Briggs Evans

John navigated through ruins; he knew the old camp was only a few blocks away. He stopped and hesitated was going back for Matthew really worth it? He had come to love his adopted daughter Cara over the past fifteen years after the bombs had fallen and the events that followed. Rescuing Mathew would mean losing Cara, but he had come to love her as his own and wanted the best for her. He pondered for a moment he had changed some much since the bombs had fallen, he was on his way to be executed when the first bomb fell and he was able to seek refuge in the basement of a church. The preacher he was trapped with had told him so much about life in those three days trapped down there; he was a new man when he came out of that basement. He had rescued Cara and the other prisoners from the new corrupt government led by General Eden, Cara's mother told him she had left here at a small farm outside the city and she wanted him to go get her. Her mother had died from radiation poisoning not long after that. He went and saved Cara to find the family that had taken her in was ruthless outlaws. He had taken care of her almost like she was his own and he'd never felt some much love in his whole life, he had never even had a real family before. He would find Matthew and rescue him, even if it meant getting himself killed, just for his one and only family member.

A few blocks down the road Matthew still sat there in shock, Ester had really taken a bullet for him and now she was dead. He had known she had a crush on him ever since the first met but not to the point of getting herself killed. Three of Matthews other friends had already been killed and Patrick had been captured and carried off. Father Morgan the old Baptist preacher had even gotten himself shot trying to draw the sniper fire away from everyone else so Evan could shoot take the sniper out and checked on the wounded. Only twenty two men now remained. "Poor Patrick, him and his wife had a new born baby," Said Jamal, as he sat there in disbelief. Evan looked up and counted in his head all the volunteers that had stayed behind who had families, this was his time to make a choice, with his father dead he was now in charge of the group and this would be his first big decision. With the women children and older men retreating to the outskirts of the city the men volunteered to stay back and hold off the Enclave for as long as possible. About fifteen of these men were either young or had families to take care of. He couldn't just let everyone leave and let the enclave roll through there barricade and hunt down the rest of the group. He thought and then decided to take his course of action.

"We're going to take a vote," Evan shouted as he stood up. "There are many of us here who have families in loved ones that they need to attend to, we need as many bodies hear as possible, five of us will be leaving tonight to go find the other group and guide them safely out of the city. "

The group all began talking at once with people saying it should be them to go or that they were staying to protect their families even if it meant dying.

"Martin you have two kids so I will nominate to be the first," Said Evan as calmly as he could.

"Now hold on a minute that's not fair," said Edward the former lawyer.

"Edward if you want to be a coward then ill nominate you," said Randolph, who was fed up with hearing Edward complain about everything since the first time he met him

"Alright that's two, Darius you're the youngest so you will be the third," said Evan.

In the end Edward, Martin, Darius, and two others who had children were nominated.

"We're going to need radiation medicine to get through the subways," said Edward.

"Right, everyone lay down your radiation medicine," commanded Evan

When all of it was laid out there was only enough for four men.

"One of you will have to stay," said Evan

"Not me," said Edward as he picked up one of the medicine syringes. Randolph pulled a gun and pointed it at him, "put that back down you coward or I'll shoot you right here."

"Hey! Calm down." Said Evan as jumped in front of Edward

"The man doesn't even have a family and we're just letting him go." Said Randolph

"You nominated me." Said Edward as he began to back away

"That's it I'm going to blow your brains out right here," Randolph said

"I'll stay here Randolph just calm down," said Martin.

All of a sudden the whole group began arguing until someone through an extra syringe on the ground, it was John Valjean. "You can all go I'll stay here and fight," he said

"Who are you?" said Edward as no one from the group really recognized him due to the fact John stayed secluded from the group. Matthew instantly recognized him as Cara's father and backed into the crowd a little bit feeling John eyes locked onto him.

"Does it matter? I'm giving you your ticket it out of here you better take it," John said.

"Well then it's decided all five of you can go," said Evan.

Randolph lowered his gun, his face read with anger and walked away into the old coffee shop. The five men prepared to leave and it got emotional as martin began crying giving everyone thanks and telling them he would pray for them all. After they had disappeared into the subway Matthew walked up to Evan

"I don't know if I trust this man." He said.

"Why not? We need all the men we can get right now," replied Evan.

"Has anyone here actually ever talked to him?" Matthew answered.

"Not many have talked to you either," said Evan "besides we have more important things to worry about right now." Just then Gavin appeared out of an alley with two machine guns and a backpack in his hand. Matthew had intended for Gavin to stay with the group when he gave a letter to him to deliver to Cara.

"What's in the bag?" Asked Evan, as Gavin approached him.

"I got it off a dead solider, there's ammo food and some radiation medicine," he said as he leaned on of the guns up against the wall. All of a sudden a mortar round dropped right into the middle of the camp hitting a few of the men sitting down.

"Get cover! Someone find the spotter!" Yelled Evan as he crouched behind an old car.

The whole group was in panic as mortar rounds began exploding inside the barricade. Matthew was curled up in a little ball trying to protect himself when John approached him. "Let me see your rifle, hurry!" Matthew didn't even have time to respond before John grabbed his rifle and ran up behind some old rubble. Matthew watched as John aimed the rifle and fired a single shot. Down the street he saw a body fall from a window and hit the street. John had killed the spotter with one shot. But the fight wasn't over someone stood up and looked over the wall of cars they men had built around their camp. "Theirs about twenty soldiers headed this way right now!"

"Everyone go to the wall now!" yelled Evan. Matthew scrambled around and looked for a weapon and picked up one of the assault rifles Gavin had found. He ran up and knelled behind the wall and found himself next to John. Matthew began firing in all directions just hoping to hit something. He quickly found himself out of ammo and saw that there was still more Soldiers coming. He watched John as he carefully aimed out his shot and hit his mark every time, once john had ran out of ammo Matthew quickly handed him a few more rounds which John loaded into his rifle with ease. John continued firing till he was the only one left doing so and the Soldiers began to retreat. When it was over John simply handed the rifle back to Matthew and then offered him an apple like nothing had happened. Matthew just stared wondering who this man really was. Evan came over and held out his hand to help them both up. "We're going into the coffee shop to decide what to do with the prisoner," he said.

John and Matthew both got up and began to walked over to the coffee shop. The battlefield that was there former camp was destroyed; there were craters and broken glass everywhere, the little shacks that they had built for homes were obliterated, all over the place laid dead corpses of people who had survived the bombs falling but had now fallen in the gruesome fighting and bombarding. In the coffee there were wounded men on the tables groaning in pain. Randolph came in with a huge gash in the side of his head but seemed to be sucking it up.

"There're about five guys out there that can still fight besides us," he said as he began putting in some more shells for his shotgun.

"We don't have hardly any ammo left either," said Matthew as he pulled out only two more shells for his rifle.

"Right, Randolph you and Gavin go collect and ammo you can find out there and evenly distribute it," Evan said as he finished wrapping up a wound on someone's leg.

"Doctor McCoy, do you need anything?" Evan asked the former doctor

"These men need some pain medicine, and some bandages," he replied

With that John took his shirt off and tossed it over to doctor McCoy

"You can rip my shirt and use it for bandages." He said

"Thank you sir." He said, "oh yeah John what are we going to do with the prisoner?"

At that moment Detective Jenison's looked up, he instantly recognized John Valjean, the man he had convicted for murder before the bombs had fallen. John also recognized him but was surprised to see that Jenison didn't say anything.

"Somebodies just going to have to get rid of him," Evan said

"I'll do it," said john very quickly

At that point Matthew was disgusted inside on how eagerly John was to kill the man, sure he was an enemy but was John really this heartless, that's when Matthew added it all up he knew who the prisoner was, he was the police officer that was there when Matthew shot the pistol to alert them that a group of criminals was meeting outside the camp on night, one of the men that was at the meeting was John. "Who really was this man?" he asked himself.

"Alright take him to the alley behind the shop, make it quick," Evan said.

The man was untied and then handcuffed John grabbed him and then proceeded to take him outside and behind the store to the alley. In the back dead bodies were piled up from the battle and one woman could be seen in the pile, it was Ester.

John unlocked the handcuffs and Jenison turned to look him eye to eye.

John pondered here was the only man alive in the world that knew of Johns past and here was the chance to get rid of him, this was the chance to finally come into the group and not stay secluded and have to worry about Jenison exposing his past to the others.

"Well get it done Mr. Valjean, I'm ready." Jenison said

"Go, get out of here in two days come find our group near the town of Springfield and I let you arrest me and turn me in to whoever you're working ,"John replied

"What are you talking about?"

"You heard what I said now leave."

"I can't believe you I hunt you down before the world ends and after it and you can't even kill me right now, you were a hired mercenary before all this and you can't even do this right now."

"People change Jenison, I've changed, this…. This is a different world we live in now, we either help each other out or we all end up dead, this is the time when we need to band together to survive because it's our only choice to live, you see what's happening over there, and people are dying because other people want control, heck people are killing just to eat at night right now, now go please and you can come apprehend me in two days at Springfield."

John pointed his gun into the air and fired off a shot, Jenison stood there shocked and turned and began to walk away he paused and turned around

"You annoy me, just end this and kill me."

"I already told you I won't do it," replied John

Jenison paused for a moment and continued walking; John watched as he disappeared around the corner of the alley and then headed back to join the others.

Matthew sat there in disgust as he knew that John had just murdered the former police officer, he was beginning to wonder if this man was really safe, or just a cold blooded killer.

"Matthew hurry Gavin has run out of the barricade to get ammo of the dead soldiers," Said Randolph as he sprinted towards the wall.

Gavin was scurrying from body to body picking up anything he could and putting it into his bag, no soldiers had spotted him yet but it was only a matter of time before they got a sniper on him.

"Gavin get back here now!" yelled Evan.

"Hang on let me just get this last one!" Gavin yelled back.

All of a sudden a bullet hit one of the bodies near Gavin as he was running, Gavin still kept running from body to body and even began to sing.

"He's going to get himself killed Evan!" Said Randolph as he watched in horror.

There were now at least four snipers firing at Gavin. Gavin still singing was going body to body collecting supplies, finally one bullet struck Gavin in the side, he fell for a moment but got right back up. Over at the barricade John hoped over wall and began to run over to get Gavin.

"Gavin just come back you're going to get killed!" Evan yelled.

"Don't worry just one more," said Gavin

Gavin ran up to one body only about twenty feet from the enemy camp when a sniper round hit him right in the chest, he toppled over and tried to stand once more but fell back down, young Gavin was dead.

"He's only a boy!" screamed Randolph in rage at the enemy camp.

John was able to run up and grab Gavin's body almost unnoticed, when gunshots started being fired.

"Everybody cover him!" commanded Evan as he put a clip into his old hunting rifle.

John made it back to the wall and hoped over and laid Gavin's body on the ground, his face had a smile on it and his hands still grasped the backpack that had all the supplies in it.

"Evan there is about fifty soldiers coming towards the wall right now!" Matthew said

"Everyone get ready this is the last fight, Marlin go up into that building on the right and see if you can get a good sniping angle, Matthew you and Randolph take the right Tyler, Jamal, and myself will hold the middle everyone else hold the left for as long as you can, remember everyone this is for the rest of the group, if you need ammo come use this bag!"

The soldiers approaching the wall were highly armored, armed with state of the arch laser rifles and machine guns; a few had miniguns as well. Matthew quickly pulled out his journal and wrote as quickly as he could, he knew he was more than likely going to die here so he hoped someone would find this letter and deliver it to his grandfather at Fort Constantine.

Marlin began to pick off some of the soldiers but one of them was armed with a missile launcher and blew up the window he was perched in. Matthew started firing his gun there was already about ten soldier's right on his position. He hid behind on of the cars to reload his rifle but one of the soldiers came up to Matthew and was ready to kill him. Matthew closed his eyes and heard a gunshot he opened his eyes to see the solider on the ground and Randolph standing over him.

"We need to pull back to the coffee shop." He said

Matthew got up and saw that the middle was being overrun. Jamal was shot in the leg and trying to crawl away but was peppered by machine gun fire. Randolph and Matthew were running back towards the coffee shop when a mortar shell came and exploded knocking out Matthew. Randolph stopped and began shooting his shotgun trying to defend his body; he ran out of ammo and began using his gun as a club. John ran over to Matthews's body and picked him up over his shoulder, a solider ran up to he and John kick him and Randolph hit him over the head with his shotgun. John ran to the subway entrance and waited on Randolph.

"Just go ill catch up!" Randolph yelled. John went down into the subway as Randolph ran to the gate and closed it on himself; he pulled out his knife and was shot by a machine gun and died right there.

Evan had locked himself in the coffee shop with the wounded and Doctor McCoy. "Well McCoy this is it I guess."

"I'm ready how about you." Replied McCoy

The door burst open and a grenade was thrown into the room, it was quit after the explosion, Evan stood up and leaned himself up against the wall, everyone else in the room was dead except for the troopers coming in.

"Do you wish to surrender?" one of them asked

Evan pulled out a pistol and shot one of them

"that was for my father," those were Evans last words as before he could get off another shot he was killed.