We know very little about his first few years. Some claim he was never really a man at all and simply descended from on high to set right all the wrongs in the world. These people built a church around his name, his ideals, and his image. Ever since his disappearance after the battle against the thirteenth advent, these people had dogmatically come to believe he would return one day, to usher them into a new world without pain and suffering.

Personally I think that's all a bunch of horse manure. I knew the man. Yes, he has powers far beyond those of anybody you'll find today. Yet, he was more human than most people I know too. If someone he was protecting got injured he became depressed, and angry. Just like a 'real boy'.

To so many he is revered as 'The Paladin'. To me he'll always be batman.

The wisdom of John, a retrospective look at one of The Paladin's closest advisors.

Chapter 8: Reconstruct

"I-is it still out there, man?!" hissed one ragged looking blonde man. His clothes were filfthy tatters, and he seemed to not have ever known the cleansing touch of soap a day in his life. He had been considered such for years now though, and not just due to the recent apocalypse.

His partner, a stocky man in his late fifties named Dougie, nodded. "Yeah,, brother.. I don't know what the hell it is, but it can't be human. No one can fight a dozen of those monsters with a net and a sledge hammer. Sure it had found random spots with decent elevation, and picked them off one or two at a time, but that just made it really smart as far as good ol' Dougie was concerned.

Tom grunted to himself and tried to calm down. They'd been stuck in this small coffee shop ever since the world went nuts, and they'd been out of food for a week. The city water had finally shut off yesterday too. They weren't gonna be round much longer. Now with that 'thing' out there it was an even shorter prospect.

A short time later a loud steady knock could be heard from the boarded and fortified front door. Tom and doug, suddenly found themselves huddling together in the farthest corner of their one room fortress. Whatever it was wanted in.

Then a deep masculine voice resounded from outside, "Attention the house... Make your presence known, or i'll assume this place is abandoned and enter accordingly."

The two homeless men clutched each other and whimpered, "Whaddya think Tommie..?"

"We gonna die man..." whimpered the man in question, his eyes wide as saucers.

The voice called again. "Final warning! I'm coming in!"

"I love you bro! If it had to end like this, at least it was with you man." cried Dougie. He had served in vietnam and seen horrors most normal people couldn't imagine until recently, yet he hadn't truly felt fear until this day.

Asian guys with guns and bad attitudes, at least from his perspective, where one thing. Demons from hell that killed things that he couldn't even fight were a whole new ballgame. One he didn't have the right kind of balls to play.

"Me too man!" exclaimed tom, his breath coming ragged and rushed. He and Dougie had met up years ago on the streets, two former American heroes conveniently forgotten and discarded by the society they had chosen to defend.

They trembled against each other as the first strike rang against the wooded door. Several hits later and a lot groaning led to all the random lightweight furniture they had shoved against the door was being slowly pushed away.

A helmeted head poked itself through the door and took stock of the area inside, It hadn't spotted them yet, but it's eyes would surely adjust to the different light levels shortly.

After a rough minute, it slipped inside. Battered armor, torn cloth, and blood splatter left a gruesome image before the eyes of these two men. Gore encrusted hammer, still covered with random bits of bone and brain matter tapped down in front of it as it turned its gaze upon them.

The hellspawned creature stared at them for a moment and then turned around and shut the door before pushing all the furniture back against it. It seemed to stare quizzically at the broken lock, and then shrugged its shoulders.

The men stayed deathly silent for a moment as they clutched each other in fear.

The creature leaned its demonic hammer against the wooden counter nearby, and removed a small pack from it's hip.

"Are either of you in need of food or medical attention?" asked the creature calmly. Though Dougie wasn't fooled. Its eyes never wavered in their scrutinizing gaze.

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Scott had come upon the run down shop as he was passing through to obtain some needed supplies. He'd gone on several such 'runs' in the last five months, and found that despite the constant danger he much preferred to keep moving than to constantly be behind enclosing walls.

In the course of his runs he'd rescued about five more people and began to develop a system of first contact procedures just in case of future occurrences.

As he jogged around the corner, he'd come upon a familiar scene. A small hoard of undead moaning and beating on a door that seemed unlikely to give.

Their feeble attempts and sluggish sounding moans gave him the thought that these particular undead hadn't devoured anything warm and nummy in a while.

Undead senses were not dimmed though as they turned relatively quickly and began shambling for him. These weren't runners by a long shot and with his equipment and rapidly developing prowess with his meelee weapons it shouldn't take long.

The others on paradise island, as they had started calling it for some reason, thought him insane for not allowing them to come with him. Though to be honest, none of them complained too much. They did the necessary work and upkeep of the place, and left him to do what he felt he must.

He had never intended for people to place any kind of leadership role on him, but they just seemed to naturally do what he would suggest from time to time. Sheeple were funny that way.

Fifteen not so grueling minutes of combat later, and Scott was announcing his presence and entering the possibly, but not likely to be, abandoned shop.

Inside he found a pair of miserable looking men, scrawny and pale from lack of sunlight and obvious malnutrition. He'd offered food and medical attention but neither made any move but to shake in terror.

"Gentlemen, there's no need to be so alarmed." he said as he went to step two in the introduction sequence. Reveal to them that he isn't some kind of demon from hell. He'd run across that a few times before with people that had tried to shoot him. He'd found several small outposts of humanity, but most were very wary of travelers.

He saw them begin to wonder, but not make a move to accept him so he continued on, and began the most dangerous sequence by removing his helmet. "My name is Scott, and apparently i'm here to rescue you."

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"So, when's the lord of the manor coming back?" asked a teenage boy named Jake. He was an ex-football player on his highschool team. Said team had tried to eat him recently so he was currently seeking another line of after school activity. Well if school still existed.

He and his little brother Jimmy had been holed up in a small gas station outside town. It was a rarely visited outpost in the area ever since the highway had been built and the owners had boarded it up and shut it down about three weeks prior to the end of human civilization.

"He's going on a trip to Walston creek, said he'd be back by next week since he's going on foot." answered Chloe. She'd turned out to be more than a little good looking, and Jake in his typical fashion had decided she was going to be his girl. Sure, she had a thing for 'Mr. wandering hero' that came and went as he pleased, but since he tended to be gone a day or two at a time he figured he at least had a shot.

It wasn't that he was ungrateful to Scott for saving him and his little brother, in fact he'd asked on more than one occasion to be allowed to go with him. Scott's only answer had always been, "You aren't ready, train some and ask me again next time."

"Don't get me wrong, the guy rocks, but he's crazy as hell. Why does he keep doing that shit on foot?" he asked. He'd never quite figured out why Scott refused to make too much noise. Sure, the zombies were attracted to sound, but it was a lot easier to escape with a set of wheels than on foot.

"Well this time, he's heading to the car lot, to pick up an SUV or a hummer. He figured if he keeps finding people to take in we'd need more supplies than he can lug back to the barge on foot. Plus he's had a few ideas for an armored vehicle. What he's really hoping for is to find a bus along the way." said the nineteen year old former pre-med student.

"Cool, old 'wander the earth' is gonna come into the car age at last. heh." snorted the young man. Maybe now he'd let a few of them go with him when he came back. Jake had no thoughts otherwise, since it seemed impossible for Scott to simply not return. He was like some kind of superhero to everyone here.

Hell, he'd taken out a small horde of those shambling monsters and barely seemed to notice the massive bruises and possible fractures he'd received in the process, when rescuing him and Jake.

As the two were musing over that statement a tallish older man came in and smiled slightly. "When's batman coming back? We almost have the outer wall finshed, and just need to work on the winches tomorrow."

"A couple days from now. He said sometime next week." answered Jake, trying to sound knowledgeable and important.

Chloe smirked at him and nodded when John turned to her for confirmation. Everyone knew the only people he ever made an effort to tell of his plans were her and Maribeth. They were like his lieutenants or squires or something. He'd let it be known that he was leaving and coming back, 'soon.'

John nodded and went to the fridge to get something to drink. Usually Maribeth loved to do the drink runs for everyone, but she'd been depressed since yesterday. A whole week without her Scott was not something she looked forward to.

Everyone took extra special care to keep her cheered up whenever Scott left on his wanderings as he called them.

John looked at her like the little white granddaughter he never had. She reminded him so much of his little Sherry when she was a child. He missed her a great deal, and often wondered if she was alright. The lines of communication had been down for far too long, and probably wouldn't be back up in any of their life-times.

"So you and Jimmy are done with everything else?" asked Chloe as she checked the roast in the oven. On his last trip Scott had brought back a few ducks, some annoying little chickens, and a cow. Neither was to be eaten he 'suggested' but eggs and fresh milk might be nice. He'd gone hunting after that, on the shore, and brought back a deer.

So, today Chloe was baking cookies, cooking a deer roast, and making salads for everyone. She had taken over the task of being a cook as well as resident nurse. Maribeth assisted her and made sure everyone else was doing ok.

Jake and 'hammerhead' took turns at watch doing twelve hour shifts. It was the former gangbanger's turn and so Jake was off for the rest of the day. It was a fairly sweet gig. You sit in the tower and look at the occasional zombie or bit of wild life, and sort of chill. When you got done, you made sure to fill the generators, or switch them over depending on the shift and the day.

If you fall asleep while Scott's around though he'll have your ass. He'd caught them both on a few different occasions. He never touched them in anger but he told them.. "Fine.. you want to sleep on watch.. go ahead.. " Then stood there till they left and went inside and then went to sleep himself. No one would stand guard for the rest of their shift and everyone would be scared out of their minds.

It had only happened once or twice and they'd gotten the point. You pay attention on guard duty or you can't sleep peacefully.

"Yep. Got the wall sectioned off into those little 'killing yards' as he called them. Zombies and anyone else comes in.. and they're just all out of luck." said the man.

"Has Jenna come down today?" he asked softly then. The other two residents of the kitchen getting quiet. The blind woman rarely came down. She could get around well enough on her own most of the time, but with her dog sick she spent most of her time looking after him. He had been her only champion and friend for several weeks after the world had died, and it had been simply miraculous that they had survived as long as they had.

Her mother had shoved her into a store room in a local supermarket, and locked the door. She'd lost all sense of time but a little over three weeks had passed before rescue came. Rescue in the form of a man she could not see.

Russell, her canine helper, had been able to help her find food and water whenever he himself had gotten hungry or thirsty.

The dog himself was a big hit with everyone and it bothered them all that he'd gotten ill.

"No she hasn't, but Russell seemed to be doing a bit better today. Maribeth is up there with them trying to cheer them up."said Chloe, as she tossed her salad.

"That's good, hate to lose that dog. He's a smart one." said John as he finished his lemonade, and poured two more glasses, for him, Jimmy, and Hammerhead.

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Scott and his two new companions stealthily, well somewhat stealthily in the case of Tom, slipped through the car lot. Scott had already done a perimeter search and found no activity, but the last thing he wanted to do was give their position away to any roving band of zombies or thugs.

Using a series of hand signals the three of them only vaugely remembered, two because of a long distant past, and the other because he didn't have to use them too often in his more recent memory, they skittered around the lot and then circled the office.

The building had been closed the day everything went to hell, and Walston Creek was a smallish little town anyway.

They stacked on the door, and Scott grimaced at the dead bolt lock. He hated to do what he had to, due to the noise but he had no choice. He took his gloved hand and kept smacking the window next to it lightly and then a little harder until it cracked. Then he continued until it broke inward enough that he could push it in. It still made way too much noise in his opinion but he didn't know how to pick a deadbolt.

He looked through the window, saw no movement, and reached in to unlock the door. A tense moment ensued where he was absolutely certain that a zombie was going to come up and drag him through the window by is arm. It never happened though and the door came unlocked.

A ransacking off the office produced no keys, until they came across a small locked locked safe. It was a cheaply constructed one thankfully, and a few hard hits from the sledge hammer knocked the cheap lock off and revealed a smaller locked box on the inside. Along with a few wads of cash, and oddly enough a picture of a naked woman drinking a glass of wine.

Scott rather noisily, in his estimation, took a screw driver from his belt and began prying at the lock. Soon it popped open, and revealed it was in deed a box full of keys.

Being an opportunist, he took the whole box after locating the specific keys he was looking for. He might want to come back and snag a few more.

They returned to the Mammoth sized hummer, much larger than the military version he'd ridden in, and put the key in the ignition. The trio traveled over to the much smaller section labeled "hybrid cars". He fished out the keys.. for the two, the homeless guys picked out, and then they loaded up in their new vehicles and started off on the now much shorter journey back to the barge.

Scott was a little iffy on the maximum weight capacity of the barge, but if nothing else, they'd make a second trip to pick up the cars. The hummer though, was going on there without a doubt.

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Whelp that's it for chapter 8. Sort of typical in the, let's make a fortress scenario, but such an idealistic lifestyle can't last forever. A year or two maybe, but not forever.

Thoughts? Complaints? Show some love?

As to why John calls Scott batman.. that'll have to wait for a little thing I like to call.. backstory.