This is part two of Duncan's backstory. In case I don't post a new chapter before the twenty-fifth, I wish y'all a safe and merry Christmas!
Previously, on Surviving the Dead: In a flashback, Duncan narrowly escapes prison as order collapses, and makes it to the suburbs. After a night of rest, Duncan encounters a girl named Hannah, and she ultimately changes Duncan (something he never he'd do). When they leave the suburbs, a seemingly dangerous stranger threatens Duncan, but is knocked out by Hannah. Now, the duo waits for the mysterious man to wake up…
The Asian man slowly opened his eyes, his vision still blurry. He heard a distorted voice say, "Wakin' up?...That's good…." He could see clearly now, and he could see Duncan squatting in front of him, Glock 19 in hand. "Here's what's gonna happen, Jap," he said, flipping the safety off the pistol and aiming it at him. "You answer all my questions, and maybe, just maybe, I won't kill you," Duncan threatened.
The man stared into the barrel of the pistol. "I'm Thai; big difference," he said, earning him a slap across the face.
"Do I look like I give a rat's ass?" Duncan asked. The man tried to get up to attack his captor, but noticed that he was handcuffed, so he stayed put. "Now then, what's your name?"
The man didn't answer, instead muttering "Can't go back, can't go back."
Duncan inched closer to the man's face. "I'm gonna ask you again, what's your name?" he said.
The man stared at Duncan with a blank expression. "….Devin….Devin Wang," he said. [1]
Duncan nodded in understanding. "I'm Duncan, and that's Hannah," he said, pointing behind him. Hannah gave a small wave.
"Can't go back, can't go back, can't go back," Devin kept muttering.
"What does that mean, Devin?" Duncan asked. Devin didn't answer; instead, he just kept muttering. Duncan fired his Glock into the air, startling both Devin and Hannah. "What does that mean?!" he repeated.
Even though he was still handcuffed, Devin grabbed Duncan's pistol and put it to his forehead. Devin began to sob. "Please…kill me. Please….KILL ME!" he screamed, tears streaking down his dirty face.
"W-What? Why?" Duncan asked, his finger still on the trigger.
"I can't go back, don't you see?! I CAN'T GO BACK!" he screamed again.
"He's starting to scare me, Duncan," Hannah squeaked.
The delinquent wrestled the gun from Devin's hands and put the pistol in the back of his pants. "Go back to what?" he asked, growing impatient.
Devin sniffled. "I can't go back….to who I was before," he wept. Duncan and Hannah stared in utter confusion. "During the climax of the outbreak, my girlfriend Shelly and I were trying to take a flight out of Ottawa, which was heading for Toronto….B-Before we boarded, they made sure that none of the passengers were bitten, but they missed one…it was a kid….He died after only ten minutes in the air, came back, and…Things just…deteriorated." He paused to wipe the tears from his eyes. "The pilot lost control of the plane and crashed into the forest…Shelly and I were the only ones that made out alive. We spent the next thirteen days, alone…food became scarce rather quickly, and we had little luck killing any wild animals…One night, we didn't catch a single thing that day and we were both sooo hungry…."
He began to weep again, barely able to speak by this point. "W-When sh-sh-she wasn't looking…. I killed her, I amputated her arm, and I ATE IT!" he screamed, making Duncan step back a bit. Devin wiped more tears from his eyes. "But do you know what the sickest part of that is?"
Duncan shook his head. "No, what?"
"After I cooked her arm and ate it, an owl got caught in one of our traps," he said in between sniffles. "I-If I had waited j-just a little while longer…SHE WOULD BE ALIVE!" He broke into yet another hysterical fit, this time falling on his side. Duncan turned to Hannah, who just shrugged.
"I didn't want to," said Devin, who was now in a fetal position. "She was so pretty….but I was so hungry!...For the past few months, it's just been me, often killing anyone I came across and taking what they had…..." He locked eyes with Duncan. "I wanted to kill myself after what happened that night, but I couldn't do it. Because I saw that it was necessary to survive….But now that I look back, I should've just shot myself so I wouldn't have to live with this….so please, kill me."
Duncan stared at the Asian, stunned; no wonder this guy was nuts. Duncan helped Devin sit back up and against the tree. "Look Devin, I know you're in pain…..You've done things you regret, I get it. Trust me, I've done things I don't like to think about, but…I found my way back. Because that wasn't who I was, so I embraced the true me and now I feel better about myself. And I firmly believe that if someone like me can change, then someone such as yourself can come back from the dark side of the human soul…or something like that," he explained. "Can I trust you if I take those off of you?" he asked, pointing to Devin's handcuffs.
Devin stared at his lap, and then looked Duncan in the eye before nodding slowly. Duncan returned a nod and reached into his pocket to retrieve the keys. He uncuffed Devin and the Asian got to his feet, rubbing his wrists.
"D-Do you have a camp?" Devin asked.
"No," said Duncan. He turned to look at Hannah. "But we-" Devin knocked Duncan in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle and ran for the road, pushing Hannah to the ground. Slinging the rifle on his back, the Asian started up the bike.
"Sorry!" he shouted before speeding away. A dazed Duncan helped Hannah to her feet. He let her climb on his back.
"Ride like the wind, bull's-eye!" Hannah declared, and Duncan took off down the road. Devin was gaining speed and getting farther with each passing second. Duncan fired his AR at Devin while Hannah used his handgun. Duncan had better luck, managing to hit the license plate, then stock of his rifle, and then finally striking Devin in the shoulder. He lost control and crashed on the pavement, scraping his face. The two caught up to him, the latter not moving and groaning in pain. Duncan let Hannah off of him and rolled Devin over. He punched him twice before saying, "Do you have any idea who you're screwing with?" he said. He withdrew his switchblade and held it to Devin's throat.
"Duncan, stop. You can't," Hannah protested.
"I can, and I will," he responded.
"Please, can't we just let him go? Where's your compassion?" Duncan looked back at her with a rather stupid look.
"He holds me at gunpoint, knocks me in the back of the head, and then tries to escape? We can't let him go," he said. "And besides, the only times I show my compassion is when I feel like it, which is quite rare."
"Wait!" Devin protested. "I'm sorry, all right? I'm desperate! I needed your stuff, but please, give me another chance!" he protested.
"Was all that stuff you said earlier a lie?" Duncan questioned.
"No, it's the cold, sad truth." Duncan hesitated but slowly removed the blade from his neck. Devin slowly got to his feet.
"Thank you," he said, rubbing the scraped part of his face. "Listen, I know it may seem like you cannot and will not trust me, but I'm a good guy. Please, let me come with you. After, anyone can come back, right?" He eyed Duncan, referencing his earlier speech.
Duncan shrugged after a moment. "Meh, okay. We're gonna head to the nearest town according to our map. We're gonna avoid the main road and try to take a forest detour to avoid any potential threats," he said, picking up his motorcycle. The trio walked back into the woods when they noticed a small herd ahead.
"Let's see if we can go around them," said Duncan, rolling his motorcycle into the woods, Devin and Hannah following close behind.
The trio heard some growling in the distance ahead of them, when they realized that some of the zombies that they spotted down the road had broken away from the main group and were heading towards them from the left.
"Should we head the other direction?" asked Devin.
"No, because by that point, those things will be back where we were. Let's just keep going ahead; if we pick up the pace, we may be able to avoid them," said Duncan. He rolled his motorcycle through some low hanging branches, when he saw a zombie right in front of him.
In a state of panic, Duncan withdrew his Glock and shot it dead, grabbing the attention of the other roamers.
"Ah shit, hurry!" he said. Duncan started up his motorcycle, but not before zombie grabbed him by arm and nearly bit him until he kicked it to the ground. He got the bike going and sped through the forest, narrowly avoiding the undead around him. Devin and Hannah ran after him through the zombie-infested forest, when a zombie grabbed Hannah and when the creature was about to bite her arm, when Devin shot it with his rifle before picking her up and running after Duncan.
"Slow down, man!" Devin shouted. Duncan slowed down to allow Devin to hop on the back while Hannah clung to Devin's back for dear life like a sloth. Another roamer attempted to bit Duncan's arm when he wasn't looking, but he quickly shot that one dead just as well. They rolled down a small hill, screaming all the way down. They soon reached level ground, until they noticed a small pit up ahead. Duncan picked up speed.
"Uh, Duncan, what are you doing?" asked Devin.
"Hold onto your hats!" Duncan yelled, a large smile spread across his face. He sped up full speed until the speedometer cracked from going so fast. The motorcycle kicked up lots of leaves until it went over the edge, sending the three airborne. Devin and Hannah screamed in terror until…
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…the motorcycle landed hard on its wheels when it landed on the other side of the ravine. Hannah looked behind her to see zombies blindly falling over the edge of the ravine on the other side.
Devin opened his eyes. "Okay, don't EVER do that again!" he chastised Duncan.
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad," Duncan smirked as they sped away.
The three rode until dusk, and started to walk from that moment on. With hardly any leaves sheltering them from the moonlight, the spikey trees gave an eerie feeling. In the distance, the howling of wolves could be heard.
Hannah grabbed onto Duncan's arm. "Relax, they're just wolves," he reassured her, making her smile.
"Are you two siblings?" Devin asked.
Duncan let out a small chuckle. "Nah, I found her only yesterday," Duncan replied.
"Oh. Any chance you got any jackets in your pack? It's getting a bit chilly," Devin said, shivering.
"Uh, yeah, check the back," the delinquent said. Devin slung his Winchester Model 70 on his back and unzipped Duncan's green hiking backpack and pulled out a light grey jacket. "You know, it's so cold it reminds me of the time Shelly locked me out of the car for getting her the wrong kind of tea," he said.
"Really?" asked Hannah.
Devin nodded. "Yeah, I got frostbite and nearly lost three of toes because of it. But on the bright side, at least now I know the symptoms of frostbite!"
"Hey, get that black jacket for me too," Duncan said. Devin handed him a black jacket, and zipped his backpack back up.
"We may have to make camp here for the night, cause I'm not dragging this thing all night," said Duncan, referring to his motorcycle.
"Here's a good spot," said Hannah, stopping in a small clearing that was illuminated by the moonlight.
"Cool. Devin, stay here with Hannah while I go find some firewood," Duncan said, removing his AR-15 from his shoulder and walking off. Devin set his hunting rifle against a tree and he and Hannah began bringing rocks together to form a fire pit.
"I'm sorry about your girlfriend," Hannah said as they finished making the circular pit.
"It's fine," he said. "But to be honest, she wasn't the greatest girlfriend in the world. She and I hardly went a day without arguing over the stupidest of stuff, so even though I cared for her, I found her to be annoying at times. One time, she and I nearly broke up because she couldn't decide where to eat for dinner."
"Wow," said Hannah. "What was she like?"
"Blonde, fair-skinned, deep blue eyes, small, but well-built frame, and the like," he said. His smile faded. "But do know how we ran out of food so quickly?" Hannah shook her head.
"She kept eating all of it, that's how. Despite me telling her that we need to conserve as much as possible, as well as keep some for myself, she just wouldn't listen. Which, now that I think about it, is another way that her death could have been avoided," Devin explained. He looked around. "Gosh, what is taking Duncan so long?"
"Who knows; maybe he got lost or something," Hannah shrugged.
The two heard a twig snap, and they turned to see three strangers emerge from the darkness. They all wore faded and dirty clothing, and one with short black hair had his button down unbuttoned, exposing his hairy beer gut.
"Gooood evening, folks," said the first man, who had shaggy brown hair and was aiming a rusty Colt 1911.
Devin looked and saw that the one with the hairy beer gut was now aiming his Winchester Model 70 at them. 'Damn, I knew I should've just kept it with me,' he thought.
"It's a sure good thing we found ya. We was getting pretty lonely," said the second man with a thick redneck accent, smiling and revealing his two front teeth were missing. He was only armed with a homemade shank that appeared to be fashioned out of a large screw to act as the blade and duct tape to act as the grip. He also had a whiskers all over his face.
"Look, we don't want any trouble, so how about you just go away," said Devin.
The beer gutted man fired Devin's rifle at his feet, startling him. "Shut your trap, pretty boy!" he snapped.
"Now, now Ralph, let's not be hostile. That's no way to talk to our new friends," said their leader, wiggling his finger in disapproval. He then turned to Devin and Hannah. "Where are you folks from?"
The Asian and preteen girl looked at each other, unsure if they should say anything. "Ottawa," Devin said.
The leader nodded. "Hm, interesting. Are, uh, you two alone?" he asked.
"Look here, m-mister, we know what you're planning on doing. S-So it'd be best if you get lost," said Hannah bravely, but not without stammering a little.
The leader's small smile quickly faded. "Well, I was hoping we could have done this the easy way, but now you leave us no choice. Ralph, grab the Asian, David get the kid!" The two dirty goons lunged towards the two with no hesitation. Ralph grabbed Devin and flung him against a tree, pressing the barrel of the rifle against his head. Hannah tried to run, but David was much faster and tackled her to the ground.
"Get 'er shirt off!" said the leader. Although she fought hard against David's grip, Hannah was still too weak and the thug slipped her shirt off, exposing her blue bra. "Now them short-shorts!" David started to unbutton Hannah jean short-shorts, but stopped when he remembered he had to remove the shoes first. Once those were disposed of, the pants came off soon after, leaving her half-naked.
"Now then, let's get down to business, shall we?" the man said. David held Hannah down while Devin was forced to watch.
The man was about remove her panties, when a muffled gunshot was heard, and Ralph dropped Devin's rifle and fell to his side, a bullet hole exiting from his forehead. Before David could react, another muffled gunshot rang out, and David fell back, his temple oozing blood. Hannah pushed David's limp arms off of her and backed away from his corpse.
The leader withdrew his rusty 1911 and aimed into darkness. "Who's there?" he called out. No response. "Look, I don't know who you think you are, but you're fuckin' with the wrong-" A third muffled gunshot was heard, and the man dropped to his knees while screaming in agony, dropping his gun and grasping his now bleeding crotch.
Devin and Hannah turned to wear the bullets came from, and Duncan slowly emerged from behind a tree, aiming his silenced AR. "Devin, get away," he said, not taking his eyes off of the dirty man on the ground. Devin picked up his rifle and ran to Hannah, sitting down beside her.
"Sit up…SIT UP!" Duncan ordered. The writhing man whimpered in pain, but eventually sat up in a kneeling position. He stared up at Duncan.
"Well….hello," he faked a smile.
"….Hello," Duncan mocked him.
"Listen man, I wasn't doin' nothin'. We was just getting' to know yer friends here, hehe," the man chuckled with fear in his voice.
Duncan didn't say anything for a while, until he said, "You know, I've had a real shitty day today. I had a gun pointed at my head, I nearly got bit twice by two of those things, and now I see that you and your buddies tried to rape my friend and you're lying about it?"
The man remained silent, knowing deep down that there was no way of getting out of this one. "Look man, if you're gonna shoot me, why don't you just do it already?" he asked.
Duncan smirked and let out an almost silent chuckle. "No," he said, his smirk vanishing. He flipped the rifle on safety mode. "For someone like you…shooting you would just be too…damn…merciful." Duncan swiftly flipped the gun upside down and hit the rapist in the nose with the buttstock when he man screamed "NO!". The man screamed for mercy, but Duncan delivered another blow to the man's face. While Duncan proceeded to bash the poor, pleading man's head in, Hannah, who was still in her underwear, clung to Devin and while he rubbed her hair and tried to shush her. Both of them did not take their eyes off of Duncan, who kept smashing the man's head in, even long after there was nothing else left to smash…
Duncan was the first to wake up, remembering that he had fallen asleep while hugging his AR-15. He looked down at the extended stock and saw the butt was now a dark red from the previous night. He looked around the clearing. He and the others had wrapped rope around the trees that surrounded the very small clearing and they had tied empty cans filled with small pebbles to the rope. This was done to alert them if a zombie happened to stumbled upon them. Duncan looked at his companions; Devin was sleeping against the motorcycle, his Winchester Model 70 in his lap. Hannah slept beside him on the ground, a light blue blanket over her body and her using Duncan's backpack as a pillow.
'She looks so peaceful,' Duncan thought with a smile. He then looked over to Devin. 'I wonder if I can really trust him. Well, he did save Hannah the other day, so I guess he's not all bad. But still, he killed his girlfriend for food and he tried to pull a total bitch-move. At least he regrets it.'
Duncan got to his feet and stretched. He walked to Devin and shook him awake. "Wake up, Dev," he said.
Devin groggily opened his eyes. "Oh, morning," he said, yawning.
Duncan sat in front of him Devin. "Listen, I just wanna say thanks for saving Hannah the other day. When we were running from them, I mean," the delinquent said.
"No problem," the Asian said. "But I didn't save Hannah just because she was in trouble…..I did it for me. I want to prove to you that I'm good. And I want to prove that to myself; if I had kept my gun with me last night, I could've stopped those rapists before they even put their hands on her. If you hadn't shown up in the nick of time…I'm very sure both me and Hannah would be dead…..I owe you for that, Duncan."
Like Devin, Duncan was smiling. He hoisted himself up off the ground. "I'm gonna wake Hannah up; the town shouldn't be too far from here," he said.
The three didn't have any breakfast so they immediately started navigating through the woods until around noon when they stopped for a bathroom break and lunch. Duncan removed his light grey jacket and put it on the seat of his motorcycle. "How good are you with that?" Duncan asked Devin, pointing to the hunting rifle slung on his shoulder.
"I'm fair; you know, not too horrible but not too great either. But I'll be honest, I haven't had to fire this thing in a while. I mainly just used this to threaten people," Devin said before taking a bite out of a Swiss Roll. Like Duncan, Devin had also removed his jacket, but he kept his wrapped around his waist. The two looked up at the sky when they heard what sounded like gunshots in the distance.
"Are those gunshots?" Devin asked.
"I think so; we'll check that out later…" Duncan trailed off and looked around, and began to panic. "Oh no, where's Hannah?" he asked.
"I think she may have gone to use the bathroom," Devin reasoned.
Duncan, now more worried, cocked his AR-15. "Stay here; I'm gonna go look for her," he ordered. Devin gave a thumbs up and watched as Duncan ran off.
Somewhere in another part of the woods, Hannah zipped her pants back up after taking a whiz. "Aw, that's better," she said with a relief. She could hear the faint echo of gunfire in the distance, but she didn't question it as she soon heard faint growling behind her. She turned to see a lone zombie with a machete jammed into its stomach.
Hannah turned to run, but saw another zombie, this one almost her height, lunging for her. She dodged the zombie and kicked it in the knee, breaking it and sending the rotter to the ground. She looked at the other zombie and tried to push the monster away from her. She grabbed the handle of the machete and attempted to pull it out of the zombie's abdomen.
"Come on, come on, come on," she said to herself over and over. After some effort, she withdrew the machete. She stepped back some before swinging at the zombie's head. However, due to her poor upper body strength, she able to strike it in the side of the head, but the blade did not go deep enough to penetrate the brain. Hannah feel to the ground after she swung, taking the zombie down with her. She removed the machete from the side of the zombie's head and in one swift movement, brought the weapon down on the zombie's skull, killing it for good. She then walked over to the other zombie on the ground and with both hands, drove the tip of the blade into the back of its head.
She stood between the two zombies, breathing heavily. "Holy crap," she said out loud, dropping her machete. She was too shaken up to pick up the machete and wandered away from the sight. She soon spotted yet another zombie staggering in her direction, but decided to not take her chances with this one and ran off. She soon ducked behind a bush to hide form the roamer as the gunfire seemed to be somewhat closer now. She waited until the zombie passed by without noticing her and attempted to get up, but the back of her collar got caught on some thorns. She struggled to get herself unhinged, which made the entire bush rustle.
"Come on out!" a deep female voice shouted. Hannah's blood ran cold; was some calling out to her? She unhinged herself and emerged from the bush with her hands raised. She saw five people who all appeared to be in their teens or twenties, all of them armed with high-powered weapons.
"Listen, I-I don't want any trouble," the girl said.
The group lowered their weapons, much to Hannah's relief. "What's your name?" asked a teen wearing an orange vest and holding an AK.
"My name is-" she started to say when she was interrupted.
"Hannah!" called a voice from behind. She turned to see Duncan walking up to her, much to her relief. Duncan got down on one knee. "How many times do I have to tell you, you can't run off like that," Duncan told her.
She looked him in the eyes. "I'm sorry, I just went to pee, and I saw one of those things, and I got scared," she said.
Duncan smiled and hugged her tightly. "I know, I'm just glad you're safe." He said, as he soon directed his eyes to the five survivors.
[1]: In case you haven't figured it out from the end of the previous chapter, this is Devin from the Ridonculous Race.
Important: If a character's name is in bold, they're alive. If they're in italics, they're dead. If they're in normal text, they're unknown. For those who are dead, they appear in reverse order of when they died (i.e. Staci was the first death, so she's last, then Justin is second-to-last, and so forth).
Shawn's Group:
Chef, Shawn, Jasmine, Sky, Scarlett, Rodney, Sammy, Mike, Zoey, B, Lightning, Sam, Brick, Scott, Jo, DJ, Tyler, LeShawna, Eva, Noah, Trent, Gwen, Izzy, Bridgette, Courtney, Cody, Sierra, Alejandro, Heather, Connor, Chuck, Roger, Nicole, Vince, Cameron,Chelsea, Amy, Chris, Topher, Beardo, Dakota, Miguel, Dawn, Kenny, Ella, Ezekiel, Sugar, Lindsay, Leonard, Sadie, Katie, Beth, Geoff, Anne Maria, Owen, Dave, Max, Justin, Staci
Travis's Group:
Gareth, Joshua, Miles, Ryan, Cooper, Pete, Brian, Stephanie, Travis, Blake, Nathan, Tanner, Sal, Larry
Duncan's Group:
Duncan, Hannah, Devin