Welp, here's the next chapter. Nothing really comes to light here regarding Alex, but he'll come clean with the survivors eventually. He'll have to.


Alex pushed a piece of shrapnel out of the way, making sure the survivors were still safe as he did so. The noise of the crash had attracted a lot of unwanted attention and he had less than a minute to figure out how to get these four humans to safety. Bill groaned and stirred, Alex immediately at his side as he tried to sit up. Giving him a hand, the old man got shakily to his feet. It wasn't until he was wobbling on his feet did he realize who had helped him. He recoiled momentarily until his eyes swept over the wreckage and the others, lying on the ground, new cuts and bruises all over their body. Luckily none of the injuries were serious.

"What the hell happened?" Bill asked, shaking his head to clear his thoughts."

"No time right now to recount history. Grab Zoey and run over there. I'll take care of the others. We need to get away from this crash site now unless you want to be a late dinner for a bunch of incoming infected. Go over there," he pointed off to an area to their right.

Bill didn't hesitate after that. He pulled Zoey up into his arms, her hair lolling back until he repositioned her. He glanced back once at Alex, who was pulling up the others, before running off in the direction that he had been pointed toward before, an abandoned train yard. Crashed trains littered the area, half of trains tipped to the side, forgotten. The yelling of infected was loud and he pressed up against a metal container, hoping none of them happened to pass by.

Bit by bit, what had happened was starting to come back to Bill. The crash, Francis shooting everything up, that new infected. He had immediately remembered what Alex had done as soon as he had been on his feet. Hard not to when the man of nightmares was pleasantly helping him up off the ground like he was just casually helping an old lady across a busy street. It gave him the chills, remembering what the man could do, but it certainly brought to light some of his actions and heroics. He had thought it as weird how the man acted as though nothing could hurt him and, after seeing the man get shot full of bullets, he had to agree. The man couldn't be hurt. Alex landed next to him at that moment, seemingly from a jump and Bill nearly had a heart attack at the sudden appearance, but managed to calm himself down once he saw the man, or whatever he was, had both Francis and Louis in his grasp.

As soon as he deposited the two men, he jumped off again and Bill almost shouted after him in a momentarily time of panic, but stopped when he saw the man land on a metal container not far away, his eyes scanning the area. The deeper frown that etched itself into his face wasn't very reassuring. He looked down at what he was one and immediately his face changed, understanding crossing it as he figured out what to do. He did a backflip off the container, landing out of view from Bill. The next thing Bill knew, the container was being lifted and Alex was jumping back, placing it down. Again and again, he repeated his actions until they were surrounded by the containers on all sides and he stacked them up, five containers on each side. He had erected a makeshift wall around them.

He sat down after that, as far away from the group as possible, sensing they would want some space when they finally woke up. But now that Bill studied him without caring if he got caught, he noticed that Alex didn't sleep. Sure, he closed his eyes and his breathing evened out more, but he didn't actually sleep, more like he just rested his eyes. Francis stirred next and Bill watched as Alex slid his eyes open to stare over at them. Maybe he did care about them, just a bit. When Francis sat up, spitting out swearwords as he did so, he immediately started looking for his guns.

"Hey! Where'd you put my gun? What the hell did-" the man stopped as his eyes fell on Alex and his blood drained from his face. Now he remembered and he tried to recollect himself, stumbling to his feet and almost face planting again as he lost his footing, managing to regain it at the last second, "Where the hell did you put my gun."

Alex stood up, recognizing a threat. It was a small threat, but it still existed, "Your gun? I do believe you dropped it after you shot the helicopter full of holes. It's probably back there in the burning wreckage if you want to go search for it. You'll have to climb over this and brave the infected, though I doubt you'll be able to even drag yourself out of here, much less survive the trek to your precious, dead gun."

"How are we going to survive without our weapons? Did you ever think about that?"

Alex threw out his arms as though to say 'Hello? Standing right here!' By now the others were stirring awake, sitting up to watch the argument as it unfolded.

"I didn't really think saving the weapons was the most important thing for me to save during the crash. You probably don't remember, you were too busy peeing your pants at the time, but I saved all of you just before the crash that you caused, by the way. I jumped into the back area just before impact and shielded you all from most of the crash. Yell at me all you want about how you don't have your dear gun anymore, but at least you have your life. Me? I don't have much of that anymore. My biomass is dangerously low."

They stared at him blankly and he sighed, "To put it in words that even Zoey will understand," she protested weakly at him, "If life were a video game, my health bar would be dangerously low."

Zoey tried to not laugh at the analogy that was obviously directed toward her, the video game player. Bill still look kind of confused, but it seemed he understood now a bit more.

"So, while you cool off and mutter a bit more about your guns, I'm going to be going," he jumped up to the top of the wall, "I need to eat before we continue and you all still need to rest," and then he was gone.

It was quiet for a while after he left as the others tended to their small wounds and mulled over Alex's words. Louis shuffled his feet awkwardly, getting up to stretch his back and limbs. Zoey got up, pacing their small safe area, trying to get feeling back into her toes and fingers. After an hour, they felt back to normal, but Alex still hadn't returned. They were just glad none of the infected had found a way to climb in yet, or a Tank hadn't decided to play bowling with their wall.

"You shouldn't have yelled at him like that," Zoey finally said, scratching her arm uncomfortably.

"Why? You saw what he was, what he could do."

"Yeah, but he hasn't hurt us, has he?"

"Not yet."

"He saved me. He saved us. Or are you already forgetting that?"

"Doesn't change that he could have an ulterior motive."

"When we were on the helicopter, he asked to be put through to someone, a Captain. He obviously has ties with the military in some way. He wasn't lying about that."

"Well thank God he didn't lie about that at least!" The man threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

"Look, I'm just saying that maybe he can be trusted. I've known him longer than any of you have and all I'm asking is for you to try and trust him, as I am going to do."

Before they could reply, there was a loud thud behind them and they turned in horror, not sure what they would see. Alex had returned, bags of ammo, guns, and medical equipment slung over his shoulders.

"Took me a while to gather these all together, but here you are," he dumped them unceremoniously on the ground and took his leave again, back to what he had been doing the last time he took off, which was mainly wandering aimlessly to clear his head. He ate a few infected here and there to build up his strength again, but he didn't learn anything from consuming them. It seemed that the new infected were the only one that would actually provide him with anything useful.

He could see what it had shown him clearly in his mind. She was part of him now, just another voice screaming in his subconscious. But what she was screaming was the interesting part, what really got his attention. She was not alone. Brothers and sisters, that's what she screamed. Her brothers and sisters would get him. They would call up armies of infected to hunt him down, kill him, slaughter him just as he had done to her. If he was alone, he wouldn't be that worried, but he had humans hanging off him like unwanted purses.

The voice also spoke of a mother, orders they must obey. They had free will at times, but other times they were given commands to follow, all of them connected by some sort of psychic link. That was how they got around the orders so quick, told others about their observations and their progress on certain missions. Now that the earlier one was dead, her family was sure to notice the cut cord, the silent end, and they would come for him, just like she said they would. In a way, it all felt familiar to Alex, like he was back in New York. It wouldn't surprise him if this was just a strand of the Blacklight virus that had been modified by someone until this had been created, most likely by accident.

By the time he returned again, he was back to perfect health and the humans were faring much better, weapons at the ready and their feet getting restless. Without even asking, he moved one of the walls away, giving them space to walk through. They did so cautiously, looking each way for a sign of infected, while Alex watched them with slight amusement as their eyes darted over every dark corner and lingering on him for a while before darting away. He didn't blame them for fearing him. There was no one he knew that didn't fear him in some way. Even Dana had feared him and she had been Alex's sister.

"The fastest way is that way," Alex pointed, "The bridge is out a little ways down, but we can easily jump down from it and continue from there. It's the safest way, too," he added before any of them could protest and started walking forward, getting some guns of his own. He didn't need them, but he felt better with them, like there was still a chance of pretending he was human, though he knew that no longer was an option. But if they ran into other survivors, it would help so he didn't have to explain why he was the only one without a gun. Besides, they would feel better if he shot infected instead of curb stomping their heads in and then proceeding to consume their bodies.

The others followed him quietly, but he could feel their unasked questions beating up against his back. He ignored them for now. There would be a time and place for questions to be asked and answered, but that was definitely not this place. Right now he needed to continue and get these people where they were needed. He just hoped they wouldn't run into anymore problems along the way. But, knowing him and their luck, Hell was sure to rain down upon them. He smirked suddenly and the others looked at him warily. Oh, he was going to enjoy this. Just like old times.


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