A/N Thanks for the great reviews guys! I love hearing from you, keep 'em coming. This one is a little long, but totally worth it. Enjoy!
The three of them stare in horror as that think comes at them. As if a switch was flipped, Kyle lunges at the thing before it can get any closer, swinging the pry bar wildly in front of him. The thing keeps trying to reach Kyle before he lands a lucky swing, hitting it hard on the side of the head. The skull caves in and it falls to the ground. Kyle stands, staring at the body, breathing heavily, Chris whimpers and runs to her brother. Sam looks at Kyle, impressed, and slaps him on the back.
"Good job man." Sam tries to recover quickly "Better check for more."
Kyle nods "O… ok."
Sam looks over the edge of the building at the street. A few of the crazies are wandering around, she concentrates on the cars left behind. Chris may be right, there aren't many cars around.
"Sam, over here." Kyle calls from the other side of the roof. "That one looks like it might work."
The car he is talking about is parked across the street, drivers side door open, dome light still glowing.
"It's at least got power, who knows about keys. Silly question, but do either of you know how to hotwire a car?"
Chris shakes her head, Kyle speaks up "I probably could, they do it all the time in the movies."
Sam smiles at his enthusiasm, "I'm sure you could, but I don't think we would have time for trial and error. What we'll need is a screwdriver, flathead."
They head back into the building, hoping to find what they need,
Merle throws another log on the fire, trying to get it hot enough to cook on. Daryl sits near by skinning their kills, he looks at Merle over the fire.
"We can't just live out here forever. We're gonna have to travel eventually. There's gotta be other people too."
"Yeah, an when we come across em, we take what we need, what they have, and we get out. We don't need anyone else dragging us down."
Daryl goes back to prepping the food.
"Alright now, we gotta do this quick and as quiet as we can." Sam explains to Kyle and Chris.
They are crouched behind the reception desk with all their supplies stuffed into whatever bags they could find, keeping out of sight of the crazies.
"Kyle and I will go out the back, Chris, you make sure the door is secure after us. We'll get the car and come back to the door to get you."
Chris looks between Sam and Kyle "No, I don't want to be left in here. I can help, I'll help watch your back too. Me and Kyle on look out, gotta be better than just one. Right?"
"Chris, I dunno," Kyle looks at Sam "You'd be safer in here."
"But we could bring all the stuff out with us. Just go from the car without coming back." she argues.
"Kyle, she might be right. It would be safer, faster. Even if we all just jump in the car and go."
Kyle still looks unsure, Chris continues to raise her voice "Don't leave me here. I can help!"
"Ok, ok" Kyle flinches back "I get it. But you stay between me and Sam and you get in the car and shut the door, right away. You'll need a weapon, something just in case."
Chris nods. Sam hands her one of the hatchets "Here, you can borrow this, I won't need both. But I want it back."
They creep out the back door of the kitchen, the car is across the street at the end of the alley. Sam counts to three and they make a run for it. They make it to the car without being seen, but the back doors are locked. Sam frantically tries to unlock the doors, since the car doesn't have power locks. Kyle shoves Chris into the car as soon as she gets the door open and takes out the crazy that is coming at him before following Chris into the car. Sam jams the screwdriver into the ignition and the car roars to life. They speed away from the small group of crazies following them.
"I'm gonna go back into town, see if there's anything we can use. You need anything?" Daryl asks.
"I wouldn't say no to more ammo. Only got a few boxes left. But make sure you leave my bike here. I don't need you losing my stash."
"Yeah, yeah." Daryl rolls the bike off the back of his truck.
"See if you can find some booze too." Merle says as Daryl climbs into the truck.
He drives through the woods, window open, enjoying the warm air. He only starts to notice the eaters as he gets closer to town. A few of them hear his truck and start to follow him, but the truck is too fast and he loses them after a minute. He parks the truck not far away from the center of town, grabs his bow and heads in.
Sam glances at the fuel gauge for the hundredth time, the empty light staring at her.
"Guys, we're gonna have to stop soon. We didn't have much fuel to start with, and the last thing I want is to break down in the middle of the road."
Kyle looks at the map, "There is a turn coming up that will take you into a town. Not very big, but they should have a gas station."
Sam turns where Kyle tells her and soon the trees are thinning and buildings come into view. She stops at the station at the edge of town, praying the pump still works. They head inside the station, on the look out for any crazies inside. Kyle takes out one behind the counter, probably the poor clerk judging by the uniform.
"Look for any instruction manual, a list of directions or something." he instructs.
Sam helps him dig through the papers and binders behind the counter while Chris goes through the store, grabbing anything useful.
"Got it." Kyle drops an old packet on the counter, "Looks like we'll need someone to go turn on the generator in back and pump in here and we should be good."
"So who gets the fun job of running around outside?" Chris asks, dropping a bag full of stuff on the counter.
Sam sighs, already knowing the answer "I will."
"Hang on a sec, that generator's gonna be loud, probably draw them all here. And we don't know how many other people have done this already, or how much gas the generator has it's self." Kyle points out "It looks like there's a decent amount of cars around, we can get gas from some of them."
Sam nods in surprise, realizing just how bad the original plan actually was. "Ok, but we'll need gas cans or something to carry it in."
Daryl tosses the bag of ammo onto the floor of the truck. The grocery store was a mess, but no one thought to get anything from the gun store. He tucks his new pistol into his waist band, just in case, and goes back out to try to find booze for Merle, because if he comes back without any, he will never shut up about it.
So far he's only had to take out a few eaters, able to sneak around the rest. The sound of metal on metal nearby draws not only his attention, but the attention of the eaters. He looks to see there the noise came from and sees a couple of kids by one of the cars in front of the diner. He swears to himself as a group of seven or eight eaters head towards them.
They're just kids, they've got no chance against all those eaters.
"Damn it." he fires a bolt into one of the eaters at the back of the crowd.
"Just the sound of us prying open the gas cover attracted all the crazies in the immediate area. Imagine how bad it would have been if we fired up the generators." Kyle points out calmly.
Sam can hear them getting closer and wills the gas to flow faster.
"You guys got this?" she asks again worried about them.
"Just make sure that gas keeps coming." Kyle reassures, his stance ready.
Chris keeps nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other as if fighting against her flight instinct.
"Remember Chris, aim for the head and keep your mouth shut, you don't want any of their blood getting in there." Kyle can sense her nervousness.
The noise from the crazies increases as they see Kyle and Chris. Kyle takes down the first one with a well aimed hit to the temple. Chris has some trouble landing a hit on the one after her, but she manages.
Daryl watches from behind a car as the two kids actually do alright at first. The boy takes the first few down no problem, but the girl isn't doing so well, by the time her first one falls, three more have crowded around her. Daryl takes out the last two and a few stragglers trying to join the fun. The boy takes out one of the three, but another catches him by surprise and pins him against the car.
Kyle watches as the crazy attacking Chris slowly starts to gain the advantage, and he is trapped by the one in front of him, his pry bar on the ground between him and Chris. He struggles to get this one off of him so he can help Chris.
"Kyle!" Chris screams for her brother, fighting back as hard as she can, but still losing.
Sam hears Chris' screams and stands up, almost knocking the gas can over in the process, she runs to help.
Chris' locked elbows give out and the crazy lunges for her neck, but it never makes it, instead it falls to the pavement with the hilt of a knife sticking out of the base of it's skull.
Sam instead turns to Kyle, still pinned against the car, and drives her hatchet into the back of it's head.
Chris runs to her brother, sobbing. Sam searches the area for their savior and her jaw drops when she sees the man walking towards them to retrieve his knife.
Daryl pulls the last arrow out of the dead eater and turns to yell at the kids when he sees who is with them.
"Holy shit." he mutters to himself and takes the knife from her outstretched hand.