent—the place he had acquired the solar lantern from and what he assumed had once been the camp of the facility's sole inhabitants—with a singed spot of earth that had held a hearth so long ago it was nothing to be concerned about now. Once the gates were secure, he walked the perimeter all but drenched from his efforts and yet ever unfazed. He found only a small opening had to be repaired to keep the place secure—a spot someone had taken bolt cutters to. He was mindful to repair the gap with spare bits of barbed wire he cut from the top.

He tried not to think about what would happen if he escorted Charlie all the way north, to her rendezvous destination, and what might happen if there were in fact people waiting there for her... if her husband had survived somehow and made his way there. It irritated him to think about it, stirring envious desperation to keep her close, conflicted only by the thought of a genuine smile on her face.