"What the hell was that?" I screamed as Drew kept on driving. "There was a person back there!"
"It was a biter. Look how he's running." Drew said without blinking an eyelid. He'd slowed down but hadn't stopped, and wasn't planning to by the looks of things.
"Did you not just hear him yell at us? He needed help, he was all by himself!" I cried.
"Well he's gone now."
"He's still running, Drew. I can see him." Andy piped up, though he didn't sound too enthusiastic at the thought of waiting for him.
"So?"
"He's running. Not limping, crawling, growling or whatever. He is sprinting towards us for our help!" I said angrily. "You guys took me in and now we're together. You may not have had a choice but that's not the point. It's not fair to just leave the poor guy by himself. Where's the humanity in that?" Drew slammed hard on the brakes.
"Don't you dare talk to me about humanity!" he yelled. "This bastard in the back seat pulled me away from my family, promising I'd be with them again soon, and then showed my no sign of remorse when we couldn't find them again! My family are dead! Nobody helped me with that! Why should I help this guy on the side of the road?"
"Because you should treat others the way you'd like to be treated, not the way you were treated. None of this was our fault, okay? None of it. This freakshow we live in now just happened, just like that for no reason, and we're gonna have to adjust to it sooner or later without bitching and abandoning each other else there won't be anyone left! So can we please just stop and help this guy!" I could feel myself flushing with anger, thinking how stupid I was with getting comfortable with these guys who I knew next to nothing about. They never failed to annoy me, and this was ridiculous.
"1 minute." Drew said coldy. "He gets 1 minute to catch up to us, else I'm driving off."
I looked behind the car and saw him a while away, bending down and trying to catch his breath. He'd ran for a long time and I was amazed at how he'd managed to keep up so far. I wanted him to keep going and to join us, but I wasn't even sure he'd realised we'd stopped.
"He's exhausted," I said. "He'll need more than a minute Drew."
"I decided a minute."
I looked behind again anxiously, willing him to hurry up and get here. I opened the car door to show him he was welcome to get in the car and screamed when I saw a biter walking behind him.
"Run!" I yelled as the biter got closer. He turned around but it was too late - the biter was on him.
He held it at arms length, fighting desperately for his life. I could hear the biter snapping away, growling in anticipation for it's next meal. They rolled around the floor, the backpack guy only just overpowering it and sprang up again, but this time he was ready. He kicked the biter to the floor and stamped on it's head, releasing an ooze of blood and pus over the road. He breathed out and looked up at us, and raced toward the car.
"Thankyou thankyou thankyou!" he grinned as he reached us. I looked at Drew - it had been more than one minute, but he'd stopped to watch the action.
"That's fine, sorry we drove past, these guys needed persuading." I smiled, glad to see a friendly-looking face instead of a morbid one. He looked at me, worried.
"Don't worry, I convinced them to let you come with us. And I'm sure they'll take you on now they've seen how good you are at fighting, especially as I'm useless." He gave a half-smile, and opened the door to the back seat. I looked at Andy who sighed and then moved across, making room for the backpack guy.
"Thanks again," the backpack guy said. "You guys are the first people I've seen since it all started. Wherever your headed, you can just take me there and drop me off and I'll make my own way from there if staying with you proves to be a problem. I don't want to intrude or anything - I'm so grateful that you even stopped. I'm Jackson by the way. Thanks again everyone. I promise I'll do what I can to repay you for helping me out."
I sat there smiling to myself. Jackson had put me in a good mood even though he'd only really just introduced himself. I smiled at him, offered him my hand and introduced everyone else seeing as they didn't seem up to doing it themselves.
"We're just off to my house to get some guns, and then to pick up our friend Stewart. He helped me out not too long ago, and we want to take him where we're staying, somewhere safe." I explained. "We should be arriving soon, actually. We've been driving for long enough!" He laughed and then we chatted for a while, until we finally arrived at my home.