Chapter 13: The Morning After

For the first time in a long time, Hogarth actually felt relaxed. Still he was sitting in a van in a sleeping bag, but he actually didn't feel as stressed as he did before. He awoke that morning and looked out the window.

The sun was up and it looked actually pretty good outside. He was stilled tired though and decided to close his eyes for a couple more minutes. He then felt something touching his face. He looked up again and saw the puppy from last night sitting next to his head. She then licked his face.

"Ha ha, okay, okay I'm up," he said in between laughs as his face got licked by the puppy. He sat up and stroked the puppy's ears as she barked.

Hogarth looked around and saw that the people in the van were gone already.

"Probably must have gotten up already," he said to himself, "well might as well get going."

He opened the doors to the van and walked out, the puppy following right behind him. He walked over and saw several of the others at their positions. Sam, Annie, and Cleo were looking over the area, Tucker was cooking breakfast, Elizabeth was keeping her children entertained, and Tut, Dexter, Arnold, and Danny were all looking over their ammunition and weapons that they had. He walked over to his friends and gave a wave.

"Morning everybody," he said with friendly air.

"Hey buddy, just thought we'd tell you it's time to get up," Arnold said with a smug grin.

"Why didn't you assholes wake me up," he said with a smile.

"Come on dude, you've had a rough couple of weeks, we thought we'd let you get some relaxation. Remember what you said to me back in Albany?" Dexter asked, remembering when Hogarth said he hadn't gotten to sleep in a nice bed for a long time.

"Heh heh, yeah I remember that," Hogarth chuckled.

The puppy started barking and jumped up around Hogarth. He looked down at her and laughed again.

"Hey, your an energetic little thing aren't you girl?" he said as he picked her up.

"But don't bark too much Genevieve," a familiar voice said. Hogarth turned and saw Elizabeth standing there with her children still off playing.

"Hey Elizabeth, umm Genevieve?"

"Yes, I had a sister once who was always energetic and active, and well this little dog just reminds me of her a lot."

"Well I guess we can agree on that, Genevieve it is. You like that?" Hogarth said to her as he then got his face licked again, "well I think Genevieve approves."

Danny stood up and walked towards Hogarth who handed Genevieve to him, "here Hogarth, I'll take her off your hands for a while."

Tutenstein sat in the one corner brushing his knife off. Hogarth sat down beside him.

"Hey man, how's everything going," he asked.

"Very good so far, just keeping my knife sturdy for the next walker I'll have to kill," he said humorously. "Hey Hogarth, I wanted to thank you. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have found Cleo. I owe you bigtime."

"You don't owe me anything. You saved my ass back there on several occasions. We'll call it even from now on."

"Whatever you say Ritchie Blackmore," Tut said sarcastically, "hey I'm still a little worried though about Davey."

"Oh come on, we put that dick miles behind us. Besides he's fucking pathetic, he couldn't shoot a walker to save his ass. He's not gonna find us so don't worry about it."

"Hogarth, I need you for a minute." he heard his mom call for him.

"You go on ahead, don't want to keep your mom waiting," Tut said to him.

Hogarth nodded and got up going up to where his mother was standing. She sat in one of the chairs looking over the area. Hogarth sat down next to her.

"Hey mom, what is it you needed," he asked.

"Just wanted to talk about how everything's been going," Annie said to her son.

"Mom, how'd you get out of Rockwell, there were walkers all over the place."

"It was hard, I had to make use of everything I had. Considering I had no survival skills like you and Dean had. I thought I wouldn't make it. If it wasn't for Elizabeth, I probably would've died soon."

Hogarth looked at the ground with sadness, "I should've gotten Dean out of there. He should be here with us. God I'm so fucking stupid." Hogarth's eyes began to become glassy as he began to weep.

Annie took her son into her arms and embraced him. "Honey, it's fine, you didn't do anything wrong. You tried to save him, but sometimes when things get so hard at the point there's nothing you can do. But you can make up for it by doing good things for others."

"You're right Mom, but I'm not going to forget. This is a part of me now and I'll always regret it."

They sat like that for a while just looking out over the area.

A couple hours later, Hogarth along with his four friends from the RV went out into the woods on a hunting trip. They brought Genevieve with them to be their tracker. As they walked through the woods, Arnold looked up at the sky at the sun shining.

"Nice day," he said.

"Yeah not too bad," Dexter said.

"Hey guys, what's the date today" Tut asked.

"Um, it's October 1st actually," Danny said.

"Oh shit, we haven't thought that far ahead about the upcoming weather have we," Tut said.

"Yeah what're we gonna do," Arnold said.

"I think I can build a device that'll prevent us from freezing to death," Dexter said, "also we could build an underground hideout and stay there during the winter and we'll bring enough food to last us a long time."

"It won't be that easy man," Hogarth said, "Winter will be here in about two months and unless you can concoct an invention that can keep all of us warm for about 3 months, I'd say the chances of survival for us are pretty much downhill from there."

"It won't be easy, but I can do it," Dexter said in defense, "I'll start working on it as soon as we get back to the camp."

"Quiet, I hear something," Danny said quietly.

There was a rustling sound in the bushes up ahead, could have been a deer or something. That meant dinner for tonight. Genevieve started sniffing the ground and hearing the noise as well began to bark.

"Genevieve's got something," Hogarth said.

"Let's go," Arnold said.

With a nod from everyone they took off running and went to find the source of the noise. Indeed it was a deer standing there drinking water from a stream.

"Ha ha, we got dinner tonight boys," Hogarth said happily. He took out his rifle and aimed it at the deer and shot it dead in the eye.

"Nice one," Danny complimented with a pat on the back.

"Come on, let's get this thing back to camp," Tut said.

They hauled the deer over their heads and began to carry it back with them. As they were heading back they stopped for a minute to fill their canteens with water.

"We might actually be getting a good amount of practice in for the walkers," Arnold said

"Yep," Dexter said, "I bet we'll take down a thousand of them by the time we're done."

Just then they heard the growling coming behind them. The walkers were coming out again, about eight of them so far.

"Let's get them down," Hogarth said.

They all took their guns out and fired at them. They took down about three of them. Suddenly there came other gunshots and the walkers all fell to the ground.

"Did you shoot that," Danny asked Arnold.

"No, did any of you," he said motioning to the other three.

"No," they replied with confused looks on their faces.

Coming out of the shadows came none other than Davey. He had a black eye and a long cut down his face. He grinned at the boys.

"Hey dipshits, miss me."

"No way, you're alive" Danny said angrily.

"How did you find us," Dexter said.

"I didn't do it alone," Davey said, "I had a little help."

The bandits from the gas station also came out of the shadows, weapons in their hands staring at the boys. The leader of them spoke.

"You little bastards thought we were gone huh, well we're back and its time for you to pay for what you did."

"No, we'll kill you all right here," Tut said, "we outsmarted you before, what makes you think you're gonna kill us now."

"Well maybe your little friend here might do the deed himself."

Davey smiled at them maliciously and spoke up, "after you left me on the road these guys came and found me there, I got the shit kicked out of me but I convinced them to hunt all of you down."

"You're pathetic Davey," Hogarth snarled at him, "you couldn't even kill one of the walkers, you're a loser and a bum. I think even a homeless guy could beat the shit out of you."

"Shut up," Davey growled at him.

"What do we do," Dexter asked.

"We can't take them on, we've got to run back to the camp," Arnold said.

"But they'll follow us," Tut said.

"It's the best shot, I'll create a diversion and then we'll take off running." Hogarth said.

"Hogarth's right, let's put it into action." Danny said.

"Alright we'll surrender and go with you," Arnold said to them putting his gun down on the ground. Everybody followed along playing with the act.

"What you're not even gonna fight," one of the bandits said.

"Nope, we pretty much think we're not that skilled as you guys are," Dexter said.

"That's right so we'll just go with you anyway," Danny said as he walked up to one of them.

"Uh-huh, we're just useless teenagers who can't do anything right," Hogarth said.

The bandits started to look confused but eventually decided to comply with their request. Even Davey was starting to look confused by this ploy.

"Okay then we'll take you to our camp," the leader said.

"Man you guys really are pathetic, DO IT HOGARTH," Tut said then yelled.

Hogarth then kicked the bandit in the groin and pushed him away. The others did the same with the other bandits and shoved them to the ground. A walker had come up right behind one of them and began to feed on him. That bandit screamed in agony as he was eaten alive.

The boys gathered their weapons and took off running.

"GET THEM," the leader yelled.

The other bandits got up and took off where the boys went off.

They just kept running and didn't care where they went as long as they got back. As they were, Arnold tripped and got his foot caught on a fallen tree branch and tried to get up.

"ARNOLD," Hogarth yelled as he went back for him. The others came back too and tried to get his foot out of the branch.

"Get out of here," he said, "you guys get back to the camp."

"No we're not leaving you here," Dexter said firmly, "we're not gonna let you die."

"I can take them on, you just get back there and tell them."

"No way, we're getting you out of here," Danny said as he managed to get his foot undone. Walkers started to close in on them probably hearing them.

"FUCK ME, NOT AGAIN!" Hogarth screamed as he managed to shoot down the walkers.

"GO AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE," Arnold screamed as he pushed them away.

Realizing there was no other choice they took off. Arnold looked at the walkers closing in on them and closed his eyes. There was another huge amount of guns being fired as the walkers lifeless bodies all fell on top of Arnold.

The bandits and Davey came along and picked Arnold up where he was.

"Come on dipshit you're coming with us."

Arnold glared at Davey with rage in his eyes as Davey just smirked at him.

Tut was off looking behind a tree and saw the bandits take Arnold away. He was gonna tell the others, they had to rescue him.

Another chapter down, this next chapter will be with Arnold as he's taken prisoner by the bandits. And you can probably figure out the rest from there.