Layla's Pov
We've been walking for close to an hour now, if I'm correct there should be a neighborhood coming up, the sun is starting to set so hopefully we reach it soon. I then look down at my son.
"Are you ok?" I ask. He looks up and nods. We continue walking for another five minutes or so until we see a fence. "I have to play it safe" I think to myself. I turn and crouch down to Shawn before speaking.
"I'm gonna need you to help Me on this one, I'm gonna lift you up to see what's on the other side of the fence okay? Just let me know what you see and I'll pull you down" I tell him.
"Yeah, okay boost me up" he says, I pick him up under his arm and put him on my shoulders, I let out a slight hiss of pain.
"Are you ok mom?" He asked noticing my discomfort. Despite everything he's such a caring kid. "How did I give birth to someone so caring" a pang of guilt hits me as I look into my son's eyes, all I see is Lee.
"Yes I'm fine, baby just do your best ok?" He nods and inspects the back yard. I hear rustling in the forest behind me and turn my head as best I could to search for the source of the noise. But I don't see anything, or anyone.
Right as I'm about to turn my head back towards the gate, a walker, at least half of one grabs my leg from underneath a bush, I shake it off but end up losing my balance, which causes me to not only fall but drop Shawn in the process, we fall down the hill and I hit my head, as everything goes dark.
Shawn's Pov
hiss* "ow, ow, that freaking hurts" I I lean up, using my arms as supports. My vision is blurry for a bit. Bit now I'm able to process the situation. I look over to my mom who is currently unconscious a couple feet away from me.
"Mom!" I shout as I scurry to her side, shaking her to wake up, then I spit it, a bit of blood was trickling down the side of her head. I knew I needed to act fast. I try ripping away a piece of my long sleeve shirt, but it's not as easy as those survival movies make it seem. Then I spot my moms hunting knife and grab it. Slicing off a sizeable portion of my shirt, I tie it around my mothers injury.
"I guess all those camping books weren't complete bull after all, eh mom?" I think to myself. There's a groan behind me, then I see what would make most kids my age pee their pants. A walker, or in this case a crawler desperately claws after me and my mom with only half it's body intact.
"I have to protect her!" Is my immediate thought. I grab the knife and kick it over to its back. With all my strength I plunge the knife in its heart, hopefully Killing it for good. But it re-animates, flailing it's arm around causing me to stumble back.
"Why won't this thing die?" I'm such an idiot I forgot to take the knife from its chest. I look around frantically for anything that would help, my saving grace would take the form of a giant rock today.
I grab it and walk back to the crawler "get. The hell. Away from her!" I shout as I begin bashing the monsters head in. I can feel the rage inside build up every time I strike, until finally a hear a satisfying *Crunch* huffing, I step back over to my mother, keeping my eye on the corpse.
Catching my breath, I hear another crunch coming from behind me and mom, and not the skull crushing kind either. A walker stumbled out of the forest, no doubt because of the noise I caused. This one wasn't gonna be as easy though, this guy was a giant, so simply stabbing it in the head was a no go.
I pick up the same rock as before and throw it *crack* straight at its knee. It falls over and begins to crawl, I rinse and repeat the same actions as the first, minus the shouting like an idiot.
I'm tired, out of breath, and covered in blood. I used up every last bit of strength I could. Unbeknownst to me there was a third walker behind me, about to make me it's next meal until- *BANG* the corpse fall next to me. That was a gunshot, I look up and see two figures in orange jump suites. But before I could speak I started to black out, all I heard as I hit the ground was...
"Danny, grab the woman and let's go, I'll get the b- everything goes black.
A couple hours later
"Yo kid, you gonna wake up or should we put a bullet in ya right now?" I shake my head as the man's words sink in. I look over at the source of the voice and see a white guy in a prisoners uniform staring back at me, I scoot away slightly. He notices this and says
"Chill kid, I ain't a weirdo or anythin" he states, I squint my eyes at his statement. That's when another guy, a Korean man, also clad in an orange prison jumper. Steps up and speaks
"Juries still out on that one, Danny" he says, the man, now known as Danny looks irritated at the statement and replies.
"What the fuck! Vince? C'mon man" Danny defends, Vince laughs at his expense. And turns to me, he seems trustworthy enough.
"Danny's right about one thing though kid, you can chill around us, we've got your mom in the other room, resting. It's nice to meet you, um?- he stops.
"Shawn, my name is Shawn Everett" I say as I extended my hand, these guys might be criminals, but they just saved me and my mom from monsters, they deserve my respect. We shake our Hands as I look out the window near me, it's dark.
"So um, where are you and your mom headed kid? not to seem like a dick but it doesn't exactly look like you have a plan" Danny ask.
Vince speaks up. "it's not like we had one either, last I checked we were headed off to prison on a bus" I contemplated before I gave a response.
"Me and my mom, we were on our way to my dad's court hearing before it all started, I... don't know where he is now" I tell them, I wipe away a tear and continue on.
"My dad's the toughest there is though, I know he's still alive! I can feel it. I've got family in Macon. My grandparents and my uncle B, they can help." I say with enthusiasm, the men look to each other, pondering My makeshift plan, Vince turns back to me.
"Macon huh? Damn, that's the complete opposite of where we're headed." Vince says, my head lowers in disappointment. He notices this and speaks again.
"Don't lose your head just yet kid, try and get some sleep, your mom will probably be awake by morning. We can discuss it more then, ok?" He ask. I nod
"Alright, I'll do that...and Vince" he looks back to me before leaves the room "thanks, for saving us" he nods and closes the door behind them.
"Me and your mother will always be there for you, even if we're not under the same roof" my father's words echo in my mind as I drift off to sleep.
The next day
Layla's Pov
I wake up with a throbbing pain in my head. I reach up to touch it, noticing the "bandage" I turn my head and look at my surroundings, definitely not in the forest anymore. Then it hits me
"Shawn!" I shout as I launch myself out of bed. As soon I as do though, none other than my son burst through the door. We analyze each other for split second before we embrace. I grab him by the shoulders and give a once over, his clothes are covered in blood, one of his sleeves is missing and he has a small bump on the back of his head.
"My poor baby, what happened? Are you ok?" Before he responds I hear creaking coming toward the room and push Shawn behind me, and reach for my knife, but it isn't there!
A Korean man walks in and sees me digging through my pockets, he reaches behind him and pulls out my knife. I was just about to lunge at him but Shawn tugs on my shirt, and shakes his head
"Looking for this?" The man says As he tosses me the knife, at this point I'm at a loss until my son quickly fills me in.
"Mom, that's Vince, he hand his friend Danny saved us yesterday in the forest" I nod my head slowly and look back at the man.
"Thank you very much" I say to him. He scratches the back of his head and replies
"You don't have to do that, if anything we stumbled up on you two by chance, wouldn't sleep knowing I let a boy and his mom get the chomp" he smiles as he continued
"and to be fair, you've got a certified badass for a son, kid took down two of those things while you were knocked" he explained
I look at my kid with eye widened "so that explains the bloody clothes" my son strikes a superhero pose with a smug look at the praise from Vince. I laugh at the little dork and playfully punch his shoulder.
"I even patched you up mom!" He says, he then points to his missing sleeve then to my head. I touch the fabric, then look to him and reply
"So it seems, nice to know I have a little medic on my side"
Vince takes this time to speak up.
"So...we've got a lot to discuss, meet me downstairs and we can talk it out. We've even got food, for now. Oh and uh. If you wanna change, you can. Pretty sure you aren't wanting to wear business attire through all this" He says before he walks out of the room.
He's right. I look down at myself and I'm not exactly "dressed for success" in our case "dressed for survival" after a bit of searching I'm able to find something to wear. After I'm done getting dressed I head downstairs where I hear the sounds of laughter.
"I keep telling you to fuck off Vince, these jokes are getting old" says a very tall irritated looking white guy.
Vince replies with missing a beat "should I make them younger?" He says and him and my son start laughing again.
I'm totally lost but once they see me their laughter ceases and they all turn toward me. Feeling a bit awkward, I decide to break the tension.
"Um hey there, Am I interrupting something?" They all shake their head and the tall guy introduced himself as Danny. I shake his hand and head over to my son, who is setting next to Vince on the couch. I pull up a chair and sit in between the three. Shawn and Vince to my left and Danny to my right.
Vince leans forward scanning each of us all in the eye. Before he speaks
"Alrighty then, let's get down to business" Vince begins