He was a mechanic.
For five years, Lucas was a mechanic.
Yet, before leaving his Californian home for an unexpected "road-trip", he didn't think to grab his toolbox. The one thing that carries all heavenly devices Lucas could proficiently use to fix the broken truck and get the hell out of California.
Instead, he took a bloodied bat after bashing his neighbor's head in. The poor guy had been pounding on their sliding door at dawn only to be brutally killed by a dear friend. Of course, Lucas didn't know that he was infected when he let him in. He attacked the man out of self-defense after he tried to bite him and beat him with his daughter's softball bat.
The young girl was horrified when she saw her father standing over the familiar man who lived next to them for 9 years. After that, Lucas packed as much as he could with a self-given time of an hour, then they were out.
Amity sighed beside him, her eyes fixated on the trees as if something would jump out. Lucas couldn't blame her. He was afraid something would come out of those woods, too.
He reached for the car door and pushed it open with a harsh grip; sharing the same bout of frustration as his daughter. He spared a glance back at her and sent a small smile, "hang tight."
She nodded and exchanged the smile, but it was forced, her anxiety showed through with the simple shaking of her legs.
Lucas drew out a long sigh, his breath coming out in misty waves. He flipped open the front of the vehicle, eyes darting around to glance at every component. His quick and detailed observations are part of what landed him in the military. However, his sergeant never taught him to prepare for the nascent of the apocalypse.
He tinkered slightly with the radiator, but immediately pulled his finger away when a wet substance came to greet it.
"Battery acid…"
He quickly wiped his finger on the hem of his shirt, avoiding the dangerous cost of the toxic acidic burning through his fingers and peered into the windshield to meet Amity's curious gaze.
"Turn the key," he ordered, gesturing his right hand as if he was holding an imaginary key. "I think the battery might've been damaged."
She nodded once and leaned over, turning the key with a simple movement of her hand. The car only sputtered and then died. Amity frowned and leaned into her chair with a sigh, watching her father close the hood with a slam and walking around to meet her at her door.
"Grab your things. There's an old auto shop nearby," he informed. "I'm sure they have a battery."
"What if they're sick?" Amity questioned, grabbing her bag from off the floor and reaching for the handle of the door. "I don't want to see another person die. Not like the way-" She paused as a disturbing feeling rushed over her.
"Not like the way Mr. King died."
Lucas opened the door for her and she hopped out, swinging the small black bag over her shoulder. A pang of guilt tickled at his stomach as he walked over to the back of his truck, "I'm sorry you had to see that," he apologized, moving his bag from the truck and lifting it over his shoulder.
Amity shrugged, "it's not the worst I've seen." She muttered.
Lucas ambled ahead of her with the bat hanging loosely from his fingers. He obviously didn't hear her or else he would've said something about the morbid comment. On the other hand, Amity couldn't get the image of her own mother out of her head. The pale woman laying lifeless on a hospital bed, her hand dangling off the edge and easy to hold for her small daughter. The exhausted smile and blue eyes slowly fading of its color. It was a long, difficult battle resulting in death and Amity wasn't the same ever since.
"Come on, Am," Lucas ushered, holding out his free hand for her to hold. A protective mechanism in case they encountered trouble.
She only rolled her eyes, "Dad, I'm 12, not 5; I can keep up with your pace."
He frowned slightly, "okay. Just walk where I can see you."
Amity smiled reassuringly and followed in suit with her father's steps. At that, Lucas relaxed slightly, his features softening and returned the smile with a small smirk.
The walk wasn't long. He remembered coming down this road several times throughout the past couple of years and knew what buildings stood around here. One consisting of the auto repair store and the other was a gas station.
Five minutes there and back. That's all it would take to get a battery and then start down the road again, Lucas thought.
At least that's how long he hoped it would be.
=X=
"Let me help you," Charlotte Carter's smooth voice echoed in the ear of her traveling companion. He struggled to lift himself up onto an RV, his prosthetic leg nothing but a nuisance as it fell into the crevice on the stairs. She had tried to help him pull the plastic device, but he only pushed her away.
"Ah, no," he spoke in his gruff southern accent, sending her an irritated glance, "I've got it, Charlie."
Reluctantly, she stepped back, raising her brows in disapproval and holding her hands up as if she surrendered.
Noah Greggory, your typical grouchy southern gentlemen, smiled slightly with pleasure as he pulled his prosthetic up from the crevice. He chuckled humorlessly and sent Charlie an "I told you so" look.
"See," He said, shaking his missing leg lightly, "I got it without your help."
She frowned, watching him limp towards the front of the RV, "not without a little push from me,"
"Whatever." Noah snorted.
She rolled her eyes, a grin crossing her face as she climbed up to join her old friend. Noah had been a neighbor next to her family's ranch and had promised to take care of her after the death of her father. The two have been inseparable ever since.
"You're really going to leave without an extra set of hands?" Saffron Kirk's flat tone sounded more like a dull comment instead of a question. Her murky brown eyes narrowed against the waning sunlight and thick brows raised in question.
Green met brown, and Charlie instantly felt uncomfortable under the woman's stern stare.
"I've got Noah with me," She remarked.
Saffron moved her hands to her hips, shifting her weight to one side of her body, "that old man? He'll keep you behind. Once you're down there, he's a dead man walking," She retorted bluntly. "An extra person with a gun couldn't hurt."
Charlie frowned and opened her mouth to spit back a rude comment, but Noah's voice filled that void, "hey, what's takin' so long?"
"Saffron wants to come," she replied, keeping harsh eye contact between her and the red-haired woman.
Noah shrugged from behind the wheel, "I don't see why she can't," he admitted and then raised his voice so Saffron could hear him, "hey, get Jimmy before we leave! I could use another guy with great aim."
Saffron nodded and turned away from Charlie, breaking the competing stare, her straight red-hair flicking to one side as she strolled off to find the young father.
Charlotte glared at her retreating figure and then stepped into the RV, feeling the rumble of the engine as she sat in the passenger's seat besides Noah.
Soon after, Saffron appeared with a somewhat large man. His sandy blond hair moved in sync with the soft, chilled wind.
The two climbed into the truck, Charlotte and Saffron sharing a cold glance through the rearview mirror.
Noah shifted the gear, unaware of the exchanged looks between the two girls and started down the path of the campground, gingerly pushing on the pedal to avoid plummeting down a small hill at an inhuman speed.
"Alright," he grunted, pulling up his slacking shape, "let's do this."
The campsite was planted on top of a small mountain and was considered safe in the eyes of the previous soldier. There were a group of cabins, enough to hold at least 30 people and Noah decided to make his safe-haven there.
"So, where are we going?" Jimmy asked, his foot tapping against the floor impatiently, "I don't want to be too long; Brian is a worrier."
"Girlie's runnin' out of juice," Noah replied, patting on the steering wheel in gesture to the name, "There's an old auto repair store not too far from here. Used to go there all the time for 'her' fuel."
Jimmy nodded and Charlie sent him a whole-hearted smile, "how old is your son, again?"
He grinned, his bright blue eyes lighting up with interest, "he's 12, turning 13 next month. He's growing up fast," then he frowned, "I hope I don't get to miss any of it."
Noah peered at him through the rearview mirror, his eyes gleaming with determination, "you won't. I promise you that."
Jimmy nodded, grinning with appreciation, but with the virus spreading and an experience up close, he knew the promise was just another thing that would soon die just like everybody else.
=X=
"It's closed," Amity informed, pointing at a sign that dangled from the door.
Lucas furrowed his thick brows, rubbing the dark stubble on his chin in thought, "it shouldn't be," he said. "Service hours are long after dusk."
He then stepped towards the door, knocking lightly on the glass. When no answer came, he knocked louder, "hello?"
The young girl and her father exchanged skeptical looks.
"Why isn't anybody answering?" She asked, fixing her bag with a shaky hand. She was nervous.
Lucas shrugged, "I don't know," he replied and then crouched down with a grunt of effort, placing the metal bat next to him, "and if nobody's going to help us, we'll help ourselves."
He examined the lock on the door and Amity stared at him incredulously, "are you crazy? We can't break in! We'll get in trouble and then you'll go to jail. Where would I go without you? A prison isn't exactly the safest place for a child, or even for you. There's probably sick inmates and then we'd get sick and then we'll die and come back as one of those… things!"
He stifled a laugh, the unreleased air coming out as a snort through his nose, "you're such a pessimist."
Amity glared, "this isn't funny."
Lucas turned towards her, a smirk poking wildly at his lips, "you've got a bobby pin?"
"Dad!" She scolded, slapping his shoulder lightly.
He chuckled, but then stood up and looked to her seriously, "I wish I was joking, but this is serious," he admitted, grabbing her shoulders to meet her worried blue gaze, "listen, this virus… it's deadly. It spreads quickly and we need to leave before things can get worse. I've heard of a place with a quarantine zone; a place that will keep us safe from this. The only way we can get there is if we fix up the truck. Do you understand?"
The blue-eyed girl nodded frantically, "I understand."
Lucas pulled back a strand of her dark hair and sighed, "good," he nodded and then pulled away from her, grabbing the bat from off the ground, "stand back."
She took a few steps backwards, watching intently as her father pulled back the bat and struck the window with a powerful hit. The ear-splitting sound of shattering glass echoed through the moist air and Lucas trudged forward, carefully climbing through the wide-framed window and then turning towards Amity, "come on, I'll help you up."
She sauntered over to the window and grasped Lucas' open arm. Biceps flexed as she pulled at his arm, slowly and cautiously crossing her legs over to avoid the sharp teeth of the remaining pieces of glass on the window.
Once Amity had landed gracefully to the other side, she and her father shared a confused look. The building was dark, stripped of its power. The lot was empty; except one car that hung loosely from its lift at the end of the soundless building. No one showed up to greet them.
Lucas ventured forth, Amity trailing up behind him.
"That car looks brand new. I might just take that one instead of trying to fix the truck,"
Amity cocked a brow, "you know how to hotwire a car?"
He shrugged, "you learn a lot of useless tactics in the army," and then smiled, "but hotwiring may not have been so useless in this case."
"If it was so useless, why did you stay?" She questioned sharply.
The smile disappeared as quickly as it came, "I had to," he replied simply, turning around to face her with brows raised in question.
A deep exhale escaped her pink lips, intense blue eyes gazing upwards to meet her father's skeptical look.
"You could have come home," she insisted, "saw mom before her last breath."
"Amity-" Lucas started, his voice dragging on with a pitiful tone, unprepared of the unspoken conversation.
"Don't tell me it was because of the PTSD," she interjected, slightly angered by the patronized sound of her name, "that you couldn't come home because you were afraid of hurting people,"
He nodded, his face tinged with a pink color as a sudden pang of guilt came in waves through his stomach.
"It was hard before I left," his voice was soft, "all of the arguing, Am, I couldn't deal with it,"
"So you decide that it was okay to never come back? To never see your wife while she was on a deathbed?"
"I couldn't come back," he whispered.
"Wha-?" Her delicate face scrunched in confusion. Another deep exhale plowed its way out of her mouth and covered up the need to sob with a loud groan.
Brown met blue again, but this time her eyes were brimmed with tears.
"Mom was dying," she said firmly, and then paused when Lucas didn't answer.
"Mom was dying and I was alone!" the last word came out broken, several tears dripping down her cheeks.
"Amity, I couldn't come back," he said again, staring at her pitifully.
She wiped stray tears and scoffed, "I thought family comes first,"
At that, his fists clenched, the sad gleam in his eyes suddenly disappearing and a rageful look replaced it. Lucas took quick, angry strides towards his daughter and then placed his hands tightly around her shoulders.
"I couldn't come back, because your mother was sleeping with another man!"
She froze, eyes wide in horror, lips twitching slightly.
Then there was a loud bang and a snarl.
Lucas let go of his daughter, her shock-ridden figure not bothering to move.
"What the hell was that?" he whispered.
Another snarl echoed throughout the empty building and the sound of shuffling feet followed afterwards. Then five guys emerged from out of a blue, rusty door.
Lucas squinted, attempting to get a better look at the people and put his hands up in gesture of reassurance, "hey! Sorry for all of the chaos. Just looking for a car battery."
They gurgled and snarled, quickening their pace with their arms stretched in front of them. His eyes widened at the realization of what was coming towards them, and he quickly pushed Amity towards cover.
"Stay there!" He whispered.
"But, Dad-" She protested, eyes wide as she gripped at his hand, attempting to keep him from the ill.
"Just stay there!"
Then he squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"I'll be back."
Some OCs have been introduced, however, not all of them; so if you didn't see yours, do not fret my friend because chances are, they are most likely to appear in next chapter.
I'm sorry that their part in this was so small, it was an introduction really. Next chapter OCs will have a bigger part and we will see more character development for each group member.
Lemme' know what you think and leave a review. Feedback is much appreciated.
~Grace
Huge thanks to the following:
BeautyIsStrange (couldn't put the dots xD) for Noah Greggory and Charlotte Carter
Jacob14 for Jimmy Santana, Brian Santana and Taylor Schone
crazyCULTure for Saffron Kirk
More names will be displayed here next chapter as I don't want to spoil the surprise for the others who did get accepted. If you want to know now, PM me.