The Walking Dead: TellTale Series
Chapter 1: Arrival
The sun shone high in the afternoon sky, giving light to the forest below. White, puffy clouds floated along in the breeze, making everything seem like a beautiful day, which it was. But on the ground below, was a harsh, hostile world, full of people struggling to survive in these dark times. Dark times, being the dead has started walking. It was surely an apocalypse. Almost everywhere you look; you would always see a stumbling corpse, searching for its next meal of human flesh. If you were lucky, you wouldn't run into one, but that's unlikely. If you were to get bitten by these zombified human beings, you have three options: You turn into a walker, you cut off the appendage where you were bitten, or you kill yourself before you too become a zombie.
Some people are very fortunate, and stay alive to provide for their families, themselves, or anyone who needs it. But in this world where laws are no longer applicable, everyone is a criminal and will stop at nothing to get what they want or need, even if it means taking a life. Children have been stolen, families have been robbed, and resources have been taken just to provide for themselves. A depressing thought, but that is the world Xavier lives in.
A 15 year old kid on his own taking care of his 6 year old sister, with no helps from a responsible adult whatsoever. Not for many years at least. Shifting to a higher gear, Xavier drove an old Cadillac down a road, with trees and nature on every side. His eyes shifted from left to right, as he was scanning for any walkers that were to walk out into the road and collide with the vehicle. Xavier reached for the rear view mirror, and shifted it to reveal his sister sitting in the back of the car, playing with whatever toy they could find.
"Doing alright back there, Allison?" Xavier asked, with eyes on the road.
"Uh-huh." Allison replied, smiling from ear to ear, as she played with her dolls.
Xavier smiled warmly to himself. After everything that has happened over the years with the walking dead and losing their parents, Allison somehow found something to smile about. He didn't know how she did it, but it gave him inspiration to be better. Looking around, Xavier saw what looked to be an establishment, coming up from behind the trees as he drove by.
"Looks like we might be getting some supplies." Xavier said, smirking as he turned down a dirt road towards the small shop.
Allyson cheered in excitement, hoping this would lead to finding more food, ammo, weapons, or supplies of any short. Even at such a young age, she knew how to take care of herself. She could handle a Bowie knife just well and she kept one holstered to her side. Even though this was a dangerous weapon for a child to be holding, Xavier had trained her and trusted her to be responsible for it. Xavier himself wielded a 6 foot retractable Bo staff; a Japanese weapon used for keeping peace but was very effective if used in a fight to defend oneself. Xavier didn't like holding firearms, because he didn't want to teach Allyson how to use one just yet because of her being so young, and because it was such a crude weapon to him, but he carried one anyway just in case.
Pulling the car to a stop, he unlatched his seat belt. Turning towards Allyson, he said, "Hand me my staff."
Allyson reached over to her left side and grabbed a 24 inch black handle, and handed it to her older brother. Xavier nodded in thanks, and opened the door to the car as Allyson did the same. He held his sisters hand, as he walked towards the old, rundown, rotting building. To Xavier's eyes, it looked to be an old general store back in the old days. But based on the spray paintings covering the door, it had apparently been there even before the apocalypse. Gripping his staff in one hand and his sister's hand in the other, he slowly opened the door to the store. Poking his head through the door first, he looked thoroughly around the room for any potential dangers.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he didn't see anything harmful. He entered the building, just as Allyson was pushing her way inside, which wasn't exactly a safe thing to do given that this was a new place. He grabbed her shoulder just before she could get any further. He whipped her around, knelt down to her level looking her straight in the eye.
"Ally, what's the first rule of survival?" He said, in a stern but calm tone.
Ally pondered for a moment, before giving her answer. "Don't eat anything that looks yucky?"
Xavier smiled and rolled his eyes. "That's a good one, but no dice."
Ally thought about it once more but shrugged in defeat.
"First rule is: Don't rush into anywhere new, because…"
Ally finished his sentence. "Because we don't know if there's anything dangerous. Like monsters!"
Xavier smiled and nodded. "That's right."
Xavier rose from his kneeling stance and started the raid. He swept the store shelves for anything that is of use. By the end of the searched, the siblings had discovered bags of chips, a kitchen knife, medical supplies as well as a first aid kit, and bottled waters. Satisfied with their search, he grabbed Allyson's hand once again and headed back to the car. After exiting the building, Xavier stopped short, allowing Allyson to run to the car. Ally turned back around to see her brother standing still in place.
"Bubba, what are you doing? Let's go!" She urged him.
Xavier out his index finger to his lips, motioning for her to stay quiet. He listened once more to the environment. His eyes widened to hear faint voices coming from the far left of them. He reached for his staff, which was clipped to a holster on his belt, and he said to Allyson without speaking, "Get in the car". Ally complied, with a worried expression written on her face. Were the monsters coming? Were bad people coming to take them away? Were they going to die? These are the thoughts that run through her head every time something like this happens. But she quickly shook those thoughts out with a flick of her head; she wouldn't allow herself to succumb to these fears. She had total faith in her brother that he would take care of them. He promised.
Xavier was still outside, listening to the quiet voices that were now getting louder and louder as they drew near. He crept back behind the car, hiding from sight. He peeks out from behind the car and observed as two men, wearing camouflage clothing, walked from out of the forest, rifles at the ready. One of the men looked a bit older than the first, and had battle scars running diagonally across his face. The younger looking one had black paint smeared across his cheeks. Xavier looked inside the back seat window and he motioned for Allyson to get down, so they don't see them. Breathing quite heavily out of anxiety, Xavier crouched down and silently walked a little closer to the two men, as their backs were turned, going to the general store.
"Hey, we're going to take that car that car through, right?" The younger man asked, pointing his thumb behind him towards the Cadillac.
"Oh, for sure." The older man replied. "First things first, we take whatever we can find from that building."
The first man nodded, and continued towards the store. Xavier, who was crouched behind a tree stump, heard everything they said. No way was he about to let them take their only mode of transportation. He started to ponder whether or not he should try and take the two men out. If he did, we could take whatever supplies they had, but the cons were he only had a Bo staff whereas the two men had rifles and could very well shoot him as soon as they made a move. Just then, Xavier's train of thought was interrupted by grass crunching from behind him, followed by an all too familiar groan that sounded like someone was choking up water.
He turned around hesitantly, and his fears were confirmed: a walker about 20 feet away was stumbling around in the shade of the trees, searching for its meal of flesh. He froze, hoping that the walker wouldn't see him. The walking corpse stopped in its tracks, as if something inside of their rotting brain knew there was something to feed on nearby. It turned to look straight into Xavier's eyes with its own glossy, cold eyes. It growled a little louder as it made its way towards the teenage boy. As if Xavier didn't already have enough on his plate, the two men strutted out of the store, looking quite frustrated.
One of the men pointed out to the walker that was already making its way to the hidden kid, and raised their rifles to shoot. Soon, the walker was bleeding out through the bullet-sized hole in its forehead. Xavier, who was relieved to know he wasn't about to get eaten, was now worried, due to the men walking towards the car. Ally could see the two making their way to the Cadillac, and started to wonder where her brother was. Fear stricken in her eyes, she ducked down behind the passenger seat and clutched her knees to her chest, praying that Xavier would save her.
Xavier was fearful as well, knowing that he couldn't fight against two armed men with a 6 foot staff. But he couldn't sit there in hiding any longer. He jumped up from behind the stump, flicking the grip of the staff, unsheathing the full length of it. He let out a battle yell, as he 360 spun the staff above his head and brought down on the oldest man, knocking him to the ground with a thud. Xavier then jabbed his staff to the left, hitting the younger guy in the stomach, causing him to stumble back a few feet. He then did a four-point combo, finishing with a final strike across the man's head, knocking him out cold.
Xavier was at first confused, to see how easily he knocked that man out seeing as he looked like he was in the army, or was going into it. But then he remembered there were two, and spun around quickly to find the barrel of a rifle pointed between his eyes. Xavier gulped, realizing that he probably should've made sure that the oldest man was knocked out. Xavier could feel the man's cold, dead eyes stare into his soul.
"You made a grave mistake." The man said, as he put his index finger on the trigger of the gun.
"Yeah, no kidding." Xavier chuckled, breaking into a cold sweat. Humor has always been Xavier's run-to when things started to get hard, or when he was scared. It made him feel a little better about everything, but he assumed that maybe this wasn't the best time to be making jokes. Xavier's eyes shifted to the car, where he saw his little sister stare at him, fear and adrenaline in her eyes. The man saw his eyes go over to the Cadillac, so he looked there as well. Xavier looked back at the man, who looked dead-straight into the eyes of Allyson. His mouth twisted into a sick smile.
"Well," The man smiled. "Looks like I have something else to bring back to the group."
"Over my dead body." Xavier snarled, as knocked the rifle out of its aim, and roundhouse kicked the man, but it only made him stumble back. The man wiped his mouth, removing the blood from his lip caused by the boys attack.
"Is that the best you can do?" The man laughed.
He regained his composure and took aim again. The man pulled the trigger releasing the lead bullet, but it never hit its target, as Xavier cartwheeled to the side. He ran towards the man, launching himself off of a stump, hoping to land a hit. But the man was fast, and kicked Xavier in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He groaned, as tried to get himself back up, but was met with a heavy-duty military boot pushing him back down. Xavier realized his staff wasn't in his hand, and saw it lying in the dirt a ways away from him. He came to the most logical conclusion: He was screwed.