Remember how bad this chapter was?

Now we don't have to! Here's Chapter 3: Stalk the Leader

~Bill~

I need to remind myself to stop doing this shit.
After Echo was flooded with Infected, we managed to escape with minimal injuries on a train. As Zoey, Louis, and Francis slept in the train to rest, I took a walk to get away from them and scout the area.

However, I had to run away when a Tank began to chase me (Clever bastard was hiding in a derailed train), and I was several miles away from my group when it grew tired of me and went back.

Now, I wander aimlessly around in this city. Zoey would know what this place was called.

The sound of gunshots made me jump, and I raised my M16A3 at the source. A trio of Survivors were in the alley across from me, cackling away as they burned through their ammo on a few pitiful Common.

Aside from their unwise ammo usage, they seemed good enough to stick around with until morning. "Hello!" I called out, and the smallest one immediately turned towards me, gun raised. I liked his instincts.

"Are you human?" the boy asked, and I almost laughed at his stupidity. However, I'd have to play this safe to stay alive, and kept on his good side. "Yes, are you three immune?" I returned, and they nodded. After the last Common was ripped to shreds by the gunfire, I walked over to them, putting away my rifle.

"Who are you, old man," the tall one asked, a threatening tone behind it. He was like a younger Francis. "Bill," I said, the same amount of venom in it as his. "Joey," he returned, putting his hand out to shake. I shook his hand firmly, then looked around. "Could you tell me where you three are going?"

"We're going to this dock a couple of miles ahead," the middle one said. "I'm Carl. This is Kyle," Carl said, pointing to the youngest one. He looked about 17, with red, curly hair and many freckles. He had a military rifle in his hands, and was constantly picking off hiding Specials that I could never have seen in a million years. Carl was a bit taller, maybe in his early twenties, with short, dark hair. His bulletproof vest had a good five or six pipebombs strapped to it, and a defib unit on his back. He had a pump shotgun with him, but it looked like it was a semi-auto conversion.

Finally, there was Joey. He was about my height if I stood straight up, and was probably in his late 30s. He was bald and had a cigarette in his mouth. I regretted leaving my lighter back at the train now that I saw it, but he offered me his when he noticed. Maybe he wasn't too bad.

We began to walk around the streets of whatever city this was, and I constantly had to remind Carl to save his ammo, which he would merely smirk to and continue shooting. I turned the corner, and held a hand out to stop them from getting to close.
Luckily, the Tank right in front of us was dead, but surrounding him was a mass of cars.

With alarms.

"Don't. Touch. The cars." I whispered through my teeth, but Carl and Kyle ran ahead. "Relax, old man, we'll be fine!" Kyle shouted, purposefully shooting the zombies that were incredibly close to the cars.

Joey put his hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see an equally frustrated look. "They do this all the time, let's just keep going."

As the younger two ran around the cars like idiots, Joey and I carefully navigated around them, making sure not to get pounced or grabbed by a Smoker. I looked up and saw two hooded figures watching us from a rooftop, and I pointed to them.

"Hunters," I said, as Joey and I fired some rounds at them. We missed, but it wasn't worth it to waste more ammo trying as they scrambled away. The smaller one leaped away, but the larger one jumped off the roof out of sight. Strange it didn't leap away as well.

Sure enough, an alarmed blared out, and I turned to see Kyle getting up. "I tripped, sorry!" he yelled, and a massive horde of zombies began closing in, hitting every fucking car.

Setting off every fucking car.

"Get on the truck!" I yelled, climbing onto the top of a semi, and I began firing down on the zombies. There was a large pile of ammo up on the truck, so I was set for ammo for now. "I'll find peace back on Earth if I gotta murder every one of these animals with my own BARE HANDS!" I yelled, and punched a Hunter square in the jaw as it tried to pounce me, and I unleashed a hail of bullets into its skull.

Carl's pipebombs began to beep away as he hurled them as far as possible, easily fending for himself, but Kyle wasn't so lucky. A loud, high pitched scream made it through the shrieks of zombies and gunfire.

"Witch!" I yelled, pointing to the gray woman charging towards Kyke, who was trying to land hits on her with his sniper rifle. Not one hit. I was about to shoot the woman when she already swiped one of her long claws through the young man's face, an he collapsed hard on the ground, dead.

The Witch ran off, mostly defended by the wave of zombies coming at us. All I could do was shout to the other two that Kyle was gone. Joey swore out loud, but was smart and stayed put rather than try and save the dead body. Carl, however, ran towards Kyle, throwing his last pipebomb. He continuously tried the defib unit on the young man, but he was beyond gone. Soon, enraged common began to swarm him, and eventually Carl's yells died out.

When the horde thinned, I saw a safe room door and ran towards Joey. "Safe room, right there, let's go!" I yelled, and he followed me. A loud roar startled me, and a Charger hurled himself at me. Instinct made me immediately roll to the side, to safety. But the sickening crunch of bones and Joey's scream made me turn around.

Joey, who was not used to facing death every other minute, had taken the full impact of the charge, and as the Charger smashed into a wall I could see a bone sticking out of his shooting arm.

My assault rifle was dry, an I silently cursed to myself for not keeping track of my ammo during the fight. My hand grabbed the gun on my belt, and I twirled it up, at the Charger's head. It was my old friend's revolver which I had engraved his initials, CS, into the side. Before it could smash Joey's crippled body any further, I fired one shot, and the massive Infected dropped like a rock, on top of Joey. I took a quick look around, and ran over once I saw everything was clear.

He was unconscious, and his breaths were so faint I barely heard them. Only his arm was severely broken, the rest were minor fractures. But still, I aimed my revolver at his head when I saw his ankle, which had a deep bite mark in it. It was horribly discolored, and small boils were surrounding it. He was not immune.

After hesitating longer than I should, I squeezed the trigger, his head jerking slightly as his skull shattered inside his head. The bullet hole was rather big, but clean. "Rest in peace," I whispered, closing his eyes and making my way to the building that held the safe house.

~Katelyn~

I sat in silence on the rooftop as I saw him shoot his friend. The old man, although clearly shaken up by doing what he did, did not look back as the thick, red steel door slammed behind him. I was directly above him with Jason and a Witch that let me live because of my stash of lollipops.

"Come on," I said silently, and Jason already started jumping down to the ground with a silent thud. I took more time getting down, sliding down pipes and climbing where there were large enough footholds. Normally I'd practically fly down with excitement, maybe even do the backflip I showed my friends once I was 6 feet from the ground, but I didn't have the energy or enthusiasm to right now.

The Witch had chose to go her own way, leaving us to the potential psychopath. I slowly made my way to the safe room door, a bit relieved when I heard him in a different room in the building. At least he didn't know I was here.

I looked back to the man he just killed. His arm was so busted that his bone was jutting out, and his other limbs were bent at mildly awkward angles. But I saw the obvious bite mark on the ankle, now feeling sympathy for the old man. At least he didn't kill this guy from insanity.

"Hello?" I called in front of the door, hoping he'd hear. The noise inside stopped, but I wasn't sure. "Hello? We need to come in!"

"No," was all that came out from inside. His voice was deep, and slightly raspy from years of smoking.

"Come on, please!" I pleaded, as Jason sat next to the door, waiting for something to happen.

A long pause came afterwards, but the man finally spoke again. "Are you immune?" he asked, and I froze. Was I? I've been clawed at quite a few times from leapers and punched quite a bit by the commons, but never bitten. "Y... Yes, I think so," I said. Luckily, he believed it because I heard him come towards the door. "How many of you are there?" he asked.

"Two, one injured," I said, looking to Jason. Before the car alarm went off (and after the old man almost shot me in mistake for a leaper), I thought up a plan to say Jason is a mute that just lost his eyes to an explosion. When that younger guy was there, I was sure it'd work, since he looked kind enough. But now, it was just the old man.

Jason was pale, but enough to look like he's in shock or weakened from the supposed explosion, and not infected. His hair was still a dirtied blond, along with that patch of dried bile (I'll have to ask him about that). His hands were wrapped up in some spare gauze I found, and it was just enough to make it look like an injury and hide the deadly claws. Now, he didn't look like a leaper since I cleaned up his hands of the blood and found him a clean hoodie, but hopefully this man wouldn't pay attention.

The steel door opened slowly, and I found myself staring down the barrel of this man's M16. I pulled out my SG-552 (More for show, hopefully I wouldn't have to use the busted thing), and aimed back. Somehow that made the man relax, and he lowered his own weapon. "Sorry, you looked like a Hunter with that shit," he muttered. I stared blankly at him, confused, until I realized that must of been what he called leapers. I looked down at my clothes, chuckling slightly. "Sorry, it's just what I used to wear all the time."

When I used to do parkour with my friends, I would always wear a dark green hoodie and an old pair of loose jeans. I would wrap duct tape where the loose clothing would bulge out, such as my arms and legs, and it would help move around easier without snagging on something. It was so weird how the leapers dressed up like this as well.

Still cautious, the old man let me in, saying his name was "Bill" as I passed. He stopped Jason, however, and I tensed up. Jason looked up to him with an innocent smile, and Bill kept looking at the bandages wrapped around his sensitive eyes. "What happened here?" he asked Jason, and that's when the leaper started to get nervous.

"He got blinded by an explosion," I blurted out, seeing Jason smile at me. "I've known him for 5 years, he's mute." Why did I say that? Bill showed little care in the 5 years thing, but let him in when I said he's mute. Apparently we were up to his standards.

"I'm going to be heading out tomorrow morning, don't follow me. Guest room's down the hall to the right," he said, walking to a flight of stairs. "Don't bother me."

With that, he went upstairs, and we didn't hear another sound from him. "Thank you," I said, although I wasn't sure if he heard me.

Jason yawned, stretching his arms out as he let out a small, tired growl. It was probably 1 or 2 in the morning, so I went down the hall to the guest room. There was a bathroom next to it with a working shower and washer, and I silently said "Yes" to myself as I put my clothes in the machine and took my first hot shower in a few weeks.

~Jason~

I woke up from my sleeping when I heard Katelyn coming back to the bedroom, and quickly I faked still being asleep. She had her usual hoodie and pants bundled up in her hands, and was wearing dark blue sweatpants and a loose tank top. I think it's what she usually goes to sleep wearing.

Kate's clothes smelled... different. Usually it smelled like my fellow leapers and mud, but now those scents were gone, replaced by something else. It reminded me of the horrible smelling soap in the bathroom when I first woke up, but this smell was a bit more pleasant.

"Good night," I heard her whisper, kissing me lightly on the forehead, before she crawled under the covers and fell asleep, her breathing becoming even and light. Soon I began drowsy again, and fell back asleep.