Chapter 14:

Trespassers (5)

Don't Die, Will

3 Days Earlier

Olivia slowly opened her eyes. She couldn't remember what happened last night. She looked around and discovered herself on a bed.

Wh-what is this?

Soon after she noticed her right arm was around something. She opened her eyes clearly. Her arm was around Will's bare chest. She immediately moved away her hand. He was still sleeping soundly. She covered her chest with the bed sheet and started to freak out.

Wh-why are we naked?? Don't tell me we...

...

"We are here." Julia looked at the map.

"Are you sure?"

"I think so."

"But I don't." Emma replied, "Fuck, look at this place. It can't be."

The place they came to, was the extra marked location they had in their map, the 4th circle marked. But the it didn't seem like it. The town was overrun by the deads. Emma and Julia were standing a bit far from the zone with their horse, so that they didn't get spotted.

"You don't believe me?" Julia forwarded the map, "See for yourself."

"Tch, I have my doubts. I mean look at all this mess. The town is overrun. We can't risk our lives over this."

"It took us more than 3 hours to reach this place. You sure you want to turn back?" Julia questioned, "It'll be all for nothing."

"You sure are brave." Emma said, "But stupid."

"Huh?"

"It will be a suicide." She said, "Maybe Jack did some miscalculation."

"So, do you want to turn back?"

"Huh...I'm not sure. We came all the way here. I don't wanna go back empty handed." Emma said, "Maybe there are some reasons for Jack to mark the location."

They kept quiet for a while. Emma was calculating the odds of getting out alive. They could clearly hear the sound of the deads, sound of hunger. After thinking for few minutes, Emma got down from the horse.

"So, are we doing it?" Julia also got off the horse.

"Unfortunately, yes." She tied up the horse with a tree near by.

"What exactly do you know about cannibals?" Emma asked Julia.

"Like what?"

"About their behavior, their movements."

"I...only know that they eat human." She gave a guilty smile.

Emma covered her eyes with disappointment and mumbled, "God, your brother will kill me if something happens to you."

"Hey, don't blame me, I was forced to not to leave the walls. How was I supposed to learn all this things? Nobody ever told me anything."

"Anyway, I am gonna teach you some behaviors of them, so listen carefully." She said, "Cannibals react to sudden moves and sounds. Other than that, they are actually totally blind. You get me?"

"Umm...sorta?"

"It means, if you avoid instant actions and make less sound, they wouldn't even notice your presence."

"Wait...then it's not that hard."

"Uh huh." She shook her head, "That is where your wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"Panic will take over when you'll discover yourself surrounded by them. That where's the real deal."

Julia said nothing but nodded as if she had understood.

"Anyway, what are we gonna do is go there, look for anything we could find and get the hell out of here." She said, "Just stay behind me and don't go out of sight."

"Okay."

They slowly entered the area. Julia simply followed Emma as she instructed. The town was completely messed up as someone can imagine. Wasn't much space to move because of the deads. But some area had lack of the eaters. Emma decided to go through the areas. They avoided them as much as possible and reached the back of a house. Emma opened a window from outside and they climbed in.

"Gather anything you find useful." Emma said.

The place was screwed up like any other house after the apocalypse. One of the legs of the dining table was broken. Some foods were on the ground. The living room was filled with dust. And the place was spreading a weird smell. Emma went to the kitchen. Luckily, she got her hands on a bottle of honey, a large packet of corn cereals and two bottles of maple syrup. Though it wasn't enough.

At least better than nothing.

She put them in her bag. Julia went upstairs and entered the first room she came across to. It seemed like it was a room of a person who likes to read. The room had a big bookshelf filled with lots of books, a study table and a bed. Julia got closer to the bookshelf.

So many books!

She kept looking and started to read every name of the books.

Lucas would love these. But how am I supposed to get them out?

She tried to open the bookshelf. It was locked. She even looked for the keys but found nothing. But she didn't want to leave empty handed. There should be something she could use. It wasn't mentioned before but Julia was actually really smart. All she had to was get her hands on some duct tape, a pillow and a hammer. The hammer wasn't actually necessary. She could use the back of her knife. The room had two pillows on the bed. But the main problem was to get a duct tape. She searched the whole room then the next room, the room beside that, the bathroom and even downstairs, literally the whole house. But couldn't find a single piece of a duct tape. Having no other options, she came back to the room amd stood in front of the bookshelf. One thing she was sure of, she wasn't leaving without some books. So some risks were had to be taken. She took a pillow and pressed it gently against the glass, took out her knife and started to hit the glass gently from over the glass. The glass broke after a few hits and made a little sound.

I hope that didn't reach very far.

She simply put her hands in and started take out some books. After filling up her bag she came downstairs with a smile on her face. She noticed that Emma was looking at something through the front window.

"What are you looking at so carefully."

"Come here." Emma didn't took off her eyes from the window, "See this."

Julia stood next to her and looked outside.

"See that?"

"What?"

"Look right there." She pointed with her finger.

"Yeah, that's a horse. It's already eaten."

"Maybe I know that horse."

"What do you mean?"

"That's..." She paused a bit, "That's maybe Nolan's horse."

"You're imagining things."

"I'm not." She looked serious, "I think I'll get a closer look."

"Are you stupid?! Look at the place. The horse is almost surrounded by deads."

"Right, but they are just a few. We can avoid them and slip through.

"You've gone crazy!"

She got to the door and opened the door quietly, "Maybe I have. But the question is...would you follow this crazy person? Or not?"

Julia didn't have any choice, "Huh...fine."

They left the house and took small steps toward the horse. The horse was surrounded by few deads. They could actually slip right through them if they are extra careful. Emma crouched down and slowly slipped through the deads, so did Julia.

"It smells bad." Julia whispered and covered her nose."

Emma looked. The horse was eaten fully. But some of the parts were left uneaten. Such as the head and the legs. Emma looked at it's left back leg.

"I was correct. It is Nolan's horse."

"How did you know?"

"Look at this leg." She pointed, "It has a crossed scar."

"You're right."

"And it's a dark horse. Just like Nolan's." She said, "Even if it's his horse but I am not getting one thing."

"What?"

"Nolan went out with Ethan and they did not choose this area for searching. Then how the fuck is this horse doing here?"

"How do you know that if they chose the place or not?"

"We all did it together. So that we don't collaborate."

"Oh."

"This doesn't make any se-"

Suddenly they heard a growling behind them.

"Don't move." Emma whispered, "We might have spoken a little too loudly."

Julia did as she was told. She froze. The growling was coming closer. The dead brought it's nost closer to Julia and sniffed aggressively. She was already trembling out of fear but tried to stop herself. Since the dead was really close to her, it could easily sensed the smallest movement of her body. But that was unknown to Julia. She panicked and closed her eyes. As a result the dead got angry.

"Fuck! Run!" Emma pushed the deads behind her and ran for her life.

Julia also ran behind her. But it was hard for her to catch up to Emma as her bag was filled with books. So she was slowing down bit by bit. Emma ran as fast she could and reached her horse. She got busy to untie it and was constantly looking back. Julia was a bit far away. And behind her, more than a few dozens cannibals were chasing her.

"God dammit!" The rope's knot got stuck.

"Emma, hurry!" Julia was approaching her steadily.

Emma started to sweat. Her hands were sweaty already and it got harder for her to open the knot. Panic and fear took over her face.

Julia finally got to her. She started to pant.

"Get on the horse!" Emma screamed.

"What about you?!" She got on the horse.

"Fuck! This stupid knot!" Emma looked back. They almost caught them.

Is this it?

She removed her hands from the knot and looked carefully. Turned out, the knot wasn't that complicated at all. She was just pulling the wrong side.

"Emma! Hurry!"

"Just a sec." She untied the horse, "Finally!"

She climbed up the horse and tapped it's body with her right leg to make it run. But horse was not running but screaming.

"What the fuck?!" Emma looked behind."

She saw one of the cannibals were already biting the horse's tail.

"Julia, cut off the it's hair from it's tail!"

Julia twisted her torso and leaned back. She carefully cut of the tail's hairy part. Just then, another dead bit her right foot.

"Fuck! One bit my leg!"

"What?!" Emma looked at the sight.

"Just go! Go!"

Emma made the horse run as fast the horse ever ran in it's entire life. The deads were still chasing them, but the horse was fast enough to got out of sight quickly.

Julia took off her right shoe and tried to look while rotating the leg at it's range.

"Did it bit your skin?!"

"I-" She paused a little, "I don't think so. It couldn't get through the shoe."

"Thank God."

"That was...intense."

"It sure was. Never been to a situation like that before. I thought I would die."

"Where are we heading now?"

"Home."

"W-why? We still have other places to look."

"Fuck it. I had it enough." She replied immediately, "Also, we gotta carry the message about Nolan and Ethan."

...

Olivia and Will are heading home. As it was mentioned before, they failed to find enough food for winter. The places they decided to have a look were either overrun or had a lack of supply. So, it took them less than a day to explore the areas.

Will was riding Buck and Olivia sat behind. Things were a bit awkward between them after what happened last night. A few hours ago, when Will discovered himself sleeping with Olivia on the second room's bed. He kept his eyes closed because he didn't want to disturb her sleeping. But he himself went back to sleep after a while. When he waked up again, Olivia wasn't beside her anymore. After that, they didn't really talk about the incident.

"Ahh, Olivia?" Will broke the silence.

"W-what?"

"Umm listen...about yesterday, ahh." He really couldn't make himself to bring up the subject, "About what happened between us yesterday."

"N-nothing happened." She turned her face away. A clear sign of lying.

"Stop acting like you don't know."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You do."

"I really don't."

"Stop lying."

"I'm not."

It seemed like she didn't want to talk about that. So, Will didn't forced it forward. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep quiet for long. Of all the things, it was his first time. And he didn't want his first time to be a mistake. So after pausing for a moment he start to do it all over again.

"O-Olivia, listen..." He hesitated, "I don't want things to be awkward between us...We ahh, we've been friends for quite a long time and...and I don't want to ruin it...over something like this."

Olivia kept silent. It didn't seem like she would talk.

"All right, I'll leave you alon-"

"I was drunk, okay?"

"What?" He didn't hear it clearly.

"I said I was drunk."

"No, you weren't, were you?"

"I was."

"How...did you even get drunk?"

"Remember when I went to search something useful for your injury?"

"Hm."

"I actually found a bottle of wine in the first room." She said, "I took a few sip. Turned out, The wine was strong."

"Why...didn't you tell me about the wine?"

"Because..." She was embarrassed, "Because I love wine. And didn't want to share with anyone."

"Huh, selfish."

"Hey, don't blame me. It's not easy to find alcohol anymore. Woman gotta drink."

"Okay okay." Will said, "So, the things you did after that..."

"Yeah, the wine kicked in and I was feeling dizzy. I didn't remember much after that." She scratched her head, "Everything hit me this morning. And I feel so embarrassed about what I did. I'm...sorry."

"Don't be. It's...it's all right."

Since it was cleared why she acted like that, Will was a bit disappointed. His first time was with one of his close friend while she was drunk. He was feeling that he kinda took an advantage of her. He should have known that she wasn't in her right mind. Will exhaled and shook his head.

What's done is done.

"So...I was thinking..." Olivia didn't finish her sentence.

"What?"

"Did...d-did we really do it?"

Bang! Bang!

Two gun shots from ahead. Will stopped Buck.

"Did you hear that?" Olivia asked.

"Loud and clear."

"It came from ahead."

Will made Buck run this time. In their way, they heard few more shots. It is a smart move to avoid shooting as the deads had really hearing sense. So, when someone shoots, that could mean two thing. Either the person has no other options but to shoot...or he's just stupid.

After a minute or two, They reached the place where they heard shots. A middle aged man was constantly shooting deads coming at him. Behind him, a little girl was sitting on a motorbike. She wasn't really terrified or afraid. She was just sitting there like a good child. Olivia took out her bow and arrows. Will got down from the horse and grabbed his knife. By a few minutes, they cleared out more than a dozen deads.

The middle aged man was busy catching his breath. Will noticed him, he was Asian. Was wearing a brown dirty jacket with a jeans. His hair was filthy. Seemed like he didn't shower for quite a long time.

"Thank you." The stranger smiled, "My bike broke down and I was fixing it. They suddenly came out of nowhere."

"No problem, is your biked fixed now? Need a hand?"

"Almost. I can do it myself."

"Oh good. 'Cause I don't know nothing about motorcycles."

"Haha." He laughed and advanced his hand, "By the way, I'm Ren Takahashi. And she is my daughter, Himari."

"I'm William. And she is my friend Olivia." He said, "Where are you from?"

"We are from Japan."

"I see, your English is really good though."

"I basically grew up here so..."

"Oh."

"Anyway, thanks again for saving us. We will be fine from here."

"O-okay." He said, "Do you guys have...other people?"

"No, unfortunately. My wife died when it all started. It's me and my daughter now."

"That means...you are roaming through different places to survive all these years?"

"Y-yeah. We don't have any place to go. We did meet some people on the way though. Turned out, they were bad people. They robbed us and got away. Since then, I always try to avoid people."

It reminded Will about his past when he was travelling with his father along with Julia and Lucas.

"Must be hard."

"It was at first. But we are getting used to it."

"Will, let's go we gotta move!" Olivia shouted from the horse.

Will looked at her and signaled her wait a bit more. The problem was that he didn't want to leave them all alone here. He looked at the child. A beautiful little girl around ten to eleven. He felt pity for her.

"W-we have a safe place not very far from here." Will said, "It's surrounded by walls, foods and weapons. If you want, you can come with us. It will be a safer place for your daughter."

"Really?!" The guy named Ren looked at his daughter and turned back, "But, would it be okay for us to?"

"Of course. You don't have to worry about that."

Ren grabbed Will's hand and said with a big smile, "Thank you! Thank you!"

"No problem. You fix your bike and I'll go talk to my friend about it."

"Okay, I will make it quick."

Ren got busy fixing his bike.

"Who are they? What were you guys talking about so long?" Olivia asked.

"His name is Ren and the little girl is his daughter." He said, "They don't have a safe place to stay so...I offered them to come with us."

Olivia looked at Will for a moment and turned her head to the strangers. S he tried to observe something.

"Are you sure?"

"I am."

"Okay then." Olivia said, "I will ride Buck now. Sit behind."

"You're not mad?"

"Why would I be?"

"You know...you don't really like to take new people. So, I thought I would have to argue about it."

"No." She shook her head, "Nolan used to do it a lot, taking people in. And I was always against it. But he never listened to me. You're also doing the same. So, I am assuming that you wouldn't listen to me either. So, what's the point wasting time on pointless argument?"

Will smiled a bit, "Thanks for understanding though."

"Yeah, now stop smiling and get on."

...

Nolan was sitting on his table. His table was right beside the window. From where, he could see the entire front yard which includes the gate and the posts. This was the reason he chose to have this room when he first joined. He was drawing some pointless sketch and was thinking about what he had done. He knew that it was partly his fault they were in this kinda situation. If he had listened to Ethan and killed that person, none of this would even happened. But he didn't regret his decision as he didn't like to kill people. It's been one night since he got stuck in this "Hell". His weapons and arrows had been taken. When he came to his room yesterday, he couldn't find any. Even the gun he hid under his bed was also gone. He knew that without any weapon, winning the place back was just a dream. So he had to figured out how to get a gun. That's what he was thinking until he heard a faint voice coming from out side.

Emma?

Nolan stood up and got closer to the window. Since his room was on the second floor of the house, he could see a little bit of the other side of the gate. When he looked carefully, he saw a blonde head and a black head behind it. They were on a horse.

It's Emma and Julia.

"Open up! Marco!" Emma's voice wasn't reaching Nolan's room.

Nolan left his room and went downstairs. He opened the front door and headed for the gate. A short amount of people gathered there in no time.

Where's James and his crew?

Nolan looked around. But couldn't see them near by. Maybe they were resting in their room or something. If that was the case, this was the chance. A chance to get out of this mess.

"Marco! Where are you?! Open the gate!" Emma shouted.

"Emma!"

"Nolan, is that you?! You're alive!"

"Why...won't I be?"

"I saw your horse in a place...all eaten up."

"What were you doing there? You were not supposed to search the area."

"I know. Our map had some false information." She said, "Oh, is Ethan okay?"

"Yeah, he is."

Wait, what the hell am I doing??

"Emma listen to me carefully. I have something to tell you."

"Where's Marco?"

"He isn't around but listen to m-"